Rereading "Delenda Est," we re-encounter the time travel paradoxes and I must try not to belabor familiar points.
Everard tells Deirdre Mac Morn that he does not know whether he can help her nation-state and thinks to himself:
"Because after all, my job is to condemn you and your entire world to death." (p. 198)
Of course, Everard is thinking loosely. Nevertheless, precision is necessary. It is one thing to live and to be condemned to death. It is a completely different thing to be prevented from living. A life-long celibate has not "condemned to death" all the children that he might have had. Everard plans not to kill Deirdre and her people but to travel into the past and to prevent the events that had brought them into existence. However, Everard is now speaking to her. There is (i) a sequence of events in which she exists. Everard hopes to bring about (ii) a sequence of events in which she does not exist. If Everard succeeds, then (ii) will succeed (i). There will be a temporal relationship of before and after between (i) and (ii). Clearly, the transition from (i) to (ii) does not occur at any moment in Deirdre's lifetime. She has lived until this moment of conversation with Everard and we see her continue to live after it. From another perspective, her world has existed and will cease to exist but, from her perspective, she lives.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Good points. And I don't mind you belaboring familiar ideas!
If we accept that some universes can be "deleted", prevented from existing, it still must have FELT like killing to Everard, who had to meet some of those people from the time line he was going to prevent from ever existing.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment