Matthew S. Williams's Blog, page 186

The Future is Here: Cyborg Flesh!

My thanks to Futurist Foresight for turning me onto this article. I would have reblogged, but it was just easier to follow the links and post on my own. You may recall some weeks back when the news hit the airwaves, about how researchers at Caltech developed the medusoid, a cybernetic jellyfish that was capable of mimicking the behavior of the original. Well, it turns out bioengineers at Harvard University have gone a step a further.

Merging the neurons, muscle cells, and blood vessels of various rats with nanowires and transistors that can monitor bioelectric impulses, these researchers were able to create the world’s first hybrid living/electronic cells. Much like the medusiod, the cells were controlled through electrical impulses, which allowed them to function like normal cells, except controlled via a computerized interface.

In time, they anticipate that this will lead to the development of nanotechnology that will allow them to make subtle changes in a person’s biochemistry. More than that, they could become the basis of tiny medical machines, such as microscopic pacemakers, or as microcircuits for prosthetics and silicate implants. On top of all that, this research is a big step along the road to the development of nanorobots, machines so tiny that they alter or maintain a person’s health at a cellular level.

“It allows one to effectively blur the boundary between electronic, inorganic systems and organic, biological ones,” said Charles Lieber, the team leader in an interview with New Scientist. And he’s absolutely right. With developments such as these and the boundaries they are pushing, human-machine interface, implant technology, robotic prosthetics and upgrades, and even the merging of our minds with computers could all be on the horizon. For some, this will mean the arrival of the long awaited Homo Superior, the new age man. For others, its a chance to tremble at the specter of a cybernetic future!

Both are fine choices, whatever floats your boat

Masdar City

Imagine a city that runs entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy source. A city that generates entirely no carbon and no waste, with mass transit that relies on electronic, computer-controlled pod cars. That is the concept behind Masdar City, a planned urban environment located 17 km south-east of the capital of the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi).

Designed by the British architectural firm Foster and Partners, and with the majority of the seed capital coming from the government of Abu Dhabi, Masdar is a blueprint for future cities based on sustainability, clean energy, and the latest and best in manufacturing, recycling and waste management technology. On top of that, it will contain some of the most advanced facilities in the world, dedicated to science, commerce and eduction.

In essence, it is the answer of what to do about rapidly advancing technology, urban growth, and development in the developing world. Point of interest include:

Masdar Institute:

Wouldn’t you know it? At the heart of a city based on sustainability and clean energy is an institute dedicated to the furtherance of these very things. Known as the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), this research-oriented university was developed in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and focuses on the development of alternative energy, sustainability, and the environment.

In addition, its facilities use 70% less electricity and potable water than normal buildings of similar size and is fitted with a metering system that constantly observes power consumption. It’s full range of programs include Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering, Engineering Systems and Management, Water and Environmental Engineering, Computing & Information Science, Electrical Power Engineering and Microsystems.

Renewable Energy:

In addition to its planned 40 to 60 megawatt solar power plant, which will power further construction projects, with additional solar panels to  be placed on rooftops, for a total output of 130 megawatts. In addition, wind farms will be established outside the city’s perimeter capable of producing up to 20 megawatts, and the city intends to utilise geothermal energy as well.In addition, Masdar plans to host the world’s largest hydrogen power plant, a major breakthrough in terms of clean energy!

Water Management:

When it comes to water consumption, that too will be handled in an environmentally-friendly way that also utilizes solar energy. At the hear of this plan lies a solar-powered desalination plant. Approximately 80 percent of the water used will be recycled and waste greywater will be reused for crop irrigation and other purposes.

Waste Management:

As already noted, the city will also attempt to reduce waste to zero. Biological waste will be used to create nutrient-rich soil and fertiliser, and plans exist to incinerate it for the sake of generating additional power. Industrial waste, such as plastics and metals, will be recycled or re-purposed for other uses. The exterior wood used throughout the city is Palmwood, a sustainable hardwood-substitute developed by Pacific Green using plantation coconut palms that no longer bear fruit.

Transportation:

Initially, the planners for Masdar considered banning the use of automobiles altogether, focusing instead on mass transit and personal rapid transit (PRT) systems, with existing road and railways connecting to other locations outside the city. This systems utilize a series of podcars, designed by the company 2getthere, contains 10 passenger and 3 freight vehicles and serves 2 passenger and 3 freight stations connected by 1.2 kilometers of one-way track.

The cars travel at an average of 20km/h (12mph), trips take about 2 and a half minutes and are presently free of charge. Last year, a system of 10 Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars was deployed as part of a one-year pilot to test a point-to-point transportation solution for the city to complement the PRT and the freight rapid transit (FRT).

Summary:

Given the mounting environmental crisis this planet faces, cities like Masdar may very well be the solution to future urban planning and expansion. But of course, as an incurable sci-fi geek, I also consider cities like this to be a handy blueprint for the day when it comes time to plan extra-solar and even exoplanet settlements. Not only are they effective at curbing our carbon footprint and environmental impact, they are also a  good way to start over fresh on a new world!

Related links:

Masdar Institute (http://www.masdar.ac.ae/)

Masdar City (http://www.masdar.ae/en/home/index.aspx)

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Welcome back to the BAMA*! At long last, I’ve come to the end of William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy. For those who don’t remember, this began with Neuromancer and Count Zero many months ago. I had hoped to include this third and final review in short order, unfortunately other books got in the way. And by other books, I mean a tall stack that I’ve been reading, reviewing, and putting down to make room for even more! I tell ya, being a sci-fi reader/writer/reviewer can really burn your brain somedays!

Luckily, I concluded the book just yesterday and am ready to comment on it at last. And let me begin by saying that it’s very interesting, having read every novel that Gibson has written up until this point, to look back and see how his writing began and evolved over the years. It is also interesting to see how certain thematic elements which would appear in later trilogies – i.e. The Bridge and Bigend trilogies- made their first appearances.

Elements common to cyberpunk, such as high-tech and low liing, were common to all three books in this series, but were also an intrinsic part of Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties. The stark divide between rich and the poor and the transformative power of wealth, so important to the Bigend Trilogy, was also to be found in these earliest works. And of course, stories focusing on freelancers who find themselves in the employ of enigmatic figures, and the power plays that go on behind the scenes between various brokers, were present in all of his novels to date.

However, after completing this novel, I can honestly say that I felt let down. Prior to reading it, I was told that it was the greatest of the Sprawl Trilogy, and the reviews claimed that it was Gibson’s “most engrossing story to date”. I came away feeling that it was less than engrossing and definitely not the best of the three. For one, it seemed lacking in much of the cool elements that made Neuromancer and Count Zero so very fun and intriguing.

However, before I get into all that, I should summarize what this book is about. Here goes…

Plot Synopsis:

The story, much like all of Gibson’s works, contains multiple threads that are interrelated and come together in the end. In the first, we see a Japanese girl named Kumiko, the daughter of a Yakuza boss who has decided to send her to London in the midst of a war between the various crime families.Her only companion is a construct named Colin, a personality that inhabits a portable Maas-Neotek biochip.

Once there, she makes the acquaintance of a freelancer named Sally Shears (aka. Molly Millions) who has been hired out by her father’s people to keep her safe. In addition, Sally is being blackmailed by Swain, the head of the London mob, who has ordered her to kidnap the famous simstim star Angie Mitchell and replace her with the a body double.

In thread two, we meet the intended double, a 16-year old prostitute named Mona from Florida who travels to New York with  Eddie (her pimp) after he closes some lucrative deal. However, when they arrive, Eddie is killed and Mona is forced to undergo the surgery that will make her look exactly like Angie, whom she knows from all her simstim movies and admires greatly. Angie’s back story, about how she was the daughter of the man who invented biochips and placed bioenhancements in her brain (all of which takes place in Count Zero) is all recounted, as is her failed relationship to Bobby (aka. “The Count”).

In thread three, we learn that Angie has returned from rehab after developing an addiction to a designer drug her company was supplying. After a brief stay in Malibu, she learns that it was someone in her inner circle who was giving her the drug in the hopes that it would alter her brain chemistry, thereby disrupting her ability to access cyberspace and communicate with the AI’s now living there (the lao, or Voodoo god personas the AI’s had taken on).

In the fourth and final thread, we are introduced to three residents who live together in an abandoned factory located in “The Solitude”, an uninhabited area in the Sprawl. Gentry is the defacto owner of the place, a cyberspace jockey preoccupied with the way it has changed since events in Neuromancer where AI’s began to permeate it. Slick is his roommate, a robotics enthusiast who builds giant battledroids with the help of his friend redneck friend Bird.

Things for them become interesting when Slick’s associate, Kid Afrika, drops off a man who’s permanently jacked into cyberspace and asks them to take care of him. He leaves the man (Bobby Newmark) and a registered nurse (Cherry) with instructions to keep them safe. After examining the aleph (a biochip with immense capacity) that he’s plugged into, Gentry learns that it is an approximation of the whole data of the matrix.This is where he has been living for the past few years after breaking up with simstim star Angie Mitchell.

In the course of the story, we also learn that Lady 3Jane has died and now inhabits the aleph as a construct. At some point, Bobby stole the aleph and now inhabits it with her. After checking in with her jockey friend, Tick, in London, Molly learns that 3Jane is behind the plot to kidnap Angie Mitchell and replace her, and begins to work to unravel these plans. She travels to New York to meet with the Finn, himself a construct now, and learns that since her operation to Straylight, things have been changing drastically in cyberspace.

Now, 3Jane is looking for revenge, and Angie is intrinsic to that plot. After recruiting Swain and key members of Angie’s entourage to help her, she attempts to conduct the kidnapping while Angie is in New York. However, Molly intervenes and grabs Angie and Mona, who is being set up to replace her, and begins to travel to the Solitude. Angie, under the influence of the lao, is directed to Factory to reunite Angie with Bobby.

Meanwhile, Kumiko, who is alone in London, goes to find Tick and find out what’s going on. Ever since Molly left, she is advised by her Maas-Neotek construct Colin to seek refuge from Swain. When she finds him, she too learns about how cyberpsace is changing and how a massive data profile has entered into the matrix (which turns out to be the aleph). When they jack in, they are pulled into the aleph with 3Jane who attempts to hold them prisoner.

Things come together when Molly arrives in the Factory and Sense/Net mercenaries begin to show up to take Angie back. Meanwhile, in the aleph, Colin comes to their rescue by neutralizing 3Jane’s control over the construct. He also reveals 3Jane[‘s motivations. In the wake of her death, after a life of pettiness, greed and obsessive control, she has become jealous of Angie Mitchell and her abilities. Molly, since they know each other from the Straylight run, is pretty much on her shit list as well!

In the end, Angie Mitchell and Bobby die together, but not before their personalities come together in the aleph, to be forever joined by 3Jane and the Finn. Mona is picked up Kid Afrika who assumes that she’s Angie Mitchell, and is taken off to take over her starlet life. Molly takes the aleph and travels off into the distance while Slick and Cherry get together and head off to start a new life together. And finally, Gentry, who refused to leave Factory, stays behind to contemplate the matrix’s growing complexity.

Meanwhile, a final mystery is resolved. Inside the aleph, Angie, Colin and Bobby are picked up by the Finn who explains how and why the Matrix changed. After Neuromancer and Wintermute at the end of the first novel, the combined AI indicated that there was another like him, a construct similar to the Matrix in Alpha Centauri. Apparently, after he went there, he came back changed and divided into the lao, and the Matrix itself changed. Now, the Finn is taking them there, to meet the alien cyberspace and all the mysteries it holds…

Summary:

As I may have said already, this book was my least favorite of the Sprawl Trilogy. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, mind you. But it was diminished in that Gibson’s usual dark, gritty, and decidedly cyberpunk style – which ranges from opulent to gothic in its appraisal of technology and its impact on society – seemed to be watered down by a much cleaner narrative. In the end, it felt more like reading from the Bigend Trilogy, in that the settings and feel were quite similar.

Aside from taking place largely in London and New York, there was also a lot of buildup and not much in the way of action. And of course, the diversions into the fields of fashion, mass media and the cult of personality; these too felt like they would have been much more at home in the Bigend Trilogy. That was the trilogy that dealt with all these elements, whereas the Sprawl was all about the nitty-gritty, about cool gadgets, mercenaries, cyber-ninjas, deck jockeys, corporate bad guys, high-tech and low-life.

To top it all off, the ending felt quite abortive. Gibson is somewhat notorious for this, but whereas Neuromancer and Count Zero contained plenty of gun-toting and cyberspace runs, this book kept all the action til the very end. And at that point, it was complicated by a rather odd narrative structure and some pretty weak explanations. After learning that 3Jane was pulling all the strings and determined to wreak revenge, it seemed weak that it was all for the sake of punishing Angie out of jealousy.

If anything, I thought her motivations had to do with the Straylight run. That after fifteen years of waiting and plotting, she finally found Molly and decided to kill her and anyone else involved in changing the Matrix. To know that it was motivated by her jealousy of Angie’s abilities just rang hollow. In addition, I thought the usual motivations, like how the wealthy are constantly trying to cheat death, might have been a fitting motivation. I seriously thought at one point that her true intentions were to find herself a vessel, and Angie Mitchell proved to be the perfect choice due to the veves in her hand. Through these, 3Jane could simply download herself, provided she had her in custody and hooked up to the aleph… or something.

However, there was plenty of interest in between all that. While many chapters kind of dragged for me, I did enjoy the scenes where the history of the Tessier-Ashpool clan were reconstructed. The revelation about the Alpha Centauri matrix, which was only hinted at at the very end of the Neuromancer was also very cool. And the detailing of the lao and the evolution of the Matrix since Wintermute and Neuromancer came together, that too was interesting. In the end, I just wished there had been more of this.

And given that this novel did wrap up the previous two novels and brought closure to the whole Sprawl trilogy, I would highly recommend it. Regardless of whether or not it was the best or weakest of the three books, it is the final chapter and contains many important explanations and resolutions, without which the series would never be complete. On top of all that, it is hardly a weak read, and I know for a fact that many people consider it to be better than the others. So who am I to stand in anyone’s way of reading it?

Kudos to you William Gibson. I have now read every novel you wrote. I now move on to Burning Chrome and Johnny Mnemonic, plus any other bits of short fiction and thoughtful essays I can get my hands on. Despite all the little things I have come to criticize about your work, you remain one of the best and most important writers in this reader’s bookshelf! And if I really didn’t like you, why the hell do I model so much of my work on your prose? Like Aeschylus said of Homer, any work of mine dealing in cyberpunk and high-tech is pretty much the crumbs from your table!

Good day and happy reading folks!

Futurama and Schrodinger’s Cat

If you’re like me, you had no idea who the hell Schrodinger or his alleged cat was before The Big Theory came along. Lucky for us, that show makes learning about science fun! But an even bigger plus is being able to understand jokes like this one. Not only did they parody Tron, they also managed to work in the scientific concept of Lorentz Invariance, Fresnel’s Refraction of Light, and the quantum theory of Schrodinger’s Cat. And for those who haven’t seen it, this show was also a parody of the concept of precrime from the novel (and movie) by PKD, Minority Report. Man, this show just keep’s getting smarter!

Whiskey Delta – Chapter 13

“You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte

The men escorting him were grunts, no higher than PFC’s. It seemed like an arbitrary thing, on top of everything else, to be upset about being led to a slaughter by subordinates. And yet, there it was. But did they really have to insist that he leave his rifle behind? What did they think, he was going to blow a gasket and go postal in the Mage’s office. It was like being neutered…

Every step he took was a perfect fucking shame. He felt all eyes in the corridor upon him and wondered what they were thinking. In truth, he wondered himself what he should be thinking. It was a foregone conclusion that someone would be taking them aside to deliver their special assignment, but to get it from the Mage himself. One had to wonder just how badly they had come off looking in Haynes’ report.

The men pealed off as soon as they reached the door to the Mage’s office. Faces blank and unforgiving, they took their places on either side of it and raised their weapons. Nothing left but for Braun to walk through and take his reaming like a man. He reached out and turned the handle. The sound of a conversation in progress trickled out.

He caught a few words, the Colonel mentioning something about resettlement and decont teams being busy for weeks beforehand. One didn’t need to be too smart to know that they were referring to the operation he and his men weren’t taking part in. He came before the Mage’s desk and stood at the ready, hands behind his back and chin high, awaiting what was to come.

“Lieutenant Braun,” the Mage said finally. “I imagine you didn’t expect to be back in here so soon?”

“No sir,” Braun replied.

“Well, rest assured this isn’t a dressing down. You’ve been called in here for a very special reason.”

Braun nodded. As expected, the Mage was wearing the velvet glove, standard procedure when one was being rotated to avoid any more screw ups. Always let them think they aren’t in trouble, pretend what they’re doing and where they’re going is of the utmost importance. And that was when they didn’t go with the patronizing consolation speech. But at least he wasn’t being yelled at. That much he could be thankful for.

“I also apologize that your squad won’t be taking part in the liberation of Santa Fe. You’re men proved intrinsic in the first phase of that operation.”

Braun frowned. “So that is going ahead, sir? We’re really retaking the town?”

“Correct, Lieutenant,” Vasquez said. “The resistance was less than we expected. It seems the Whiskeys were spread thinner than even our most conservative estimates indicated.”

“Another major push, and we’ll be ready to rebuild it, even repopulate it. And all those people we pulled out will be able to go home, such as it is.”

Braun cleared his throat and nodded. That was good news, but knowing it only made him feel worse. It wasn’t just an offensive they were being deprived of, but a major one. An historic one.

“And yet, the mission I am asking you and some of your men to perform goes well beyond that, Lieutenant… Perhaps you should take a seat.”

Braun looked to the seat beside him. He could safely say that things were taking an alternate direction that previously thought. Pulling the seat closer, he lowered himself into it and crossed his hands on his lap.

“Drink?” the Mage offered. Braun politely declined. Vasquez made one for the Mage and himself, and took a seat next to the Mage’s bookshelf. Braun could feel an air of conspiracy building in the office. His mood was beginning to shift as well, from the simple anxiety felt by a man who was anticipating a beating to a man who didn’t know what to expect. And it was bugging him…

“Let me come right to the point, Lieutenant. Your commanding officer complained bitterly about his operation being screwed by the… shall we say, independent mindedness of a certain junior officer. He was sure to place the blame for any delays and risks on the shoulder of said officer and recommended he be pulled from the front line.”

Aha, Braun thought. Now this sounded like the consolation speech.

“However, that simple act of independence resulted in the death of some twenty or thirty Whiskey Deltas, the rescue of twelve more civilians, and some vital intelligence. Of those three things, which do you think was the most important?”

Braun pondered on that and answered tentatively. “The civilians, sir.”

The Mage nodded and raised his glass. “Good call, Lieutenant.”

“Every living, uninfected person is worth a hundred dead Whiskeys, Lieutenant,” Vasquez interjected. “Every person we retrieve and keep alive and healthy is another chance to start over. Every one is a breeder, a rebuilder, a working set of hands and a chance for more babies.”

“What’s more, I was able to deduce from the Colonel’s rather vindictive report that one of your squads found a group of Whiskeys lying in wait. These critters, instead of attacking our advance like a bunch of mindless beasts, laid a trap and tried to lure our men in. This confirms what I’ve been fearing for some time now.”

“They are getting smarter,” Vasquez said. “At least some of them are.”

“And the price for all these gains was that one Colonel’s timetable was forcibly altered.” The Mage took a long sip from his whiskey. “I don’t know about you, but I consider that a pretty small price to pay.”

Braun smiled and then found himself looking back and forth from Vasquez to the Mage. A consensus was apparent, he and his men had done something truly valuable. After all this build-up, had they merely brought him in here to commend him? If that were true though, why all the subterfuge? Why let Haynes think he was getting his way? A cruel jest? Now he was really curious!

The Mage finished the last of his whiskey and leaned forward in his desk. Braun braced for the revelation.

“Question for you, Lieutenant. As important as rebuilding is to our plans, it is the subject of winning this war that concerns us in the here and now. We’ve still got to win this war, and aside from blowing the heads off of infected, how do you think that’s going to be done?”

Braun swallowed and answered as best he could. Long-term strategy had never been that much of a concern. Everyone was happy to leave that to people like the Mage.

“Starve them out, sir?”

The Mage nodded, looked to Vasquez who did the same. “Makes sense. We set up our roadblocks and blockades, makes sure they don’t through. Keep them from biting our people long enough and eventually they’ll all die off. Then we can retake the country, one acre at a time…” Vasquez wasn’t nodding, which led him to believe he had gotten it wrong. The Mage explained why a second later. “Only problem with that is, as long as they got food sources to move on to, they’ll continue to expand. We can protect our own here, but the fortress mentality never works when it prevents you from stopping the enemy from overrunning the countryside.”

“Plus its going to be that much harder to rebuild if everyone outside our four walls is dead, Lieutenant.”

Braun nodded. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“No need to apologize, Lieutenant. Given our current disposition, you no doubt assumed that was what we had in mind. Unfortunately for all of us in what’s left of the command hierarchy, we’ve had to keep this one close to our chests. For some time now, we’ve been forced to buckle down and mind our territories. But that’s about to change.”

“Hence why you’re here, Lieutenant. You and your company have demonstrated time and again that you have the ability to meet the enemy on their own terms and beat them. You’ve also demonstrated that you have the ability to think on your feet, which is the most important aspect for your new assignment.”

“Sirs,” he said, a bit impatiently, “if I may ask, what is this new assignment. My company and I were under the impression we were pulled from the line for insubordination. What exactly are we being tasked with?”

The Mage looked to Vasquez with a slight grin on his face. “What we are about to tell you is strictly off the record, so you need to understand in advance that anything you hear within this office does not go beyond it. Understand?”

Braun nodded firmly. He had assumed as much as soon as they started commending him on his performance thus far.

“For many months now, myself and every other command that is still operational in this country have been trying to find a way to hit the Whiskey’s where they live. We’ve known since the first outbreak, before the First Wave even started, that this thing is biological in nature. We are at war with the pandemic itself, and if we’re going to win, we have to find a way to kill and make sure it never comes back.”

Braun drew in a long breath. “You’re talking about a cure?”

The Mage shrugged. “Perhaps a cure, perhaps an inoculate. We can’t be sure what form it will take. All we know is, this pandemic started somewhere, and with that knowledge comes a chance.”

Vasquez stood up from his spot and took over once again. “Lieutenant, are you familiar with the term Patient Zero?”

Braun felt his mind switch gears again. All traces of anxiety were gone, replaced with something far more potent and unexpected. He had indeed heard of that term, but never in the form of scuttlebutt amongst his men. That kind of talk had only been within the higher circles, stuff that happened shortly after the First Wave when there was still some semblance of order. After things had broken down, when they had fallen back to their bases, all that talk had ceased. Then, with the arrival of the Mage, all anyone ever talked about was holding the line and waiting for the day when it was all going to be over. That and what little tidbits they could gather about what was going on outside of their so-called fortress. But he remembered those words; and more importantly, what they implied…

“The first infected person,” he said. “Something about a man who came from overseas?”

“That’s correct, Lieutenant,” the Mage said. “A man named Mace Harmonn, who had been traveling through South-East Asia where it is assumed he contracted the virus while taking a little sojourn in the jungle. The CDC had traced the outbreak back to him, and we were looking for him just as soon as it became a matter of national defense. Back before the First Wave hit, we were getting close. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were forced to relocate our commands to a series of secure facilities, facilities such as this one.”

He gestured vaguely at the office. However, Braun knew he meant the base itself. Few people ever got to hear this story, and he suddenly felt privileged on top of everything else. But more important than that seemed to be the implication of what he was saying.

“Are you saying you’ve found him?”

“We think so,” Vasquez replied. “Thanks to ongoing collaboration between ourselves and other assets in the field, we believe we’ve narrowed it down to Los Angeles. That was the last place he had been seen before… he turned.”

The Mage pursed his lips. His mustache forming a large furry column underneath his nose. “And now we need to find him. That one man holds the key to ending this crisis, and either rendering those people who remain immune, or bringing all those infected back.”

“Where do we come into this?” Braun asked.

The MAge chuckled. “Now that’s where it get’s interesting.” He handed his glass back to Vasquez, who began to fashion another drink for him while he talked.

“Lieutenant, are you and your company experienced with Halo drops? Aerial retrieval? The operation of a Stryker vehicle? Cover infiltration tactics and the latest in bio-technology?”

Braun frowned. “No sir, with the exception on operating an LAV, I’d say none of my men have experience in any of those fields.”

“That’s about to change,” the Mage said, taking his refilled glass from the Colonel and taking a sip. “Once you and a handpicked squad are finished, you’ll be experts in every manner of infiltration, exfiltration, and high-tech warfare. A necessity, since you will be the ones I’m sending to find Patient Zero, and return him here.”

Braun looked to Vasquez, as if for confirmation. He could scarcely believe his ears.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re going to La La Land. Or what’s left of it.”

Once In a Blue Moon

Tonight, the Armstrong family pays a farewell tribute to Niel. In honor of this event, Mrs. Armstrong has asked that people stare up into the heavens tonight, and wink at the Blue Moon. As you all are certainly aware, Blue Moons come only once every three years (or 2.7 if you want to get technical), so the convergence of the Moon and the celebration of the man could not be more appropriate. Rest In Peace, Neil!

How Return of the Jedi Should Have Ended

Remember HISHE and how they deconstructed Prometheus and the The Dark Knight Rises? Well, turns out they did  a number on Lucas’ baby too. I plan to search their archives and find every single video dedicated to the prequels! In the meantime, enjoy this video. Got to admit, it does raise some pretty good points

Robot and Frank Trailer

Check out the trailer for the new movie entitled Robot and Frank, a near future comedy/drama about an elderly man with Alzheimer’s whose family gets him a robot to help him out around the house. In time, Frank and the Robot begin to bond and form a relationship that even begins to supersede the one he has with his own children. Naturally, things get a bit awry when Frank decides to go back to his old ways and use the Robot to pull some heists!

Not only does this look like an interesting movie from a purely technological angle, I looks downright touching and deep. The existential issues it explores, like how one does not need emotions in order to form bonds, or how Frank is more willing to go on the lam (I assume) than erase his friend’s memory. Significant! Looking forward to it. Expect a review

Time Travel In Sci-Fi

Hey all. Have I said yet that it’s good to be back? Well, truth be told, it feels like I’ve only really got back into the swing of things in the past few days, and after a two week hiatus to boot. I also noticed that it’s been awhile since I’ve done a conceptual post, something dedicated to classic sci-fi and the concepts that make it so freakishly and enduringly cool!

And so I thought I’d tackle a very time (pun!) honored concept in science fiction today, that being the concept of time travel. Despite what many may think, the idea of going forwards or backwards in time is not a recent idea. It did not begin only after scientists theorized that time and space were expressions of the same phenomena – aka. relativity – nor with the development of quantum theory. However, these scientific discoveries did spur the concept on by introducing the idea of temporal paradoxesand the notion that there was such a thing as a space-time continuum resulting in multiple universes.

But I’m getting sidetracked here; and frankly, all this paradox and timelines stuff has been known to give me a headache! Instead, I’d rather look at some of the most renowned and celebrated instances of time travel in science fiction. Sidenote: As usual, I’ll be starting with literature and saving pop culture for another day. And of course, I won’t be covering everything, just the few examples that I think are the best.

Earliest Examples:

As already noted, the concept of being able to see into the past and future, with the purpose of changing the course of it, predates the idea of time travel as a scientific phenomena. In truth, it was often used in novels as a device to advance plot, character development, and offer moral instruction on the importance of choices and making the right ones.

A Christmas Carol:

This was certainly the case in Charles Dickens’ classic tale of selfishness and redemption, where a miserly capitalist is shown both his past and future in order to help him mend his ways. Published in 1843, A Christmas Carol has gone through countless renditions and adaptations over the years, with names like Ebeneezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim becoming household names that are synonymous with greed, pathos, and generosity of spirit.

Taking place on Christmas Eve, 1843, the story opens with a general description of Scrooge’s own life and success in the accounting trade, followed by an assessment of his character. Miserly, stingy, unsympathetic to the plight of the poor, his success is due in part to the fact that his business partner, a man much like him, has been dead for seven years, leaving everything to him.

After reluctantly letting his employee, Bob Cratchit, a poor but happy family man go home for the night, he is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley. Marley warns him that for his life of greed, he is suffering eternal punishment, and tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts who will show him the error of his ways and teach him the true meaning of Christmas. These ghosts, which are named the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, all show Scrooge how his decisions to forsake love, family, and kinship for the sake of his money have left him lonely and heartbroken, which is the source of his cruelty. When he sees his future, which is a cold grave with no one to mourn or miss him, he realizes there is still time and vows to change his ways.

Encapsulating Dickens’ view of industrialization, class distinction, poverty and the exploitation of the English working class, Carol remains one of the best known examples of social commentary in English literature. It is also the first widely-known example where time travel was used as a plot device.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court:

Published in 1889 and written by the venerable humorist Mark Twain, Yankee employs a great deal of Twain’s characteristic wit in order to dispel the 19th century notion that the Middle Ages were a time of romance and chivalry, instead showing them to be a time by ignorance, superstition and brutality.

The story begins when an engineer named Hank Morgen from Hartford, Connecticut suffers a head wound and finds himself inexplicably transported back in time to the court of Camelot. After realizing that he is living in the 6th century and, for all intents and purposes, the most technically proficient man on Earth, he begins using his skills and knowledge of the future to convince the people that he is a powerful magician.

As a result, he replaces Merlin as the chief sorcerer of the court and begins growing in fame and power. He then embarks on an industrialization program for England, establishing trade schools to teach modern concepts and English, thus elevating them from the Dark Ages. At his prompting, Arthur begins to travel the land and is convinced to make several enlightened reforms, including abolishing slavery and improving the lot of the peasants.

In the end, Hank is lured to the continent by the Papal authorities who naturally fear him. While he is gone, the Church issues an Interdict on his followers and activities, and Arthur and Lancelot go to war over Guinevere. As foretold by legend, Arthur dies at the hands of Sir Mordred before Hank can save him. Upon his return to England, a Papal Army comes for Hank and his followers, who end up fortifying themselves in Merlin’s Cave behind an electric fence and minefield while employing Gatling guns.

However, disease begins to set in and Hank himself is wounded and falls prey to illness. While lying in bed, his assistant sees Merlin casting a spell over him, one which he claims will make him sleep for 1300 years (putting him back in his own time). The story ends with the narrator, a man who is writing the tale down in the present, saying that Hank is lying unconscious on the floor of his factory, leading the reader to question whether or not it was all a dream.

An endorsement of rationalization, industrialization and Americanization, Twain’s tail not only challenges the notion that the Middle Ages were a time of ignorance, brutality and persecution, but shows how attempts to remedy the past, however well-intentioned, were doomed to fail. In a way, this proved to an ironic commentary on those who were reinterpreting the Middle Ages to suit their current woes about industrial civilization. To them, Twain would insist that it’s easy to glory a past you don’t have to live in!

The Time Machine:

As already mentioned, the concept of time travel was not new by the time that H.G. Wells wrote the book on the same subject. However, Wells was the first to approach it as a scientific phenomena and inspired just about all subsequent interpretations. Written in 1895, The Time Machine was one of several stories written by Wells that involved time travel. Much like his earlier story, The Chronic Argonauts, the story revolves around an inventor who builds a time machine for his own personal use.

Told from the point of the view of a man known only as “The Time Traveller”, the story consists of his account of his journeys into the distant future and what he encounters there. In his first journey, he travels to the year 802, 701 AD, where he discovers a world divided between two races of people – the Eloi and the Morlocks.

The former are a beautiful, elegant people, though they appear to have no real drive or curiosity, who live in Edenic communities. The latter are a race of brutish troglodytes who live underground and work the machinery that makes the Edenic world above possible. Every now and then, these people emerge to the surface at night to capture and eat one of the Eloi, an act of revenge against their oppressors.

After escaping from a near-death encounter with the Morlocks and retrieving his time machine, he travels ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, which appears to be covered by red lichens and populated only by crab-like creatures and butterflies. He jumps forward further by small increments and sees the Earth’s rotation gradually cease and the sun die, leaving the Earth a frozen heap where no life can live.

Clearly meant as a social commentary on class distinction in Britain of his day, The Time Machine was also a potential warning about the state of man. Taken to its extreme, the concept of industrialization and rationalization would lead to the production of two races of people – a leisure class with no discipline or survival skills and a class of brutalized, downtrodden workers who had gone backwards in terms of evolution. A fitting commentary on an age when the gap between the rich and poor was enormous, the former becoming rich of the work of the workers while they in turn lived in horrendous conditions.

The Modern Classics:

By the onset of the 20th century, time travel was becoming an increasingly popular concept for science fiction writers. Thanks to writer’s of the previous century, the purpose of using it for the sake of social commentary, allegory, or as a literary device for the sake of character development had become well established. Many of these were used effectively by authors to warn contemporary readers about the path human civilization was on. Another major development was the publication of Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” in 1905 and the proposal of multiple universes (as an interpretation of Quantum Theory). These added a certain degree of scientific merit to the idea. As a result, books involving time travel also began to be used to describe such phenomena as temporal paradoxes and circular time.

By His Bootstraps:

Written in 1941 by Robert A. Heinlein, this short story was amongst the first to introduce the concept of a time circular paradox, where the past and future becoming intertwined. This idea is something which Heinlein would return to several times over the years, where time travel creates a self-fulfilling scenario that the character must repeat, either in the past or in the future.

The story begins when a man (Bob) who is working on his doctoral thesis on time-travel is met by a time-traveling interloper named “Joe”. Joe looks familiar and shows him the small gateway that he used to travel back, and invites Bob to come with him 1000 years into the future. Suddenly, a man who looks just like Joe shows up and begins fighting with him, during which Bob is knocked through the gate.

He awakens in the future, and learns from an old man named Diktor that aliens were the one who built the time machine so they could fashion humanity into slaves. Joe realizes a 20th century man could become king in this world and that the man who invited him was his future self. As such, he travels back through the gate to meet himself in his apartment, this time using his own name to convince his past self to time travel. As before, another version of himself which shows up to fight him and his past self is knocked through.

This time around, his past self meets with Diktor, but this time goes  back into the past to procure all the items a 20th century man will need to be a ruler. He procures these, then goes back for the third time, but sooner so he can arrive at a time before Diktor is around. When he gets there, he sets himself up as chief and begins tampering with the time travel device so he can see its makers. Once he does, he’s shocked by their appearance and his hair turns white. After years of waiting, he meets his past self which comes through the gate to meet him. The circular paradox is now complete, with Bob realizing that he IS Diktor (the future word for “chief”) at that he must send himself back to ensure his own future.

At once complicated and containing several overlapping elements, the story introduced audiences to the very cool and timeless concepts of time loops and paradoxes. On the one hand, we see a future which seems fated to come true, but could not possibly exist without the intervention of the main character. Hence the concept of the circular time paradox. After learning the truth, the main character must conspire to ensure that everything that has happened happens again… otherwise the future which he inhabits will no longer exist.

A Sound of Thunder:

A short story which was first published by Ray Bradbury in 1952, A Sound of Thunder introduced readers to the concept of the “Butterfly Effect”. Beginning in 2055, the story opens on an era when time travel has been invented and is used for hunting safaris. The main characters are talking politics, remarking about how a fascist presidential candidate was defeated by a moderate.

The party then gets into their time machine and travels back in time several million years to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex. Once they arrive, the travel guide (Travis) warns the hunters about the necessity of minimizing their effect on events, since any alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in the future. The hunters must also stay on a levitating path to avoid disrupting the environment and only kill animals which were going to die anyway.

When they find the T rex, one of the hunters (Eckels) loses his nerve and runs away. The two guides then kill the dinosaur seconds before a falling tree was meant to kill it, and go off in search for Eckels. After finding him and realizing that he ventured from the path, Travis orders him to remove the bullets from the T rex’s body (a necessary precaution) as penance. When they return to the present, they immediately notice subtle changes.

Words are spelt differently, people act differently, and the fascist candidate who had lost the election in their own time has been announced as the winner. Eckels removes his boot and discovers the culprit, a crushed butterfly that he stepped on while straying from the path. He begs the others to let him go back and make things right, but all that is heard in reply is the “sound of thunder” alluding to the fact the Travis shot Eckels.

In addition to being one of the most republished science fiction stories in history, this short story also introduced the concept of what would later be known as the Butterfly Effect, so named because of the butterfly featured in the story. As such, the story would go on to inspire countless similar science fiction tales over the course of the ensuing decades, serving as a cautionary tale about tampering with the laws of nature.

The End of Eternity:

Written by Isaac Asimov and released in 1955, Eternity is considered one of his best works, due to the way it dealt with the subject of time paradoxes. Striking a starkly different tone from his Robot and Foundation novels, the story is a mystery/thriller that deals with the subjects of time travel and social engineering.

It with the introduction of an organization known as Eternity that exists outside of time. Staffed by people from various time periods (known as Eternals), this group enters the temporal world at different points in time to make small alterations (called Reality Changes) that are designed to minimize human suffering over the course of history. They are also made up of “Technicians”, the people who execute those changes.

At the story’s beginning, the main character, a Technician named Andrew Harlan, is tasked with going back and ensuring Eternity’s creation. His mission involves taking a young Eternal (Cooper) back in time with the “kettle”, i.e. the time machine, where he is to meet the historic inventor of Eternity (Vikkor Mallansohn) and teach him the principles of time travel.

However, Harlan, embittered by Eternity politics and the fact that he is being denied contact with his lover (a non-Eternal named Noÿs), scrambles the time settings and sends Cooper to the wrong time. After his superior reasons with him and tells him of his own love affair with a non-Eternal, Harlan realizes he’s made a mistake and begins trying to find Cooper, whom he thinks he sent to the 20th century. Working on the theory that Cooper would have left an SOS behind in the past, he begins going through old artifacts. He discovers a message in a magazine from 1932 showing a Mushroom Cloud with the acrostic A-T-O-M. Since this predates the development of nuclear weapons, he determines that it must be a message.

Harlan then agrees to travel back in time to find Cooper, provided he can take his lover Noÿs with him. When they get there though, he reveals that he knows she herself is an agent of Reality Change, from the centuries  where Eternals cannot enter. She reveals that her people prefer to watch time and not get involved, and that Eternity is denying human creativity and the development of space travel. As such, they want to deny the creation of Eternity.

She tells him that all he need do is give up on finding Cooper and let her do her mission, which is help stimulate the development of nuclear science. Due to his own experiences with the Eternals, Harlan agrees that his organization may not be the best thing for humanity. He agrees to help her and the kettle disappears, indicating that Eternity no longer exists.

Slaughterhouse Five:

Written in 1969, Slaughterhouse Five is considered Kurt Vonnegut’s most influential work. Taking place during World War II, the story incorporates aspects of time travel and the larger questions of free will versus determinism. In addition, the themes of war and senseless slaughter run the whole thing like a vein, with the setting, tone, and events aligning perfectly to convey its noire message to the reader.

The story opens with a disillusioned man named Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who is taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He and other POW’s are taken to a slaughterhouse which has fallen into disuse in Dresden. During the subsequent fire-bombing of the city, both the POW’s and German soldiers take cover in the basement.

While in the basement, Billy becomes “unstuck in time”, moving forward and backward and experience events out of sequences. In one time jump, he is kidnapped by aliens and placed in a zoo with a B-movie actress who is meant to be his mate. He learns from the aliens, known as the Tralfamadorians, that they can see in four dimensions and see the full progress of their lives. As such, they cannot change the course of them, but can focus on individual moments.

As he continues to travel, he witnesses different moments from his own life and relives various fantasies. He sees himself in the snow before his capture, experiences moments from his post-war mundane married life in the US in the 50s and 60s, and even witnesses his own death at the hands of a petty thief named Paul Lazzaro in the late 70′s.

He learns that his death is the result of a string of events which have already begun. The man who kills him turns out to be the friend of another POW named Weary, who died of gangrene as a result of his capture. This, he blamed on Pilgrim, who he hates for his anti-war attitudes and blames for their capture. By the 70′s, when the US has become Balkanized and Billy joins a movement dedicated to warning people about the alien threat, Lazzaro shoots him in front of an audience. In this way, Billy realizes he has become just like the alien captors, in that he too can see his fate and now must decide how to go about changing it.

In many ways, Vonnegut was on the ground floor of the post-modern trend, thanks to his use of a non-liner narrative where things happen out of sequence and time seemed jumbled and confused. The book was also hailed for its multi-layered nature, positing the ideas of fate, free will, cause and effect, war and slaughter, past and future all together in the same narrative. The fact that it takes place inside a slaughterhouse when outside, fire bombs are consuming a city, also demonstrated a thematic consistency that did not go unnoticed.

Recent Examples:

With time and our evolving understanding of history has come many new and exciting examples of time-travel in sci-fi.

A Rebel in Time:

Written in 1983 by Harry Harrison, the author of Make Room! Make Room! (which became the basis of the movie Soylent Green), Rebel is one of several science fiction novels that presents an alternate history of the American Civil War in which the Confederacy won. However, it was also novel in that it was the first to combine this idea with the concept of time travel, where it was intervention from the future that led to this divergence.

The story opens with a racist Colonel named Wesley McCulloch who is being investigated by a special military committee for buying up large quantities of gold. Troy Hamon, the black soldier charged with looking into his activities, determines that McCulloh also murdered people to cover his plans, which includes the theft of an antique Sten gun.

In time, he realizes that McCulloh’s plans involve the use of an experimental time machine, and that he hopes to deliver the Sten gun and the gold to Confederate forces in the past. With this easily-producible automatic weapon and plenty of gold to fund the war, the Confederacy will win the war. He eventually pursues McCulloh into the past and must fight his way through Civil War America, braving prejudice and war in order to stop the plot from achieving fruition.

Because of the way it combined time travel and attempts to alter the past with alternate history, Rebel went on to inspire The Guns as the South by Harry Turtledove, as well as the entire Southern Victory Series.

Outlander:

Written by Diana Gabaldon and Published in 1991, Outlander is the first is a series of seven novels known as the Outlander Series. In addition to winning the RITA Award for “Best romance novel” of 1992, the series is renowned for merging historical fiction and romance with the concept of time travel, though in a way that is arguably more fantasy than sci-fi.

The story takes place shortly after WWII and centers on the characters of a British Army nurse named Claire Randall and her husband Frank, an Oxford history professor who briefly worked for MI6. Reuniting after the war, they decide to take a second honeymoon to Scotland, during which time they plan to research Frank’s family tree. During their trip, they hear of the local standing stones of Craigh na Dun and decide to attend an evening with some of the locals.

The next day, she returns to the stones and experiences a strange sense of disorientation. Upon waking, she hears a battle nearby and goes to investigate. She sees an English army fighting with the Scots and comes across the very ancestor Frank has been researching, Captain Randall. Convinced that this is a reenactment, Claire plays along and pretends to be a robbed Englishwoman.

Before she can go with him, a Scotsman knocks out Randall and takes Claire prisoner. They claim to be fugitives from the Red-Coats and ask for her help in tending to their wounded, and her skills as a nurse earn her their trust. Afterward, they begin running again, and Claire comes to the realization that she must be in the past since the lights of Inverness do not appear where she knows it should be. This causes her much grief, and the man she helped heal, Jamie, begins to comfort her.

Confused and disoriented, she is brought to the seat of power of the Clan McKenzie and questioned by the laird. She in unable to convince them that she is a robbed Englishwoman, the same lie she told Randall, but is allowed to stay on the condition that she not try to leave. Having come to terms with her situation, she tries to find a way to return to Craigh na Dun where she hopes to be able to return to the present. Around the county, Claire comes to be known as an “Sassenach”, an “Outlander”, but earns some trust through her knowledge of medicine. In addition, it is becoming clear that Jaime is taking a shine to her and her to him.

She learns that the McKenzie’s are Jacobites who are resisting English rule, that Captain Randall is the one oppressing them, and that he is still looking for her. The laird’s brother, Dougal, proposes that Claire marry Jamie, as a means of making her a Scotswoman and ensuring her protection. She agrees, thinking this is the only way to ensure her safety for the time being, and also because she thinks Jaime is the most suitable man there. As a gesture of trust, he reveals to her that he has been using an alias since he’s a wanted man. Not a McKenzie by birth, his real name is James Fraser.

They marry and have sex for the first time, but Claire finds herself tormented by thoughts of Frank, who she knows must be worried sick over her. After a near-disastrous escape attempt in which Captain Randall nearly rapes her, she returns to life in Castle Leoch and grows closer to Jamie. However, due to local superstitions and the jealousy of others, she and a fellow healer named Geilis Duncan are accused of witchcraft and sentenced to public whipping. Naturally, Jamie comes to their rescue and they ride out into the wilderness. Claire realizes that Geilis is also from the future when she notices a vaccination scar.

Once safely away, Claire finally tells Jamie the truth and he decides to return her to Craigh na Dun. However, she cannot bring herself to leave and decides to stay with Jamie, realizing that her love of him is greater than her love of Frank. Jamie then returns with her to Lallybroch where he secretly reclaims his role as Laird, much to general happiness of his tenants. However, things turns bad when Jamie is betrayed by one of his own to Captain Randall who sentences him to hang for his Jacobite activities. Claire and her kinsmen organize a rescue, during which Captain Randall is killed. She and Jamie escape to a monastery in France to contemplate the future, and Claire learns that she is pregnant with their first child…

The novel remains a favorite amongst fantasy and historical fiction fans alike because of its interweaving of real history with fantasy and romance. As the series goes on, Gabaldon dabbled in further examples of crossing historical fiction with romance, with people venturing from different points in the future to other time periods and places in the past. In each, they ended up begetting the people and world from the future that they knew, in essence creating a time circular paradox.

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus:

Orson Scott Card, the same writer who created the Ender’s Game series, released this complicated tale of time travel and tampering with history. As the first in the Pastwatch Series, released in 1996, this first installment deals with the most controversial historical figure and subject in history: Christopher Columbus and European contact with the Americas.

The book contains two interwoven narratives which converge towards the end of the book. The first opens in the late 15th century where Christopher Columbus is preparing for his long voyage across the ocean, while the second takes place in the future where the planet is doomed and civilization is on the verge of collapse. Entering into this is a group of researchers who haves developed a machine called the “TruSite II” which gives them the abilities to view and record events of the past.

In time, their work leads to the development of time travel and the group decides to send back agents to alter the past. Focusing on Columbus, who’s actions led to centuries of genocide and exploitation, the group concludes that if he did not arrive in the New World, history and technological development would have proceeded more slowly and evenly, leading to a better future.

However, the team soon realize that they are not the first to tamper with history. In the original timeline, Columbus was never obsessed with going westward and instead led a final crusade to Constantinople. Meanwhile, the Aztec Empire fell and was replaced by an iron-wielding Tlaxcalans, who went on to establish a more modern, centralized state and pushed their influence far beyond the old Aztec borders.

When Portuguese traders finally did make contact with them, the Tlaxcalans kidnapped them and acquired the knowledge of firearms. Though exposure to smallpox did have a dire effect, the sparse amount of contact did not lead to full-scale pandemics and the Tlaxcalans were able to develop a natural immunity. By the 16th century, the Tlaxcalans used their knowledge of Europeans and improved ship technology to sail to Europe and conquer it at a time when it was politically fragmented.

This timeline led to the development of its own Pastwatch, to whom the conquest of Europe by the Tlaxcalans was seen as the most dire event in history. As such, they traveled back in time and fed the ambitions of Columbus in order to act as a buffer against this conquest. However, their own tampering produced an equally dire, but opposite outcomes, the conquest of the New World by Europe. With this in mind, the main characters begin to strive for a balance, a timeline in which neither hemisphere was conquered and both Europeans and Native Americans could acheive contact peacefully.

In the end, the three agents succeed and Columbus’ wife, one of the team, reveals to him near the end of his days what would have happened had they not intervened. After learning of the terrible events he would have had a hand in, Columbus weeps for days. His name and his title have thus been “redeemed”. In the end, Card gives readers a glimpse of a 20th century that resulted from this balance, a harmonious world where East and West came together for trade and mutual benefit, leading to the creation of an advanced utopia. In this future, scientist unearth the skulls and the time capsule of the three agents and hear their warnings about possible futures.

As a historian, this book appealed to me on many levels. Not only did it address one of the most contentious and controversial issues in all of recorded history, it also dealt a reality that is rarely ever addressed. For centuries, historians and social scientists have been trying to decipher why modernity turned out the way it did, with certain civilizations superseding others and colonizing the world. Many modern scholars remain trapped in the past on this subject, with several still subscribing to outdated and even racist theories of “culture” and ideology being the cause.

However, it is plain to anyone who looks closely enough that the true and pivotal event, aside from various geographical and environmental issues, was the so-called discovery of the New World in the late 15th century. Thanks mainly to smallpox, Europeans managed to embark on a  program of conquest and plunder and would meet minimal resistance. And thanks to the introduction of countless tons of gold, silver, cotton, coffee, tobacco, spices, tomatoes, potatoes, avocados, chocolate, vanilla, pumpkins, beans, rice, squash, and more, Europe grew fat and rich and shot ahead of its previously more advanced neighbors (the Arabs, Indians and Chines). This fueled further expansion into Africa and Asia, and also led to the discovery of more resources that would fuel industrial growth – i.e. Americas vast stores of coal, iron, and oil.

By examining the what ifs of history, and positing that another outcome was possible and just as undesirable, Scott creates a narrative that is not only realistic and deals with extremely relevant subject matter, but also instructive in that it demonstrates the importance of cooperation over conquest, trade and understanding over genocide and assimilation. I often wonder what would have happened had Columbus died of a heart-attack before venturing, or his ships had been destroyed like Cortez’s. Better yet, if Cortez had been killed in battle and never made it back to Cuba. That man was a royal douche!

Timeline:

A tale of historians who travel back in time, Timeline, released in 1999, contains Michael Crichton’s usual combination of fact with action and adventure. In this case, he combines aspects of real history and questions about quantum and multiverse theory with scenes of medieval warfare, as told through the eyes of modern historians who travel back to the time which they are studying.

After a series of strange events in the Arizona desert and an archaeological site in France, the main characters -  a group of medieval historians – are summoned to the headquarters of ITC (the company that is funding them) and learn of a startling fact. After building a quantum time machine, one of their professors traveled back to the 14th century site they have under excavation but failed to return.

The researchers  – Chris, Kate, and Marek – all agree to go back and search for him, dressing in period costume and taking some security with them. However, they are attacked as soon as they arrive in the past, which leads to an accident in which their time machine is destroyed. What’s more, the local lord takes Kate and Marek prisoner.

Alone, Chris heads for  Castelgard to confront the Lord Oliver and is accompanied with Lady Claire in disguise. Once they reach the castle, Chris and Marek are challenged to a joust, which they prove victorious in. However, this leads Lord Oliver to order their deaths, and they are forced to escape. It is also revealed that Lord Oliver is holding Johnston in his fortress at La Roque, mainly he believes Johnston knows of a secret passage that is his fortresses only weakness. With an army led by the infamous Arnaut de Cervole approaching, he is desperately preparing for the siege.

Johnston helps Oliver develops Greek Fire, even though he knows Oliver is meant to lose the siege, while Chris, Marek, Kate and Claire use clues from the future to search for the secret passage themselves. Chris also realizes that someone else from the future is with them and spying on their transmissions. Eventually this person is revealed to be Rob Deckard, who was posing as Robert de Ker, and ITC employee and former marine driven insane from too many time trips. In the end, they break into La Roque and do battle with hum and Deckard, killing them both.

Back home, the ITC manage to finally repair the device and try to bring the team home. However, Marek chooses to stay behind with Claire, having realized that he always wanted to live in the past. When the others return and realize that the company head, Mr. Doniger, has no regard for human life and plans to use the time travel device for commercial use, they send him to 1348, the year the first Black Death outbreak. In the end, Chris and Kate get married and find the graves of Marek and Claire in France marked with a familiar epitaph.

The Time Travellers Wife:

A slight twist on the classic story of time travel, this 2003 novel by Audrey Niffenegger explores the idea of time-travel as a genetic disorder. Inspired by Niffenegger’s own frustration with relationships, this novel is essentially a metaphor for the trials of true love. Classified as both science fiction and romance, the story is based on the themes of love, loss, and free will, and also contains some commentary on the issues of miscommunication, distance, and several deeper existential questions.

As the title suggests, the story focuses on the life a man who suffers from Chrono-Displacement, which causes him to involuntarily travel through time, and his wife, who is forced to endure stretches of time without him. The man, Henry, has been time-traveling for most of his life and apparently has no control over the process, though his destinations are largely places and times related to his own history. And the trips are apparently tied to stress and other stimuli, making them unpredictable and undesirable.

His own timeline naturally converges with that of his wife, Clare. During their first meeting, when she is 20, he is apparently meeting her for the first time, whereas she has known him for most of her life. On one of his early visits (from her perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future.

Once married, Clare has trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry may presumably be passing on to the fetus. After six miscarriages, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy. However a version of Henry from the past visits Clare one night and they make love; she subsequently gives birth to a daughter, Alba. She is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well, but unlike Henry, she has some control over it. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she is five years old.

When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia and frostbite he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year’s Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare’s brother, a scene foreshadowed earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare’s arms.

Clare is devastated by Henry’s death. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to “stop waiting” for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life, and when he arrives they clasp each other for what may or may not be the last time.

Through the use of a non-linear narrative, Neffinenegger was able to effectively demonstrate the sense of loss that is so often associated with true love. In addition, her use as separate narratives was also an effective commentary on how different people can be in different places in a relationship. Or to put it another way, that story’s sad man! Hug the one you love right now!

Summary:

And that’s all I got for now and my brain is friend. Hence, I think I will leave the summaries and commentaries for another time. Besides, with an ensemble of this many examples, does anything really need to be said? Of course it does! The more examples you have, the more complex the patterns become. So expect some more on my time-travel series, coming real soon!

Whiskey Delta – Chapter 12

Humvee by Night by thesolitary at deviantART

“Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?”

-Pope Julius III

The heat was finally dissipating now that the sun had set. From their spot overlooking the city, they were able to catch some of the breeze coming in from the south-east. It had a warm, wet feel, like it was from the marshlands or all the way from the Gulf. But at least it was better than the stink they’d been subjected to for the last twelve hours.

It was also a welcome relief from all the char coming from the city since. All of the fires they had set had managed to exterminate a good deal of the rot, but now they had the stink of burning meat to deal with. And they had seen what that meat looked like close up. Not an appetizing thought by any measure.

All the while, the bombs kept falling. No explanations had been given since the BCT had been withdrawn and the last of the civies had been airlifted. Just the order to pull back to their forward positions and wait. Meanwhile, the 150th, which had taken the time to restock and refuel, were taking another run at the area. No one knew exactly what would happen when it was all over, but the LT had said there would be nothing until morning. All they could do now was dig in and wait.

Sitting on the hood of their Humvee, Dezba watched the plumes burst on the horizon. The others had grabbed a tire and tried to get some sleep. But at the moment, everyone was still wide awake. They had endured too much excitement during the day to go down for a nap right now, and sat around and waited for something to break the silence instead.

“You gotta hand to these monsters, man,” said Jones finally.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Mill asked from the other side.

“Well, they aint exactly smart, right? I mean, they just walk into a hail of bullets and get their brains blown out. But they don’t exactly give up and run either. Every time we clear them from an area, they just wait and go back the second we leave.”

“What’s this ‘us’ shit, white man?”

Dezba laughed. He doubted Jones would get the context of that joke. And he didn’t seem to take it as an invite to shut up either.

“Whatever, point is, it kind of makes sense, right? If they could just get their act together on the whole fighting us thing, they’d actually be a lot more dangerous.”

Dezba’s leg thumped hard against the radiator guard. Every head that was resting against a tire sat up instinctively. The shock of his boot sent a shudder through the vehicle no one could ignore.

“Sarge?” said Majorca. “What’s up man?”

Dezba took a deep breath. His foot began tapping gently against the guard now. His eyes stayed focused on the horizon. Getting up from his tire, Mill came around to his left side and tried giving him a shake.

“Sarge? You wanna weight in on our discussion, sir?”

Dezba let out a sigh, shook his head. “Don’t much care for this topic, Private. Please inform the FNG that one firefight doesn’t entitle him to talk about this fight like he’s some kind of authority. If he wants to help those fuckers become better fighters, he oughta let them bite him and be done with it.” He looked Mill in the eye. “You get all that?”

Mill withdrew and nodded. “Yes, Sarge. FNG!” he called to Jones. “Sarge says to shut the fuck up, Whiskey lover!”

Jones shrunk back against the right rear tire. Mill went back to his and sat down, slinging his rifle over his lap. For a moment, no one in the squad talked. Which was unusual, and made Dezba wonder…

“Where the hell is Whitman?”

Majorca got up from his tire. “He was manning the left rear, wasn’t he?”

Mill looked to his left. “Nope, not here.”

“Did he say he was heading of?”

Everyone answered in the negative. Jumping off the hood, Dezba grabbed his rifle and stalked off, muttering to himself angrily.

“Fucking Whiskey Tango fool! Probably jerking off as we speak…”

The squad heard him and laughed. Everybody had expected he’d be sneaking off to rub one out since he met Sandy. But he had broken the cardinal rule. You never snuck off to get in a Combat Jack without letting your squad or the Sarge know in advance. People who wandered off sometimes didn’t make it back. Whiskeys loved stray, exposed flesh, and getting a bite on your junk was about the worst thing that could happen to a grunt.

Past Second Squad, he found Corporal Rickson, awake and walking the line. His eyes were up the on the horizon too, watching the bombs fall and the explosions plume. NCO’s could never sleep as long as the bomb still fell, not the good ones anyway. Only grunts could catch some Zs while the earth still shook.

“Rickson?” he called and saluted. “You seen a hillybilly fucker wandering around these parts?”

Rickson laughed. “Uh, what’s he look like, sir?”

“Last I heard he had the moon in his eyes and his dick in his hand. That ring a bell?”

Rickson laughed harder. Any chance to mock Whitman or his ilk was always welcome with him. The man never did too well with boys from the trailer park in the unit, the kind of kids who generally assumed he – like them – didn’t know who his father was, or engaged in some recreational gang banging. Somehow, being black and raised in a suburb by both parents didn’t seem to make sense to them.

“I think I saw a Whiskey Tango matching that description around the latrines a few minutes ago,” he said. “They were pretty sparsely occupied, so I imagine he’s probably well into pulling it by now.”

“Oh… good. I was so worried he was dead.” Dezba nodded. So he could look forward to the boy being alive to annoy him another day. I did seem like too much to hope that a Whiskey would reach up from the hole in the ground and grab him by the Johnson. Rickson laughed and issued a farewell salute.

“If you find him, sir, please tell him I told him to go fuck himself.”

“Will do,” he said, returning the salute. He plodded on. Third and Fourth were in their spots, decks of cards and back copies of Swank deployed on their hoods. He noticed a few of their men missing from the line, no doubt they had slipped off with a magazine while they could. If they were weren’t grabbing spots at the latrine, perhaps they had found a foxhole where it was a bit more private. Anything to pass the time…

A couple dozen more paces and he was in LAV territory. The armor crews were all bragging about the day’s kills, showing the spots in the treads where they had run over the more aggressive Whiskeys who tried to jump on and take down their gunners. Dezba didn’t bother to hang around and hear about it. He already knew the details well enough, including the ones they weren’t sharing.

Like how Alpha Company had practically combed a dozen or so of the bastards off their chassis’ when they found the BCT stuck on one of the side streets. It was like watching a bunch of mammoths trying to shake a host of marauding monkeys from their backs. Only the rare one actually came off and fell beneath their treads. It was strangely desperate and comical. It was only after Braun ordered them to open up with their .50 cals and SAWs that they got clear and were able to carry on.

And of course, the BCT boys had bitched pretty heavily about all the dings they had put in their armor in the course of doing that. One would think they needed to keep their vehicles looking pretty or something.

It was then, between the supply area and their rear that he spotted the CandC truck. Haynes was there, his subordinates gathered around, with the LT standing in front of him. Things didn’t look too good. As usual, the Colonel looked pretty hard and angry. No shouting was taking place, but Dezba could hear the steel in his voice. The LT, naturally, was standing there taking it, looking firm but forced to endure whatever the Colonel was laying on him. A couple times, he saw Braun nod or utter an affirmative.

Dezba wasn’t sure how long he watched for, the seconds seemed to stretch on in these situations. But eventually, Braun nodded one last time and Haynes waved him off. The latter went back to his Bradley while the LT walked off. He had the unmistakable gait of someone who had been plenty well chewed out, looking somewhere between angry and hurt, but with his head still held high. Dezba caught his eye and the LT headed right for him.

“Sergeant, just the man I was looking to see.”

Dezba saluted. “Me, sir?”

“You and every other Squad commander,” he replied, returning the salute. “Word has just come down from HQ. Alpha Company is to pull back to base. We’re getting new orders.”

Dezba frowned, then looked back towards the city and the falling bombs. “What about the op in the city, sir?”

“That goes ahead as scheduled. Turns out we encountered less resistance than previously though, so we’re moving the Battalion back in to clear the city of any hostiles that remain. But the Colonel says HQ asked that we not take part in it. Apparently, they got some special planned for Alpha instead.”

Dezba grumbled. ‘Special orders’ usually meant only one thing: punishment for fucking up. No one who received them ever doubted why they were getting them either. He looked back to the LT gravely. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with those people we saved now would it?”

Braun shrugged. “Maybe. But this comes straight from the Mage, no questions asked. We push off in thirty mikes, so you better get your men ready.”

Dezba shook his head, the unenviable combination of anger and guilt beginning to well up inside him. He knew that this was the Colonel’s fault. No doubt he got on the horn with the Mage complaining of how things did not go as planned and blamed it all on Alpha Company ince he was not about to take the fall for it. With no one to contradict his statement, the Mage must have assumed Alpha wasn’t trustworthy enough to send back into the fray. They would be the only ones not taking part in the assault, rerouted instead to base for some bullshit task instead.

“Yes, sir,” he said finally. “I was just on my way to grab one of them now.”

“Carry on then, Sergeant. Wheels up in 30.”

They snapped out quick salutes and parted, the LT heading up the line while Dezba rushed towards the latrines. During the few seconds it took him to get there, he had plenty of opportunity to punish himself some more. For one, he knew that the LT and Alpha were getting the shaft because of his own actions. He had been the one to pull them off their line of advance for that little rescue mission. He was also the one who turned what should have been a regular sweep and clear into a full-fledged demolition. It was bullshit that they were getting any heat for it, but in the end, it all came down to him. The LT and the Company were getting it in the rear because of him…

He found Whitman at the latrines, standing over a hole dug in the ground with a wooden box sitting over it. Camo nets hung over his head and his pants were down just enough for him to do his ugly business. He could hear from his rapid breathing that he was just about finished too. He crept forward slowly, not wanting to catch his attention too soon. It was important to interrupt at the right time.

A few more seconds, a couple more paces, and he stopped moving…

“Private!”

“GHA!” Whitman yelled, and not from completion. He dared not turn around, but Dezba could imagine the look on his face. “Sarge? What the fuck, man?!”

“Private, what is the protocol for sneaking off to have a Combat Jack?”

Whitman grumbled, his back still turned to him and his shoulders slumping. “To inform the NCO in advance so as to avoid panic upon an unsuccessful return.”

“Exactly! And since you neglected to tell me, that puts you in dereliction! Plus, I just got word that we’re wheels up in less than thirty mikes. So you better get back to the convoy!”

Whitman stood awkwardly, looking this way and that. “Uh, sir…?”

“Forget it, Private! You fucked up and this is your punishment. Now you’ll just have to deal with the frustration like everybody else!”

“Goddamit!” Whitman dropped the magazine that was in his left hand. Pulling his pants up and fastening them, he reached down to fetch it before leaving.

“Uh, Private,” Dezba stopped him. “Leave the mag. I need to use the latrine.”

Whitman looked down at it dubiously. “Uh, sir… I wouldn’t recommend that.”

Dezba grimaced. The magazine and the image of the bucksome vixen on the cover suddenly didn’t seem so appealing. Imaging what Whitman had been doing with her kind of made her look… cheap.

“Alright, Private, keep the damn mag! But get the fuck back to the convoy ASAP. We’re out of here in less than 29 now.”

“Sure, Sarge,” he said, hoisted his pants up and turned to leave. Remembering something of relative import, Dezba grabbed Whitman’s arm and stopped him before he could run off.

“Does little Sandy know you’re jerking off to that rag instead of thinking of her?”

Whitman smirked, but didn’t other to look him in the eye. Under the right circumstances, even Billy had shame. Still, he managed a wise-ass remark.

“Sarge, how can I think of her when I haven’t even seen her naked?”

“It’s the thought that counts, Billy. Now go on, and sanitize your hands too!” Whitman got a few feet away before he though to add: “And don’t let that mag touch the inside of my vehicle!”

Alone, Dezba took a quick look around and dropped his pants. But contrary to what he was implying, he had no intention of using the moment to get one out. It had been many hours since his last visit to a field latrine, and he almost regretted not using the college’s before their gunships had blown it all to hell. At least in there, he might have found a stall and some decent toilet paper. But at least he wasn’t doing it in a hole with no seat.

“Thank goodness for small blessing,” he said, keeping one eye on his watch.