So You Wanna Change the World

Image: https://www.reddit.com/r/heroscape/comments/k6rwba/roman_legionnaires_x_airborne_elite/

Perils of Temporal Activism.

By Ray Tabler

The other day I thought about a book I read a few years back, Accidental Warrior-The Unlikely Tale of Bloody Hal, by Colin Alexander. It’s a pretty good story, about an ordinary university student who stumbles through a portal to an alternate timeline where a virulent plague wiped out almost everyone in Europe, and maybe the rest of the old world, in the 1600’s. As a result, the European colonies in the New World are left to fend for themselves. Without support and fresh immigrants, the various enclaves along the eastern seaboard (Dutch, English, French, Swedish) remain small, warring states instead of expanding across the continent. With 1600s technology. Good book. Wish there was a sequel. I recommend. Links below (Substack), or in the comments (Facebook).

What’s different about Hal is that he doesn’t try, or at least try that hard, to introduce what he knows about modern technology to the world he finds himself transported to. Usually, when the main character is zapped elsewhere/elsewhen they immediately set about changing the world. Why? Plot, drama, etc… Face it. That’s why you picked up the book. Fair enough.

If you’ve got a time machine, whether it takes you back and forward along one timeline or sideways to others, it’s very tempting to go adjusting history more to your liking. Or, to bring back future technology for remodeling your present. Which is the past for the time you looted. So, most time travel stories deal with efforts to steer history onto a different path, and the perils of temporal activism.

A large part of many time travel tales concerns endless bewildering looping through the timeline to resolve paradoxes or fix changes made to the past which didn’t work out as expected. Or didn’t seem to make any difference. That implies some kind of temporal inertia, as if time itself is resistant to meddling. That can be benign or indifferent, like nothing you do making a dent in events. Or it can be dangerous, like time dropping a piano on you to pre-empt your foolish shenanigans. Check out Larry Niven’s short story Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation for the lengths causality might employ to protect itself.

Let’s set reactionary and aggressive temporal physics aside, and just look at those stories where history can be changed. Either the past is malleable, or, at worst, shunts you off onto an alternate track in a parallel universe. Even if the weight of physics isn’t working against you, you’re still not out of the woods yet. There might some sort of time-travel police force. Who prefer their history just as it is, thank you very much. Killing off your grandfather before he reaches puberty is probably their go-to remedy.

Okay, assume that the timelines are a lawless expanse. The aspiring time traveler is only limited by luck, skill, and tenacity. Changing the world is difficult, even with foreknowledge and future technology. Because people often don’t want to change. Or, if they do, may not agree with you on a destination.

The Japanese have a word for it (of course they do), Iseki, “different world.” It’s a plot device which has been around for a while. The oldest example I’m aware of would be Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Authur’s Court. An enterprising 1800s Yankee engineer is whisked back in time to Camelot. The Yankee saves himself from being burned as a witch by predicting a convenient solar eclipse. Then, full of the 19^th century’s boundless enthusiasm for improvement, he attempts to drag medieval England into the industrial revolution. Spoiler alert! It doesn’t work out well in the end.

Another somewhat pessimistic take on the subject is Poul Anderson’s short story The Man Who Came Early. An American soldier, stationed in Iceland during the cold war finds himself transported back to the Middle Ages, surrounded by Vikings. Although the soldier means well, his engineering skills are useless with the tools and materials available. And his outlandish ideas eventually get him into fatal trouble. A cautionary tale for over-ambitious time travelers.

The most “successful” time-travel improvement project I know of is told in the 1632 series, founded by Eric Flint, and continued by numerous other authors. Via alien intervention, an entire West Virginia coal mining town, Grantville, is transported back to Germany during the Thirty-Years-War. The citizens of Grantville face a choice. Hunker down and hoard their advanced technology, or open up to share what they know with the rest of the world? They opt to be honest, allowing more-or-less free access to technology and what their public library has to say about the future. That changes history in predictably unexpected ways.

The moral is that if you want to steer history onto a new path it helps immensely to bring some infrastructure with you. Such is the case in Harry Turtledove’s novel, The Guns of the South. In this story, a group of modern (1980’s) South African whites aim to use time travel to tip the US Civil War in favor of the Confederacy. They supply the rebels with AK-47s and ammo, hoping to win the war, and provide a new, slave-owning homeland for them to step back into. Good read.

The exception to the above rule might be termed “the indispensable man” sub-genre. And a couple of specimens stand out. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen series tells the story of a Pennsylvania State Trooper, Calvin Morrison, who blunders through a cross-time portal into an alternate world where indoEuropean tribes of prehistory turned east instead of west. In this timeline, the Americas were colonized west to east, not the other way round. Kalvan’s new Pennsylvania is a patchwork of petty, pagan kingdoms with the musket and pike technology of the 1600s. (1600s again. Not sure why that era keeps coming up.) The supply of gunpowder is a monopoly of the cult of the god Styphon. Kalvan just so happens to be a black powder enthusiast and amateur historian of this period. Kalvan starts up gunpowder production, and upsets Styphon’s priests’ apple cart. Drama ensues.

Then there is the Leo Frankowski’s saga of Conrad Stargard. In The Cross-Time Engineer, a modern protagonist finds himself transported back to 13^th century Poland. He’s just in time to industrialize eastern Europe and prevent the devastating Mongol invasion. I realize Lord Kalvan and Stargard might strain the limits of credulity. But both stories are entertaining, and worth a look.

This is a literary tool which isn’t limited to time travel tales. In William R. Forstchen’s The Lost Regiment series, a Civil War infantry regiment from Maine is transported to a far planet through a periodically-opening portal. Already there are medieval Russians (Ukrainians? Currently some controversy as to which term to apply to this group.) who are enslaved by the barbarized, remnant population of the aliens who built the stargate in the distant past. The Maine men take the side of their fellow humans to battle the bloodthirsty alien nomads. In case you didn’t notice, this echoes the Mongol-dominated eastern Europe trope of the Conrad Stargard series mentioned above. But there are only so many historical models to go around. So, just enjoy the read, and don’t think too hard on that.

Harry Turtledove’s The Lost Legion puts a fantasy spin on the displaced military unit setup. A Roman legion is whisked away to a fantasy world, where magic is real. Albeit constrained by some rules and costs which severely limit its use. This universe is dominated by a fantasy equivalent of the Byzantine Empire. The orphan Romans struggle to fit into a world where the technology is about the same, but functioning magic must be taken into account.

Also deserving a mention are:

· Outlander – TV show where a magical stone circle allows a woman to travel back and forth between the modern world and the later 1700s. Not really knowledgeable of this series. As I understand it, the characters are mainly trying not to be trampled by history.

· The Emperor’s Men – Book series. World War 1 German cruiser is zapped back to 378 AD, and plunges into the tumultuous late Roman empire.

· Axis of Time Series – 21^st century naval task force is sent back to World War 2 pacific.

· The Final Countdown – 1980 movie. USS Nimitz aircraft carrier encounters time storm and is transported back to 1941. Tries and fails to prevent Pearl Harbor attack.

I’m sure I’ve missed some prime examples in this category. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Truth be told, my memory was probably never what to used to be. 😊 Still, the tales listed illustrate some salient features of attempts to change history, or aspects of other worlds. Such ambitions are difficult, and dangerous, and often don’t turn out as expected or desired. This isn’t so much a how-to for writing this type of story. More of a “things you might consider.”

Thank you for listening to my TED talk. It was/will be delivered as a guest lecture at Tycho City University, June 12^th, 2419. Holo copies and licensing details are available from the Institute for Applied Temporal Studies.

Reference links:

· Bloody Hal https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Warrior-Unlikely-Tale-Bloody/dp/1973570661

· Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?50243=

Iseki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai

· Connecticut Yankee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Connecticut_Yankee_in_King_Arthur’s_Court

· Lord Kavin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Kalvan_of_Otherwhen

· Poul Anderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Came_Early

· 1632 https://www.amazon.com/1632-Ring-Fire-Eric-Flint/dp/0671319728

· Lost Regiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Regiment

· Guns of the South https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guns_of_the_South

· The Cross Time Engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Stargard

· Outlander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlander_(book_series)