"He had accepted the fact of time travel more readily than most. His mind was supple and, after all, he was an archaeologist."
-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, The Time Patrol (New York, 1991), pp. 34-68 AT p. 37.
Pummairam:
"'...hardly anybody in this age of the world is able to imagine travel through time and the marvels of tomorrow. It is no use to tell them, they merely get bewildered and frightened... Maybe I am different because I was always on my own, never cast into a mold and let harden... Then I praise the gods, or whatever they were, that kicked me into such a life.'"
-Anderson, "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" IN The Time Patrol, pp. 141-205 AT p. 203.
Kashtiliash, King of Babylon:
"He had grasped whence the Nantukhtar really came, their island adrift on the oceans of eternity. Few others in this age could, he thought, even shrewd men, learned man. The Nantukhtar hadn't made any particular secret of it, but most dismissed the thought with a shudder as merely more of the eldritch air of magic that surrounded the strangers.
"But I am lucky in that my mind is supple. Perhaps because I am young yet. It is a mighty thing, a fate laid on us all by the great Gods..."
-SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity (New York, 2000), Chapter Eight, p. 134.
Denison's mind is supple and he is an archaeologist;
Pum is young, was never cast into a mold and he praises the gods;
Kashtiliash's mind is supple, perhaps because he is young, and he invokes the Gods.
The cases are similar.
Would some people simply be unable to understand any attempt to explain time travel?
"'As for the Babylonians, time travel just wasn't in their world-picture. We had to give them a battle-of-the-gods routine.'"
-Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN The Time Patrol, pp. 1-33 AT p. 9.
However, Kastiliash is a Babylonian with a young and supple mind.
14 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
How would I have reacted to the idea of time travel if I had lived, say, 500 years ago? With the same bewilderment as the Tyrians and Babylonians of Pummairam and King Kashtiliash's times? Almost certainly yes. And, I agree, the suppleness of mind shown by Pum and King Kashtiliash was why they were able to grasp the concept. And being young also helped, I'm sure--because their minds had not yet stiffened as time passed.
I see something very similar in real life today, in the puzzlement far too many show at the very idea of space exploration, of discovering and settling other worlds, both in and out of the Solar System. If I'm NOT puzzled or even hostile to the idea of a real space program the colonizing of other worlds, I would put that down to discovering science fiction when still very young. And most esp., of course, to discovering the works of Poul Anderson!
Sean
Paul and Sean:
In the late Sixties, *The Emerald Elephant Gambit* by Larry Maddock had a scene in which a high priest of Mohenjo-Daro, 15th Century B.C., was reduced to a gibbering wreck by evidence of time travel. But the agents from the future had nonhuman symbionts, who were able to invade the priest's brain, reshape his mental patterns, and give him a far-future education — in less than an hour — transforming him into the equivalent of a fellow-agent. (That struck me, even at the time, as rather a cheap way of getting around the problem. Still, really, what else would've worked?)
That book also considered the unpleasantness of time agents being required to preserve history's BAD parts, in this case a savage conquest of the Indus Valley civilization by the barbaric Aryans. Evil time travelers were endangering the time-line in order to loot Mohenjo-Daro themselves, so the heroes had to stop THEM but let the Aryans have their bloodstained way....
The short series *Emerald Elephant* was part of had many flaws, but a few bits I'm glad to have read as well.
Kaor, DAVID!
Alas, I've never even heard of Larry Maddock till I read your comments. And, like you, I'm not satisfied with HOW the high priest was "converted," it seems far too strained and "cheap," as you put it. A mere deus ex machina to get around a problem. I far prefer how Poul Anderson and S.M. Stirling handled it, that time traveling would be far too difficult a concept for most people of ancient times to grasp.
At least Maddock was more convincing about the problem of preserving time lines, according to your second paragraph. Reminds me of how Anderson's Time Patrol had to resign themselves to accepting many bad things in history if that was what it took to preserve the time line leading to the Danellians.
I do wonder if Larry Maddock was inspired by Anderson's Time Patrol to try his own hand at writing time traveling stories revolving around a temporal police force.
Sean
Sean:
I don't know if PA inspired Mr. Maddock. They did evidently have at least one taste in common; in one book, Maddock's hero used the alias "Sebastian Necropolis." A necropolis is of course a cemetery or group of tombs — and Simon Templar, The Saint, frequently went by the name "Sebastian Tombs." AND David Falkayn used "Sebastian Tombs" in "A Sun Invisible."
A quirk about the time-travel technique in the Maddock series was that assisting your past self was IMPOSSIBLE. If there were two of the same person — or ANY object — in the same instant of time, they would BOTH instantaneously cease to exist. No explosion, I gather; just GONE. So much for some of the clever maneuvers in the Time Patrol series....
Kaor, DAVID!
Commenting on your first paragraph. Yes, I remember how PA used "Sebastian Tombs" in one of his stories. And that was not the only time he used a literary allusion as a pseudonym for one of his characters. In A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS we see Dominic Flandry calling himself "Ahab Whaling" in Chapter VII. That reminded of Herman Melville's novel MOBY DICK and the mad Captain Ahab.
I don't know if I can agree with Maddock's technique, as described in your second pagargraph. It does not seem logically impossible, granted time traveling, for an older ME to exist in the same time period as the younger ME. That is what we see in THERE WILL BE TIME.
Sean
Sean:
Well, in Maddock's concept, the laws of physics said NO, no matter what logic said. It forced his characters to come up with cleverness that DIDN'T involve being in two places at the same time.
Kaor, DAVID!
I admit I'm finding this bafflingly hard to make sense of. After all, I thought Poul Anderson made sense in THERE WILL BE TIME when he had the older Havig traveling back in time to mentor the younger Havig. Same person, but they both came from different times when meeting.
But I should probably read Maddock's work!
Sean
Both,
Some time travel fiction contains arbitrary invented rules like that. I prefer works that take the basic premise of time travel and reason logically from that alone.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And do you think Poul Anderson succeeded in doing that in THERE WILL BE TIME? Also, that book uses the premised that the past is immutable, that it can't be changed.
Sean
Sean,
THERE WILL BE TIME is logically consistent and very clever. However, if a large team of time travelers consistently tried to "change the past" and, of necessity, failed, then the laws of statistics would have to change to allow for an improbable number of accidents to thwart their attempts.
Paul.
Sean:
As far as "I should probably read Maddock's work" is concerned, I suspect you'd find it disappointing. It's definitely not on PA's level; "many flaws," as I said. It's just that there were also a few good parts.
A touch of humor in the series' first book was a scene with the hero surrounded by the bad guys. A scatterbrained young woman who mistakenly thinks she's his romantic interest makes a VERY silly remark about the Cavalry coming to the rescue. And then the INDIANS (Apaches) come to the rescue. They'd figured out that the hero WAS a good guy, and the bad guys had been giving them trouble already anyway....
Kaor, Paul!
Hmmm, that is a weakness in THERE WILL BE TIME. Wish I had thought of it! And I wonder if anyone ever pointed out to PA the difficulty posed by a large number of attempts at changing the past ALWAYS being thwarted by accidents.
Sean
Kaor, DAVID!
Your first paragraph: Darn! That is rather discouraging. Makes me think Maddock's work here was no better than Asimov's THE END OF ETERNITY.
Second paragraph: Ha! That reminded me of the bit in Stirling's CONQUISTADOR of how the good guys were fleeing from Indians they thought were after their scalps (but was actually trying to rescue them!).
Sean
Sean,
The answer is that no group of time travelers does make a determined effort to change the past. The Eyrie is too unscientific to try any experiments and Havig's group is too responsible to meddle with events. Time travelers are few in numbers in any case.
Paul.
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