Alternate Timeline is back!
With an all new set of rules.
Dear readers,
First—thanks for taking the time to click the “subscribe” button on Alternate Timeline during the experimental year of its launch in 2023. I put things on pause in 2024 because of outside factors like the lack of TV writing employment (that left me quite scatter-brained as I sought new means money-making) and a general exhaust around the way I was releasing stories. I learned valuable lessons that have paved the way for a revamped Alternate Timeline and will start releasing entries monthly starting, well… this month.
What was once an (admittedly failed) attempt at releasing brand new tales every few weeks inspired by current events, is now a series of stories in two main buckets.
One of those buckets will be filled with a set of sci-fi mysteries I’m calling Morgan Stern’s Alternate Timeline. I’m sure no one recalls this, but Morgan Stern was the first character I invented in the debut Alternate Timeline tale Watching Ghosts. The original version of that story is now only available to paid subscribers (as are all of the other entries from that run in a section of the newsletter called Deleted Timelines) and a re-vamped OFFICIAL version of Watching Ghosts will be released at the end of this month titled Morgan Stern & The Spyglass.
Centering these stories around tech journalist Morgan Stern will ease my writing process and allow for some good old-fashioned serialized fun. This practice also gives me the freedom to explore new sci-fi angles in the stories I submit to other publications.
In hindsight, the bulk of what I initially posted on Alternate Timeline and its sister-newsletter
(which has more of a comedic and personal bent) was the chaotic act of mining through the things I care about and carefully laying them down as bricks on a road that has led to a singular voice and vision. I believe I have found both things for both newsletters. In the case of my science fiction writing, many of my deep-dives in the Sci-Fi Fuel updates, for instance, were monumental in getting closer to the nucleus of my own creative soul. I hope to bring those updates back again someday when my bandwidth allows for it.In addition to Morgan Stern’s adventures I’ll be releasing stories in a section called Quantum Feast, highlighting tasty creatures and plants from exotic locations across the universe. These stories will be available only to paid subscribers.
So, there you have it—the two main buckets of Alternate Timeline. You can look forward to the re-vamped first installment of Morgan Stern’s Alternate Timeline and Quantum Feast on January 31.
Additional perks for paid subscribers include behind the story updates and occasional exclusive installments of Sci-Fi Fuel—and if you decide on becoming a founding member—I’ll be sure to put your name into a story and thank you at the end of each post.
Now, to whet your appetite —
Who is Morgan Stern?
Well, she’s a complicated tech journalist in the year 2075, and no one understands her, but the mysterious hacker named “8” who regularly sneaks her leads on mysteries worth unraveling. She publishes none of her findings—that’s far too dangerous—and instead, hides physical copies of her reports so that the truth will hopefully be revealed to future generations down the line.
Morgan lives in what could be an alternate timeline from our own, or our very same timeline with a warped sense of history. We won’t truly know until we ring in the year 2075.
But here’s some of what we do know…
What we call the United States of America, she calls Usonia.
And according to Usonian text pads, Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated… yet still died before he could grant the Affriterran descendants of slaves their 60 acres and a buffalo.
Usonia has two main political parties, four main corporations (swiftly becoming three), three curators who rotate as president each year until their collective 12-years term reaches its end.
And, most importantly, the mythical turkey as its national bird.
In Usonia, human reporters are the minority of a mostly mechanized reporting system. Self-regulated algorithms push out photos, event summaries, and backing data to tech journalists and their only options in return are to give it a stamp of approval or send it back for re-assessment.
Despite this, Stern yearns for the truth. And as one of the few tech journalists with working class parentage, her reasons get quite personal.
I hope you enjoyed that glimpse into the world of Usonia, and that you’ll stick around in this corner of the .
Best,
Tim Barnes