Yet More Multilocation II

Yet More Multilocation was written in haste before driving Sheila to her music lesson in Morecambe. Unfortunately, I am unable to bilocate. I now see points that I missed.

First, it is appropriate that, when Nomura glimpses himself, he is "...vague in the mists..." Those glimpses include his future selves. He should not see them too clearly, especially since he needs to concentrate on the task at hand.

Secondly, multilocation serves not only to locate Feliz in the crucial few seconds but also to rescue her. The tractor beam of Nomura's timecycle is unable to pull Feliz's timecycle free from the fall. However:

"The tide nearly had him when help came. Two vehicles, three, four, all straining together, they hauled Feliz's loose...he went back those few blinks in time, and back, and back, to be her rescuer and his own." (p. 138) (For reference, see the above link.)

This is the sort of stunt that the mutant time traveler, Jack Havig, pulls more than once in the immutable timeline of Anderson's There Will Be Time.

And that completes the story of Nomura's multilocation.

More On Multilocation

Certain sequences of events are ruled out by logical inconsistency, e.g., in a single continuous timeline, a time traveler, while multilocating, sees one of his future selves killed, therefore discontinues the multilocation. In such a timeline, the only consistent sequences are:

he does not multilocate;

he multilocates but does not see himself killed;

he multilocates, sees himself killed but nevertheless has reason to continue the multilocation.

In the confusion of the battle described in "The Nest," one of the time travelers might either not notice his future self being shot or notice but continue fighting in support of his comrades and other selves.

Shortly, we will watch the news to see whether any British politicians are meeting themselves coming back into Parliament.

Multilocation In Five Timelines

Soon to come on this blog: Nygel's review of "Time Patrol."

And on another blog: his review of the James Bond novels.

"Multilocation" is derived from "bilocation," which means being in two places at one time. The five timelines of the post title comprise:

3 Poul Anderson (prose);
1 Doctor Who (TV);
1 Alan Moore/Marvel Universe (graphic).

Poul Anderson, "The Nest"
"We stuck together, running out and firing. Twenty minutes later, each time we finished, we'd dart back to the Rover, jump it into the future, and return within one second and some feet of our last departure point. There were a good three hundred of us, all brought to the same time, approximately. And in a group like that, we had fire power. It was too much for the enemy...
"...twenty minutes after the last trip, our messed-up timelines straightened out, and the four of us were all there - victors."
-Poul Anderson, "The Nest" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 71-111 AT pp. 109-110.

Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time
"The sportsmen [complained], after they jumped John Havig. They blubbered that he'd called an army to his aid. And beyond doubt, they had taken a systematic drubbing."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), I, p. 15.

("...sportsmen..." is a euphemism for bullies.)

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time
"'[Everard] has repeatedly come to this lodge for rest and recreation, at various points of its existence, both downtime and uptime of the present moment. Why should we not call on these Everards also?...
"'...We will not do so. If we did, that would change reality again and again, hopelessly, beyond any possibility of comprehension, let alone control.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), 18,244 B. C., II, p. 301.

The timelines of "The Nest" and of There Will Be Time are immutable whereas the timeline of The Shield Of Time is mutable. "'...these Everards...'" were not called on. Therefore, to call on them would be to change events which the Time Patrol must not do, especially not on such an incomprehensible and uncontrollable scale.

Doctor Who
The Doctor periodically "regenerates"/changes actor and, for convenience, is referred to as successive "Doctors." The first five Doctors met. Thus, the Doctor quin-located. Mike, my daughter Aileen's partner, asked why the five Doctors could not travel together to the far future and remain then, never to return. My reply: if Doctor One does not return to the time at which he regenerated into Doctor Two, then there is no Doctor Two or any subsequent Doctor. That assumes a single continuous timeline, of course, but, anyone wanting to suggest alternative premises needs to state them clearly and consistently.

Alan Moore's Captain Britain
When a character multilocates, one of his multiple selves dies. The others know that that will be their death. (Subjectively: will be; objectively: was.)

When quoting from "The Nest," above, I skipped over these sentences:

"I hate to think about seventy-five of myself acting as targets at the same time, though. It would only have needed one bullet." (p. 110)

If there were seventy-five, then seventy-four had not been shot but the seventy-fifth might be.

Others
Robert Heinlein's Bob Wilson trilocates (see Circular Causality I) and there are other examples, of course.

"The Upheavals Of That Generation"

We quoted Poul Anderson's "Gibraltar Falls" concerning Multilocation. It is also relevant to the interface between "contemporary" and "cosmic" but in a different way. The entire story is set five and a half million years before Tom Nomura's birth in 1947 so there is absolutely nothing contemporary about it.

However, from that Time Patrol perspective of millions of years, comment is made on the period in which the story was written:

"That Everard had been recruited in New York, 1954 A.D., and Nomura in San Francisco, 1972, ought to make scant difference. The upheavals of that generation were bubble pops against what had happened before and what would happen after."
-Poul Anderson, "Gibraltar Falls" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 125-140 AT p. 126.

("Gibraltar Falls" is copyright, 1975.)

No doubt. They were upheavals, nevertheless. I was in a definite "generation gap" with my parents but not with my daughter or granddaughter.

However, Nomura is twenty-five and has only just completed his training whereas Everard has traveled through innumerable periods while benefiting from longevity treatment. Nomura suspects that they are foreigners to each other. To compound the anachronisms, they are in the company of a woman born two millennia later than either of them...

How does the Patrol hang together?

Yet More Multilocation

In the combox here, Sean reminded us of another Time Patrol story, "Gibraltar Falls."

Nomura:

"...glimpsed himself vague in the mists..."
-Poul Anderson, "Gibraltar Falls" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 125-140 AT p. 137.

"...returned through time as well as space, so that a score of him searched along the fall in that span of seconds when Feliz might be alive."
-op. cit., p. 138.

Younger Nomura sees older Nomura. Therefore, older Nomura does not change events when he appears to younger Nomura. And he saves Feliz's life. This is acceptable to the Patrol whereas warning Feliz to avoid the fall when she had not been warned to avoid it would have been unacceptable.