The rule could be anything, as funny or as serious as you want. The universe will progress in a similar way that it has up until this point, unless your changed rule prevented it from doing so.

Some examples might be:

  • The invention of currency is not allowed.
  • Iron is slightly less stable.
  • The Ancient Greeks are able to cultivate Silphium, which does not go extinct now.
        • @frank@sopuli.xyz
          3•21 days ago

          I always use Chess boards to describe non-Euclidean spaces when I “need” to (aka when I get even a narrow chance to)

          • @Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
            3•21 days ago

            By all means, explain it to me! My best way so far was siting the chase in call of Cthulhu and really it’s not a great example.

            • @frank@sopuli.xyz
              5•21 days ago

              Heck yeah, I’ll try my best!

              So on a euclidian chess board, moving your king one space left would be 1 space, one space up would be 1 space, and one space diagonally would be √2 spaces (some simple trig gets us there).

              Chess however, does not obey the laws of Euclidian geometry nor does its physical representation show us things to scale. A king’s move diagonally is the same amount of space as a move side to side, 1 space.

              It’s silly, because spaces weren’t directly supposed to represent distance or anything, but it’s funny that it works out this way

              • @Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world
                4•21 days ago

                This is a problem I’ve always had with Square grids in D&D and it never occured to me that from character perspective a character is warping space to move slightly further for the same amount of movement.

      • bizarroland
        9•22 days ago

        It would change the topographical nature of the universe. We would probably have to exist in like the 3.1415th dimension or something to make it work.