Time Criminals

The first time criminal encountered by Manse Everard is Rozher Schtein/Stane from 2987. A complete contrast to the Neldorians, Stane is a lone operator aiming at a peaceful united world, not at personal luxurious living. However, he commits murder to acquire his time machine and this makes him a criminal even if he had not then used the machine to break Time Patrol laws. The Patrol does not investigate murders except when there is a time travel connection.

In terms of criminals, The Guardians Of Time progressed from the lone foiled Stane to two initially successful Neldorians. Like Moriarty, the Neldorians achieved almost the status of continuing villains despite appearing only once! We learn that they had already given the Patrol a lot of trouble just as we realize that Moriarty must have been behind a lot of what had gone before - certainly the Red Headed League, as confirmed by two dramatizations.

However, when Poul Anderson continued the series, it did not comprise endless Patrol-Neldorian fights. The majority of the stories address other aspects of time travel paradoxes and, when the idea of a collective continuing villain was revived, the Exaltationists were much more sophisticated and ingenious than any Neldorians. In fact, when there is a threat to destroy Tyre, Everard deduces that this attempted blackmail is not the work of Neldorians:

"'This operation is too sophisticated. The enemy's got to have spent a lot of lifespan, getting to know the Phoenician milieu well and establishing that it is in fact a nexus.
"'The organizing brain must be of genius level.'" ("Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" IN Time Patrol, p. 259)

Thus, the time traveling equivalent of Moriarty? The Exaltationists skilfully cover their tracks, making it almost impossible to detect their preparatory work in the past, whereas the two Neldorians who helped, then killed, Hannibal seem to have taken no precautions against Patrol counter-intervention. When planning to prevent their causality violation at the Battle of Ticinus, Everard does say:

"'...we'll want to surround the battlefield unobtrusively, but I don't think we can get away with more than two agents actually on the scene. The baddies are going to be alert, you know, looking for counterinterference.'" ("Delenda Est" IN Time Patrol, p. 222)

Despite this, the Neldorians openly ride to battle with futuristic armor and weapons. When the Exaltationists, in what seemed to be a similar situation, planned to kill a leader and his son on a battlefield, one of them said:

"'If necessary, energy weapons. I hope, though, that Antiochus will dispose of his rivals in a normal way...We do not want too sorcerous a reputation.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 89)

Another responds:

"'That would attract the Time Patrol...'" (ibid.)