Historical Science Fiction

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I am an aficionado of science fiction, because I think that it explores ideas and situations that bring out humanity but cannot yet be experienced by humanity, because of the constrains of current technology and physics. I am also a fan of history, particularly of the ancient Roman and medieval varieties, because I think that it is cool and super interesting. I generally enjoy the concept of historical fiction, but I have a hard time actually reading it, because I think that it tends to focus on periods I don't care about, such as any period after 1400 AD, or, alternately, is super dense and boring. I feel like this situation could easily be rectified by creating a hybrid of the two, which would be superior to either, hence, historical science fiction, which I think should be a distinct genre, and unfortunately, is not.

Historical science fiction is based on taking historical events and giving them a science fiction twist, such as aliens or time travel, but the history always has to work out as to not disturb the current timeline. This isn't just the adventures of timetravelers in history, because that's been done, but rather, taking common science fiction tropes and applying them to historical events rather than modern or futuristic ones. If there are timetravelers, they should be based in an historical era exploring the current future or the past relative to them rather than a modern or futuristic timetravelers exploring the past relative to us.

To properly illustrate the use of historical science I have included some examples of stories that would illustrate the genre, if it were a thing:

1. Historical Premise (True Facts):

Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates when he was young and ransomed back to Rome.

Sci-Fi Twist (Untrue Part):

He is kidnapped by space pirates and proceeds to hone his political and strategic abilities through a series of adventures in space battling alien empires and navigating the machinations of the lawless and ambitious of the space pirate crew he has become a part of. He eventually returns to Rome to become the Julius Caesar we all know and love today.

2. Historical Premise:

Alexander the Great conquers most of the known world and half of the unknown world as well.

Sci-Fi Twist:

Alexander is the scion of a vast, but waning alien empire, but he is a rebel, with no desire to play by the space empire rules. He is punished by being forced to live as a puny human at a time when technology was seriously lacking compared to his native peoples' cross dimensional tech. He proceeds to use his training as a space conqueror to be a badass and conquer everything he can. He proves himself to be a good general and decent leader, and is thus reclaimed by his people to take his rightful place as their leader and bring a second wind to their empire.

3. Historical Premise:

Joan of Arc

Sci-Fi Twist:

Is a robot. Possibly from the future or from space or just a complete fluke of nature/technology.

These are just some of the many possible examples of the genre. I mostly want to stress that this is not something like the History Channel's obsession with ancient aliens, because that is a conspiracy theory that claims that aliens actually did influence ancient cultures (which is unfortunate because it assumes that ancient people were incapable of amazing feats of engineering and construction because they were primitive, and thus, stupid, which discounts their ability and knowledge. Just because we don't know how they did it, doesn't mean they couldn't have done it.) whereas HSF assumes a fictional stance from the beginning, and uses science fiction premises to explore human and historical issues. It is also not steampunk, because that tends more towards a specific aesthetic and restricts the time period rather than using history as a science fiction playground.

With those stipulations in place, I think this should be a thing, but I'm not a creative writer, nor do I have any desire to be one, so, Imaginary Readers, go forth and make this happen. It will be awesome, I am sure.