We are familiar with the idea that stories exist in different versions. We have discussed this before and need not give examples. Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series suggests that history might be like that. Manse Everard has experienced a timeline in which Keith Denison of the Time Patrol played the role of Cyrus the Great and another in which the man born as Cyrus played that role. The Patrol has records which state that Charles Whitcomb lived as a bachelor and was killed on active duty with the Patrol. In
The Shield Of Time,
PART FIVE, Guion recounts some minor discrepancies between actual events and the ways that they are recorded. The discrepancies indicate instability in certain sections of history. One of the discrepancies is around the time of the Second Punic War when there was a temporal alteration although how could these phenomena be connected?
Can we see clues of alterations in the series itself?
When was time travel discovered and the Patrol founded?
Is Temporal spoken only by the Time Patrol or by other time travellers?
How long a period of history does the Patrol guard?
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some revisions were done for straightforward reasons, to make an older text of a story fit better into a series.
Possible inconsistencies in Time Patrol stories could be rationalized as clues indicating temporal alterations.
"Time Patrol" tells us when time traveling was invented and the Patrol founded: in AD 19352.
I assume Temporal was used by both legal and illegal time travelers originating from after AD 19352, when the Patrol operated openly.
One million years is the figure we see in the stories about the length of history guarded by the Patrol. But I suspect it was much longer than that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there is an indication that the Exaltationists were later than 19352 but earlier than the discovery of time travel. And the figure of half a million years is cited in "Star of the Sea."
And Temporal is described as a language used only by the Patrol but later as a language used by other time travellers.
(Just back from London. Too tired to look it all up now.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
What I recall is that the Exaltationists rebelled against a civilization older to them than the Old Stone Age is to us. That might be the "indication" you had in mind.
But, that said, "Time Patrol" EXPLICITLY gives AD 19352 as the date for the invention of time traveling, so I think we are compelled to go with that year.
I don't really see how Temporal could be restricted only to official members of the Patrol once it began operating openly, in public.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot to add we are repeatedly told in the stories the Patrol guards at least a million years of history. So, I have to consider the "half million" years mentioned in "Star of the Sea" an oversight by the character who said that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"The thirty-first millennium was....far earlier than the development of the first time machines...."
-TIME PATROL, p. 660.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I know, but we still have to pick a date, and I favor the one given in "Time Patrol," because an exact year, AD 19352, was given, in the very FIRST of the Patrol stories.
Strictly speaking, of course, this was an inconsistency which any writer, including one as careful as Poul Anderson, could make.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
This is most probably a mistake by PA but my point was that it COULD be cited as evidence of a temporal alteration.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And the kind of argument fan boys will make about the works of their favorite writers!
Ad astra! Sean
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