Can I be a wizard, or would the whole "mostly the same" thing wreck that?
You can still be a wizard, just be aware that magic is heavily persecuted and, nearly everywhere, highly illegal due to high level decisions under variations of
The Guild of Mages vs. the Academy of Science, intense superstition, and its effect upon the three world wars (World War 1 was the second, World War 2 was the third <both were delayed by a few years due to the first>. First World War detailed in next section)
(alt history: Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland seceded from the United states, but were all recaptured under the efforts of Nathaniel Lyon in Missouri, Ulysses S. Grant in Kentucky, and George G. Meade in Maryland. Eventually, a combined effort by Lyon and Grant resulted in the capture to Tennessee, and while Meade were working on pushing back Lee out of northern Virginia, Spain tried to take various islands in the Caribbean for what was going to be an invasion of the potentially weakened Confederate States, wanting the Confederacy's vast growth of reagents. Russia and Germany, growing desperate for the Reagents, decided to aid the South, managing to get England to assist in breaking the blockade created by the Union. Deciding to take an opportunity to make a jump on England, France drug in Spain, who had some of their ships fired upon by British not expecting them there, as well as various Arabic nations, who were promised to be allowed to spread their religion in France. End result of the war was a situation in Europe similar to as it already was, but with Germany in possession of the Belgium and Switzerland areas, with France in possession of the Rhineland. In America, the states west of the Rockies seceded from both the Confederates and the Union, forming their own nation, Cascadia, with control of Baja California, from where the eastern edge of the peninsula to the Rocky Mountains, then all the way up the mountains to Alaska, eventually possessing Hawaii by the time World War 3 starts. The Confederates have possession of the areas they had in 1961, with the exception of Tennessee, west until the border with Cascadia, then south, having control of the Carribean and Central America, eventually building the Panama Canal in 1896 for the Trade Revenue. The Union came out of the war with all of its territory in 1861, minus what joined Cascadia but with Tennessee, all of Canada east of the Rocky Mountains and Greenland, using the vast resources of the Canadian shield to become a powerhouse as Cascadia grew due to the double gold rush of California and Alaska, and the Confederates grew from its high level of control of the growth of reagents, all three eventually forming the North American Alliance, which would play the same role in World War 2 and 3 as the United States performed in World Wars 1 and 2, but with a greater role in 3 than the United States did in 2, due to the alliance of Russia, Germany, and Japan rather than Germany, Italy, and Japan. Effects of this war was World War 2 not starting due to the assassination of Archduke Ferninand, but because Germany would not leave Belgium or Switzerland, and had wound up that the only difference after that war had wound up with Germany only losing those territories by the end of it. World War 3 started due to the co Russian-German invasion of the Scandanavian Peninsula, which due to the discovery of certain reagents, as well as having potent leylines, and only being composed of one country, Norway, Sweden, and Finland having merged into Scandanavia in the 1870's, was a greater powerhouse that had called upon its allies at the time, England and France, to assist. In tandem was an attack by Japan on Hawaii, which brought in the North American Alliance. That war ended with Europe looking similar to how it had during the Cold War, but with it instead being between China and the North American Alliance rather than Russia and the United States.)