in Poul Anderson's mutable timeline, Neldorian time criminals help Hannibal to sack Rome and thus Carthage to win the Second Punic War but Time Patrol agents restore Roman victory;
however, in John Barnes' multiple timelines, descendants of the Carthaginians enslave more than a million timelines but are opposed by the ATN (meaning?) alliance who unite twice as many timelines;
ATN representatives visit and negotiate with SM Stirling's slave-owning Draka;
the Draka have conquered the Solar System and colonized several other planetary systems and are beginning to explore alternative timelines.
Thus, we have moved, conceptually, through four easy stages, from the Time Patrol to the Draka. I would not have believed that this was possible.
John Barnes' ATN-Draka story, "Upon Their Backs, To Bite 'Em," in Drakas!, is good but I have yet to read it to its conclusion.
