Second Theory
Mutable Timeline/Successive Timelines (two ways of saying the same thing, I think)
It is obvious - we might think! - that the relationship between timelines 1 and 2 is a relationship of before and after. Timeline 2 - which, for the sake of argument, we might imagine that we are in - exists after timeline 1 which therefore existed before timeline 2. We are now using temporal language: the prepositions, "before" and "after," and the past tense of "exist." However, this does not mean that the events of timeline 1 occurred long ago in the past of timeline 2. That would make these two sequences of events parts of a single timeline.
In timeline 1, there is a Holocaust and, later, the Danellians who found the Time Patrol. In timeline 2, there is no Holocaust and, because history has gone so differently in this timeline, no later Danellians. Each timeline is a complete four-dimensional continuum from the beginning to the end of the universe.
They are like two versions of a story, each with its own beginning, middle and end. In the example that we are considering, the stories diverge at some point in the 1939-1945 period and therefore have very different conclusions.
If timeline 2 is said to succeed, or to come after, timeline1, then this succession or coming after occurs in a second temporal dimension which is at right angles to the temporal dimensions of timelines 1 and 2 just as the three dimensions of space are at right angles to each other.
Every position in space exists at every moment of the first temporal dimension. Every event in timeline 1 exists in a single moment in the second temporal dimension. Many people live their entire lives in timeline 1 but do not exist in timeline 2 but there is no moment in either timeline when they first exist, then cease to exist. They are unaware of and unaffected by any historical changes made by time travellers.
We can say either that there is a single timeline which changes from one state to another or that there are different timelines which either precede or succeed each other. I think that this difference is terminological: either one mutable timeline or many successive timelines.
2 comments:
"the stories diverge at some point in the 1939-1945 period"
It is a bit more than a quibble to say the divergence would almost certainly occur before 1939. Eg: a bullet goes through Hitler's brain during the Beerhall putsch. Once Hitler became dictator of Germany what would stop the Holocaust?
Jim,
I agree. I wanted to get the dates reasonably accurate but was not sure of details.
Paul.
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