Tuesday 15 July 2014

Changing Timelines

Robert Silverberg, "Christmas in Gondwanaland" IN Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois, Editors, Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds (Burton, MI, 2014), pp. 215-244.

In Prague, 1910, of the Time Patrol II timeline, Nakamura departs to Gondwanaland and returns with a prisoner.

Spallanzani does the same.

Gonzalez does the same.

Ben-Eytan does the same.

Everard departs last. When he apprehends the last terrorist, thus preventing the assassination of the Founders of the original Time Patrol, he restores the original timeline. Therefore, when he travels futureward with his prisoner, he arrives in the Prague, 1910, of the original timeline. He does not rejoin his four colleagues because they were in the Time Patrol II timeline and were deleted with it.

I do not mean that Silverberg intended this outcome. I mean that I think it follows logically from the premises of the Time Patrol series.

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