uchroni

Uchroni is a term used in some languages to refer to the concept of alternate history: a narrative and analytical approach that imagines how history could have unfolded differently if a pivotal event had a different outcome. Etymology traces to the French uchronic term and Greek roots meaning “not time,” indicating a timeline that diverges from the actual one. In literature, film and games, uchroni works create alternative timelines by shifting events such as the outcome of wars, the discovery of technology, or political revolutions, and then explore the cascading consequences for society, technology, and culture.

The genre covers a spectrum from plausible “soft” counterfactuals—where the divergence is minor and plausible—to “hard” alt histories with major structural shifts. Some stories emphasize historical realism and continuity with known details, while others deploy speculative elements to highlight consequences of the chosen divergence.

Notable examples include The Man in the High Castle (alternate World War II), The Guns of the South (Confederacy uses time travelers to obtain rifles), The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (an alternate history where a Jewish homeland is established in Alaska), and 11/22/63 (a man attempts to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, creating an alternate timeline). In scholarship, counterfactual history is a related approach used to analyze causality and contingency in history.

Uchronia, the Encyclopedia of Alternate History, is a prominent reference resource; the term and its variants are used across literature, film, and gaming to examine how small or large changes could reshape the past and the present.