You know, it might work, but as a very different story than I imagined. What if Our Hero ends up in New Jersey and looks up ol’ Tom Edison? We could see WW1 being almost unimportant.
In fact to get really cute, give Tom a time traveller and use this as a means to explain his great ability to invent important stuff. In other words, do not create an alternate universe, but explain the one we live in. That might work.
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
In fact to get really cute, give Tom a time traveller and use this as a means to explain his great ability to invent important stuff. In other words, do not create an alternate universe, but explain the one we live in. That might work.
[/QUOTE]
Heh, yeah—start it out in 2105, with the hero escaping into the past seconds before the Westinghouse-Tesla Cartel’s Corporate Security guys catch him for building the bootleg Vacuum Tubes™ he used in his chronomobile. (Not to mention pirating the Wireless ACtricity™ to power it.)