Friday 18 September 2020

Unchartable Chaos

(We ate at Owd Nell's.)

In our uni-dimensional timeline, we know that something will happen tomorrow. We just don't know what. In their mutable timeline, Time Patrol members know what will happen tomorrow but also know that any of them might have the experience of living into tomorrow yet finding that something different is happening. How can they prepare for that?

In The Shield Of Time, PART FIVE, some desperate provision is being made. In PART SIX, Emil Volstrup experiences this unchartable chaos. In 1137alpha, he is told that King Roger has been killed at the battle of Rignano even though he himself has traveled to the twelfth century from a future in which it is accurately recorded that Roger survived that battle and died elsewhere later.

Poul Anderson readers are endlessly baffled and intrigued by this conundrum which I will have to re-address tomorrow, assuming that I still can.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Wasn't this the same Emil who made a dangerous mistake when talking about Denmark in the alternate Frederick II timeline? In OUR timeline Denmark was wracked by strife between royal brothers disputing the succession. BUT, terrified by the powerful and united Empire of the alternate Frederick II, the same royal brothers of that timeline understood the wisdom of not quarreling with each other and keeping Denmark united as well.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Think so. More later.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Seems I might have been right.

Ad astra! Sean