Historians study what was. The Time Patrol guards it. With time travel, we would be able to find out what did happen but some people would want to change what happened or to conceal the historical truth if it did not accord with their beliefs.
"'Patrol units are concentrated on guarding Palestine. You can well imagine what emotions are engaged, through how many centuries. Fanatics or freebooters who want to change what took place in Jerusalem, researchers crowding in and multiplying the chances of a fatal blunder, and the situation itself, the near-infinity of causes radiating into that episode and effects radiating out from it....'"
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 467-640 AT 2, p. 492.
Everard refers to fanatics and freebooters - two kinds of time criminals - before he even mentions researchers. With the Patrol units, the researchers and others, how many time travelers are present in the first century and how can the Patrol prevent their mere presence from affecting what happens? The "episode" to which Everard refers is not the Crucifixion and Resurrection in about 33 A.D. but the Jewish War in 69-70. But the entire century is a single "situation." The bloody suppression of the Jewish uprising and the destruction of the Third Temple have enormous consequences:
"...for the future, Judaism, Christianity, the Empire, Europe, the world." (ibid.)
Judaism and Christianity are still being differentiated. Paul, who had allowed baptism without circumcision, had also been arrested while making an offering in the Temple.
The Patrol and its Specialists must know what did happen both then and earlier but Anderson's text is ambiguous. Koch and Farness are two Time Patrolmen.
"The habits of disguise took over. Koch crossed himself, again and again. Or maybe he was a sincere Catholic."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), 1137 A.D., p. 313.
- whereas Farness reflects:
"...how could I in honesty have argued for Christ?"
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Time Patrol, pp. 333-465 AT p. 404.
With time travel, we would be able to find out but here lies a paradox:
if there was no resurrection, then faith in the resurrection ceases;
if it becomes known that there was a resurrection, then it ceases to be a matter of faith.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think the best way to handle such a crucial nexus point as Judae/Palestine in this era would have been to interdict it to EVERYONE, except a very few, carefully selected Patrol researchers/agents, from 100 BC to AD 100. NO one, except those researchers, would be allowed to visit that era--and unauthorized time travelers would be sentenced to be banished to the exile planet.
And it wasn't just St. Paul who advocated not imposing circumcision and the kosher laws on non-Jewish converts to Christianity. St. Peter did the same, before Paul.
Sean
Probably only a set number of researches from the whole future are allowed, and they do exhaustive recordings -- eg., with a fog o nano-drones, undetectable to any contemporary but giving full-spectrum surveillance. Then the Patrol could control the distribution of the data without allowing others to crowd in and possibly foul things up.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Again, more ideas I like. A few, rigidly supervised research teams might be allowed into Judae/Palestine of this era, overseen by this cloud of nano-recording everything they did or others was seen doing. And I would still have the Patrol courts banishing to the exile planet all unauthorized time travelers to the period 100 BC to AD 100.
Btw, we never do see that exile planet, what it was like (aside from being terrestroid, obviously), or any of the time criminals resident there.
Sean
I think it's mentioned tha the Patrol keeps it deliberately secret to magnify its terrible reputation.
I suspect the place is just dull -- full of frustrated criminals kept at a low level of technology. I would expect the Patrol to give them some sort of lifelong contraceptive, too, so there's no innocent children born there.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Yet more fascinating ideas! Yes, as regards the low technology. And the criminals don't even have to all live at the "same" time. The Patrol could have "deposited" them all at the same location, but at different times. That is, Varagan would have been left at the exile planet at time A, and his "clone-mate" Raor, a thousand Earth years later or earlier than A. And so on for all other exiles.
Such exiles would be given the means to live reasonably comfortably, I assume, but nothing high tech.
Sean
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