A Century Hence II

"Wildcat."

See A Century Hence.

Team A: 

found that Earth in the twenty first century was sterile although the radioactivity had died down sufficiently that they themselves were not in danger;

estimated that the nuclear exchange had occurred about one year after the twentieth-century base date.

Team B found that:

in AD 100,000,000, plants are re-evolving;

however, they have not yet released enough oxygen to make the atmosphere breathable.

The Jurassic base is supplied with agricultural, industrial and scientific equipment, canned food, microfilmed culture and extra personnel, obviously both male and female. How long did they survive in the past and did they make it into space? There is no sequel.

A Century Hence

(Lancaster Castle and a Morecambe Bay sunset, symbolizing history and the passage of time.)

"Wildcat."

An expedition to 100,000,000 AD returns and reports that a certain location will remain stable;

Team A is projected into the twenty-first century;

that team observes and records data;

its members place their data in an inert box enclosed in a large block of reinforced concrete at the stable location;

mixing radioactive material with a long half-life in the concrete will make the block easier to locate;

Team B is projected to 100,000,000 AD, acquires the data and returns to the twentieth century;

Team A joins the base in the Jurassic a century after it was founded.

Limits On Time Travel

"Wildcat."

One way to avoid time travel paradoxes is to put limits on time travel, e.g., if it is possible to travel only into the geological past, then it is impossible to change human history. But an ingenious author can find ways around his own limits.

For the limits in "Wildcat," see Answers.

In order to project a material body any distance into the past, it is necessary to energize it;

however, it must be energized so much that the minimal period for which it can be projected is just over one hundred million years;

on the other hand, inertial resistance is much lower when projecting futureward so that, in that case, hundred-year jumps become possible.

It seems to follow that someone from the twentieth century can visit the twenty first but not report back?

No. Make enough century-long jumps forward, then one long jump backward. Herries was right when, earlier in the story, he guessed that there would after all be some roundabout, energy-consuming route into the historical past. He thought that, by exploiting such a route, US Intelligence would test the theory of an immutable timeline by trying to prevent the Russian Revolution. Maybe they did try that but something else is going on. How will it be possible to receive a report from a century hence?

Cold War Speculation

"Wildcat."

While the twentieth-century Cold War nuclear stand-off lasted, its outcome was a subject of speculative fiction and, as such, was discussed by time travelers in Poul Anderson's "Wildcat" (1958):

"'Same old standoff.'

"'I wonder how long it can last?' murmured Polansky.

"'Not much longer,' said Olson. 'Read your history.'" (p. 16)

 

Wrong. History said nothing about Mutually Assured Destruction. What happened was that deterrence prevented World War III but the arms race bankrupted the USSR.

 

What would have happened if, instead of stockpiling nuclear weapons, the USSR had used those same resources for positive, peaceful purposes?

Plesiosaur

There is a Wikipedia article on "Plesiosaurus" of the Jurassic Period and another on "plesiosaurs" of the Mesozoic Era. It makes sense when you start to read them.

"The plesiosaur hissed monstrously and flipper-slapped the water. It was like a cannon going off."

-"Wildcat," p. 7.

This is a telling detail. Flippers in water become wings in air. Once, walking near the River Lune, I suddenly heard a loud furious sound as if someone had gone berserk and begun to chastise the water with a paddle. It was swans taking off, their wings striking the water. I have only heard this once.

Some of us thought, based on a certain amount of evidence, that there were plesiosaur-like animals in Loch Ness but they would have been confirmed by now if they had been there. A swan, seen in conditions of poor visibility by someone mistaken about scale and distance, looks exactly like a plesiosaur.

Assaulted Senses

Poul Anderson, "Wildcat" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 7-57.

In the opening paragraph:

rain is hot and heavy;

the sky is hidden;

air stinks of swamp;

a floodlight glares;

an engine mutters;

a bull brontosaur cries;

there is a sound of thunder.

 

I think that this means that the brontosaur's cry sounds like thunder, not that there is thunder.

 

In the second paragraph:

 

boots resound;

clothes sog with sweat;

rain goes down Herries' collar.

 

In the third and fourth paragraphs, a plesiosaur attacks Herries and its scream hurts his ears when it takes a bullet.

 

We do not yet know that this is time travel. In sf, dinosaurs can show up on other planets or in hidden valleys etc. Meanwhile, however, Anderson gets us straight into the action by assaulting three of the senses.

From Time Patrol To Past Times

Whereas Time Patrol and The Shield Of Time are a single long series about a time travel organization, Past Times is a collection of, primarily, independent time travel stories. Thus, we stay with the theme of time travel but leave behind any consistent set of premises or characters.

Past Times collects:

"Wildcat"

"Welcome" (temporal stasis) 

"The Nest"

"Eutopia" (alternative histories)

"The Little Monster"

"The Light" (space travel)

"The Discovery of the Past" (+here & here) (non-fiction)

"Flight to Forever"

 

Thus, eight items, including four time travel stories. Also relevant are "The Man Who Came Early" and "Time Heals," which are in other volumes on shelves upstairs. The NESFA collections of Poul Anderson's short stories include at least two, not very significant, time travel stories.

 

Years ago, I read a story in which:

 

there had been a nuclear war;

 

a future hive intelligence sent a time traveler to its past/our present;

 

this time travel agent prevented the war (?) and the existence of the hive intelligence.

 

I remember neither the title nor where I read it. I thought that this story was by Poul Anderson but have found no trace of it. 

Beyond Our Animal Selves

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

The Danellian claims that the course of time guarded by the Patrol:

"'...does at last take us beyond what our animal selves could have imagined.'" (p. 435)

- the aim of the Psychotechnic Institute.

In Brain Wave, human intelligence not only increases but also gains control of instinct. The Hindu who wants to return to the lower intelligence level hopes to regain the sub-rational oceanic mystical consciousness but should have realized that the mystics, or at least some of them, aimed at supra-rational transcendence.

It seems that the Danellians have reached transcendence. I think that human beings can but, in any case, the Danellians are post-human so should not be held back by any "unchangeable human nature."

Time Travel And Solipsism

The Circular Causality Paradox

The narrator of Robert Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-" time travels, changes sex, begets and bears him/herself and concludes that no one else exists. Non sequitur: It does not follow.

The Causality Violation Paradox

Wanda Tamberly of the Time Patrol experiences variable reality and concludes that "'...there is nothing out there, no firm reality...'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 433) Again: Non sequitur.

 

I am experiencing multiple reality as, on a single lap top, I post on this blog while listening to a national public meeting and simultaneously enjoy the comfort of our kitchen.

Danellian Metaphysics

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

The Danellian continues:

"'Think, if you wish, of diffraction, waves reinforcing here and canceling there to make rainbow rings. It is incessant, but normally on the human level it is imperceptible. When it chanced to converge powerfully on Lorenzo de Conti, yes, then that became like a kind of fate. Do not let it overawe you that you, exercising your free will, have overcome doom itself.'" (pp. 434-435)

If quantum waves incessantly but imperceptibly change the course of events, then each imperceptibly different course of events comprises a different timeline. Human beings in each timeline will remember the past of their own timeline, not the past of any preceding timeline. Therefore, they will not notice the changes in the course of events.

 

(Notice that there are two "pasts" here. In this moment, I remember past moments in my timeline. If my timeline has succeeded other timelines, then those timelines are also "past" although not in the same temporal dimension.)

 

The only people who notice a change in the course of events are those, like Keith Denison, who have, e.g, traveled from 1980 to 1765 BC in one timeline, then traveled futureward to 1980alpha in a succeeding timeline.

Danellian Morality II

 The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

The Danellian continues:

"'Humans being what they are, there is always more evil than good, more sorrow than joy; but that makes it the more needful to protect and nourish whatever gives worth to our lives.'" (p. 434)

But what are human beings? A species that has changed its environment and changed itself in the process. Thus, not anything static. Protect, nourish and increase, I hope. By "...our lives...," he seems to include himself among mankind. Is there enough in common between us and them to legitimize such an identification?

He states that it is a fact that a civilization with knowledge and liberty is better than a theocracy or an autocracy. I want to agree that this is a fact, not merely our preference. In terms of survival alone, people with knowledge and freedom are able to prevent the decay and decline that drag down the two alternatives.

Some stars are brighter than others. Some evolutions are better than others. A random, self-destructive cosmos (see p. 435) must surely be worse. (In any case, there will be no one left in it to judge that it is better.)

Climaxes And Conclusions

When rereading Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, it seems more appropriate to conclude with the conceptual climax provided by the closing chapter of The Shield Of Time rather than with the appendix, addendum or afterthought that constitutes "Death and the Knight." However, in terms of Everard's personal duration sense, he is last seen, in works by Anderson, not on the beach with Wanda in 1990 but in Paris with other agents in 1307. And Paris is just another assignment. His career continues. There is no indication of an approaching completion such as we see with Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and Dominic Flandry. Those Technic History characters lack the advantage of an indefinitely prolonged lifespan.

Anderson in private correspondence did suggest the idea of a novel to round off the Time Patrol series but this was just an idea and did not happen. So Everard is still out there, sometime between 1307 and 1990 - unless we count the Multiverse contributions as canonical? In any case, he is still out there.

Danellians And The Patrol

 By the end of the Time Patrol series, the Danellians know that there have been at least three timelines without any Danellians in them but that nevertheless the Patrol which they had founded kept working and restored the preferred timeline.

Danellians and Time Patrol are comparable to Arisians and Galactic Patrol and also to the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps. As far as I remember, the GLC kept working during a crisis when the Guardians had been somehow immobilized or neutralized. EE Smith's Arisians and Galactic Patrol I have no time for although a Lensman once showed up in Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix.

Danellian Morality

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

A Danellian to Everard and Wanda:

"'In these times, as in many elsewhen, moral relativism is the sin that besets folk of goodwill.'" (p. 434)

S/he means "error," not "sin." I would have liked more on what is meant here by "moral relativism." I agree that we should not hold back from making value judgments about other people's value judgments - but nor should we simply condemn any values that differ from ours! When I studied Philosophy, Ethics was a big part of the course but, as an academic discipline, it was completely abstracted from any real moral issues. I was far more interested in the mind-body problem and in the question of materialism versus idealism and regarded Ethics as peripheral. Like the then Head of Philosophy at Lancaster University, who specialized in Aesthetics, I was "one of those people who cannot stand Ethics at any price."

The Danellian continues:

"'They should realize, taking an example familiar today, that the death, maiming, and destruction of the Second World War were evil; so were the new tyrannies it seeded; and yet the breaking of Hitler and his allies was necessary.'" (ibid.)

I agree with this use of the word, "evil," but terminology becomes a barrier to understanding. When I told another undergraduate that I was specializing in the Philosophy of Religion and writing a dissertation on the Problem of Evil, I meant by "evil" simply suffering and injustice but he clearly thought that I intended it in some supernatural sense: devils, possessions etc.

When another undergraduate asked me whether one of the major questions in Philosophy was, "Are people basically evil?," I felt the sort of embarrassment that comes from speaking at cross-purposes. I should have said something like, "Well, we don't put it that way but major questions in Ethics include: 'Are people basically self-interested?' and 'What is the basis of moral obligations?' etc." Instead, I fell back on "What do you mean by 'evil'?" and the conversation petered out.

Living In A Time Patrol Milieu

I have known of a philosopher called John Austin and of a residential street called Hillside in Lancaster (on the right in the image) for decades but only yesterday did I learn that he was born there. We are surrounded by the past however much or however little we might know about it. I could cite other examples of people not knowing the history of their locality.

One Time Patrol milieu was from 1850 to 2000. Another must have begun in 2000 although we do not know when it will end. Sheila and I have lived in Lancaster District since 1973. If we had been Patrol agents based here from 1973 to 2000, then we would have to have known about Austin and many other significant figures whether or not their names were historically recorded. Continuing to live here after 2000, we would have had to learn about comparable figures in the ensuing milieu which might last till 2150 or longer.

Explanations

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

A Time Patrol instructor says that the Academy had to give its Babylonian trainees:

"'...a battle-of-the gods routine.'

"'What routine are you giving us?' asked Whitcomb.

"The spaceman regarded him narrowly. 'The truth,' he said at last. 'As much of it as you can take.'"

-Time Patrol, p. 14.

A long time later, both chronologically and experientially, Manse Everard asks a Danellian whether the affair of the alpha and beta timelines was:

"'...truly an accident, a quirk in the flux, that we, we had to straighten out?'

"'It was. Komozino explained matters to you correctly, as far as you and she are capable of comprehension.'" (p. 434)

 

There it is again. Everard's understanding has advanced immensely but there is still a limit to his comprehension. Needless to say, when the Danellian has completed one part of his explanation:

"The wind cried, the sea growled nearer." (ibid.)

I do not share Wanda's misgivings about mutable reality. She herself exists in the moment when she expresses her misgivings. Why should it matter if there is another point of view according to which she does not exist or has never existed? How does this differ from a point of view from billions of years before our births or after our deaths - if we assume just a single temporal dimension?

It looks like we will be off the Time Patrol tomorrow.

A Walk On A Beach

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

Cold wind shrills, booms and tastes of salt.

 

Surf rumbles.

 

Gulls rise, soar and mew.

 

Everard and Wanda walk on dark, hard, wet sand.

 

They crunch shells and pop bladders.

 

On their right, in both directions, stretch dunes and cliffs.

 

On their left, waves march "...from the edge of sight..." (p. 432) and there is one ship.

Everything is white or silvery gray - in which case, the attached image is not quite right but it is a good image.

All this description before the conversation begins. And that conversation will tell them and us the meaning of the Patrol.

On Highway One

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A.D.

Leaving the anachronistic St Francis Hotel, Everard and Wanda cross the Golden Gate Bridge and drive north on Highway One, stopping in Olema to buy takeout sandwiches and beer.

"At Point Reyes Station [Everard] turned into the national seashore." (p. 431)

Beyond Inverness, he parks and they walk on the beach where they will meet a Danellian.

See also On The Beach.

 

Beaches are places of arrival, departure, realization and revelation.

Everard As Angel

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1146 A.D., II.

Arriving on a timecycle, Everard wears a white robe and large iridescent-feathered wings and carries a stun gun disguised as a crucifix while a Patrol photon twister frames his head with radiance - another halo but this one is artificially generated.

He tells Lorenzo to "'Go and sin no more.'" (p. 426) This is yet another Biblical quotation. See John 8:11.

I can stomach Everard saying:

"'That is a question for God...'" (p. 425)

- but am less sympathetic when he says that the Holy Land is in danger of being altogether lost  "'...to the paynim.'" (p. 426) 

Angels who take sides between religious traditions? Of course, they were believed to do that. I read some nineteenth century American Catholic propaganda which said that the Holy Land was profaned by the food of the Mussulman.

When I was a student in Manchester, I had access to some nineteenth century Christian missionary propaganda but it was kept out of sight because it would be offensive to Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus etc. "The past is another country." 

Darwinian Struggle Between Timelines

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX.

In 1245beta, Giacomo tries to arrest Everard and Novak:

"Giacomo, Lorenzo's descendant. It's as if this warped continuum were defending its existence - reaching through Lorenzo, who begot it, beyond his grave to us." (p. 410)

And, in 1146 A.D., Lorenzo unexpectedly resists Everard even when the Patrolman poses as an angel:

"'This surprise we've had - it should never have happened. Hardly made sense, did it? But... the tide was carrying him... trying to preserve its twisted future - Let's hope we've broken the spell at last.'" (p. 428)

And, in A. D. 60, Everard wonders if the time stream is not bearing Veleda along. (Time Patrol, p. 557)

So maybe Danellian physics documents how timelines struggle for existence?

Four Senses, Leaving Anagni

(Anagni.)

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1146 A.D., II.

Without wanting to quote a twelve-line paragraph in full, I will try to document the author's appeal to four of the senses while Lorenzo and Wanda ride out of Anagni.

Sound

Hoofs clatter on cobbles.

Birds cry.

Smell

City smells are left behind.

The air is pure.

Sight

Sunlight torrents.

Land is bright and shadowed.

The valley is patchworked.

Streams are silver.

Villages are white.

Pasture is brown.

Forest is green with autumnal tints.

Sensation

The air is cool but warming.

And they plan a picnic lunch although action intervenes.

Poul Anderson could just have written that they rode out of the city but how much richer is his text for this description.

The Duplication Paradox

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1146 A.D., II.

"Tamberly had proposed taking Lorenzo back in time and making him decline the proffered marriage at the outset. Everard had responded, 'Don't you understand yet how precarious the balance of events is? You've talked me into the biggest gamble I can possibly square with my conscience.'" (p. 426)

But Wanda's proposal would not have worked! Lorenzo is about to accept a proffered marriage when his future self arrives to decline it? They would simply have duplicated Lorenzo - unless they first kidnapped or assassinated the younger Lorenzo which is precisely what they are trying to avoid. There are times when Anderson seems to forget the logic of the premises of the Time Patrol series.

A (British) Talent For Understatement

We referred to British understatement here. (Scroll down.)

An author given a sensational theme can achieve a satisfactory result by exercising creative and writerly restraint. My examples are Arthur Conan Doyle, James Blish, Neil Gaiman and Poul Anderson.

(i) Doyle's theme is a legendary supernatural hound. The actual hound, appearing only once before it is shot dead at the climax of the novel, is a large but natural animal, its eyes and mouth made luminous by the application of phosphorus.

(ii) Demons released from Hell do not run riot through the world in the sequel to James Blish's Black Easter. Instead, something more interesting happens.

(iii) In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Morpheus enters Hell expecting conflict with Lucifer Morningstar only to find an empty realm and to be told by Lucifer himself that he has resigned as Lord of Hell.

(iv) In Poul Anderson's "Death and the Knight" the Knights Templar are - wait for it - orthodox Christians revering a relic believed to be the jawbone of Abraham. (What a relief!)

Inter-Textual Fiction

Rereading a Sherlock Holmes text, in this case The Hound Of The Baskervilles, is remarkably enjoyable and also enhances appreciation of Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol." Here are the ingredients:

hansom cabs in London streets;

a railway journey to a country station;

a mysterious death at an ancient estate;

something deadly from the past...

 

Remember that Mainwethering and the Patrol office are there in London. It is just that Conan Doyle does not happen to mention them...

 

I will return to The Hound... this evening and expect to finish The Shield Of Time, but not to exhaust Anderson's time travel fiction, some time tomorrow.

The Personal Causal Nexus

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX.

In the alpha timeline, Lorenzo de Conti kills Roger II at Rignano, thus enabling the Church to subordinate the state.

In the beta timeline, Lorenzo marries the woman who would otherwise have been the mother of Pope Gregory IX and dies on the Second Crusade but has a great-grandson who is a major supporter and advisor of Emperor Frederick II, thus helping the state to subordinate the Church.

In the Danellian timeline, Lorenzo is historically unknown.

In other words, he is a fictitious character and also a connecting character, fictionally linked, in disruptive ways, to several historical figures.

Connecting characters are fictional conveniences. Years ago, there was a morally and emotionally unpleasant Batman film with one interesting feature. One newly created character was the employer of Selina Kyle, the political backer of Oswald Cobblepot and a business contact of Bruce Wayne. Thus, one new character linked three old characters - but did not do it as well as Lorenzo de Conti, who fights for his life. There seem to be Darwinian conflicts between timelines.

History Lesson VII And Alternative History Lesson III

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245beta A.D.

The two histories are entangled in the text but easily disentangled.

In both the Danellian and the beta timelines, Fredrerick disappointed successive Popes by postponing crusades in order to secure his own power but did eventually embark and regain Jerusalem although by bargaining, not by fighting.

In the Danellian timeline, the strong Pope Gregory excommunicated Frederick who crowned himself king of Jerusalem whereas, in the beta timeline, the weak Celestine did not excommunicate him but instead the Church anointed him king which strengthened him, e.g., to supplant John Ibelin of Cyprus and to make agreements with Muslim Egypt, Damascus and Iconium. Consequently, Byzantium had to accept the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire.

In both timelines, Frederick defeated a German revolt led by his son and Queen Iolande died young. In the Danellian timeline, Pope Gregory arranged Fredrick's marriage to Isabella of England whereas, in the beta timeline, Frederick married an Aragonese princess, conquered Lombardy and Sardinia, married his son to the Sardinian queen and, ignoring excommunication by Celestine, overran central Italy.

In 1241beta, he resoundingly defeated the invading Mongols, who had succeeded in the alpha timeline, and made Lucius IV Pope after the death of Celestine. He annexed Polish territory where he had defeated the Mongols and his tools, the Teutonic Knights, began conquering Lithuania. His centralized state did not disintegrate after his death. Instead, it embraced all of Europe, reached the Americas late, subordinated the Church, lacked a Renaissance, Reformation or scientific revolution and eventually decayed.

History Lesson VI

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245beta.

Roger II's daughter, Constance, was born after his death.

She was over thirty when she married Frederick Barbarossa's younger son who became Emperor Henry VI.

In 1194, Constance bore Frederick II who became both King of Sicily and Emperor.

In 1220, Frederick, who had been the ward of Pope Innocent III, was consecrated Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Honorius III.

In 1225, Frederick, now a widower, married Iolande, the daughter of the titular King of Jerusalem.

After growing conflict with Fredrick, Honorius died in 1227.

Then the beta timeline diverged when the next Pope was not Gregory IX but Celestine IV.

Changes In Time

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245beta A.D.

Manse Everard reflects on what happens when a divergent timeline has been initiated:

"...changes in time don't spread outward on any simple wave front. They're an infinitely complicated interplay of quantum functions..." (p. 399)

Agreed that changes in events would not spread outward at a uniform rate but surely they would be determined by macroscopic causal relationships, not by microscopic quantum interactions?

It is always interesting when Anderson discusses "the time-flow," as he calls it here, in the Time Patrol timeline. The text continues:

"The tiniest alteration could conceivably annul an entire future, if the event concerned was crucial. There should theoretically be countless such; but hardly ever were they felt. It was as if the time-flow protected itself, passed around them without losing its proper direction and shape. Sometimes you did get odd little eddies - and here one of them had grown to monstrousness -" (ibid.)

Of course, two temporal dimensions are implied here. The "time-flow" is our empirical arrow of time whereas the phrases "...hardly ever..." and "Sometimes..." refer to temporal relationships not within that time-flow but between alternative directions of the time-flow.

The following paragraph acknowledges that causality spreads temporal changes:

"Yet change must needs spread in chains of cause and effect. Who outside the immediate vicinity would ever even hear what went on, or did not go on, in a couple of families of Anagni? It would take a long time for the consequences of that to reach far. Meanwhile the rest of the world moved onward untouched." (pp. 399-400)

Stupor Mundi

 

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245beta.

In Another Halo, I quoted from the passage in which Frederick II "...looked somewhat like a god." (p. 398)

The entire following paragraph develops this theme:

"Peasants still at work in a nearby field bowed clumsily to him. So did a monk trudging toward the city. It was more than awe before power. There had always, also in Everard's history, been an aura of the supernatural about this ruler. Despite his struggle with the Church, many folk - no few Franciscans, especially - saw him as a mystic figure, a redeemer and reformer of the mundane world, Heaven-sent. Many others saw in him the Antichrist. But that seemed past. In this world, the war between him and the Popes was over, and he had prevailed." (pp. 398-399)

Thus, Poul Anderson is able to imagine a world in which this Heaven-sent mystic redeemer and reformer, as he was seen, had prevailed. Another Cyrus? Apparently, some Jews in England thought that Cromwell might be the Messiah because he was tolerant, at least, toward them. 

 

At the next stage of historical development, people look to themselves, not to any leader or ruler, to reform the mundane world.

Another Halo

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245 A.D.

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II is:

"...the man called stupor mundi, 'the amazement of the world.'" (p. 396)

"His hair tossed auburn-gold from beneath a feathered cap. The low sunlight made a halo of it... for that instant, he looked somewhat like a god." (p. 398)

Another halo. See Lorenzo.

We should also backtrack to Wanda's first sight of Lorenzo in 1146 A.D.:

"Suddenly everything focused on a single face... I'd pay attention to looks like that anytime in the universe, flashed through her - Apollo lineaments, dark-amber eyes - and this is hung on Lorenzo. Got to be Lorenzo, who'd have changed history nine years ago at Rignano..." (pp. 382-383)

Instantly noticeable appearance and a pivotal role in history: is there something here that the Patrol does not understand? A similarly mysterious figure is Veleda who has an innate gift of leadership while it seems that the time stream bears her along.

Even Now

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1146 A.D.

Wanda says:

"'We'll rest peaceful.'" (p. 392)

- then reflects:

"Will I, when Manse is working in an uncharted world a hundred years uptime?" (ibid.)

When Manse is a hundred years later? Wanda is not resting in 1146 when Manse is working in 1245beta - or even if he was just in 1245 but I have to add the "beta" here although that is another issue.

However, time travelers would think like this. Wanda and (Manse) Everard have both left 1137, she to 1146, he to 1245beta, so she is going to think, "While I am in 1146, he is in 1245beta."

I used to object to just two words in the beautiful opening passage of the Epilogue to The Time Machine:

"One cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he swept back into the past, and fell among the blood-drinking, hairy savages of the Age of Unpolished Stone; into the abysses of the Cretaceous Sea; or among the grotesque saurians, the huge reptilian brutes of Jurassic times. He may even now - if I may use the phrase - be wandering on some plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline seas of the Triassic Age."

-HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973), EPILOGUE, p. 101.

I used to think, "No, you cannot use that phrase!" Now, I am less insistent - unless anyone is misled into thinking that an Oolitic reef or a Triassic sea can literally be "now." In that case, forget it.

Secondly, Wells makes us want a series about travel to all of these colorfully and exotically named periods and Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series is our nearest approach to this.

My advice to anyone reading time travel sf: first read The Time Machine, then keep it to hand for reference when reading Time Patrol etc.

Four Senses At Foggia

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1245 A.D.

Emperor Frederick's hawking party rides toward Foggia:

"At their backs the sun cast long yellow beams and blue shadows through air still warm, still full of earth odors. Ahead of them, gleamed the walls, turrets, towers, spires of the city; glass and gilt flung light at their eyes. Loud from yonder, faint from chapels strewn across the countryside, bells pealed for vespers." (p. 392)

To summarize:

yellow beams, blue shadows, gleaming city;

warm air;

earth odors;

pealing bells.

 

I read the passage confident that sound would be mentioned before this paragraph ended.

Frederick and his men disregard the call to prayer. The emperor says, "'...if time allows...,'" (p. 395) not "...if God allows." This fictionalized Fredrick represents the triumph of the state over the church, of actual temporal power over alleged eternal authority, and it is as if he intuits that time has been crucial to his ascendancy.

History Lesson V: The Crusades

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1146 A.D.

In 1099, the First Crusade massacred civilians in Jerusalem and founded:

the Kingdom of Jerusalem;

the County of Tripoli;

the Principality of Antioch;

the County of Eddesa.

The conquerors became acculturated.

In 1144, the Amir of Mosul captured Edessa and his son threatened Jerusalem whose king appealed for help, resulting in the proclamation of the Second Crusade by Pope Eugenius. At Easter in 1146, Louis VII vowed to lead an expedition. In autumn 1147, King Conrad of Germany marched south through Hungary. Disease and combat killed crusaders until "...the survivors slunk home." (p. 390) In 1187, Saladin captured Jerusalem.

 

There were seven Crusades to the Holy Land and several against European heretics or pagans. Crusaders had secular and spiritual privileges while Sicilians, Venetians, Genoese and Pisans profited from the traffic and Asian rats in European ships brought the Black Plague.

History Lesson IV And Alternative History Lesson II

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137 A.D.

Emperor Henry VI acquired Sicily by marriage;

in 1194, his army enforced this claim and his son, Frederick II, was born; 

in 1198, Innocent III became Pope;

Innocent proclaimed the Fourth Crusade, which captured Constantinople, and the Albigensian Crusade, which destroyed the Provencal culture, and contended with Frederick II, thus undermining Norman Sicilian society;

in 1216, Innocent III died, to be succeeded by Honorius III who approached a settlement with Frederick although this was breaking down when Honorius died in 1227;

Pope Gregory IX reigned from 1227 to 1241;

he regularized the Inquisition;

heretics were burned, Jews were massacred, expelled or ghettoized and peasants were suppressed;

in 1241, Celestine IV was elected but died before being consecrated;

the next Pope, Innocent IV, continued the church-state conflict with Frederick.

Instead, in the beta timeline, there is no Gregory, Celestine succeeds Honorius but is no match for Frederick who triumphs, making the following Pope his puppet. When Volstrup completes this account, the wind sobs. (p. 378)

(I move that that wind be told to remain silent or to leave the meeting!)

Two Time Journeys

Remaining stationary on the Earth's surface while experiencing time dilation, not instant transition, a man travels into the far future, sees all that there is to be seen and returns home. There are no further temporal journeys.

That paragraph summarizes both The Time Machine by HG Wells and "Flight to Forever" by Poul Anderson. This most Wellsian of Anderson's works contains some passages that are worthy of Wells.

The temporal vehicles in these two short narratives are the bicycle-like Time Machine and the large cylindrical time projector, respectively. Neither is a space-time vehicle although that is what the Time Traveler had originally envisaged. By contrast, the Time Lords and the Time Patrol have vehicles that move in space as well as in time.

The endings of these two works, like the comparable endings of Wells' The First Men In The Moon and "In the Abyss," explain why there are no further journeys. Fortunately, Anderson also wrote series about both space travel and time travel.

December Bleakness And Whooping Wind

 

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137 A.D.

Everard, Wanda and Volstrup are in an unaltered 1137 but with a beta alteration ahead of them. Their mood is:

"...as bleak as the December day outside." (p. 374)

The weather always obliges. I have found an image of Palermo with clouds instead of a blue sky.

When Volstrup agrees to answer Everard's questions, his reply is "...barely audible..." and:

"In the gloom his nutcracker face showed pale. Outside, wind whooped and a dash of rain blew from wolf-grey heaven." (p. 376)

The wind never lets up. A dash of rain could mean an approaching storm and a wolf-colored sky suggests a celestial menace.

Alternative History Lesson

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 18,244 B.C.

Everard and Denison summarize what they have learned about the history of the alpha timeline:

Roger II and his oldest son died at Rignano in 1137;

their successor could not cope;

Rainulf, allied to Pope Innocent II, took all their mainland possessions;

African conquests were lost;

anti-Pope Anacletus died;

Innocent reigned unopposed;

after Rainulf's death, "'...the Papacy became the real power in southern Italy...'" (p. 364) while retaining the papal states;

Innocent's aggressive papal successors acquired the rest of Italy and Sicily;

Frederick Barbarossa restabilized the Empire but was less successful against the Papacy;

so the Empire turned west;

the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople and imposed a Latin king;

by 1250, the Orthodox Church had been forcibly Romanized;

Barbarossa failed to conquer France but prevented its unification;

the English imposed an Anglo-French state which overshadowed Spain and Portugal;

civil wars wrecked the Empire because Frederick II was never born, his mother having been a posthumous daughter of Roger II;

Germany became de facto papal states;

"'...the Mongols penetrated far into Europe...'" (p. 366);

Germans colonized the wrecked eastern Europe after the Mongols withdrew;

Italy conquered the Balkans;

the French got control of the Anglo-French state;

the Church, suppressing all dissent, prevented the Renaissance, the Reformation and the scientific revolution;

Italian city-states picked clerical rulers;

"'...secular states decayed...'" (ibid.);

religious wars were schismatic, not doctrinal, and the Papacy prevailed;

the Pope became like a Caliph over European kings;

Europeans reached North America in the eighteenth century but their colonists were tightly controlled at the expense of enterprise or exploration;

printing, when invented, became a Church-state monopoly with a "'...death penalty for unlicensed possession of a press...'" (p. 363);

in 1980alpha, Mexicans and Peruvians were resisting conquest and Muslims were intervening;

in 1989alpha, the Russians were close to the Rhine and Muslims were penetrating the Alps;

Denison projects that Russians and Muslims would overrun Europe, then fight each other.

It sounds like one of the emulations in Genesis and I have suggested elsewhere on the blog that the Time Patrol timeline could be an emulation.

Holmes

I am trying to reread Poul Anderson, Stieg Larsson, John Grisham and Conan Doyle as well as to read something new. I have just purchased the Vintage Classics The Hound Of The Baskervilles, also including "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," with an Introduction by Ruth Rendell.

I wanted to make a point about "THE WORDS" but find that I have done so twice already. See:

 

Elementary..., 15 September 2013

Elementary..., 30 November 2013

 

For the relevance of Sherlock Holmes to Poul Anderson, see:

 

Literary References

Times Three

 

So I make no apology for mentioning Holmes. 

What To Do If You Are In A Divergent Timeline

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1989alpha A.D.

Wanda Tamberly has traveled from 18,244 BC to 1989alpha. AD. Hovering above an uncivilized North America with no response on her radio, she thinks for many pages that she has arrived in the wrong time, not in the wrong timeline. When she sees a small city with a massive cathedral in lower Manhattan and square-riggers in the harbor, she gets the message:

"The terrible thing has happened. Something has changed the past..." (p. 350)

(Of course, the proposition that something has changed the past contradicts the Patrollers' other proposition, which Wanda proceeds to repeat, that that past never was but we have been over this ground too often before.)

What Wanda should do is to head straight back to the lodge in 18,244 BC without delay. In one way, it does not matter whether she spends seconds or decades in the altered section of the divergent timeline as long as she does eventually escape back to a period before the alteration. However, the longer she stays in the alpha period, the greater the danger that something will happen to prevent her escape.

In fact, she stays around long enough to rescue Keith Denison which is a Good Thing.

Cosmology And SF II: Mirkheim Revisitied

 The scientific fact that stars synthesize heavier elements from hydrogen and helium is central to Poul Anderson's sf masterpiece, Mirkheim. 

In the 1960s, when the rival cosmological theories were Big Bang and steady state, it was thought that even stellar interiors were not hot enough to synthesize elements which could therefore have been generated only in the Big Bang. In order to defend their theory, steady state theorists sought and found confirmation that currently existing stars can and do synthesize heavier elements. Thus, a subsequently discredited theory was nevertheless useful.

In Anderson's World Without Stars, planets of extra-galactic stars have the lighter elements, therefore life and intelligence, but no iron, copper or uranium, therefore maybe millions of years of civilization before industrialization. Hugh Valland comments:

"'What'd they learn along the way?' Valland wondered. 'Yeah, I see why we've got to go there.'"

-Poul Anderson, World Without Stars (New York, 1966), III, p. 19.

 

This, again, is because elements are generated in stars which, between galaxies, are so far apart that "'...the supernova enrichment stopped early.'" (ibid.)

 

Finally, a steady state universe needed new hydrogen atoms coalescing and condensing into galaxies so the theorists thought that most matter in the universe is invisible which turns out to be the case although not in the way that they thought.

Cosmology And SF

See Significant Dates.

Verne and Wells began writing long before it was known that there were other galaxies, let alone that galaxies recede.

In the 1960s, when Poul Anderson wrote Tau Zero, there were two main rival theories:

Big Bang, either oscillating or expanding forever;

 

steady state, with "continuous creation" counteracting the effect of cosmic expansion and also with the possible addition of a theory of electron-proton imbalance that would counteract gravity and thus explain the cosmic expansion.

Now the consensus is Big Bang expanding indefinitely but with the addition of much previously unanticipated data. Continuous creation of hydrogen atoms does not sound so implausible when there is continuous creation and mutual annihilation of virtual particles.

Sf paralleled and reflected twentieth century cosmology. Poul Anderson contributed continually for over half a century.

Cosmic Oscillation

In Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever" (1950) and "To Outlive Eternity" (1967), the latter expanded as Tau Zero (1970), the universe oscillates.

In Rival Theories Of Cosmology (1960), cosmic oscillation was a possibility. I thought that it would contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics but apparently not necessarily. Now, however, it is thought that cosmic expansion is accelerating. More recent cosmology is incorporated in Anderson's Starfarers. Much has been learned since 1960. The steady state theory, also propounded in Rival Theories..., was very quickly disproved. There is progress, whether or not there is any final destination.

Different Kinds Of Reading

(Atticus Books, interior.)

Reading is a host of very different activities. As you know, I have developed a highly specific focus for rereading but this is because of blogging. Pre-Internet, I would have written articles, and maybe a book, on Poul Anderson's works but would have struggled to get them published and would hardly have gone into as much detail as on the blog. This is a new kind of (re)reading and writing experience and everyone does it their own way. Another blogger seems to read anything and everything as long as it is sf. I am just no longer interested in that. Maybe eventually everyone will just write their own blog and not look at anyone else's?

Other Reading Styles

(i) CS Lewis pointed out two differences between high- and low-brow reading. Low-browers not only read different kinds of books but also read them differently. Nothing is ever reread. A book taken from a shelf is immediately put back as soon as it is realized that, "I've read that one." Read books are discarded like empty cigarette packets.

 

(ii) I heard of someone who endlessly reread Pride And Prejudice. I though that that sounded very limited. However, P&P is an extremely rich text.

 

(iii) I do not share the common enthusiasm for endlessly rereading Tolkien.

(iv) In John Grisham's Camino novels:

bookseller Bruce Cable loves buying, selling and sometimes just owning rare first editions but likes reading new authors whom he knows and whose books he sells;

novelist Mercer Mann prefers living female writers.

We are just not doing the same kind of reading.

Regarding first editions, to switch to comics, I will never own Action Comics, No. 1, because:

 

I will never see it for sale;

if I did see it for sale, then I would not be able to afford it;

if I were able to afford it, then I would have other things to do with that amount of money.

 

If you want to read it, then you buy a later edition or a reprint. "First editions" have a value that is entirely disconnected from any pleasure in reading them.

Which Timeline Are We In?

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137 A.D., pp. 337-348.

This chapter is headed not 1137alpha but 1137. Everard attempts to redivert events from the alpha timeline to a restored Danellian timeline. He seems to have succeeded although we subsequently learn that, shortly afterwards, a beta timeline will be initiated. In any case, Everard has successfully "deleted" the alpha timeline and perhaps is now living in a restored Danellian timeline until such time as the beta timeline gets going.

However, when Everard has initiated and continues to exist in a timeline that is not alpha, should the other Time Patrol agents that have been working with him not be left behind in the alpha timeline?

Cosmos And Mind

Returning home by foot from Lancaster Town Center, I pass Atticus Books and see books displayed in its window. That is how I acquired Mind, Brains And Science by John Searle. Such books are relevant to discussions on this blog which is why I mention them here.

Today, I bought:

Rival Theories Of Cosmology (London, 1960) by H. Bondi, W.B. Bonnor, R.A. Lyttleton and G.J. Whitrow -

- which covers relativistic theories, the steady-state theory, the notion of an electric universe and a discussion of the rival theories.

We can imagine travelers from each of these universes meeting, and arguing about cosmology, in Poul Anderson's inter-cosmic inn, the Old Phoenix.

I also bought:

The Physical Basis Of Mind (Oxford, 1962), edited by Peter Laslett -

- which covers thought, the brain, the mind, calculation, consciousness, speech and the cerebral cortex.

This book may be relevant to any future discussions of AI, a recurrent issue in Anderson's works.

We are not dead yet.

Lorenzo

(Rignano.)

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1138alpha A.D.

I read somewhere that, in TV dramas like Star Trek, indoor sets like cabin doors and furniture are made a certain percentage smaller than normal to make the characters subliminally seem larger and more imposing. All sorts of cinematic tricks would be necessary to present Lorenzo de Conti, hero of the battle of Rignano, as Everard first sees him.

Lorenzo is vivid. Even seated, he blazes, then rises like a panther. His facial expressions change like sunlight flickering on water under a breeze. His countenance is classical. His eyes are big, golden and changeable. His face seems older than his age, "...yet also ageless." (p. 33) (Yes, he has a strange relationship to time.) He is taller than average and slim but with broad shoulders. Even indoors, he is dressed as if for action. His baritone rings. He is hospitable, his smile flashes and he has uncommonly good teeth.

Is anything lacking? Everard judges that Lorenzo is that "Dangerous combination..." (p. 334) of romantic dreamer and formidable warrior. Perhaps a more formidable opponent than Castelar or Varagan?

"I can almost see a nimbus of destiny around that head." (ibid.)

This reminds us of the sunlight making a halo around a captain's helmet earlier in The Shield Of Time. See 1985 AD.

Everard reflects that Lorenzo will have seized on the stories and ballads of the Carolingian myth. This in turn reminds us of Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions. Much significance is focused in Lorenzo.