"...we have no evidence of anybody trying to monkey with events." (p. 521)
The irony is that it is Everard's and Floris's investigation of past events that "monkeys with" them:
"'...what we've found is the irony that our investigation of a disturbance to the plenum is what brought it about. To be quite frank, that sort of nexus is by no means unprecedented.'" (15, p. 599)
But the nature of the disturbance is not what we expect from reading previous Time Patrol episodes. Sociologists studying Rome in the early second century find an altered text of Tacitus' Histories, Tacitus Two. That should mean that the sociologists are in the Tacitus Two timeline. But when they report uptime it is to the Tacitus One timeline. If they are still in the Tacitus One timeline, then how have they acquired a Tacitus Two manuscript? I can try to explain this but the attempted explanation cannot fit into the successive timelines theory.
14 comments:
Or the investigators experienced the Tacitus Two timeline, then went back to report -- pastward of the nexus point.
Their report then caused the investigation which caused the divergence, but the investigators then took counter-action which "undid" their own disturbance, by intervention at a later date.
But note that the "original" sequence of events -- in which the traders from Roman Gaul killed/abducted two young Germanics in the Baltic -- is not restored.
What they do is damp down the effects of Velada's continued existence, whereas in the "original" timeline, there was no Velada or the person of that name was someone completely different.
My God! The earliest version of this timeline, without any extratemporal intervention, would have been one in which Veleda was raped and killed and never became a prophetess.
I guess that however entertaining time travel stories might be, there doesn't seem to be a way to make them logically consistent.
Jim,
Yes, there is. Robert Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" "All You Zombies" and THE DOOR INTO SUMMER. Poul Anderson's THE CORRIDORS OF TIME, THERE WILL BE TIME and THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS. Harry Harrison's THE TECHNICOLOR TIME MACHINE. Tim Powers' THE ANUBIS GATES. Audrey Niffenegger's THE TIME TRAVELLER'S WIFE and hopefully the sequel she is writing.
All of these works describe circular causality in a single timeline with no causality violation ("changing the past").
Paul.
OK maybe you are right. Here is another one ;)
https://explosm.net/comics/new-years-2022#comic
Kaor, Paul!
I actually used to "know" Tim Powers somewhat, from sometimes talking to him in the old AOL Catholic chat room. A very nice man, and quite patient with my fanboy geek questions about SF and the science fiction writers Powers had known, including Poul Anderson!
Ad astra! Sean
My intuition is that if time travel is possible at all, then time is mutable. It would require some sort of "conscious" mechanism to prevent history changing -- divine intervention, if you will.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
The idea of mutable timelines being REAL is alarming!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We won't notice or be affected if our timeline ceases to exist from someone else's point of view. The cessation does not occur at any moment in our timeline.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul! I keep forgetting that. The use of "deletion" in the Time Patrol stories makes me think more of it being a SNUFFING out. Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
PA obviously did think of it as a snuffing out. A timeline is "deleted" from the point of view of someone who has travelled to a subsequent timeline.
Paul.
Testing. I think my comment disappeared. Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I am trying to get that straight in my head: that "deleted" universes are not snuffed our, they become INACCESSIBLE to time travelers from the Danellian universe.
Thanks for restoring my lost comments.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that what you do not fully grasp is that there are two temporal dimensions involved. A deleted timeline does not exist now in the current timeline. It exists/existed (a Temporal tense is needed) in the past of a second temporal dimension.
Paul.
Post a Comment