And this concludes tonight's installment of Overthinking Fiction With random-sensei.
You are legitimately and unironically a treasure. Far too many people try to ignore that alternate histories start well before the divergence point.
*blush* aw, shucks
...though while you're not wrong I believe you meant that the divergence point of alternate histories is (usually) well before the "narrative present" depicted? (^.^;)
Feh, I meant what you knew!
Though usually people think of these things in terms of a major change. e.g. the ever-nonsensical "Nazis win WWII" meme that alt history permascrubs can never seem to let go of, ignoring all the changes that would have to happen to make that even remotely plausible.