See here. I argued that, if the Exaltationists succeeded in changing history in 209 BC and if all Patrol agents returning uptime from pre-209 BC entered the future of the Time Patrol timeline, then there would be no one to detect, or to take any action against, the altered timeline. However, I forgot that there were other time travelers, including Patrol agents, on Earth in 209 BC. They at least would survive into the altered timeline. The Patrol agents would then travel pastwards, e.g., to the Academy in the Oligocene or to the Pyrenees Lodge in the Pleistocene, to enlist help. The agents whom they contacted would then travel futurewards with them into the altered timeline and would attempt to rectify it.
In Part Six of The Shield Of Time, "Amazement of the World," Keith Denison, departing 1765 BC, enters the alpha timeline, Wanda Tamberly, departing 18,244 BC, enters the alpha timeline and Emil Volstrup, based in 1137 AD, survives into the alpha timeline because the alpha divergence occurs in that year.
It seems to be impossible to come to the end of the complexities of "time traveling," as Wells called it. Wells' outer narrator hinted at "...curious possibilities of anachronism and of utter confusion..." but did not know the half of it. (Lapsing into unscholarly habits, I do not go upstairs to get The Time Machine to check that reference but am confident that it is substantially accurate. The weather is good here and we will drive to Morecambe for the Vintage Festival. Anachronisms, indeed.)
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
You argued, convincingly, that "deleted" timelines did not simply cease to exist when the timeline leading to the Danellians was restored by Patrol agents. Rather, they simply became inaccessible to the Danellians and the Time Patrol. Therefore, any Patrol officers stranded in such timelines lived on in those now alternate universes. What puzzles me is how Poul Anderson could have missed the line of thought you developed. It seems so obvious once you pointed it out!
I do suggest that, for all practical purposes, timelines which could no longer be accessed by the Danellians/Patrol no longer existed for THEM. So, in that sense they indeed became non existent.
Sean
Sean,
Yes and, if a Danellian wants to be free to travel pastwards and futurewards along his own original timeline and always to arrive back in the Danellian Era from which he had departed, then he does need to ensure that there are no causality violations or temporal fluctuations.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And hence the Danellians HAD to institute the Time Patrol, for their own self preservation.
Sean
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