Researching for a Novel and I Need Bigger Brains than Mine.

I figure a community devoted to discussing far-reaching theories of the universe could help a poor, deprived mind such as my own in a thought experiment pursuant to my goal of writing a novel. I'm hoping that it's okay with this forum's moderators that I'm fishing for ideas that I intend to steal shamelessly and use in my writings. If this somehow violates forum rules, please feel free to lock off this topic and I shall pursue it no more--no hard feelings! Last thing I wish to do is step all over the purpose of a dedicated community

Provided that I'm allowed this largesse, here's my thought experiment: what if we all lived in an alternate universe where monopoles had been easy to discover and were commonplace as well as easy to use/build with? Would Edison's DC have won out? Would we have found new ways to harvest energy, build more efficient machines and weapons?