AHC: 'A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings'

SunDeep

Banned
So, 'butterflies' get mentioned a lot on this site, which got me thinking. When we talk about 'butterflies flapping around' here, we're just talking about the 'butterfly effect', the manner in which, given time, any POD will have a trickle-down effect which eventually has an impact on anything and everything in the ATL. So, as a bit of a fun challenge, let's make the reference a bit more literal. Can you come up with an engaging, profoundly divergent ATL where the POD is an actual butterfly fluttering around?
 

Ryan

Donor
a butterfly distracts a couple before they make love. the few seconds difference means that a different sperm fertilizes the egg and their child is completely different to the one who was born otl. you can either remove a very important person or create an entirely new important person.
 

Lost the game

Banned
352 BCE, Pella, Macedonia

Alehandros jumped in the stream, immediately soaking himself in the cool water. He stared, fascinated, at a small crayfish that skittered along the creekbed. Looking up, however he saw a butterfly, and immediately ran off in pursuit. He tripped over a rock, skinning his knee. He immediately sat down and began to wail at the stinging in his knee. A nurse ran over to him and comforted him. After a few moments, however, he forgot the pain in his knee, and went running after another butterfly. He ran across the field. He stumbled once again, right into a cow pie, but picked himself up immediately and ran off.

A week later he was dead of sepsis.
 

Sawaiki

As a child, Charles Darwin is killed when he follows a butterfly into the path of a carriage, not paying attention to his surroundings.

Just what came to mind first, and I didn't think about it enough to actually claim what other impacts this has in the long run, but I think it would end up meeting the criteria.
 

SunDeep

Banned
Lost the game said:
352 BCE, Pella, Macedonia

Alehandros jumped in the stream, immediately soaking himself in the cool water. He stared, fascinated, at a small crayfish that skittered along the creekbed. Looking up, however he saw a butterfly, and immediately ran off in pursuit. He tripped over a rock, skinning his knee. He immediately sat down and began to wail at the stinging in his knee. A nurse ran over to him and comforted him. After a few moments, however, he forgot the pain in his knee, and went running after another butterfly. He ran across the field. He stumbled once again, right into a cow pie, but picked himself up immediately and ran off.

A week later he was dead of sepsis.
Click to expand...

Well, that's certainly a good start. How far do you think it could go from there? Just how profound would the ramifications be?
 

Gortian

After a private jet crashes killing almost all inside, the lone survivor, a young boy wanders into the forest in pursuit a monarch butterfly.....
 

BulldogCommisar

Lee Harvey Oswald, trained marksman, is distracted by a butterfly flitting around in front of his scope, and misses his opportunity to take the fatal shot.
 

SunDeep

Banned
Gordius said:
After a private jet crashes killing almost all inside, the lone survivor, a young boy wanders into the forest in pursuit a monarch butterfly.....
Click to expand...

After 1900- insert this here (who's the little boy, BTW? Doesn't ring any bells)

BulldogCommisar said:
Lee Harvey Oswald, trained marksman, is distracted by a butterfly flitting around in front of his scope, and misses his opportunity to take the fatal shot.
Click to expand...

Sorry BulldogCommisar; someone already beat you to it...
 

SunDeep

Banned
So, the monarch reference got me thinking. How far out to sea do they venture on their own? If a lost sailor happens to spot a migrating monarch butterfly, and decides to follow it to land, might it lead to ATLs where people discover the New World earlier?
 
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Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf

Donor
SunDeep said:
So, 'butterflies' get mentioned a lot on this site, which got me thinking. When we talk about 'butterflies flapping around' here, we're just talking about the 'butterfly effect', the manner in which, given time, any POD will have a trickle-down effect which eventually has an impact on anything and everything in the ATL. So, as a bit of a fun challenge, let's make the reference a bit more literal. Can you come up with an engaging, profoundly divergent ATL where the POD is an actual butterfly fluttering around?
Click to expand...

I had a friend at uni who was traumatised as an adolescent by butterflies getting into her hair and being trapped. I could certainly see this unbalancing some princess or other, and at a crucial moment when it happens again all their worst fears are realised and she panics, maybe completely flips out.

My friend had a minor version of this when we were walking in the woods and some bats came close around us. She panicked, pushed me off the path into the undergrowth and fled. I could imagine you could frame a great diplomatic incident around something like that!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

twovultures

Donor
A monarch butterfly lays its eggs a little too low on the stalk of a milkweed, and ants eat its eggs, saving the milkweed from being eaten by the caterpillars.

The survival of that individual milkweed creates a cascade of genetic changes that creates a strain of milkweed which produces large amounts of latex in its sap. By the end of the industrial revolution, North American milkweed farms rather than jungle plantations are the main source of the world's rubber.

Edit: And rather than being endangered, monarch butterflies have a massive population and are comparable to boll weevils and potato beetles for the economic damage they cause.
 
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