Thursday 12 September 2019

A History Of The Patrol

The history of the Time Patrol ends when the last graduate from the Time Patrol Academy dies. This death must occur at some point along the timeline although not necessarily at or near the end of time. The histories of the Patrol and of the universe occupy the same span of time but not in the same order. The Patrol history comprises the interconnected careers of all its members. Thus, Manse Everard's Patrol career begins:

recruited in New York, 1954;
trained at the Academy in the Oligocene;
returned to 1955;
collects Whitcomb from London, 1947;
visits the London office of the Patrol, 1894;
first mission for the Patrol, 464 AD;
returns to 1894;
rescues Whitcomb from London, 1944;
returns to 1955;
Unattached training - back at the Academy?;
etc.

This long career and all other agents' careers combine to form the history of the Patrol and some of it does not occur in this timeline.

See The History Of The Time Patrol.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And what happens AFTER the Time Patrol and the Danellians themselves? Did human beings somehow change so drastically they could no longer truly be said to HAVE a history? To no longer have the kinds of problems and struggles which makes up so much of real history? Is such a thing even possible if they are to remain any kind of PEOPLE at all? In strict logic, as long as life, including physically incarnate intelligent beings of any kind lasted, wouldn't that mean history itself would continue to be made, even if not recorded? Last, if life survives till the ultimate heat death of the universe, history has to be continued being made, long after the Danellians themselves passed away.

We even get a glimpse of "post history" in Anderson's story "Reuqiem For A Universe," where a holothete, using fantastically computer programs, probed into the ultimate future of the universe and met a "flame" that was a being. A being whose distant ancestors were humans.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Time travel plots make your head hurt... 8-). Seriously, you have to be very, very careful. The people who did the Terminator moves -weren't- careful, so when I had to do some spin-off novels... oi veh!

The current Terminator movie is going to "deleter" everything past #2, which is I think a very smart thing to do.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I greatly enjoyed Anderson's Time Patrol stories. But, if push came to shove, I think I would have to pick his alternate universe stories over them. That is, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, and the two OPERATION books. And I would include your own alternate history books as well! Such as the BLACK CHAMBER series.

Sean