Point of Divergence

Point of Divergence or POD, also known as point of departure, break-point, or several other synonyms, is a part of alternate history fiction. It is the moment when the fictional world's history stops following the same course of events as our timeline.

Many alternate history stories use an important battle as a Point of Divergence. In the Southern Victory series, the POD occurs on September 10, 1862, when Order 191 lost by a Confederate courier are immediately recovered by Confederate troops, rather than being discovered by Union forces, which happened in our timeline. The consequence of that change is that the Confederate States win the American Civil War and achieve recognized status as an independent nation.

A Point of Divergence can also be a natural event not related to the acts of human beings, and might be in the distant past. For example, in the Atlantis series the POD is related to tectonic forces working differently than in OTL, 85 million years in the past, causing a subcontinent to break off from North America and drift into the mid-Atlantic becoming the titular continent of Atlantis. In A World of Difference the POD is related to planet-forming forces creating, in the fourth orbit outwards from the Sun, a planet substantially different from our Mars.

Some stories have an initial POD and a relevant POD. In Joe Steele, which focuses on an alternate American history, the initial POD comes in 1878 when the Djugashvili family emigrate from Russia to America. Their son Iosif grows up as an American named Joe Steele rather than the Soviet figure Joseph Stalin he became in OTL. However, this does not affect American history until the relevant POD in 1932, which happens when Steele uses brutal tactics to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidential election. In A World of Difference, the initial POD comes millions of years ago when the development of Mars is altered, as noted above, but the relevant POD comes only in 1976 when NASA space probes discover Minervans.

Occasionally Turtledove writes a story without a specific POD in mind beyond a generic reversal of a certain historical period. He has stated that in The Gladiator, he simply wanted to depict a world where the Soviet Union outpaced the United States at every step of the Cold War. The novel does not point to any one event as the POD, simply stating that the divergence happened in the mid 20th century, but the first noticeable difference from OTL occurs in 1962.

Sometimes Turtledove specifies the date of the POD within the story, e.g. "Must and Shall" and "Ready for the Fatherland" pinpoint their PODs as July 12, 1864 and February 19, 1943, respectively. At other times, the POD is only referenced generally, e.g. most of his Nazis-win-World War II stories have PODs vague enough to be either in 1940 or 1941, and The Two Georges puts its POD anywhere between 1763 and 1768. In these and other cases, the list uses the most reasonable estimate.

Story	Relevant Point of Divergence	Year of Publication
Agent of Byzantium	610	1988
Atlantis*	1452	2005-2009
But It Does Move	1633	2009
Cayos in the Stream	1942	2013
Christmas Truce	1914	2019
Counting Potsherds*	480 BCE	1989
Curious Notions	1914	2004
The Daimon	415 BCE	2002
Days of Infamy	1941	2004-2005
A Different Flesh*	1492	1988
The Disunited States of America	1787	2006
The Eighth-Grade History Class Visits the Hebrew Home for the Aging	1944	2014
Election Day	1999	2019
The Gladiator*	1962	2007
Gunpowder Empire	12 BCE	2003
The Guns of the South	1864	1992
Hail! Hail!	1826	2018
Hindsight	1949	1984
The Hot War	1950	2015-2017
The House That George Built	1914	2009
In High Places	1348	2006
In the Presence of Mine Enemies	1940	1992-2003
Islands in the Sea	717	1989
Joe Steele*	1932	2003-2015
The Last Article	1940	1988
Lee at the Alamo	1860	2011
Liberating Alaska	1867	2018
The Man With the Iron Heart*	1945	2008
The More it Changes	1666	2014
Must and Shall	1864	1995
News From the Front	1941	2007
The Phantom Tolbukhin	1937	1998
Ready for the Fatherland	1943	1991
Report of the Special Committee on the Quality of Life	1491	1980
Ruled Britannia	1588	2002
Shock and Awe	30 CE	2006
Shtetl Days	1940	2011
Southern Victory	1862	1997-2007
State of Jefferson Stories*	1919	2016-2020
The Two Georges	1760s	1995
Uncle Alf	1914	2002
The Valley-Westside War*	1967	2008
The War That Came Early*	1938	2009-2014
A World of Difference*	1976	1990
Worldwar	1942	1994-2004
Zigeuner	1914	2017

A * indicates that the relevant POD is not the initial POD.

See Also

• The Ifs of History