"One Swirl On A River"

Manson Everard graduates from the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene:

brief ceremony;
huge party;
arrangements for reunions;
return to the place and hour of recruitment
(for Everard, New York, 1954);
recruitment officer's congratulations;
list of contemporary agents, some in Intelligence;
return to apartment;
special consultant to Engineering Studies Co;
read newspapers for indications of time travel;
be ready to respond to a call.

"It was a peculiar feeling to read the headlines and know, more or less, what was coming next. It took the edge off, but added a sadness, for this was a tragic era." (Time Patrol, p. 17)

I first read that about 1960, six years after 1954, and am now rereading it in 2015, sixty one years after. Everard would have known what was coming next at least until 2000, the end of his "milieu." When the time was right, i.e., when The Shield Of Time was published in 1990, a Patrolman casually mentioned Gorbachev but Everard would have known that name from 1954.

On pp. 17-18 is a passage, quoted before, where Everard, looking out at a hurried New York street, reflects that "...it was all one swirl on a river..." (p. 17) from the prehuman past to the Danellian future. But, of course, as we reflected recently, the Danellians begin a mere million years hence so what happens during and even after their era? Time Patrol narratives almost imply that the Danellians occupy the End of Time whereas nothing is really the End except the much later heat death of the universe - assuming that twentieth and twenty first century scientists are right that that will happen.

"Lights flamed against a hectic sky..." (p. 17) -

- prepares the reader for almost any dramatic events to follow.

Everard finds an indication of unauthorized time travel not in a newspaper but in "...a collection of Victorian and Edwardian stories." (p. 18) It was not until sometime in the 1970s until I read that same collection and found the reference to:

"...a tragedy at Addleton and the singular contents of an ancient British barrow." (p. 18)

Of course Anderson had to have been referring to something but it had never occurred to me to wonder what.

Tacitus, Cerialis And Maybe The Draka?

Can I continue to post indefinitely about Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series? That does seem impossible although I have astounded myself several times already. However, two things should happen this coming week.

First, tomorrow, Monday, I must prepare for a Latin class on Tuesday. We are reading Tacitus, who mentions Cerialis. Remember the Time Patrol story, "Star Of The Sea." Also note the attached image. Thus, we are engaging, in the original language, with the history that provides the background for Anderson's historical science fiction.

Secondly, surely SM Stirling's Under The Yoke should arrive from the US, unless the order has gone completely awry? Regular readers know that Poul Anderson Appreciation sometimes focuses backwards onto Wells, Stapledon and Heinlein and sometimes focuses forwards onto Stirling who has developed one aspect of sf, alternative histories, in far greater detail than even Anderson did.

So I don't know what the next few posts will be about, just that there will be some.

Travel In Different Directions

Several kinds of travel as yet exist only in science fiction:

aircars;
faster than light (FTL) interstellar travel;
instantaneous transportation;
teleportation (which might be at light speed);
time travel;
travel in other directions - between timelines, universes etc.

As usual, I wound up with a longer list than expected when I started to write it.

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, in 19352 AD:

"'...the various governments were pawns in a galactic game. The time effect was the by-product of a search for a means of instantaneous transportation, which some of you will realize requires infinitely discontinuous functions for its mathematical description - as does travel into the past.'" (Time Patrol, p. 9)

Especially in an Andersonian hard sf context, the phrase "...galactic game..." strongly implies FTL, although this is not made explicit. Thus, people with FTL (we think), seek instantaneous travel and find time travel, in fact space-time travel which therefore includes instantaneous travel - if the traveler changes his spatial but not his temporal coordinates.

We have already asked why Everard and Whitcomb were trained to handle spaceships if, at that stage, they were expected to work only in their own 1850-2000 milieu. But other questions arise about space travel:

Surely there will be many different kinds of spaceships in future eras?
Both for training and for operations, the Patrol has large spacecraft in past eras so they must be able to move such large objects through time?

For story purposes, we see only timecycles and other small vehicles moving along Earth's world line. In the future, they must have spacecraft that can transport prisoners instantaneously to the (extrasolar?) exile planet and that can also travel to the Oligocene to be used for the training of Time Patrol cadets. The possibilities seem endless.

15 April 1610

How often do we see Manse Everard in a spaceship? At the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene, he is taught how to handle one. While fellow cadet Whitcomb chats to their instructor:

"Everard said nothing. He was too captured by the spectacle of Earth, rolling enormous against the stars." (Time Patrol, p. 14)

On 15 April 1610 (pp. 719-722), his timecycle materializes in the receiving bay of a ship in Earth orbit (very like a "transporter" arrival in Star Trek):

"It was orbiting dayside when Everard arrived, and the planet stretched vast, blue swirled with white around the ruddinesses that were continents." (p. 719)

(My lap top recognizes "ruddiness" although not the plural "ruddinesses." However, Anderson not only deployed a vast vocabulary but also used it creatively.)

This time, Everard is too busy to enjoy the view. His colleagues have, by orbital observation, identified the exact moment of Castelar and Tamberly's arrival at Machu Picchu (see image). The Patrol will strike the Exaltationists immediately after Castelar's escape.

"Not before, because that did not happen. We dare not undermine even this forbidden pattern of events." (p. 720)

But they do undermine another forbidden pattern. Castelar and Tamberly had disappeared from within a treasure house but the Patrol puts them back in there almost immediately after the Exaltationists had kidnapped them, thus canceling the experiences of the Patrol agent who had investigated the disappearance - and thereby also cancelling how many other related events? I suspect that the threads of the story might unravel at this point.

Back in 1610, the Patrol must strike immediately after Castelar's escape so that the Exaltationists have no time to think, "He has escaped. He might alert the Patrol. Flee!" Armed timecycles jump from within the spaceship to the "...enormous azure..." (p. 720) above Machu Picchu. Everard materializes near the permanently aloft Exaltationist sentry and Gunner Tetsuo Motonobu, sharing Everard's cycle, shoots him down. Everard power-dives, protected from wind by "...an invisible force screen." (p. 721) His fellow agents fire at the buildings occupied by Exaltationists and the battle is over when Everard arrives. Varagan has escaped because he was just about to go elsewhere/when for medical attention to a bad sword wound. Others who scattered randomly on timecycles might never find each other.

In the east, Everard sees:

"...the Gate of the Sun on its ridge, edged black against heaven." (p. 722)

The Exaltationists wear black. They will rise again.

An Understated Time War

Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time is explicitly about the great time war between the Wardens and the Rangers. However, a potentially even more destructive time war, between the Time Patrol and the Exaltationists, is almost hidden in Anderson's Time Patrol series. (The attached image shows an Exaltationist and a Patrolman.)

The four battles in this second war are to be found in just two of the ten stories in Time Patrol and in just one of the six Parts of The Shield Of Time. The War against the Exaltationists could have filled a volume in its own right although that is hardly necessary.

Three times a squadron of Patrol timecycles attacks an Exaltationist position and three times the leading Exaltationist, Merau Varagan, expounds his views in dialogue with a Patrolman.

Manse Everard almost captures Varagan in Colombia and Peru and does in Phoenicia and at last captures Varagan's clone mate in Bactria. End of Exaltationists but we might not appreciate how long the pursuit has been.

Time Criminals

The first time criminal encountered by Manse Everard is Rozher Schtein/Stane from 2987. A complete contrast to the Neldorians, Stane is a lone operator aiming at a peaceful united world, not at personal luxurious living. However, he commits murder to acquire his time machine and this makes him a criminal even if he had not then used the machine to break Time Patrol laws. The Patrol does not investigate murders except when there is a time travel connection.

In terms of criminals, The Guardians Of Time progressed from the lone foiled Stane to two initially successful Neldorians. Like Moriarty, the Neldorians achieved almost the status of continuing villains despite appearing only once! We learn that they had already given the Patrol a lot of trouble just as we realize that Moriarty must have been behind a lot of what had gone before - certainly the Red Headed League, as confirmed by two dramatizations.

However, when Poul Anderson continued the series, it did not comprise endless Patrol-Neldorian fights. The majority of the stories address other aspects of time travel paradoxes and, when the idea of a collective continuing villain was revived, the Exaltationists were much more sophisticated and ingenious than any Neldorians. In fact, when there is a threat to destroy Tyre, Everard deduces that this attempted blackmail is not the work of Neldorians:

"'This operation is too sophisticated. The enemy's got to have spent a lot of lifespan, getting to know the Phoenician milieu well and establishing that it is in fact a nexus.
"'The organizing brain must be of genius level.'" ("Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" IN Time Patrol, p. 259)

Thus, the time traveling equivalent of Moriarty? The Exaltationists skilfully cover their tracks, making it almost impossible to detect their preparatory work in the past, whereas the two Neldorians who helped, then killed, Hannibal seem to have taken no precautions against Patrol counter-intervention. When planning to prevent their causality violation at the Battle of Ticinus, Everard does say:

"'...we'll want to surround the battlefield unobtrusively, but I don't think we can get away with more than two agents actually on the scene. The baddies are going to be alert, you know, looking for counterinterference.'" ("Delenda Est" IN Time Patrol, p. 222)

Despite this, the Neldorians openly ride to battle with futuristic armor and weapons. When the Exaltationists, in what seemed to be a similar situation, planned to kill a leader and his son on a battlefield, one of them said:

"'If necessary, energy weapons. I hope, though, that Antiochus will dispose of his rivals in a normal way...We do not want too sorcerous a reputation.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 89)

Another responds:

"'That would attract the Time Patrol...'" (ibid.)

Neldorians

"...two Helvetian [?] mercenaries had joined Hannibal in the Alps and won his confidence. After the war, they had risen to high positions in Carthage. Under the names of Phrontes and Himilco, they had practically run the government, engineering Hannibal's murder, and set new records for luxurious living. One of the Patrolmen had seen their homes and the men themselves. 'A lot of improvements that hadn't been thought of in Classical times. The fellows looked to me like Neldorians, two-hundred-fifth millennium.'

"Everard nodded. That was an age of bandits who had 'already' given the Patrol a lot of work."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 221.

"...a Carthaginian party was riding toward the battle around the eagles. And at their head were two men with the height and craggy features of Neldor. They wore G.I. armor, but each of them held a slim-barreled gun." (p. 225)

To win a man's confidence, then engineer his murder! Treacherous. Futuristic home improvements confirm that Phrontes and Himilco are time travelers - as do G.I. armor and guns!

When, about fifty five years ago, I read that the two-hundred-fifth millennium was "...an age of bandits...," I accepted and quite liked the idea but it requires elucidation. Bandits hide in hills and attack travelers. The 205th millennium is not a mountain range on the fringe of civilization but the period from 204,001 to 205,000 AD with technology that includes time machines. It must have more in it than gangs of bandits?

This is another of Poul Anderson's tantalizing hints. He economically tells us just enough for his immediate story purposes but no more.

Enemies And Threats

Recently (here), I compared Poul Anderson's Time Patrol and his Terran Empire. Both have external enemies. Neldorians and Exaltationists try to change the history guarded by the Patrol. The Merseian Roidhunate (I said) tries to destroy the Empire. However, that was a British understatement. The Roidhunate aims not merely to destroy the Empire but also to domesticate or exterminate humanity, thus to destroy the very freedom and creativity that are what we value about being human. We can live with the loss of an Empire but not with its replacement by the Roidhunate. (We also learn that not all beings of Merseian descent support the Roidhunate any more than all Germans supported the Third Reich.)

The other parallels that I drew between Patrol and Empire were valid. Each faces an inner threat. Quantum processes in space-time-energy can change history. The Empire itself is a stage in the decline of Technic civilization caused by the cartelization of the Polesotechnic League. Are the Danellians and the Commonalty free from such threats? I would argue that the civilization represented by the Commonalty and its contemporary civilizations in other spiral arms have become so vast and widespread that no process of decay or decline can affect all of them simultaneously. I had thought that the Danellians somehow transcended time but, of course, that was an unwarranted assumption. We know nothing about them and their future civilization might also decline. Human beings are forbidden to travel to the Danellian Era let alone beyond it but what might there be beyond it?

A Sword Fight

See Hell Rock, Battle In Space II, Battle At Sea and Gorrazan II.

I find it interesting to analyze Poul Anderson's accounts of combat. Anderson's Time Patrol series concludes with "Death And The Knight," which in turn concludes with a section headed:

PARIS, WEDNESDAY, 11 OCTOBER 1307

In Time Patrol (New York, 2006), this section comprises exactly seven pages of text, beginning on p. 758 and ending on p. 765. Two of these pages, 761-762, describe a sword fight.

Manse Everard leads four Patrol colleagues in a night-time attack on a house of the Knights Templar in order to rescue their fellow Patrol agent, Hugh Marlow, held prisoner by the Knights. Firing a hardwood missile from a specially designed mortar, the Patrolmen break down the door, creating the impression that a band of uncommonly strong marauders has used a battering ram.

Expecting only the prisoner, two guards and a scullion, Everard is alarmed to find that a Knight, Fulk de Buchy, has stayed over and recalled the household staff, several men and boys, unwelcome witnesses to the attack. Everard's men tackle two halberdiers while Fulk attacks Everard. The Patrolmen's weapons conceal sonic stun guns which must however be used surreptitiously in order to avoid any semblance of miracle or magic. Everard could be killed here. Could he? None of his twentieth century colleagues would knowingly send him to his death but, as time travelers, how can they avoid sometimes knowing the time and place of a colleague's death while still speaking to him?

Everard blocks Fulk's longsword with his falchion and prepares to deliver an unheard of uppercut but Fulk glides aside and now fights with a glaive. Everard counters with karate moves. Martial arts enable him to "...hit the floor in full control..." (p. 762) and to strike upwards with his falchion, mortally wounding Fulk, while his companions stun the pikemen. The household staff flee. Everard's men grab well-made loot both to simulate a hasty robbery and to preserve some artifacts for future museums. They rescue Marlow, who takes time to regret the death of his lover, Fulk. The Time Patrol series ends with:

"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away." (p. 765)

The Temporal Empire

Recently, when writing about the Time Patrol and the Terran (or Terrestrial) Empire, I mistakenly typed "Temporal Empire" but corrected it before publishing. But what an evocative phrase! What would a Temporal Empire be like? Many periods ruled from a single period? Would Temporal Imperialists conquer their ancestors, their descendants or both? Would they rule overtly or covertly? Might some of the wealth generated in ancient empires have been extra-temporally appropriated?

Of course, time travelers can remove goods from buildings about to be destroyed without disrupting history and can even take a hand in the destruction if they are sufficiently unscrupulous. In fact, in There Will Be Time, agents of the Eyrie plunder the past and try to control their future so maybe they are Temporal Imperialists?

Neldorians are less ambitious, aiming merely to change the past in order to enrich themselves. Exaltationists aim to eliminate the Patrol, then to fight time change wars between themselves until their last survivor reigns supreme - but s/he would then be able to rule Earth in a single period without needing to conquer earlier or later periods. A Temporal Empire would be a complicated project indeed.