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What Happened?

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Nyki
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« on: October 19, 2011, 05:59:43 pm »

Since this is essentially alternative history, the immediate question has to be what happened?  Where did it all change?

I think the key clue is the reference to the Defence of the Republic Act, 1943.  Although that doesn't automatically mean that's when it started, I suspect the regime changed during WW2.  Not Britain losing the war, since that would have made us part of the Third Reich, not an independent republic.  My guess is that some difference in the early stages of the war led to an increase in authoritarianism to meet the danger.  Perhaps something had happened to Churchill, and he wasn't around to keep morale up, and some group in the government had seized control, believing they could steer Britain through the war.  The King refused to recognise them, and they got rid of him and declared a republic.  They won the war, but emerged from it as a fascist state.

I did consider the possibility that Churchill was responsible himself, but that seems unlikely.  Although I can believe him regarding democracy as dispensible, if it meant beating Hitler, I can't see him abolishing the monarchy, and he'd have the skills to work with the royal family.  It's unlikely that the man in the picture was the original leader, unless he was very young at the time, or it's an old picture (quite possible).  Assuming the story was set a few years after it was made, as the UNIT stories generally seem to be, the republic had been going for over 30 years.
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« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2011, 04:21:19 pm »

This is one of the things I was wondering about. It would have been interesting if they had used the story to explain what happened and where it all changed. Perhaps it is brought up in the novelisation (if there is one) as they usually flesh these stories out a lot more.
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« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2011, 03:32:01 pm »

I do think they missed a trick by not explaining how and why everything changed. For one thing, everyone seemed to end up in the same place and everything was essentially the same, only different, if that makes sense, which makes me think that the change was perhaps more recent.
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Nyki
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« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2011, 01:32:44 am »

I do think they missed a trick by not explaining how and why everything changed. For one thing, everyone seemed to end up in the same place and everything was essentially the same, only different, if that makes sense, which makes me think that the change was perhaps more recent.

That's a common error in alternative universe stories.  In the Star Trek mirror universe, for instance, the point of divergence was centuries before, yet every single person who figure in ST happens to have been born, with the same appearance and the same name.
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« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2011, 02:22:43 pm »

I do think they missed a trick by not explaining how and why everything changed. For one thing, everyone seemed to end up in the same place and everything was essentially the same, only different, if that makes sense, which makes me think that the change was perhaps more recent.

That's a common error in alternative universe stories.  In the Star Trek mirror universe, for instance, the point of divergence was centuries before, yet every single person who figure in ST happens to have been born, with the same appearance and the same name.

That's a good point actually. Of all the times I have seen this type of story in a TV show or film they always seem to get that part wrong.
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« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2011, 11:54:50 am »

Nyki is right, most shows and films get that bit wrong. The only time I have ever seen a show do an alternate reality story that I truly bought into was in season 3 of Buffy where Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, because they took a lot of characters out, added a load of new ones in and you could really see the change. The difference there was we knew exactly when the change took place and it was easy to highlight what exactly would and wouldnt have changed based on the stories we had already seen. The difficulty with Inferno was that it wanted to highlight the change in characters more than anything else and so they had to overlook most things in order to still have them altogether and still tell the story. Its an oversight, but I don't think it takes you out of the story really.
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« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2011, 10:20:04 pm »

I think it's one of those things though that is so much the norm that it's not even really a mistake anymore. We see these types of stories in many shows and movies and it's the same thing nearly every time. I don't think though that it's something that is overlooked, but probably more to do with contracts and things like that. As long as it's entertaining I don't really mind it.

As for the OP, I'd always assumed it was quite a recent change that had occurred. I don't even particularly know why, that was just what I'd always thought.
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