"'An incipient causal loop is always dangerous...It can set up a resonance, and the changes of history that that produces can multiply catastrophically. The single way to make it safe is to close it. When the Worm Ouroboros is biting his own tail, he can't devour anything else.'"
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 449.
"An incipient causal loop..." must mean a potential causal circle that needs action by the Time Patrol to complete it but what is a resonance? Carl Farness visiting the fourth century Goths has been mistaken by them for Odin. Their literature relates that Odin appeared in a battle and betrayed his followers. In the twentieth century, Everard tells Carl that he must travel back once more to enact that betrayal.
If Carl refuses, then history cannot and will not retroactively change because of his refusal. He and Everard are conversing in a timeline where the betrayal did happen and was recorded in literature. However, the first consequence of his refusal would be that the Carl who did perform the betrayal will return to the twentieth century. To prevent that duplication of himself, the Carl who is talking to Everard must travel back to the fourth century in order to be the Carl who appeared and betrayed his followers.
The second consequence might be that anyone returning from a period earlier than the fourth century could arrive in an altered timeline where the betrayal had not happened. Is this potential double consequence what is meant by "a resonance"?
12 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I've been reading your comments about the Time Patrol stories with great admiration. You have paid much more attention to the nuances and implications of how Poul Anderson wrote those tales than most readers, including myself, would have done.
Have you ever thought of editing and collecting your notes and comments about the Time Patrol into a unified whole, a book? By now, you must have written enough about the Patrol that it would be a book in length! I do realize the number of readers who might or would be interested is too likely to be small.
Sean
Sean,
Thank you. I am still down on the idea of all the extra work involved in planning and drafting a book and trying to get a publisher interested in it - unless, of course, this blog got a publisher interested!
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
True, a publisher would first need to become interested and willing to take a chance with a book likely to appeal to only a few readers. My thought was such a book would also draw together in one source your commentary on the Time Patrol stories.
Sean
Sean,
It is a good idea. I would like to raise the level of thinking about time travel so that we don't continue to have rubbish published, like the recent X-MEN film, but it seems to be a lost cause.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I would like to see some GOOD science fictional TV shows or movies! Your comment about the X-MEN film reminded me of our discussion on how a film based on Dominic Flandry's elimination of a Merseian cell on Nyanza might be a good start for a film maker to try. At least partly because it would need fairly minimal special effects and could be made at a location like the Bahamas.
Sean
When I read "Game of Glory" one thing that amused (?) me was that on Nyanza the majority of the population was dark skinned & the pale skinned minority were 2nd class citizens. Even today that sort of social commentary might be a hard sell for a movie.
It might help make it very popular in some places.
Kaor, Jim!
What * I * took from that story was how anyone can have idiotic prejudices. And I don't think a movie of the kind you speculated about would be that hard to "sell" with "woke," Politically Correct types. What would be HARDER to sell with woke types is John Umbolu's disdain for such prejudices.
I would far prefer getting some GOOD filmed versions of the stories about Dominic Flandry.
Ad astra! Sean
"idiotic prejudices"
Exactly. Poul reversed the idiotic prejudices of part of the society he lived in, to help show how idiotic they were. There are still people in that society who retain those prejudices. Yes, the 'woke' probably do at least as much harm as good in the way they try to fight those prejudices.
Kaor, Jim!
I have nothing but contempt for the woke, Politically Correct types! Idiots who bray we should agree to nonsense like Bruce Jenner being now a woman. (Snorts!)
And I should have quoted what Dominic Flandry said to Derek Umbolu, who had some prejudices of his own, in "The Game of Glory," Section VII: "I'd keep an eye on your father, though. I've seen these dirty little fanaticisms before. Among the first people to be butchered are the native-born who keep enough native sense and honor to treat the Imperial like a fellow-being. You see, such people are too likely to understand that the revolution is really organized by some rival imperialism, and that you can't win a war where your own home is the battleground."
Quoting this reminded me of the all too successful, real world example of how Germany injected Lenin like a plague bacillus into Russia in 1917, and subsidized that bad man and his Bolsheviks in their efforts at seizing power. To weaken and drive Russia out of the war. And Lenin indeed began butchering on a massive scale after grabbing power!
Ad astra! Sean
I have been following the comments of some 'Gender Critical' Feminists or what the Trans Activists call TERFs (Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists). Eg: This blog https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/
They document the misogyny of much of Trans ideology. Being 'Gender Critical' they denounce the stereotypes of some activities are for men & some are for women, & see part of what is wrong with 'trans' is they think someone with a penis who like doing 'feminine' things must be a woman & someone with a vagina who likes doing 'masculine' things must be a man.
For the most part I think the TERFs have it right.
On this blog, we go wherever the discussion takes us and it takes us everywhere!
Kaor, Jim!
And I have nothing but CONTEMPT for the trans nonsense. A man or a woman cannot change his or her sex. That so called "Lia" Thomas is not a woman. PERIOD!!!
Ad astra! Sean
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