Friday 30 September 2016

Time Patrol Generations

"Gibraltar Falls" confirms yet again that Manse Everard was recruited to the Time Patrol in 1954 which means that it was a mistake, maybe on Everard's part, when he thought "1957" in "The Year Of The Ransom." Tom Namura was recruited in 1972, which makes him a contemporary of one of Everard's class-mates. 1850-2000 is regarded as a single period by the Patrol although there are major cultural differences within it. Dard Kelm recommends the hunting around the Academy whereas Wanda Tamberly hunts animals only with a camera, not with a gun.

On the gap between 1954 and 1972, Nomura reflects:

"The upheavals of that generation were bubble pops against what had happened before and what would happen after." (Time Patrol, p. 114)

Carl Farness was young in the 1960s and 7's but a doctor on the Moon in 2319 tells him that moral fashions come and go. Everard and Nomura were not in the same class at the Academy. When they meet, Nomura is twenty five and newly graduated whereas Everard is a veteran. Nomura suspects that Everard has seen enough existence to become more foreign to him than someone born two millennia later than either of them.

Longevity treatment, endless time travel, memories of deleted timelines, always returning to home base immediately after leaving it, knowledge of the future, a career apparently without any retirement, eventually moving to another milieu and then another - surely, after all that, an Unattached agent of the Time Patrol would no longer be human?

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Actually, I think some Patrol agents DO retire. If only because I believe some will become too emotionally and mentally worn out to remain good field agents. For all we know, the exile planet might also be used for housing exhausted agents.

Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

I suspect Danellian psychology could handle PTSD -- there are quite drastic differences in how often people from different cultures exhibit those symptoms even today.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Dear Mr. Stirling,

I should have thought of that--that Danellian psychologists (can that word still be used for some Danellians?) can prevent some or most Patrol agents from the effects of PTSD.

Sean M. Brooks