Trapping The Last Exaltationists

The siege of Bactra (see here) was not a world-changing event but Shalten fakes evidence that it could have been and ensures that this evidence is publicized during a year when there is reason to believe that some Exaltationists may have been lurking. If the Exaltationists heed Shalten's spurious evidence and try to change the course of history from 209 B.C., then Patrolmen will be waiting for them.

When the last Exaltationists have been apprehended, Shalten has the spurious evidence deleted from the timeline. This strikes to me as both unnecessary and dangerous. What other events, necessary to the Patrol's plan, might unintentionally be deleted in the process?

Shalten's and Everard's 1987 conversation about the Bactrian letter "now" never occurred. Nevertheless, Everard of course remembers it and it is unnecessary for Shalten to discuss the letter again with Everard in 1902 in order to ensure that he retains the memory. That part of the dialogue definitely makes no sense.

Patrol agents like Shalten have some nuanced way to manipulate events in order to ensure exactly the right combination of the preservation of the preferred timeline with deletion of potentially harmful happenings but we are told very little of how they do it.

Cells And Spirit

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

Shalten tells Everard:

"'...though the cells of the body be many, the works of the body are naught save that the spirit order them.'" (p. 67)

Does Shalten mean that there is a literal "spirit" distinct from the body but ordering bodily "works" in the same way that Everard had ordered some "'...well-coordinated teams...'" (ibid.) of Time Patrol agents? (That is the context of their conversation.) How much is known about the mind-body problem in Shalten's era? Has it been solved? Is it soluble? When is his era? When Everard had asked where-when Shalten was from, he was told:

"'You don't need to know...'" (ibid.)

Why not? Is Everard likely to be captured by enemies who would benefit by learning about Shalten's home era? Maybe. Everard is about to tackle the last remaining Exaltationists.

The brain does not seem to receive orders from anywhere outside itself. It has no Cartesian centre that might serve as a link to an immaterial entity. Instead, electrically firing and electrochemically interacting neurons somehow generate consciousness but how? For practical purposes, mental processes are unified around a sense of "I" although this can break down under pressure. I cannot say that brain processes are unified around a sense of "I" because we can describe the brain without ascribing any consciousness to it. This is the mind-body problem.

Clean Cold Winds

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991).

For story purposes, all that Poul Anderson needs to tell us is that a group of Time Patrol agents flies from a temple of  Poseidon to the city of Bactra. Instead, we read this vivid descriptive paragraph:

"The three hoppers lifted high enough to be no more than glints to any eyes that might chance to catch them, and glided toward Bactra. Below them the land rolled vast from the mountains in the south, fields green and brown, spotted with trees and tiny buildings, the river mercury-bright, the city and the invader camp toylike. No hint of hatred and misery reached these clean cold winds, save what the riders bore with them." (p. 116)

Anderson never forgets that his characters move through an environment that should be kept constantly before his readers' minds - almost as if they were watching a film.

I am not always sure about what Anderson is doing with temporal paradoxes. Everard warns colleagues:

"'...we will not play games with causality and risk setting off a temporal vortex...'" (p. 116)

He means, in this case, that he and one other agent will attempt to arrest the Exaltationists but that, even if they fail and are killed, the other Patrollers watching from a distance must not travel back in time to prevent them from being killed. But what is a temporal vortex and how could one be "set off" by such an attempt to change the past?

In this story, the Patrol has "'...been tinkering with reality...'" (p. 122). A Patrolman masquerading as a Soviet Army captain planted some fake archaeological evidence in 1985, then this was "'...removed, annulled.'" (ibid.) How might this have been done?

Let us suppose that the "captain" was based in the Patrol Academy in the Oligocene. From there, he travels to 1985 to plant the evidence. In 1987, there is press coverage of the recently discovered letter from Antiochus. This induces the remaining four Exaltationists to travel to 209 BC, when they are apprehended by the Patrol. When milieu HQ in Moscow, 1890-1910, has been informed of Patrol success in 209 BC (two Exaltationists killed, two arrested), HQ sends a message to the "captain" at the Academy telling him not to travel forward with his faked evidence to 1985. This annuls:

an event in 1985 - the "captain" handing the metal box containing the forged latter to Private Garshin;
the press coverage in 1987;
the Exaltationists reading that press coverage and drawing conclusions from it;
a conversation in 1987 during which Shalten of the Patrol informed Everard of the letter and the press coverage.

However, it does not prevent the Exaltationists from having arrived in 209 BC and been killed or arrested by the Patrol. We are told that time travelers in a deleted timeline are deleted with it so is this what happens to the Exaltationists who read the news reports and to the Shalten and Everard who discussed those reports?

At the end of the story but back in 1902, Shalten tells Everard:

"'In your position among us, you need to know the whole truth. For you to learn it later in this century could pose a hazard. Causational loops can be very subtle. Your experiences and accomplishments in Bactria [in 209 BC] must continue to have happened. Therefore you must be informed well pastward of our preparations for them.'" (ibid.)

But Everard's activities in 209 BC are well "pastward" of any events in the twentieth century and therefore cannot cease to have happened even if some of those twentieth century events are changed. Shalten is speaking to the Everard who did defeat the Exaltationists in 209 BC. That Everard is not going to forget what he did in Bactra, let alone cease to have done it. Now that the events in 209 BC have safely happened, Shalten feels it is better (I am not sure why) to delete the planting of the evidence and the events that followed from that even including a 1987 conversation between himself and Everard. I do not understand why, after all this, he thinks that he needs to discuss the matter with Everard in 1902 in order to keep the timeline the way he wants it.

Addendum, 17 Feb '14: Maybe, for the Time Patrol scheme to work, the "captain" would have to set off not from the Oligocene but from a date between 209 BC and 1985 AD. Thus, the prevention of his departure from that intermediate date would delete the forgery-related events in the twentieth century but would not prevent the Exaltationists from having arrived in 209 BC. (I woke up in the night dreading that someone else would make this point before I did.)

Anachronisms

Time Patrollers meet. First, Unattached agent Everard visits Unattached agent Shalten:

"Entering, Everard found the interior cool, dim, anachronistic."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 66.

Later, Everard meets Specialist Wanda Tamberly:

"They met downtown next morning, in the anachronistic opulence of the St. Francis Hotel lobby." (p. 430)

It seems appropriate that time travelers should meet in anachronistic surroundings. I heard that one idea for Doctor Who was to identify him with the Victorian period and to furnish the TARDIS accordingly.

Shalten appreciates knowledge of social change:

"'...my preferred pied-a-terre is Paris of the Belle Epoque. Refinement that will turn into revulsion, innovation that will turn into insanity, and thus, for the foreknowledgeable observer, piquancy becoming poignancy.'" (p. 66)

Far from regretting the loss of innocence, Shalten relishes it. When Everard visits Shalten's Belle Epoque in 1902, he:

"...tried not to remember that in a dozen years this world would crash to ruin." (p. 119)

Time Patrolmen cannot avoid their knowledge of what is to come. When Carl Farness visits Berlin in 1858:

"Occasionally, a uniformed Prussian officer strode by, but his shoulders did not obviously carry the future."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 400.

Not obviously, but a Time Patrolman knows...

Shalten

Another feature of Shalten's house outside Oakland (see here) is that it is in a "bedroom community" where neighbors can be avoided; very suitable for a Time Patrol agent, like Everard's New York apartment.

Everard does not need to know where or when Shalten is from. The latter, though not Jewish, wears a skullcap. In Robert Heinlein's Future History, men wear kilts. The only point here is that the future will be different. Heinlein is often in the background of Anderson's futuristic fiction. We compared Laurinda Ashcroft with DD Harriman here and Three Worlds To Conquer with Farmer In The Sky here.

Shalten seems to take what he likes from the ages that he visits, importing souvenirs from 1902 to 1987, drinking tea with Amaretto and Triple Sec and smoking perfumed tobacco in a churchwarden.

He thinks carefully about where and when the Exaltationist time criminals might go and how a trap might be laid for them in one of these places or times. Don't believe everything that you read in the newspapers.

Shalten's Biblical Style

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO.

See Exaltationists And Lucifer.

Shalten:

"'And the genetic engineers of the thirty-first millennium set themselves to bring forth a race of supermen, bred to adventure on the cosmic frontier,' Shalten said once, 'and lo, they found they had begotten Lucifer..'"
-976 B. C., p. 43.

"'How often does man, vain of his intellect, find that the harvest of his efforts is vanity!'"
-1987 A. D., p. 69.

Ecclesiastes 1:2.

If there is any more Biblical phraseology from Shalten, then I will add it here.

Tinkering With Reality

In Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), chapters are unnumbered. Each is headed by a year date, sometimes by the same year date. Thus, we must distinguish between 1985 A.D. pp. 11-16 and 1985 A.D., p. 123. These opening and concluding chapters of Part Two are set in the same year but in different timelines. On pp. 11-16, a mysterious Russian captain gives Private Garshin the casket containing the Bactrian letter whereas p. 123 informs us that the Patrol has cancelled that event so that Garshin does not meet the captain.

(This explains something else. The letter saying that Euthydemus had sallied out of the city was a fake. Thus, the Exaltationists did not have any opportunity to help Antiochus to kill Euthydemus on a battlefield after all.)

If the events of pp. 11-16 have been annulled, then so have the events of 1987 A.D., pp. 66-76, when Shalten informed Everard of the Bactrian letter. However, Everard traveled to 209 A.D., pp. 17-25, 34-41, 47-65, 77-94, 102-118, with memories of the Bactrian letter and therefore returned to the twentieth century with those memories. It is therefore redundant for Shalten afterwards to meet Everard in 1902 A.D., pp. 119-122, and say:

"In your position among us, you need to know the whole truth. For you to learn it later in this century could pose a hazard. Causational loops can be very subtle. Your experiences and accomplishments in Bactria must continue to have happened. Therefore you must be informed well pastward of our preparations for them.'" (p. 122)

Shalten is getting all mixed up. No annulment of events in 1985 can affect what Everard did two millennia earlier. And, as already argued, since Everard took his memories of the Bactrian letter to 209 BC, those memories returned with him even though the event in which he was informed of the Bactrian letter has been cancelled.

1902 AD

The Shield Of Time, 1902 A.D.

Shalten debriefs Everard back in 1902 because:

"'In your position among us, you need to know the whole truth. For you to learn it later in this century could pose a hazard. Causational loops can be very subtle. Your experiences and accomplishments in Bactria must continue to have happened. Therefore you must be informed well pastward of our preparations for them. I thought you would enjoy a visit to my Belle Epoque.'" (p. 122) 

Everard's activities in Bactria cannot cease to have happened because of any temporal changes that are made in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Shalten has made some complicated changes. By deleting 1985 A. D., pp. 11-16, when Garshin was given the Bactrian letter, he has also deleted 1987 A. D., pp. 66-76, when he himself informed Everard of the Bactrian letter. Everard remembers experiences that did not occur in the current timeline. Shalten has to delete events that he wants to delete while preserving events that he wants to preserve. No doubt Unattached agents know how to do this.

Meanwhile, at least, Poul Anderson presents a vivid description of the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris in 1902, a world that, as Everard reflects, will crash to ruin in a dozen years. See 1902 AD.

From Oakland, 1987, To Paris, 1902

Manse Everard visits Shalten's house outside Oakland in 1987. Appropriately, pines and oaks screen this small house, as if to conceal the secret of time travel.

Inside:

coolness
dimness
anachronism
mahogany
marble
embroidered upholstery
deep carpet
maroon hangings
gold-stamped French titles on leather-bound books
molecularly perfect copies of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec and Seurat

Shalten explains that these are souvenirs from his preferred setting, Paris of the Belle Epoque. Everard later visits Shalten's flat on the Left Bank in 1902. Time Patrolmen do not just travel through time. They travel to specific times that Poul Anderson evokes in meticulous detail.

1902 AD

Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991).

"Shalten's flat in Paris was large and luxurious, but on the Left Bank overlooking the Boulevard St Germain. Had he chosen that street purposely? He did have a devious sense of humor." (p. 119)

I don't get the joke. Why "...but on the Left Bank..."? This district, on the left bank of the Seine, is noted for its artistic and intellectual life. Shalten of the Time Patrol enjoys the Bohemianism and his neighbors are used to eccentrics.

Anderson presents his usual multi-sensory description: a warm afternoon in autumn, smoke, horse droppings, trees changing color, busy shops and cafes, an era that will last for another twelve years. Shalten's cluttered bric-a-brac etc "...declared a solidity that had endured and accumulated since the Congress of Vienna." (ibid.)

At the Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, European ambassadors agreed a settlement following the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, like the League of Nations in 1919 and the United Nations in 1945. Britannia ruled the waves from 1805 to 1945 thanks to Nelson's victory at Trafalgar. Thus, Anderson's references both to the Congress of Vienna and to the "...dozen years [after which] this world would crash to ruin" (ibid.) evoke a century of consolidation followed by the First World War. Everard's reflections continue into the future:

"...California, 1987. That was quite another world, remote as a dream - a nightmare?" (pp. 119-120)

The Chronology Of The War Against The Exaltationists

AD
1826 Exaltationists try to subvert Simon Bolivar's career
1533 They try to steal Atahualpa's ransom

BC
950 They threaten Tyre
209 They threaten Bactria

20th Century
1902 Shalten debriefs Everard
1980 Exaltationists are present
1985 Shalten lays his trap
1986 Everard meets Wanda Tamberly
1987 In May, Everard and Wanda are together in San Francisco
1987 Guion interviews Everard; Shalten briefs him

I think that that connects the historical and twentieth century dates of the conflict with the Exaltationists.

A Stable Space-Time Zone

I wrote here that "great events of world historical importance occur outside Bactra" but do they? In the Time Patrol series, we get used to reading about critical eras and unstable space-time zones but Shalten later tells Everard that Bactria in 209 BC was unusually stable:

"'Greek Bactria was as safe a piece of history as we could find to lure the Exaltationists to. It had never much mattered to the rest of the world, and an extraordinary concatenation of fantastically implausible occurrences, not just there but around the entire Hellenistic sphere, would have been required to change this. Therefore, by the law of action and reaction, its own mesh of world lines is especially stable, especially hard to distort. Of course, we were at pains to give the Exaltationists the opposite impression.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 121.

But surely nevertheless if the Exaltationists had successfully helped Antiochus to kill Euthydemus, then there would have been ripples and repercussions? Shalten had previously outlined an alternative timeline to Everard:

Antiochus conquers Bactria early in his campaign;
this frees him also to conquer in western India;
these conquests strengthen him against Egypt and Rome;
he retains his gains and helps Carthage to survive the Third Punic War;
his descendant succeeds in crushing Judaism;
no Christianity;
a different history, possibly guarded by an alternative Time Patrol.

This scenario had enough plausibility for Shalten to sell it to the experienced Everard! So I am not sure what the truth is about the might-have-beens.

Two Time Travel Tricks

I have been reading thrillers in which fugitives manage to stay out of sight, confounding the police or anyone else who might be looking for them. But imagine how a time traveller would be able to stay out of sight. You don't want anyone to find you or know where you are for a whole year? Then just travel forward in time for a year.

Imagine this scenario. Everard travels from June 1984 to a single day in June !987, then returns to June 1984. On that day in June 1987, Shalten briefs Everard about the Bactrian letter, which was discovered in 1985. Some time between June 1984 and the relevant day in 1985, Shalten deletes the discovery of the Bactrian letter. Thus, he deletes his briefing of Everard about that letter. But that does not prevent Everard from arriving back in June 1984 knowing about that letter and able to act on the knowledge.

(I am trying to retrieve some sense from Shalten's confused account here.)

Shalten Mentions The Bible

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 1987 A.D.

"'Although [Antiochus] himself is tolerant, a descendant of his attempted to crush Judaism in Palestine, as you may read in First and Second Maccabees.'" (pp. 75-76)

(An explicit Biblical reference.)

What Shalten says next suggests a whole new phase for the Time Patrol series:

"'Given total power in Asia, that attempt may well succeed. Therefore the whole world that brought you and me into being is a phantom, a might-have-been, which conceivably, an alternate Time Patrol keeps suppressed.'" (p. 76)

Everard suggests the same idea to Wanda. He tells her that, if the Exaltationists change events, then:

"'There'd never have been a you or a me, a United States, a Danellian destiny, a Time Patrol...unless they organized one of their own to protect the misshapen history they brought into being.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Year of the Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 641-735 AT 23 May 1987, p. 718.

So we might see wars in the remote past between rival Time Patrols.

Exaltationists And Lucifer

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 976 B.C.

Shalten compares the Exaltationists to Lucifer. Everard reflects that Shalten sometimes speaks in Biblical style.

For previous blog references to Lucifer, see here.

For a recent comparison of an Exaltationist to Lucifer, see here.

On my way out for the evening. I recommend Neil Gaiman's and Mike Carey's Lucifer Morningstar as an antidote to John Milton's Satan. The former even acquired a TV series.

Part Two

In Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), the list of Tor books by Poul Anderson includes:

Alight In The Void*
Tales Of The Time Patrol*

*forthcoming

- whereas, when the Time Patrol collection was published, its title was The Time Patrol, so there is an altered timeline, if you like.

PART TWO

1985 A. D. Private Garshin in Afghanistan.
  209 B. C. Everard approaching and entering Bactra.
1987 A. D. Everard and Wanda in Palo Alto.
  209 A. D. Everard in Bactra.
  976 B. C. Everard and Merau Varagan in the Aegean.
  209 B. C. Everard in Bactra.
1987 A. D. Everard and Shalten in Oakland.
  209 A. D. Everard in Bactra.
1988 A. D. Everard and Wanda in San Francisco.
  209 B. C. Everard four miles northeast of Bactra.
1902 A. D. Everard and Shalten in Paris.
1985 A. D. Private Garshin in Afghanistan.

The History Of The Exaltationists

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 1991).

In the thirty first millennium, a race of reckless, fearless supermen, called "Exaltationists," is genetically engineered "...to adventure on the cosmic frontier." (p. 43)

(By contrast, the Neldorian time bandits are from the two hundred and fifth millennium.)

First Attempt
The Exaltationists seek to rule in order that their wills may be entirely free. Failing to seize control of their civilization, they steal timecycles and escape into space-time.

Second Attempt
The Exaltationist Merau Varagan, becoming Simon Bolivar's evil genius, tries to make Bolivar overreach himself so that Varagan will be able to build an empire in the ensuing chaos. Manson Everard of the Time Patrol arrests Varagan but the latter is rescued by his future self.

Third Attempt
Exaltationists visit the court of the Inca Huayna Capac in 1524 and try unsuccessfully to persuade him not to give Atahualpa enough power to rival Huascar. This would have prevented the civil war that let the Spanish invade and conquer.

Fourth Attempt
The Exaltationists try to steal Atahualpa's ransom but find a Time Patrolman and a conquistador in the treasure house. Taking these unexpected prisoners for interrogation in their base at Maccu Picchu, where they number about thirty, the Exaltationists are hit first by their prisoners' escape on a timecycle, then, immediately afterwards, by a Patrol squadron.

Fifth Attempt
Contacting the Patrol base in Hiram's Tyre, the Exaltationists threaten to destroy Tyre with explosives unless they are given "...the data necessary for the construction of a Trazon matter transmuter..." (p. 257), but the Patrol kills or captures most of them.

The Trap
Knowing that some Exaltationists must visit the US in 1987 in order to gather intelligence on Wanda Tamberly, who was instrumental in their defeat at Maccu Pichu, the Patrol arranges press coverage of a recently discovered letter from Antiochus, suggesting that a different outcome to his siege of Bactra could have changed history.

Sixth Attempt
The Patrol apprehends the remaining Exaltationists as they try to intervene in Bactra.

I suspect that even the author can be confused by this rapid sequence of events. When Shalten says to Everard:

"'You have pursued the Peruvian affair to a conclusion, and paid attention to the charming young lady...'"
- Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 71,

- I think he should say "...the Phoenician affair..." because that is also now behind Everard on his world line.

Shalten also claims to know that at least one Exaltationist is "...in northern California on thirteenth of June 1980..." (p. 68)

- because that is when and where they had demanded that the Trazon transmuter data be transmitted. However, if they had intended to travel to 1980 to receive the data after completing their visit to the court of King Abibaal, then they were prevented from doing so.

High Tech And Low Tech

See here. Also, if Shalten had been talking to a version of Everard who had not experienced and accomplished what he did in Bactria in 209 BC, then how would telling him about it in 1902 AD rectify the situation? I do think that Shalten's dialogue lacks logical coherence at this point.

Meanwhile, so to say, Wanda Tamberly is in Beringia. In the Time Patrol series, we appreciate the contrast between the high technology of the time travelers and the low technology of the periods visited. Wanda surveys Beringia in 13,212 BC:

a low sun that will sink briefly beneath the sea;
gold sunlight on towering cumulus clouds and gleaming water;
short grass, peat moss, stunted aspen, scrub willow;
sedges by a brook entering a river with dwarf alder at the sides;
smoke from the dens of the locals;
a damp wind off the sea;
hundreds of gulls, ducks, geese, cranes, swans, plover, snipe and curlews;
a hovering eagle.

She then enters her low domed shelter containing:

her timecycle under a shelf with mattress and sleeping bag;
one chair and table with computer and other apparatus;
a cooking-washing unit;
storage.

By policy, her dome is small and unobtrusive in the lives of the natives although, inside it, she has a Patrol computer, far beyond the capacity of any twentieth century equivalent, and also a vehicle that can return her instantly to the late twentieth century. She is exploring the prehistoric past but remains part of a time traveling organization with its headquarters in a remote future.

The Time Patrol Timeline

The Oligocene.	The Patrol Academy exists for half a million years in the American West, then is carefully demolished. Babylonian recruits cannot understand time travel and have to be given a battle-of-the-gods routine. An ancient Roman does not understand that a machine cannot be treated like a horse. Stephen and Helen Tamberly meet at the Academy. Everard meets Whitcomb and Elizabeth Gray. Wanda Tamberly meets Tu Sequeira, from Mars in the Solar Commonwealth, who will monitor early spacefaring. The Academy is the venue for an emergency conference to deal with the Punic timeline.
31,275,389 BC.	Wanda Tamberly, training at the Academy, is interviewed by Guion who is investigating the possibility of temporal changes not caused by time travellers.
Miocene-Pliocene transition.	A Patrolwoman from the First Matriarchy makes a full-sensory record of the Atlantic flowing into the Mediterranean. Tom Nomura rescues and marries her.
The Pleistocene.	A Patrol lodge in the Pyrenees employs Cro-Magnon guides. Half an hour after departing for 1960, Unattached Agents Everard and Van Sarawak return to the lodge from a timeline where Carthage won the Second Punic War.
18,244 BC.	The Pleistocene lodge is the venue for emergency conferences to deal with two divergent timelines. Wanda Tamberly and Keith Denison return from the European theocracy of 1989alpha AD.
15,926 BC.	A Patrol ranch in pre-human North America.
15,000 BC-900 AD.	Stephen and Helen Tamberly holiday in archaic Japan.
13,212 BC.	The Paleo-Indians cross Beringia, observed by Patrol Specialists Ralph Corwin and Wanda Tamberly.
2937-2930 BC.	Patrolman Stephen Tamberly, marooned in South America by Luis Castelar, duplicates contemporaneous Japanese pottery.
2930 BC.	Guillem Cisneros of the Universarium of Halla solves the archaeological mystery of the Valdivia ware and rescues Tamberly.
1765 BC.	A Patrol base in a vault under the Babylon of Hammurabi. Disguised and guided, Denison and Mikelian tour the city after tracking Indo-European migrations.
c.1550-1292 BC.	Unattached Patrol Agent Komozino investigates the disappearance of an expedition from her home millennium that was seeking cultural inspiration in the Egyptian Eighteenth Dynasty. Patrol bases in 1137 AD contact her about their crisis.
c.1300 BC.	Everard and Cynthia Cunningham holiday in pre-human Hawaii.
c.1040-597 BC.	Epsilon Korten from twenty-ninth century New Edom on Mars directs Jerusalem Base which is responsible for temporal traffic in Hebrew lands from the birth of David to the fall of Judah.
950 BC.	Exaltationist time criminals threaten to destroy Tyre. Zakarbaal (Chaim Zorach) and his wife are Patrol agents in Tyre. Everard recruits Pummairam, who expects to battle wizards in a strange realm, and captures Varagan but the latter's clone mate, Raor, remains at large.
500's BC.	Keith Denison, Patrol Specialist in East Indo-European Proto-History, traces the migration of Aryan clans.
578 BC.	Everard and Denison prevent the murder of the infant Cyrus, thus also preventing Denison's sixteen years as a surrogate Cyrus.
542 BC.	(Everard, investigating the disappearance of Keith Denison, receives hospitality from Croesus, then learns that Cyrus the Great is Keith Denison.)
218 BC.	Neldorian time criminals intervene, and the Patrol counter-intervenes, in the Battle of Ticinus.
213 BC.	Plautus' Asinaria is first performed. The date and the exact text do not agree with what later scholars recorded. Guion thinks that this indicates instability in that section of history.
209 BC.	Patrolman Benegal Dass has spent and will spend widely separated decades watching the growth and death of a city now threatened by Exaltationists. However, Everard captures the remaining Exaltationists, including Raor.
c.5 BC - 30 AD.	The Patrol must know what happened but we are not told. However, Carl later reflects that he cannot in honesty argue either for heathenism or for Christ. On the other hand, it is possible that Koch is a sincere Catholic.
22-37 AD.	Patrol Specialist Janne Floris lives for fifteen years with the Frisii, marries and bears two children.
43 AD.	Patrol intervention accidentally initiates a Goddess movement that, without further Patrol intervention, would prevent Northern Europeans from converting to Christianity. Everard visits Carl and Laurie Farness at the Patrol's Polynesian resort.
49 AD.	Patrol ethnographer Jens Ulstrup has spent twelve years as Domar among the Langobardi.
70-95 AD.	After Everardus the Goth has initiated peace negotiations between Civilis and Cerialis, Janne Floris, appearing as the goddess, helps the pagan prophetess Veleda to re-conceive her deity as peaceful.
Early 100's AD.	Time travelling sociologists studying Rome find a copy of Tacitus' Histories that differs from the standard version.
300-372 AD.	Carl visits four generations of his Gothic descendants.
372 AD.	Wodan appears and betrays his followers as described in the Volsungasaga.
458-461 AD.	Stane from 2987 tries to re-organise post-Roman Britain. Killed by unknowns, he is buried with his belongings in a barrow.
900's.	Jean-Louis Broussard from the 24th century is a Patrol observer in France.
985 or 986 AD.	Everard accompanies Bjarni Herjulfsson to Vinland.
The Middle Ages.	Stalemate in church-state conflict prevents either theocracy or autocracy, allowing the growth of freedom and science.
1137 AD.	Patrol milieu headquarters for the Holy Roman Empire are in Mainz. The director is Otto Koch whose "servant"/assistant is Karel Novak.
1137AD (and 1137alpha AD).	Space-time-energy fluctuates as Guion feared. (Events occurring in divergent timelines would have to be listed separately. Also, although they were visited, very little is known about the divergent timelines.)
(1137alpha AD.)	(King Roger of Sicily dies in battle. Emil Volstrup, Patrolman in Palermo, knows that Roger should live for nearly twenty years...)
1140 AD.	The Patrol base in Palermo is expanded from a one-man operation when Norman Sicily gains importance.
1146 AD.	The Patrol kills a knight who interacts with so many important figures that small changes in his career have major effects on medieval politics.
c.1160/65-1225 AD.	Ma Yuan, Chinese painter. The exact objects depicted on one of his scrolls are another of Guion's instabilities.
1196 AD.	Stefan Nemanya, Grand Zhupan of Serbia, abdicates. Another of Guion's instabilities.
1198 AD.	Patrol milieu headquarters move from Mainz to Rome.
1200's AD.	Amerindian Patrol Specialist John Sandoval traces Native American history, including Athabascan migrations.
1280 AD.	Mongol expedition to North America.
1287-1307 AD.	Boniface Reynaud establishes himself as Reinault Bodel, wool dealer in Harfleur, chief seaport of Northern France, where he directs Patrol operations headquarters. Timecycles arrive in a locked dockside shed.
1295-1307 AD.	Patrolman Hugh Marlow rises in the Knights Templar.
1307 AD.	The Templars are suppressed but their fleet escapes.
1524 AD.	Exaltationists try to prevent the civil war that made it easy for Pizarro to conquer the Incas.
1533 AD.	Exaltationists try to steal Atahualpa's ransom but instead kidnap Conquistador Luis Castelar and Patrolman Stephen Tamberly.
1536 AD.	Time vehicles are glimpsed above the siege of Cuzco.
1589-1613 AD.	Everard and Cynthia Cunningham go to the theatre in London.
1610 AD.	At Machu Picchu, Castelar and Tamberly escape from Exaltationists on a timecycle. The Patrol attacks the Exaltationists.
1638-1715 AD.	Reign of Louis XIV. An agent recruited from this period is assigned to the same milieu. The Patrol has few recruits from before the First Industrial Revolution.
1731 AD.	On Good Friday, a time traveller records Bach's St Mark's Passion in Leipzig Cathedral.
1800's.	Everard and Cynthia Cunningham waltz in Vienna.
1826 AD.	Simon Bolivar receives bad advice - from an Exaltationist. Everard's first meeting with the Exaltationist leader Merau Varagan who escapes in a causal loop.
1843 AD.	Everard and the Farnesses see Lola Montez in Paris.
1850-2000 AD.	The period covered by Patrol headquarters 1890-1910 with smaller offices in other decades.
1850 AD.	Charles Whitcomb, formerly of the RAF and the Time Patrol, and his wife Mary settle down in Victorian England.
1856 AD.	Helen Tamberly born in Cambridge.
1858 AD.	At the Friedrick Wilhelm University in Berlin, Carl, reporting to Patrol agent Professor Herbert Ganz, displays a 3D recording of his meeting with Ulfilas, the Arian Apostle to the Goths.
1864 AD.	Emil Volstrup born in Copenhagen.
1873 AD.	Helen Tamberly orphaned, studies classics, later recruited by the Patrol.
1875 AD.	Cowboy Jack Hall recruited by the Patrol.
1880's AD.	Because Helen Tamberly would not like Stephen's birthtime, they live on York Place (crossing Baker St) in Victorian London, Stephen as an American employee of Dalhousie and Roberts. Helen studies the Ionic colonies in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, interpreting reports from Patrol observers. Next, they might live as Spanish colonials while he directs other researchers for several decades.
1885 AD.	Everard, investigating the disappearance of Stephen Tamberly in 1533, visits Dalhousie and Roberts for a second time.
1890's AD.	Everard knows a New York saloon that sets out a magnificent free lunch.
1890-1910 AD.	Patrol milieu headquarters in London, Moscow and Peiping.
1891 AD.	Otto Koch born in Germany.
1894 AD.	Time shuttle fuel chest discovered in an ancient British barrow. Dalhousie and Roberts, Importers (the Patrol's London base) must prevent assassination of Queen Victoria. Mainwethering of the Patrol would like to engage a private inquiry agent but the only worthwhile one is too clever and might detect time travel.
1895 AD.	Ralph Corwin born.
1908 AD.	Agop Mikelian recruited by the Patrol after the massacre at Van.
1910 AD.	Will Rogers teaches Everard lassoing.
1912 AD.	The Irish-American Altamont penetrates a German spy ring but might also uncover the Patrol military studies group and must be diverted.
1914 AD.	Otto Koch, studying medieval history, is called into the German army.
1917 AD.	German steals time machine and goes to 1894 to murder Queen Victoria.
1918 or 1919 AD.	Otto Koch, adrift after the war, recruited by the Patrol.
1920's-1930's AD.	Corwin studies American Indian anthropology before joining the Patrol.
1924 AD.	Everard born in the US Midwest.
1925 AD.	Wanda and Manse have dinner in Paris and a drink in the Deux Magots two tables away from two of Wanda's literary idols.
1927 AD.	Keith Denison born.
1930's AD.	After Carl is recruited to the Patrol, he and his wife opt to live in 1930's New York. Carl's visits to 300-372 are supervised by Everard from 1980.
1930 AD.	John Sandoval born.
1936-1945 AD.	Patrollers studying the earliest stages of spacefaring work their way into Peenemunde.
1936 AD.	Stephen Tamberly born.
1941-1982 AD.	Patrollers monitoring early spacefaring work their way into White Sands.
1942-1945 AD.	Everard is a lieutenant in the US Army Engineers.
1943 AD.	Everard knows a girl in Streatham who later marries someone else.
1944 AD.	Everard defies the Patrol and the Danellians by helping Whitcomb who has gone to London in a recovered Ing time shuttle to prevent his fiancee, Mary Nelson, from being killed in an air raid. A Danellian intervenes and Everard is promoted to Unattached status in the Patrol.
1945-1954 AD.	Everard, a mechanical engineer, has design and production experience in America, Sweden and Arabia before responding to a job ad for "Engineering Studies Co."
1947 AD.	Tom Nomura born.
c.1950's-1960's.	Everard and Cynthia Cunningham visit bars in "Tom Lehrer's New York."
1950's AD.	John Sandoval fights in Korea, goes through college on the GI bill and joins the Patrol.
1950 AD.	Denison completes his PhD in Anthropology after taking a collegiate boxing championship and crossing the Atlantic in a thirty-foot ketch. Drafted to Korea. Karel Novak, on the run from the Czechoslovakian government, is hidden by an acquaintance who persuades him to take curious tests and recruits him to the Patrol. A young black woman recruited in Jamaica will be part of the team that rescued Everard from Exaltationists at a temple outside Bactria, 209 BC. Janne Floris born.
1952 AD.	Everard visits Amsterdam. Denison, discharged from the US Army, recruited to the Patrol.
1954-1990 AD.	Everard maintains an apartment in New York for at least this long. It acquires Bronze Age spears and a helmet, also a polar bear rug given to Everard by Bjarni Herjulfsson. Cynthia Denison (nee Cunningham), John Sandoval and Guion visit the apartment.
1954 AD.	Manson Everard recruited. Just back from training at the Academy, he reads about "...the singular contents of an ancient British barrow."
1955- AD.	Patrollers studying early spacefaring work their way into Tyuratam.
1965 AD.	Wanda Tamberly, Stephen's niece, is born. Wanda Tamberly from 1990 visits Corwin in Berkeley.
1968 AD.	Stephen Tamberly takes tests and finds that he has been recruited into the Patrol.
1970 AD.	Following advice given by Shalten in 1987, Everard posing as a tourist reconnoitres the terrain in preparation for his mission to the Greek kingdom of Bactria in 209 BC.
1971 AD.	Chaim Zorach, working as an archaeologist in Israel, meets his future wife, Yael.
1972 AD.	Tom Nomura recruited to the Patrol in San Francisco. Physicist Elizabeth Gray recruited.
1975 AD.	The Zorachs are recruited into the Patrol.
1980 AD.	Carl Farness, who must play the role of Wodan, is recruited by the Patrol.
1980-'81 AD.	Keith and Cynthia Denison start new identities in Paris.
1985 AD.	Laying a trap for the Exaltationists, Shalten of the Patrol plants fake evidence about Bactria, then, later in his experience, removes the evidence so there are records of mutually inconsistent events in Afghanistan.
1986 AD.	Everard re-visits Amsterdam on a Patrol case. Willem Ten Brink manages the export-import firm that fronts for the Patrol's Amsterdam office and is chief of Patrol operations in that corner of Europe.
May, 1987 AD.	Everard rescues Wanda from Castelar and recruits her to the Patrol.
September, 1987 AD.	Castelar kidnaps Wanda Tamberly from the Galapagos.
1998 AD.	Everard lends his apartment to an operative who needs such a base.
1990 AD.	A Danellian reveals the real meaning of the Patrol to Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly. Manse and Wanda begin a holiday, interrupted by Manse's mission to 1307.
2000's.	Mainwethering from Victorian London visits the twenty first century. Hassan, an Iraqi recruited to the Patrol, will work at the ranch in 15,926 BC.
2100's.	Andean Resurgence; Inca revival. Andean Patrol agent Julio Vasquez born.
2200's.	Insulsynth.
c.2207.	Boniface Reynaud born.
2300's.	Van Sarawak born in a pioneer society on Venus. Birth of Jean-Louis Broussard, a Patrol observer in tenth century France.
2319.	A hospital with artificial gravity on the Moon.
2800's.	New Edom on Mars; Second Asteroid War.
2900's.	Rozher Schtein (Stane) and Guillem Cisneros born. Interplanetary wars; Venus attacks Earth; blast-ray guns; synthrope; trade with the Saturnian System.
2987.	Disappearance of a trader from the Ing Empire and his time shuttle; Patrol notified.
post-2987.	Interregnum; secret of synthrope lost; Ing Empire; trader leaves for 2987 to barter raw materials for synthrope.
3100's.	Genetic engineering in the Saturnian System.
3700's.	Coordinator Stanel V, the Great Experimenter; colonies reproducing past societies.
3890.	Martian War; Guidance Corps on Earth; First Matriarchy soon.
9573.	Dard Kelm, Patrol Academy tutor, born.
11511.	The Morennian Triumph.
19352 AD, the 7841st year of the Morennian Triumph.	The Chorite Heresiarchy breaks up. Commercial and genetic rivalry on a galactic scale. The Nine discover time travel. The Danellians appear and found the Patrol.
30,000's.	Exaltationist princes, genetically engineered for adventure on the cosmic frontier, seize power, lose it and flee on stolen timecycles.
204,000's.	Neldor; an age of time bandits.
Undated:	Everard's viking Scandinavian mission. Chrysopolis on Mars. Venusian Renaissance. Scientific Renaissance. Three Technological Renaissances. Patrol suppression of the Trazon matter transmuter during the third Technological Renaissance. Three Matriarchies. Solar Commonwealth. The Cold Centuries; weather control systems. The Universarium of Halla. Home eras of Komozino, Guion and Shalten.
pre-1,000,000.	Era of Oneness.
post-1,000,000's.	Danellians, our evolutionary successors, the High Command of the Time Patrol.

Email address: paul

Time Travelers In The Shield Of Time And In Death And The Knight

To prove again that the Time Patrol series is not just about Manse Everard, let us list the other time travelers in the rest of the series:

Guion
Chandrakumar
Shalten
several more Exaltationists
a black woman from Jamaica, 1950
Wanda Tamberly
Tu Sequeira
Ralph Corwin
Nick the bookseller
Emil Volstrup
Keith Denison
Agop Mikelian from 1908
the director of Babylon base
a thirty second century Saturnian
Unattached Agent Komozino
a Frenchman from the period of Louis XIV
a former Chinese cosmonaut
a twenty first century Nubian (our contemporary)
a babu from the British Raj
Otto Koch, German, born 1891
Jack Hall, a cowboy till 1875
Karel Novak, Czech
a Nick who phones Everard, maybe the bookseller
Hugh Marlow
Boniface Reynaud from the twenty third century
bully boys who rescue Marlow

A list longer than expected and as always with a surprise, in this case Nick's reappearance.