Quick question: what exactly is defined as ASB?

What it says in the title. I know that anything like time travel or giving tanks to the Romans would be ASB, but where exactly is the cut off between that and regular alternate history? For instance, if I were to write a TL about the Trojan war using Homer's narration, would that be considered alternate history or ASB?
 
What it says in the title. I know that anything like time travel or giving tanks to the Romans would be ASB, but where exactly is the cut off between that and regular alternate history? For instance, if I were to write a TL about the Trojan war using Homer's narration, would that be considered alternate history or ASB?

It's ASB if it's impossible for the given scenario to have happened without the help of space aliens. No more, no less.
 
Giving that the "impossible" definition is a really vague one at best, I think the following definition may be more useful:

- Any thing resulting from a PoD which is not directly related to human intervention.

Such as asteroids striking earth, geological PoDs, evolutionnary PoDs, and stuff that can't realitically happen on an individual level (such as pretending a strong hit on the head is enough to make a person suddenly change of personality, for example).
It doesn't covers everything, but I think that ASB and impossible may be two distinct things.
 
Strictly, anything that can only happen through divine intervention, or otherwise some kind of supernatural event.

Usually, it's whatever the poster themselves consider impossible.
 
All the air in your room could end up in one corner by chance. That's possible according to the laws of physics, just really, really, really unlikely, like if you covered every planet in the universe with rooms, it's not likely to happen during the entire existance of the universe unlikely.

Basically, Ive always mapped 'ASB' to 'astronomically unlikely', 1E-10 - 1E-40 or so.

The former's equivalent to flipping a fair coin 33 times in a row and betting heads every time. That's certainly starting to get towards ASB territory. The latter is flipping that same coin 133 times in a row and getting heads each time. That would DEFINITELY be considered ASB.
 
I think it's mainly for things happening without rhyme or reason. Or which are incongruous with the scenario.

E.g The British Empire never falls because they never lose a battle and the inhabitants of the empire realise that the British have granted them enlightened rule. Scientists harness the power of rainbows to allow fossil fuel use to be moth balled etc etc.

At least this is how I see it. If events are unlikely but still plausible they are not asb.
 
All the air in your room could end up in one corner by chance. That's possible according to the laws of physics, just really, really, really unlikely, like if you covered every planet in the universe with rooms, it's not likely to happen during the entire existance of the universe unlikely.

Basically, Ive always mapped 'ASB' to 'astronomically unlikely', 1E-10 - 1E-40 or so.

The former's equivalent to flipping a fair coin 33 times in a row and betting heads every time. That's certainly starting to get towards ASB territory. The latter is flipping that same coin 133 times in a row and getting heads each time. That would DEFINITELY be considered ASB.

Given enough length of time, things that sound like very improbable would just happen.
 
Unlikely is an antonym of plausible. Something unlikely is, by definition, implausible. It's why I think a more precise and objective definition may help.

Unlikely means unlikely to occur, implausible means it does not make sense for it to happen. They do not mean exactly the same thing. Same for likely and plausible.
 
Unlikely is an antonym of plausible. Something unlikely is, by definition, implausible. It's why I think a more precise and objective definition may help.

It's unlikely that any particular person should die by drowning in their own bathtub, and yet that is a thing that happens, in the aggregate. As such, while it's unlikely for that to happen to someone, it's not implausible per se.
 
Unlikely means unlikely to occur
That doesn't define anything : "rainy means it's rainy" may be as clear :p

Using several dictionnaries (free dictionnary, Merriam, MacMillan, Oxford)

UNLIKELY
1. Not likely; improbable.
2. Not promising; likely to fail.

1 : not likely : improbable <an unlikely outcome>
2: likely to fail : unpromising

1 : not likely to happen
2 : not typical

Not likely to happen, be done, or be true; improbable:

IMPLAUSIBLE

1. not plausible; provoking disbelief; unlikely

1 : not plausible : provoking disbelief

1 : difficult to accept as true

(Of an argument or statement) not seeming reasonable or probable; failing to convince:

It's unlikely that any particular person should die by drowning in their own bathtub, and yet that is a thing that happens, in the aggregate. As such, while it's unlikely for that to happen to someone, it's not implausible per se.

You're confusing two distinct propositions.

It's implausible/unlikely for this precise person to drown in his own bathtub.
It's implausible/unlikely for one person to drown in his own bathtub.
 
I prefer to precise right away, as pointed out above, this definition isn't perfect and only covers so much. A more "accurate" definition of ASB would be : "well I can't define it, but I can reckognize it when I see one".
 
You're confusing two distinct propositions.

It's implausible/unlikely for this precise person to drown in his own bathtub.
It's implausible/unlikely for one person to drown in his own bathtub.

I don't think I am. I think that the former is plausible but unlikely, but the latter is both plausible and likely. That's the distinction I see there.
 
That doesn't define anything : "rainy means it's rainy" may be as clear :p

Using several dictionnaries (free dictionnary, Merriam, MacMillan, Oxford)

UNLIKELY
1. Not likely; improbable.
2. Not promising; likely to fail.

1 : not likely : improbable <an unlikely outcome>
2: likely to fail : unpromising

1 : not likely to happen
2 : not typical

Not likely to happen, be done, or be true; improbable:

IMPLAUSIBLE

1. not plausible; provoking disbelief; unlikely

1 : not plausible : provoking disbelief

1 : difficult to accept as true

(Of an argument or statement) not seeming reasonable or probable; failing to convince:



You're confusing two distinct propositions.

It's implausible/unlikely for this precise person to drown in his own bathtub.
It's implausible/unlikely for one person to drown in his own bathtub.

Unlikely means that 9 times out of ten a given thing might not happen but that on the tenth it could. Implausible requires you to accept something which is so unlikely it verges on impossible. (But doesn't quite achieve impossibility).

Unlikely means unlikely was a slip. No sleep can do that.

Even in your definition you see that the words are not the same. They mean different things. Unlikely does not mean you cause a sense of disbelief. Implausible does.
 
I have always defined ASB as whatever is flat out impossible, such as magic or comic-book superheroes. For different reasons I also consider ancient astronauts to be ASB, however a future timeline revolving around first contact with non-human sentient life, not necessarily so.
 
It's used in two senses:
  1. In the strict sense, it refers to a POD that explicitly involves aliens, supernatural events, time travel, etc. By moderator decree, geological and evolutionary PODs are also lumped in with this category, presumably because the kinds of discussion about those fit in better on the ASB forum than in the pre-1900 forum.
  2. In the broader sense, it's used as a rhetorical device for describing PODs or lines of reasoning that seem to be nearly as unlikely as alien intervention.
My understanding is the second sense is the original usage, from someone replying to a particularly strained timeline by saying "Alien Space Bats would be a more believable explanation". The phrase stuck, and the first sense developed from people invoking Alien Space Bats in their own posts in order to handwave an unlikely or impossible POD for the sake of exploring what consequences it would have.
 
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