Alternate histories and branching timelines without corrupting canon

Every novelist runs alternate histories, whether or not they write the genre. Most stay private. What if the sister survived the fire, what if the duke found the passage a chapter earlier, what if the war ended at the river? Some become the book: an alternate history timeline for a real century, a series where two volumes follow the same people down different roads, a time-travel plot that splits the world in two.

The trouble with what-ifs is that they leak. You change a character's fate to try an idea, forget to change it back, and three weeks later your canon says something your manuscript does not. Lokee's answer is the branching timeline: a second chronology that starts from a moment in the first and then goes its own way, while the canon stays exactly as it was.

This guide uses the demo story The Ashen Circle to branch one what-if, follows it from the first click to the moment you fold it back or throw it away, and is precise about what a branch inherits, because that is where people get burned.

The model in one paragraph

A timeline is an ordered list of world points, the moments of your world's chronology. Your first world point creates a timeline called "Canon" automatically, and many vaults never need another. A branch is a timeline with a parent and, usually, a branch point: one world point on the parent where the two stories part. Looking at the branch, you see the parent's history up to and including that point, then only what you record on the branch. The parent never sees anything recorded on the branch. Two branches of the same parent never see each other.

Is it really a what-if? Three kinds of change

Branching is for versions of events, not for changes of mind. Lokee keeps three kinds of change apart, and picking the right one saves you a tidy-up later:

• The world changed. Rowan was a scout, then he joined the Ashen Circle. That is recorded history on the canon timeline; see recording change instead of overwriting it.
• You changed your mind. Rowan's eyes were grey, now they are green, because the book says so. That is a revision, edited on the card and listed on the Revisions page.
• You want both versions. In one version the duke discovers the passage beneath Varnhold Manor; in the other he never does. That is a branch.

If you will eventually pick one version and throw the other away, a branch is still the right tool. It lets you work the alternative out properly, then delete it, without touching canon in the meantime. Worldbuilding while you write has more on revising the world when the plot moves under it; branches are the heavy version of that habit.

Where do you manage timelines?

Timelines have their own page, which is not in the sidebar. Open Timeline and use the Manage timelines → link at the top right. The Timelines page has three parts:

• New timeline with Create: a fresh root timeline with no parent. Useful for a frame story or an unrelated era, rarely for a what-if.
• The branch form, headed "Branch a new timeline from an event". Despite the heading, you branch at a world point, not at an event; see below.
• The list of timelines, each with its name (click to rename), a Canonical badge where it applies, "branched from" and "at" the point it branched at, a Canonical checkbox and Delete.

How do you branch an alternate history timeline at a world point?

In the demo, Lady Iseult secretly funds the Ashen Circle, and its headquarters, the Undercroft, connects to her father's wine cellar. Suppose you want to explore a version where Duke Cassian finds the passage.

First make sure the moment of divergence exists on the parent. On the Timeline page, in World chronology, the point might be The cellar flood, the night the passage is nearly exposed. Then, on the Timelines page:

1. Type a Name, for example Cassian finds the passage (the placeholder suggests "e.g. What If...").
2. Under Branch from, choose the parent, here Canon.
3. Under At point, choose The cellar flood. The list shows only points on the parent you picked, with their dates.
4. Choose Branch.

The new timeline appears in the list as "branched from Canon" and "at The cellar flood".

At point has one more option, first in the list: Inherits everything. A branch with no point sees its parent's entire history, including everything recorded later on the parent, and is listed as "inherits full history". That suits a version of the same world that differs only in what you add to it, say an extended epilogue. For a true what-if, pick a point. If the parent has no points yet, Lokee tells you: "That timeline has no points yet. The branch will inherit its full history."

What a branch sees, and what it doesn't

Precision matters here, because this is where what-ifs usually go wrong.

Recorded changes inherit up to the branch point. Every change you recorded on Canon at The cellar flood or earlier is part of the branch's past. Changes recorded on Canon after it, Iseult's arrest in chapter 20 say, are not. Set the Viewing control to a point on the branch and the cast shows exactly that: shared history, then the branch's own.

Inheritance is live, not a copy. If you later correct something on Canon before the branch point, Rowan's rank at the start of the book, the branch sees the correction. That is what you want. The shared past stays shared.

The branch's own points are its own. When you pick the branch in the Timeline: selector on the Timeline page, the chronology editor lists only the branch's own points, not the inherited ones. New points you add there belong to the branch. The world points of the parent do not move or change.

Record changes on branch points as usual. Use Record a change… on a card and choose a moment on the branch, or set Viewing to a branch point and edit a field, then choose to record the change at that moment. In our example: at Cassian confronts Iseult, her Standing becomes Disowned. On Canon she is still the dutiful daughter.

Siblings never meet. If you make a second branch from Canon, The passage collapses, neither branch sees what the other records. Contradictions between them are expected and never reported.

In the Viewing control, world points are grouped by timeline ("World —" followed by the timeline's name), so it is always clear which version you are looking at. The map's ‹ › stepper follows the timeline you are viewing too.

Dated facts on branches

Fields of type Date and Story date, a birth, a coronation date, are facts about an entity rather than changes recorded at a point, so they follow slightly different rules.

By default a dated fact belongs to no timeline and is visible on all of them, as part of the shared baseline. Once your vault has timelines, each Date or Story date field on a card also offers Assign to timeline… with a status: idea, possible, canonical or rejected. Two of those change what you see:

• A fact assigned to a timeline is visible only on that timeline and on branches below it.
• A fact marked rejected on a timeline is hidden there and on every branch below it, even if it is also assigned elsewhere. "Not true here" outranks inheritance.

The other statuses are labels for you; they help you remember how settled an idea is.

There is one more question a branch raises: should it inherit dated facts that fall after the branch point? By default it does. Settings → Writing → Branch cutoff for dated facts changes that with one checkbox, Stop inheriting facts recorded after the branch point. With it on, a branch stops inheriting dated facts later than its branch point. It needs a date to compare against: "It has no effect on a branch whose branch point carries no date." Date the branch point in the same kind of date your facts use, real dates against real dates, one calendar against the same calendar. The cutoff compares the two as plain date keys and has no way to relate a real date to an invented one, so a mixed pair gives you a result you did not mean. A calendar and timeline for an invented world explains how dates are stored.

Canonical: what the checkbox actually decides

Each timeline in the list has a Canonical checkbox, and you can tick none, one or several. Ticking it adds the Canonical badge, and the Timeline: selector shows "(canonical)" after the name.

What it decides, in practice, is the default. The first canonical timeline in the list is the one the Timeline page opens on, the one new world points go to when you have not picked another, and the one a card's current values are measured on. With no timeline ticked, the first timeline in the list plays that role.

Being canonical never hides another timeline and never merges anything. If you settle on the branch's version of events, the honest move is usually to record those changes on canon too, then delete the branch. Lokee does not promote a branch's records into its parent for you.

Conflicts and checks on a branch

The Timeline's tracks, the dated facts of your entities, show what is visible on the selected timeline. If two separate dated fields with the same name on the same entity land on the same date there, both cards get a small amber ! with the title "conflicts with another fact on this timeline". It usually means a duplicated field, such as two Born entries after an import.

The Consistency Check works across the whole vault for its free deterministic pass, so branch records are checked alongside canon. Because a finding like In two places at once compares records at the same world point, a character at the cellar on Canon and at the gate on the branch is not a conflict; they are two different moments. The check's Scope menu includes A timeline branch, which narrows the AI-assisted pass when you run one. Events placed across two unrelated timelines are flagged with "begins and ends on unrelated timelines".

Deleting a branch without breaking anything

Delete asks for Confirm delete and refuses in two cases, each with its own message: when another timeline branched from this one ("another timeline branched from it"), and when world points still belong to it ("Move or remove them first"). So empty the branch before deleting it, in this order:

1. Remove the changes recorded at the branch's points, from each card's History tab. A point with recorded changes cannot be deleted; Lokee names the entities that still use it.
2. Take any event off those points: change the event's Place in world time in the event plan. A point where an event begins or ends cannot be deleted either.
3. Delete the points themselves with Delete in the branch's World chronology.
4. Delete the timeline on the Timelines page.

These refusals are deliberate. A recorded change whose point vanished would silently stop applying. The same protection covers the parent: a point that a branch is anchored to cannot be deleted while the branch exists. The message there suggests pointing the branch elsewhere first, but there is no control for re-pointing a branch today; the ways through are to delete the branch, or to keep the point and rename it.

Work from the leaves inward: delete the deepest branch first, then its parent.

Worked example: the duke finds the passage, end to end

Here is the whole what-if, start to finish, so you can see how little of it touches canon.

Day one. On Canon, The cellar flood already exists, dated. You create the branch Cassian finds the passage at that point. In the Timeline: selector you switch to the branch; its chronology is empty. You add two points: Cassian descends and Cassian confronts Iseult.

Day two. With Viewing set to Cassian confronts Iseult, you open Lady Iseult and change Standing to Disowned, choosing to record the change at that moment. You open the Undercroft and record Status as Compromised. You open Rowan and, under Relationships, use + Add a relationship that began here for hunted_by → The Crown Watch. You do not tick Still true now, because on canon Rowan is not hunted.

Day three. You set Viewing to The cellar flood on Canon. Iseult's Standing is untouched. You set it to Cassian confronts Iseult on the branch and the card reads Disowned. Compare… between the two points lists the three rows that differ. You write two chapters in a notes file to see whether the version has legs.

Day ten. You decide the branch is better than canon. You go back to Canon, add the two points there in the same place after The cellar flood, and record the same three changes at them. Then you empty the branch in the order above and delete it. Or you decide it was a dead end and skip straight to the deletion. Either way, canon was never edited by accident, and the Revisions page shows no change-of-mind edits from the whole experiment, because none were made.

That last point is the whole case for branches. The experiment left canon with either nothing or exactly what you chose to copy across.

Common mistakes

Branching for a change of mind. You decide Rowan's eyes are green and make a branch for it. Now you have two timelines that differ in one field forever. Edit the card; that is a revision.

Branching with Inherits everything for a what-if. The branch keeps seeing everything you record on Canon afterwards, including the ending you are trying to replace. Pick a point.

Recording the alternative on Canon by mistake. The Viewing control shows "World —" and the timeline's name; check it before you record. If it already happened, the Revisions page shows where, and you can move the record by deleting it from History and recording it on the branch.

Expecting a merge. There is no "make this branch canon and fold it in". Marking a branch canonical changes defaults, not data. Copy the changes you want across, then delete the branch.

Deleting from the root. Delete refuses while anything hangs off a timeline. Start at the deepest branch.

Mixed date kinds with the cutoff on. A branch point dated in the Ashen Calendar and facts dated in real years will not compare the way you expect. Keep the branch point in the same calendar as the facts you want cut off.

What Lokee doesn't do with branches

It does not merge, diff or promote branches, and it does not keep separate manuscripts per branch. The Writer's story points describe where the reader is in one book, and that book belongs to one version of events. Branches are a planning tool for the world, not a version-control system for the text. If you are writing two volumes that follow different roads, model each road as a branch, but keep the manuscripts as two books in the Writer and let each one's narrative points describe what its readers learn.

In five minutes

1. Timeline → Manage timelines →, name a branch, pick Canon and the point where the versions part, Branch.
2. Switch to the branch in the Timeline: selector and add one point.
3. Set Viewing to that point, open a character and change one field, recording it at that moment.
4. Switch Viewing back to any Canon point. The field is unchanged.
5. When you are done, empty the branch and delete it, or copy the changes to Canon.

Patterns that work

1. One branch per question. "What if the duke finds the passage" is a branch. "What if the duke finds the passage and Rowan is caught" is a branch of that branch, so you can drop the second idea without losing the first.
2. Branch late. The later the branch point, the more shared history you keep and the less you re-record. Pick the last moment where both versions are still identical.
3. Name branches as questions. Cassian finds the passage tells you in six months what the timeline was for; Timeline 2 does not.
4. Keep the manuscript on canon. Use branches to plan; write the chosen version.
5. For mysteries, branch the solution. If you are torn between two culprits, branch at the night of the crime and model both; keeping a mystery fair shows what each version needs recorded.

Branches build on the same idea as the rest of Lokee's time model; Three kinds of "when" is the place to start if the separation of world time and reader time is new. The Timeline and Entities over time sections of the help are the reference, and story timeline software gives the overview. Branching works the same in local and cloud vaults, on desktop and in the browser.