Resonances And Future Posts

I try not to let local events interrupt the blog too often but sometimes they are worth recording and sometimes they resonate with events in works of fiction. This evening, I met Tyson Fury (at the scene in the image) on a demonstration against discrimination against Travelers with solidarity from local Asians! Worth standing in the rain for.

The scene where I most closely identify with Poul Anderson's  Dominic Flandry is the one where he uncharacteristically marches with Merseians to the Dennitzan Parliament. Different era, different issues. (And how far the Merseians have come since their first appearance as space opera villains. It is like reading about the Japanese first in a war comic, then in a serious novel.)

Tomorrow, this blog will return to Anderson's The Shield Of Time and, after that, I think, his time travel short stories. We have worlds to win.

A Consequence Of Deleted Timelines

See Split Time Or Moments Of Hyper-Time

In the Danellian timeline, Everard completes his vacation at the Pleistocene lodge, returns home in 1990 and is notified of a new mission.

In the alpha timeline, his vacation is interrupted by the emergency and he deals with that.

In the restored Danellian timeline, having deleted the alpha timeline, he returns home in 1990 and is informed of a new mission.

Thus, the effect of the temporal catastrophe is that Everard has lived longer than he would otherwise have done and the extra duration is not part of the current timeline but, apart from this, his career continues as if uninterrupted.

History Lesson III

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137alpha A.D.

In the eleventh century, the Norman brothers, Robert and Roger Guiscard, and their families arrived in Southern Italy where other Normans had already settled and were fighting both Saracens and Byzantines. Robert became Count and Duke of Apulia. Roger became Grand Count of Sicily and papal legate.

Roger, dying in 1101, was succeeded by his eight-year-old son, Simon, with his last wife, Adelaide, as regent. Adelaide defeated a baronial revolt and, when Simon died, passed the realm to her son, Roger II, who, in 1121, set out to regain southern Italy which had been lost after Robert's death. Roger II was resisted by Pope Honorius II, who preached a crusade against him, Robert II of Capua, Rainulf of Avellino (Roger's brother-in-law) and republican-minded mainlanders.

Roger's army of Sicilian Normans, Saracens and Greeks defeated the opposing coalition so that, by the end of 1129, he was Duke of Naples, Capua etc but wanted to be king. When Honorius died in early 1130, rival Popes were elected, Roger backed Anacletus, who made him king of Sicily, and Innocent fled to France.

Louis VI of France, Henry I of England and Emperor Lothair backed Innocent. Rainulf led a revolt in southern Italy. When, in 1134, Roger was clearly winning, the Eastern Emperor, Pisa and Genoa pitched in against him. When Lothair, Innocent and Rainulf were victorious in Italy, Innocent made Rainulf Duke of Apulia. Roger counterattacked, sacked Capua, regained Naples and "...met Rainulf at Rignano...." (p. 326)

Everard learns that a knight from Anagni called Lorenzo de Conti killed Roger at Rignano. Will Lorenzo turn out to be a time traveler? 

Disappearance?

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137 A.D.

When Manse Everard warns Otto Koch of a temporal alteration later in 1137, he reassures him:

"'None of you will disappear at the critical moment.'" (p. 313)

Why would they have disappeared? In the unaltered timeline, Koch continues to live in the history leading to the Danellians. In the altered timeline, he continues to live into what has become an unknown future. 

Does anyone ever disappear? Yes, I think that sometimes somebody does. A time criminal who deliberately alters the course of events disappears from the Danellian timeline and continues to exist in the altered timeline. Thus, there could be a story in which someone is seen to disappear. But it would destroy the whole point of the Patrol if they realized that they and their timeline continued to exist despite the activity of a time criminal.

Split Time Or Moments Of Hyper-Time

In the Danellian timeline, Roger II survives the battle of Rignano in 1137 whereas, in the alpha timeline, Roger dies at Rignano so does one timeline split into two at that point? That is one way to describe this situation. In fact, that description fits, insofar as anything does, with the sequence of events recounted in "Star of the Sea."

However, I think that the simplest description of such imaginary scenarios is in terms of two temporal dimensions. Moment 1 of hyper-time contains the entire Danellian timeline whereas moment 2 of that second temporal dimension contains the entire alpha timeline. The two timelines are indistinguishable (except for a qualification that I will shortly make) until a crucial turning point during the battle. After that turning point, we date events in the Danellian timeline as 1137 etc whereas we differentiate dates in the alpha timeline as 1137alpha etc.

This means that, within moment 2 of hyper-time, someone can time travel from an alpha year to a pre-alpha year and can then change the course of events in that earlier year without affecting any events in moment 1. In fact, this happens. Time Patrol bases in 1137alpha send message capsules and probably also personnel to bases in pre-alpha years. Consequently, contact is made with Unattached Agent Komozino when she is in Eighteenth Destiny Egypt. She then travels to 18,244 BC to confer with Unattached Agent Manson Everard at the Pleistocene lodge. In moment 1 of hyper-time, none of this happens. Time Patrol bases in 1137 (which has not become alpha) do not send messages describing a temporal alteration to earlier bases. Komozino's mission to Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt is not interrupted. Everard's vacation at the lodge is not interrupted. Their careers continue in ways that are not known about in moment 2.

OK. I know that this gets complicated. In fact, I was just about to point out another anomaly which I now realize was a mistake on my part.

Cock And Bull

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137alpha.

"'There is an inn, the Cock and Bull, two kilometers west. Whoever sees you ought to suppose you spent the night there and set off early.'

"Everard whistled. 'That name's too eerily appropriate.'

"'Sir?'

"'Never mind.'" (p. 318)

 

Two points:

 

this dialogue prompted me to consult The Phrase Finder;

does Everard come close to recognizing that he himself is a character in a "cock and bull" story?

This would be metafiction.

Fiction About Fiction

John Grisham has perfected a kind of fiction in which it would be possible to address the plots of sf novels, like Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time, tangentially. In Camino Island and Camino Winds, writers of different genres of popular fiction socialize and discuss each other's works. Thus, these writers could include an sf writer struggling to make sense of his own time travel narratives. Some of his colleagues would not understand the concepts. Perhaps one would understand but completely disagree with the line that the sf author was taking. Such discussions should not be allowed to dominate the plot, which would be about the relationships between the writers of romance, thrillers, detective fiction etc. However, as a Camino-style novel approaches its climax, one of the issues concerning the reader could be how that time travel novel is going to turn out.

(Sorry about the empty white space at the bottom of the post, which I find unaesthetic, but not letting me delete it is another of the stunts that the New Blogger is pulling.)

 

Becoming Nothing

The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1137 A.D.

Koch to Everard:

"'You mean that while I am in the wrong world, I must know that everything I do and see and think will become nothing?'

"'If we succeed.'" (p. 316)

 

This is the point where I am most in disagreement with Poul Anderson's text. If the Patrol succeeds in restoring the Danellian timeline, then there will have been a hyper-temporal sequence of:

the Danellian timeline;

the "wrong world," to use Koch's terminology;

the restored Danellian timeline.

 

The three spatial dimensions of length, breadth and height are at right angles to each other. The two temporal dimensions of ordinary, familiar time and "hyper-time," since we must coin a term, are also at right angles to each other. All three spatial dimensions are reproduced in each moment of time. All four spatio-temporal dimensions are reproduced in each moment of hyper-time.

 

To anyone living in the restored Danellian timeline, the "wrong world" has indeed ceased to exist/become nothing. That "wrong world," including its entire temporal dimension from beginning to end, has receded into the past of hyper-time. But there is no moment in the "wrong world's" temporal dimension when that world becomes nothing. The version of Koch who lives into that timeline will continue to live in it until he dies of natural causes. His world-line is at right angles to the temporal dimension in which the restored Danellian timeline succeeds the "wrong world," therefore is not affected by that succession. Of course, his world-line is not reproduced in the restored Danellian timeline but that need not concern him.

Advancing Above Absurdities

What could be more absurd than either an interstellar Emperor or a police force to prevent time travelers from changing the past? Yet Poul Anderson built a substantial series on each of these ideas and also, in other works, presented completely different kinds of interstellar civilizations and time traveling organizations. (I am still having problems with paragraphing, at least until I am below the level of the image. Maybe, in the next post, I will try attaching the image after completing the text of the post but what else will go wrong then?) The cliche "hyperspace" was given a novel meaning. The Terran Empire became a less implausible social structure. The cliche green alien villains became a more rounded fictional species. The impossible universal telepath became a tragic and anti-heroic character. Dominic Flandry and David Falkayn matured. The fat merchant, van Rijn, became a more serious personality and a vehicle for reflection on the decline of a civilization. In the Time Patrol series, the lone villain, Stane, and the time bandits called "Neldorians" were succeeded by the more sophisticated Exaltationists, including an individual continuing villain, and also by the new idea of temporal chaos expressed through a personal causal nexus. I think that the The Imperial Stars cover illustration sums up the progress of the Flandry series from its pulp origins.

The Axial Age And The Time Patrol

Someone might object that the Palestinian events mentioned here as guarded by the Time Patrol are those of 69-70 AD, not of three or four decades earlier. However, surely that entire century is a single process: the origins of Christianity and of rabbinical Judaism? In 100 AD, a council of rabbis defined and closed their scriptural canon in order to differentiate it from the growing rival Christian canon. (I want a new paragraph here but the New Blogger is being downright peculiar.) Also, this first century AD is not the historical turning point. A few centuries earlier in the Axial Age:

 

in Palestine, Elijah and Elisha;

in Greece, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle;

in India, the Buddha, Mahavira and the Upanishadic rishis;

in China, Confucius and Lao Tzu;

in Persia, Zoroaster (depending on his uncertain dates).

Everard visits Persia in 542 BC. When he is in Tyre in the time of Solomon, mention is made of the later King Ahab who will clash with Elijah.

The Time Patrol must protect many periods, including 1-100 AD and also the earlier Axial Age.