There are perhaps two remaining points of time travel logic. The first was mainly addressed in An Uncertainty In The Continuum, where I wrote:
"It is impossible that the Danellians, having issued their orders to Sandoval, will then cease to exist in the event that Sandoval failed in 1280!"
There are really two points here. First, and in general, nothing that either happens or fails to happen in 1280 can cause anyone who does exist over a million years later to cease to exist over a million years later. Secondly, and more specifically, the Danellians exist when they do precisely because, at least in this timeline, Sandoval did not fail in 1280.
If, for any reason, the Danellians were to decide against sending a message capsule containing their orders to Sandoval, then this would prevent neither the arrival of the capsule (it has already arrived) nor Sandoval's and Everard's mission to 1280 (it has already succeeded) but it would cause a discrepancy (the arrival of a capsule that had not been sent) of the kind that the Danellians dislike:
"...even the smallest paradox is a dangerous weakness in the space-time fabric..."
-"Time Patrol" IN Time Patrol, pp. 1-53 AT 6, p. 52.
Secondly, when Everard is escaping from the Mongol camp, he sees lightning and hears thunder which he interprets as evidence that his slightly older self has returned in space-time to rescue Sandoval. Patrol doctrine would disapprove of Everard rescuing his younger self but not of him rescuing a colleague. But why should it disapprove of him rescuing his younger self if he did do that in this case? Apparently, if Everard had failed on this mission, then the Patrol would not have existed and therefore would not have been able either to approve or to disapprove.
At one stage:
"Everard ducked. An arrow buzzed where he had been." (p. 169)
Does the whole future of the universe depend on Everard ducking fast enough?
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Ducking that arrow could indeed have been crucial! Think of one of my favorite subject of "what ifs" from history, the Sarajevo Assassination. ANY number of small, trivial things could have prevented Francis Ferdinand from meeting his fate (and their baleful consequences) that fatal day of June 28, 1914.
Ad astra! Sean
And Adolf Hitler spent four years on the Western Front, was wounded four times, and was in a hospital recovering from gas exposure in November 1918.
Think of the number of crippling or mortal wounds he escaped!
At one point, he and three other runners were waiting outside the entrance to a battalion HQ bunker. Adolf got a message and set out to deliver it; four minutes later a shell killed the other three men.
What are the odds?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, Adolf Hitler truly BEAT the odds, considering the fearsome risks he voluntarily accepted at the Front. Some OTHER runner could have been given that message to deliver, and Hitler would have died instead. What might have that meant to German and world history?
Some might suspect Satan was working overtime to make sure Adolf survived WW I!
Ad astra! Sean
Our WWII is unlikely without Hitler. Some sort of right-wing dictatorship, with trappings from Italian Fascism, is quite likely but not a Third Reich. And it required very unusual political circumstances for Hitler to gain such an ascendancy that he was able to start WWII.
Nearly everybody in Germany wanted to overthrow the Versailles Treaty, but most of the political, military and economic elite groups were convinced Germany would be beaten again if it ended up fighting the same coalition that had won in 1918 -- and they were, after all, right.
Hitler's string of foreign-policy successes and the flourishing of the German economy in the world of the Depression were required to give him sufficient ascendancy to override them.
The politics of the 30's is an illustration of the dangers of empathy, too. A lot of people sympathized with Germany's complaints about the Versailles treaty.
Apart from the fact that it was actually rather moderate, a hard-done-by crocodile is still a goddamned crocodile.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, absent Hitler, some kind of dictatorship copying some of Mussolini's trappings, might have come to power in Germany. But NOTHING like the National Socialist Third Reich.
I also recall reading of how the German General Staff had advised Hitler that Germany would not be truly ready for war until 1943. What might have happened if Hitler listened to the GS and postponed a war after Munich?
Amusing metaphor: "...a hard-done by crocodile"!
Ad astra! Sean
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