First, characters can travel from one time to another and that does happen once both in SM Stirling's To Turn the Tide and in its sequel, The Winds Of Fate: Americans from 2032 to 165 in the first book; then Chinese from 2032 to 165 in the second.
Secondly, characters from one time can spend a lot of time in another time. That is mainly what happens in both books.
Except of course that both sets of characters, the Americans and the Chinese, are, from the moment of their arrival, in a divergent timeline, therefore not in the past of their original timeline, therefore, in my opinion, not really in a different time. However, the object of the exercise is to find out what kinds of changes they can make and that is fascinating. Stirling is thorough about technological, economic and social changes. The Americans are helped both by good preparation and by good luck. (Favoured by Fortuna.)
When the two groups learn of each other's presence, they should be able to pool their resources and change the world even more quickly than they have been doing already. Except that the Chinese plan was that China would expand across the world, preventing the nuclear war from which they had fled by making the world a single state. And the Chinese leader, Colonel Liu, regards the Americans as an obstacle! In other words, he will reintroduce the kind of conflict that had led to nuclear war in the original timeline.
Can he be so short-sighted? Yes, with his upbringing and culture, he can. This is not an inevitable, but it is an all too plausible, outcome. What will happen next? We are in the hands of the author and of the gods.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Neither Artorius nor Col. Liu was being shortsighted, IMO. The former wanted Rome to eventually unify the world, while the latter wanted China to do that unifying. They could not pool their resources because they had opposing goals of who should rule. Conflict was inevitable. And I believe Artorius and the Roman Empire he was changing would be the better choice.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think so too.
A more sensible Chinese leader would have realized the need to promote civilization as such and to at least try to negotiate about the details of how this would be ruled in different places. Going straight into cold war mode having just escaped from a World War is a very tunnel vision approach!
Paul.
Artorius would have been ready to listen to that approach. OTOH, Colonel Liu is a secret police officer, and a fanatical nationalist, so...
Artorius is a nationalist too, though not a fanatical one. But his nation doesn't -exist- in the 2nd century CE. Neither does Liu's, but he's in denial about that.
Whenever we go, we will take our psychologies and politics with us.
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