An atlas of possible realities
The Atlas
Every charted timeline, ordered by the kind of twist that made it. Each one begins from the world exactly as it was, changes a single thing, and follows the consequences down to today.
The Decision
A human being chooses otherwise, and history bends.
THE DECISION · 26 SEP 1983 · SERPUKHOV-15, USSR
False alarm, 1983
A quarter past midnight, 26 September 1983. In a bunker south of Moscow, a screen says five American missiles are on their way, and duty officer Stanislav Petrov has minutes to decide what to tell the Kremlin. In our timeline he called it a malfunction. This is the timeline where he follows protocol.
THE DECISION · 28 JUN 1914 · SARAJEVO
A wrong turn, corrected, at Sarajevo
28 June 1914. A bomb has already missed the archduke once this morning. His route changes; in our timeline, nobody tells the driver, the car stalls two paces from Gavrilo Princip, and the century catches fire. This is the timeline where someone says one sentence in time.
THE DECISION · 27 OCT 1962 · THE SARGASSO SEA
The man who said no
27 October 1962, the deepest hour of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Aboard the Soviet submarine B-59, firing the nuclear torpedo takes three officers. Two have said yes. This is the timeline where the third says yes as well.
The Endurance
What fell in our timeline, doesn’t.
THE ENDURANCE · 48 BC ONWARD · ALEXANDRIA
The Library of Alexandria never burns
The ancient world kept its entire memory in one building in one city, and history spent seven centuries misplacing it. This is the timeline where one librarian read the warning in Caesar’s dockfire, and made forgetting impossible.
THE ENDURANCE · 29 MAY 1453 · THE THEODOSIAN WALLS
Constantinople holds in 1453
The fifty-third day of the siege. The great bombard has opened the wall, the last emperor stands in the breach, and the defense turns on one Genoese captain staying on his feet. In our timeline a shot found him at the worst hour. This is the timeline where it missed.
THE ENDURANCE · AD 460 · CARTAGENA, HISPANIA
Rome never falls
Cartagena, AD 460. Three hundred Roman warships lie at anchor, built to take Africa back from the Vandals and save the West. In our timeline, traitors let the Vandals burn that fleet, and within sixteen years there was no Western Rome to save. This is the timeline where the traitors were caught the night before.
The Accident
Chance falls a hair differently.
The Discovery
Knowledge arrives early, late, or never.
The Sky
Nature bends: the mountain, the storm, the stone from space.
THE SKY · 66,000,000 YEARS AGO · THE PROTO-GULF OF MEXICO
The asteroid misses by an hour
Sixty-six million years ago, a rock ten kilometres wide crossed Earth’s orbit at the exact wrong moment, and the age of giants ended in an afternoon. This is the timeline where it crossed one hour early — and the age of giants never ended at all.
THE SKY · AD 79 · THE BAY OF NAPLES
Pompeii is evacuated before Vesuvius
AD 79. For days the wells have been failing and the ground has been shivering, and Pompeii has learned to ignore both. In our timeline the town was still full when the sky came down. This is the timeline where somebody read the warnings out loud.
The Voyage
A journey goes further than it did.
The Visitor
The impossible arrives. No bridge of causes leads here; the atlas keeps it anyway.
