Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35711173-20180903225131

This is story 018 under my organizational system. It is one of three "minor side" stories I have worked on that I'll probably complete while I get away from story 017, "The Ritual."

I was considering categorizing this in Reality.

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Mei-Ling Delgato sat at the kitchen table filing a motion for dismissal on a lawsuit between a human waste disposal company and a mining cooperative on Titan. Off-world corporations still farmed out legal services to Earth. Labor was much cheaper in the mother planet. Her law firm specialized in interplanetary contract disputes, but she was only a junior partner. They always gave her boring cases. "Babe, I have to hand it to you," she said to her husband. "I've never seen the kids play an educational toy like this. They're so into it." Helmut Delgado smiled as he chopped vegetables for dinner. He had picked them himself from the apartment house hydroponic garden for his lunch break. "Dear, I was sure it would be worth it." "But how did you know?" "I knew what would make me interested in history. Changing it and beating my brother. Now they can, except that they must study to win the game." Their children, Demarco and Madison, sat in the living room of their apartment, showing each other the results of their last competition on their tablet computers. "I see the score," DeMarco said to his older sister. "I just don't understand how you got it." "Easy," she said, smiling. "The challenge was to maximize your change in the historic 20th century by altering one person's life, right?" "Yeah. And I stopped Gavrilo Princip from killing Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  I tried to stop the World War from happening." "And what happened," she asked her younger brother as Brianna, the family dog, hopped on the couch and demanded that she scratch her head. "Nine months later, another war broke out. Everything went pretty much the same.  But I don't get how.  In this timeline, Archduke Franz Ferdinand died in 1941.  Wasn't his death what led to the war?" "Too many things made that war happen. You couldn't stop it.  That's why I started a bigger war instead." You started a war?" She stroked Brianna's ears. "Oh yeah, about twenty years after the World War. Much bigger than the first one." "COOL! How did you do it?" "I found the time we looked closest to war. A tremendous economic upheaval. Japan attacked China. Italy started a war in Africa. Spain was in the middle of a civil war. The USA narrowly avoided a military coup. Everything was completely insane in Russia. The whole world became a powder keg. It just needed someone to light the fuse." "Who?" Madison punched an icon on her tablet. A 3D image of a man appeared. He wore a floppy handlebar mustache that had a touch of grey in it. Except for his confident and calm eyes, there was nothing unusual about him. "I changed the life of one person. He was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's delegate to the League of Nations in his 1937 national government."

"Why did you pick on him," DeMarco asked, gazing out the window. "I saw his story was on an episode of 'How Love Changes History.' He was a nobody from Austria, a starving artist that went to England to evade the draft. When he fell in love with an art student and made her pregnant, they married. After he became a British citizen, he got involved with the Labor party and ran for parliament. People remember him now just for his paintings of his family, but he was an incredible speaker. Prime Minister Chamberlain wanted Germany and Austria to ally with England and France against Italy and Japan. His speaking for the alliance convinced them to do it." Madison tapped her tablet. A second projection stood next to the first. They looked the same and yet completely different. It wasn't just his stupid mustache that looked like a stream of snot or his strangely combed hair. Evil and insanity shone through those eyes. "This is what I turned him into." "He's scary! What did you do to him?" "Not that much. I kept Adolph, the guy, far away from this Sarah Goldstein girl he married. Then I made his brother's wife think he was a lazy bum, so she got her husband to ship him back to Europe right before the Great War started. Conditions were absolutely horrible. Lots of people turned crazy in it, so I let him become the German version of Joseph Stalin. Instead of convincing France, the USA and Germany to force Japan to negotiate for peace, he became the leader of Germany and started a second world war. Because of the war, their Molotov didn't shoot Stalin in 1942. The fall of the Soviet Union was delayed for over forty years. China suffered under a brutal dictator that was even worse than Stalin." "Wow!" Demarco flipped through Madison's tablet. "Their entire world is falling apart." "They slaughtered over ten million unarmed civilians during the war. After the war, the leader of China killed 75 million of his own people. I know they're just subroutines murdering subroutines, but it still creeps me out. On top of that, they have screwed up the climate on their Earth.  The game predicts that the whole planet's food production is going to collapse. Global nuclear war will break out by their year 2060. Everything is so scary awful." "That whole timeline sounds like bad mojo. Toss it in the trash." Madison shrugged. "Maybe I'll keep them and see what happens." She gave Brianna a kiss. "How about doing 1750 to 1800 tomorrow? I think I can stop the American Revolution from succeeding by changing one person. I bet you can't." DeMarco paused, debating her offer as he watched the space elevator climb its tether. "Easy. Kill George Washington."

"Not British, not American and not a direct participant."

"Nah, you got it figured out." She nodded. "Dah, but I'm so sure I'll let you get to change three people." "Five minute warning for dinner," their Dad called. "Time to wash up."

"You going to keep your timeline," Madison asked. "Not interesting enough," Demarco said as he dragged the entire universe into the trash can icon. "Too close to real life. What about you?" Madison paused, thinking. "I dunno. Everything is so freaking weird.  They are even figuring out that they're only a simulation." "That's really sick." "Yeah." Madison dragged her simulated world into the bank vault. Her tablet flashed "Vault Filled. Only Five Saved World Allowed in Bronze Tier." She groaned. "Do I keep this Earth or where I landed flying saucers?" "Are you kidding? That TV interview with the Martians was awesome.  You got to save it!  Besides, that timeline is going to starve to death and then blow itself up." Madison nodded. "I guess. Do you ever wonder if they feel pain when we delete them?" "Nah! It's only data and subroutines. They just stop being." "Dinner," Dad called again. "I made spinach and lentil curry with fresh strawberries for dessert." "Yum," DeMarco said, putting his tablet on the table. Madison looked at the screen, hungry for her favorite meal." She dragged the simulation into the trash can. "Coming." 