Keith Denison enters a divergent timeline in 1980alpha. He is immediately arrested and handed over to Archcardinal Albin. Wanda Tamberly enters that same divergent timeline in 1989alpha. She learns that a Time Patrolman has been held prisoner for several years and, scouting back in time, rescues him from 1984alpha.
Back in 18,244 BC, Denison says that Wanda:
"'...lopped five years off my sentence...'" (p. 362)
She did not. We must now differentiate between two divergent timelines.
The Alpha (1) Timeline
In 1980alpha (1), Denison arrived, was arrested and was handed over to Albin. In 1989alpha (1), Tamberly arrived and realized that someone (Denison) was being held prisoner. In many stages, she travelled from 1989alpha (1) to 25 March 1984alpha (1), 1337 hours, saw Albin and Denison and decided to rescue the latter then.
The Alpha (2) Timeline
On 25 March 1984alpha (2) at 1337 hours, Tamberly arrived and rescued Denison.
In the Alpha (1) timeline, Denison would have continued to live beyond the moment in 1989alpha (1) when Tamberly, having realized that a Time Patrolman was being held prisoner, set out to rescue him. In the Alpha (2) timeline, Albin, and everyone else in the world, would have continued to exist after Denison had been rescued.
The moment in 1989alpha (1) when Tamberly begins her pastward journey to find and rescue Denison should not be the concluding moment in the Alpha (1) timeline. The moment in 1984alpha (2) when Tamberly rescues Denison should not be the concluding moment in the Alpha (2) timeline. Both of these timelines, in their four dimensional entireties, will have been "deleted"/have ceased to exist from the point of view of Time Patrol agents later in this narrative but the deletion of an entire timeline is a different matter from a terminal moment within that timeline.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul! What bothers me is what to DO about the Denison who lived till the 1989 alphat timeline? After all, that Denison lived till then in that timeline. Trying to square that with the Denison Wanda rescued in the 1984 alpha timeline is TOUGH. Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Denison would just live until he died in the Alpha (1) timeline. Time Patrol temporal changes leave all sorts of unacknowledged dangling threads of which this would be one.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul! I think I can see that. LOTS of dangling loose ends in the Time Patrol universe/s. Ad astra! Sean
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