POVs In THE SHIELD...

In Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time, PARTs ONE, THREE and FIVE are short introductions or interludes. Everard is the viewpoint character of ONE and FIVE; Wanda of THREE.

PART TWO is about Everard in Bactra in 209 BC but each chapter about him there/then is preceded by a chapter about an "earlier" event elsewhere/when. Two such chapters recount conversations between Everard and Wanda, in 1987 AD and 1988 AD, respectively. When Wanda telephones to change a dinner date, Everard time travels to the changed date.

PART FOUR is about Wanda in Beringia in 13,212 BC. Two chapters recount conversations with Everard in 1990. The first is narrated from Everard's pov. The second, which is the concluding chapter of PART FOUR, seems to be entirely objective narration unless it is slightly Wanda's pov. She is awed, she wonders and she hugs herself as if in a glacier wind. (The wind, yet again.)

PART SIX is equally about both characters with strong input from Keith Denison whom we saw before in "Brave To Be A King."

This second post of today might also be the last. I am feeling unaccountably tired and am also drawn back to other reading - which often has resonances. Earlier, I set off to walk across town to meditate in a side chapel of the Cathedral but was diverted to a massive and impressive exhibition on Islam in the Town Hall. Lancaster manifests its diversity yet again. Other members of my family were at the ballet at the Grand Theatre. It's all happening and all that.

Precise Deployment

Poul Anderson, 209 B. C. IN Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), pp. 102-118.

Contrast the Time Traveller's mad flinging of himself "'...into futurity.'" with Manse Everard's precise deployment of timecycles while apprehending the last Exaltationists in 209 BC.

At a temple of Poseidon outside the city of Bactra, a priest, a devotee and a pilgrim are two Exaltationists and Everard in disguise. One Exaltationist, Draganizu, wears a stolen Time Patrol communicator disguised as a medallion. Despite several Syrian soldiers guarding the Exaltationists, Everard attacks and kills Draganizu, disables his companion, snatches and activates the medallion and says in Temporal:

"'Unattached Everard. Come immediately. Combat.'" (p. 113)

Time Patrol agents on five timecycles arrive and stun the soldiers. Another two Exaltationists in the city have a detector that will inform them of the arrival of timecycles. Everard, taking charge of one timecycle, leads two others in flying above the city. Everard and Imre Ruszek, on their single timecycle, appear in the Exaltationists' dwelling one minute before the detector sounds its alarm. They arrive in front of a locked door previously noticed by Everard, thus blocking access to the Exaltationists' timecycles. One Exaltationist runs around a corner and is shot dead by Ruszek. The other surrenders.

Everything depends on the five timecycles arriving when Everard calls them, then Everard and Ruszek arriving before the alarm sounds, which means that Everard and Ruszek arrive in the Exaltationists' house one minute before the five timecycles arrive at the temple.

Teaching

Poul Anderson, 209 B. C. IN Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991) AT pp. 47-65. 

In 209 BC, Buddhism still flourishes in India. There are converts and visiting co-religionists in Bactra. We are told that:

"At last the teaching of Gautama Buddha would ebb from his native India until there it was all but forgotten." (p. 47)

While Buddhism receded in India, the Buddha was repackaged as an avatar of Vishnu, the most comprehensive monotheist deity. Vaishnavism and Buddhism are a personalist and an impersonalist religion, respectively. If I ever came to be persuaded of a personal deity, then I would be drawn towards the former. But my present understanding is that the Teacher is all reality, the Teaching is all experience and the Community is all beings.

Poul Anderson treats religious traditions so sympathetically that we can (sometimes) be drawn into saying what we think about them.

Homage...

Change And Chance

Poul Anderson, 209 B. C. IN Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991) AT pp. 17-25.

This is the first of five chapters headed 209 B. C. in PART TWO of Volume II of the complete Time Patrol collection.

Physically, all that happens in this chapter is that Hipponicus' caravan, including the guard Meander (Manse Everard), approaches and enters Bactra. But high technology is at work. An unmanned spacecraft had tracked the caravan, revealing that it would suit Everard's purposes to join it. So Meander was with the caravan when it was tracked. 

We read the usual Andersonian details about the countryside, then the city. Everard recalls Afghanistan, 1970, and reflects:

"A lot of change and chance would blow from the steppes in the millennia to come. Too damn much." (p. 22)

Too much? But we would not want the region or the world to remain as it was in 209 BC? "Change and chance" is an evocative phrase encapsulating much that is to be found in Poul Anderson's historical fiction, historical science fiction, time travel fiction and future histories. That phrase says it all. The particular works fill in the details.

Change and chance... 

Speculative History

The Shield of Time.

On the basis of known history, Poul Anderson's characters speculate. If Antiochus had captured Bactra early in his campaign, then:

he would have had the resources to succeed in India;

he would have been strengthened against Egypt and Rome;

he might have retained earlier gains and helped Carthage to survive the Third Punic War;

his descendant might have succeeded in the Biblically recorded attempt to crush Judaism;

then, no Christianity and maybe a different history guarded by an alternate Time Patrol;

Exaltationists shaping history by helping Antiochus and his descendants.

The opponents that the Time Patrol does face are:

an individual time criminal, Stane;

time bandits, the Neldorians;

more sophisticated criminals, the Exaltationists;

a personal causal nexus.

We might like to read:

a novel about what the Nine, the group that discovered time travel, did before the Danellians intervened and founded the Patrol;

a series about that alternate Time Patrol, its agents clashing with the Danellians' Patrol.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: Bactria And Antiochus

Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART TWO, 1987 A. D., pp. 72-76.

These pages impart historical information about the Greek kingdom of Bactria and about the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III. Alexander the Great passed through northern Afghanistan and made the area that became Bactria part of his empire. Greeks colonized this area, between the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya, declared independence and conquered most of Afghanistan and part of northwest India. In 209 B.C., Antiochus III, trying to regain Bactria, defeated the Bactrian King Euthydemus and besieged his capital city, Bactra, but did not capture it. After a two year siege, he made peace and went south to try to conquer part of India, again unsuccessfully.

Antiochus III, known as "the Great," inherited a collapsing empire and recovered most of it, lost Phoenicia and Palestine to Ptolemy of Egypt at the Battle of Raphia but later regained them, checked the Parthians, campaigned as far as Greece, gave refuge to Hannibal after the Second Punic War and made important cultural and legal innovations.

An informative summary.

Experience In Time And Space: Everard And Trevelyan

"To Everard the scene was eerily half-familiar. He had witnessed its like in a score of different lands, in as many different centuries."

-Poul Anderson, The Shield of Time (New York, 1991), PART TWO, 209 B. C., p. 24.

"He knew this town, on a hundred different worlds."

-"The Pirate," p. 139.

A powerful echo between Anderson's Time Patrol series and his Psychotechnic History. Everard is in Bactra in 209 BC and Trevelyan is in Port Nevada in 3115 AD of a different timeline. They could not be further apart and yet they are very close.

In 209 BC

The Shield Of Time.

In 209 B.C., Manse Everard:

approaches and enters Bactra;

dines at the house of Hipponicus;

visits Chandrakumar at the vihara where he is nearly arrested but escapes;

eavesdrops on the Exaltationists and escapes from the city;

brilliantly defeats the Exaltationists at a temple outside the city.

We commend economy of story-telling. Every chapter advances the plot even the dinner party when Everard's enquiries alert an unwitting agent of the Exaltationists.

Escape From Bactra

The Shield Of Time.

Everard overcomes a guard:

"The sensible thing was to stick a knife in him." (p. 93)

But he doesn't. But might he have done in other circumstances? Or might some other Time Patrol agent have knifed the man? Does the Patrol tell its agents how to operate? Maybe killing would be discouraged because it might involve changing the past? But sometimes killings and massacres have to happen on schedule. There are many unanswered questions about the Time Patrol.

Wearing a stolen helmet, Everard walks along the city wall:

"...briskly, a man on some special errand who should not be hindered." (p. 94)

I used to enjoy scenes in action films where our hero, having penetrated the enemy base, HQ etc, walked around as if he belonged there without immediately being challenged. As a Teacher or a Careers Adviser at an event like a Careers Convention, there is a knack to walking around just quickly enough that you give the impression that you are going somewhere to do something and therefore should not be interrupted. 

Combat Skills

The Shield Of Time, 209 B. C.

Everard must get past some guards to escape from Bactra:

"What he had going for him was size, strength, combat skills undreamed of here, and desperation." (p. 92)

Combat skills is the single most important item. Action scenes in cinema serials used to consist of men repeatedly punching each other on the head with no apparent effect! In a more recent comic strip narrative, one youth persuaded another to let him join a gang planning to rob a warehouse because he alone knew what to do if the Batman showed up:

What To Do If The Batman Comes While You Are Robbing A Warehouse In Gotham City

(i) Don't fight. He is a master of every combat skill as well as wearing protective garb and carrying useful devices.

(ii) Run.

(iii) Run in different directions because he can't chase everyone.

(iv) If he chases you, drop whatever you are carrying because he can't make an arrest stick without evidence.

(i) is the most important. If someone is skilled in judo, karate, boxing, kick-boxing etc, what is the point of getting into a fight? I would like to have some combat skills but am unlikely to invest the time in gaining any.

From 976 BC To 1988 AD

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO.

For complex espionage and counter-espionage in ancient Bactra, see here.

PART TWO begins and ends with chapters headed 1985 A. D. These chapters have a common viewpoint character, Yuri Alexeievitch Garshin, and are set in the same year although in different timelines.

Between these "bookends," there are five chapters headed 209 B. C. Each such chapter is followed by another with a different year date. Manse Everard converses with:

Wanda Tamberly in 1987 A. D. and in 1988 A. D.;

Merau Varagan in 976 B. C.;

Unattached agent Shalten in 1987 A. D. and in 1902 A. D.

In chronological order:

976 BC

209 BC

1902 AD

1985 AD

1987 AD

1988 AD

Complicated but worth it.

Time Patrol Specialists

Instalments could be written entirely about the work of Time Patrol Specialists without needing any input from Unattached agents. The nearest approach to this is "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" about Carl Farness interacting with four generations of Goths. However, Unattached Manse Everard, has to tell Farness how to act at the pivotal moment. Specialist Benegal Dass spends a total of decades in the city of Bactra  (see here) and Specialist Janne Floris lives for fifteen uninterrupted years as a member of a Germanic tribe but we read only the briefest summaries of these activities.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, I want to know more about the lives of people living in the Solar Commonwealth and the Terran Empire. In the Time Patrol series, I want to know more about the lower ranks of the organization and also about people living in periods after the discovery of time travel when the Patrol is able to operate openly from a public office and to advertise vacancies without having to disguise itself as Engineering Studies Co. etc.

Poul Anderson was able only to scratch the surfaces of the multiple worlds that he imagined. 

Time And A Time

 

An sf fan commented that most writers just tell us that their time travelling characters are in 209 BC or whenever whereas Poul Anderson makes us realize it. In The Shield Of Time, we pass directly from a discussion of variable reality to a description of a house in Bactra in 209 BC but I have already summarized the latter here. The Bactrans do not suspect the temporal forces moving around them.

(Quick breakfast post before long walk by the river in summer weather.)

India

I am rereading Ninian Smart's The World's Religions, having come to Lancaster to be supervised by Ninian many years ago. A Poul Anderson fan is bound to think that there must have been much work for the Time Patrol in India from the beginning of the Indus Valley civilization in about 3000 B.C.E. However, there is scant mention of India in the Time Patrol series because one man cannot cover everything. As Bob Shaw once said, how far a time traveler penetrates back into the past depends on several factors including which period the author has been mugging up on.

These are the only references that I remember. First, when Everard and Denison don luminous robes with halos and wings of light in Persia, Everard explains:

"'I had the boys in the Middle Mohenjodaro office fix 'em up to my specs. Their situation is such that they often need this type of disguise for themselves.'"

-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 9, p. 108.

Secondly, when Everard is on the run from the Exaltationists in Bactra in 209 B.C., he reflects that the Patrol kept stations in several cities in that era, including Palipushtra.

Everard Does It Right: Thinking Like A Time Traveler

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B.C.

The four remaining Exaltationists are in 209 B.C. Raor and Sauvo are in Bactria. Draganizu and Buleni are in the nearby temple of Poseidon where they are guarded by Syrian soldiers and watched by Everard. Draganizu wears a stolen Time Patrol communicator in the form of an Athene medallion.

Everard kills Draganizu, lays out Buleni and says into the communicator, "'Unattached Everard. Come immediately. Combat.'" (p. 113) Patrol agents arrive on timecycles and stun the Syrians. Alarms in Raor's house in Bactra will have sounded at the arrival of the timecycles but it is already too late. Everard and his colleague, Ruszek, arrive in the house a minute earlier, blocking the route to the chamber with the Exaltationists' timecycles. Ruszek kills Sauvo and Everard arrests Raor. End of the Exaltationists and of a very smooth operation.

A Shrine

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B.C.

A spring in a poplar grove on the side of a hill four miles from Bactra is sacred to the god of underground waters. Offerings are made for protection from earthquake, drought and murrain. I used to feel sorry for people asking for help where there wasn't any. Now I realize that they did not expect help every time and, in any case, were recognizing sacredness.

Theonis has had the shrine remodeled and rededicated to Poseidon and sends a priest to conduct rites. Local people identify Poseidon with the earlier deity, sometimes still use the old name and feel that the rededication might have benefited their horses. The poplars surround a low wall enclosing "...the temenos, the holy ground." (p. 102)

If I were a Patrol agent based in Bactra, then I would visit the shrine to meditate and participate in rites. However, the Exaltationists cynically use the shrine for their subversive ends:

the Syrians besiege Bactra;
the city defenders formulate battle plans;
the plans are known to Zoilus, government minister;
the courtesan, Theonis, learns the plans from Zoilus;
Theonis relays the plans to the priest who visits the shrine;
a high-ranking Syrian is an Exaltationist posing as a devotee of Poseidon;
he visits the shrine when the priest is there...

- as does Everard.

Everard's Equipment

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B.C.

Everard takes to Bactra:

a flashlight disguised as a religious charm;

a low-wattage transmitter in a finger ring;

a two-way communicator in a medallion of Athena's owl;

a twenty-shot stun beam projector in the hilt of a knife;

an energy gun in the haft of his sword.

However, when he is on the run, all but the flashlight have been left at his host's house and that leads to a further problem to be addressed in another post.

Later, the medallion of Athena's owl becomes pivotal.

Domestic Life In 209 B.C.

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B.C.

Everard has become a fugitive from the law in Bactra in 209 BC. Night falls. Air cools. Streets quieten. The few street-facing windows are shuttered and mostly higher up, light showing through cracks.

Everard envisages the occupants:

eating light cold suppers;
drinking nightcaps;
exchanging news;
playing games;
telling children stories;
making love.

He hears a harp and a song but, to a time traveler who is also a fugitive:

"All seemed more remote than the stars." (p. 60)

And those occupants have no conception of the real nature of this passerby.

The Time Traveler Causes The Events That He Observes III

See:

The Time Traveler Causes The Events That He Observes II.

More Circular causality -

Speaking of the vihara in Bactra, Chandrakumar tells Holbrook/Everard:

"'An establishment like this is a sort of verbal bulletin board, you know, and not only for Buddhists.'"
-The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B. C., p. 56.

- whereupon Everard reflects:

"Right. That's why the Patrol quietly helped found it, half a century ago. In medieval Europe we do the same for certain monasteries." (ibid.)

So how much of its own past does the Time Patrol create? It begins to sound as if it meddles in the past as much the Wardens and Rangers do in their timeline.

Reality Wars

I have just watched cinema superheroes fighting to prevent their antagonist from gaining control of reality. I am bound to say that I prefer the Time Patrol versus the Exaltationists in Bactra in 209 B.C. If only the Time Patrol could be adapted faithfully to screen... When Everard asks Raor what the Exaltationists would have done with the universe, she replies:

"'We would have made it what we chose, and unmade and remade it, and stormed the stars as we warred for possession, with an entire reality the funeral pyre for each who fell and entire histories the funeral games, until the last god reigned alone.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), 209 B.C., p. 118.

Play-within-the-play time: on screen, as Raor speaks, a short sequence shows the last four Exaltationists changing history, leading an interstellar invasion fleet and fighting each other, then one of them seated on a throne.

I probably misunderstood Andrea when I thought he said that this superheroes film involved a Warped Reality but the misunderstanding generated a relevant post.