History Shattered

“Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.”

“Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important for us to understand why it is impossible.”

“Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a ‘crank’.”

– Quotes from Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist and Director of Research at The Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, regarding time travel

As soon as Monica entered the meeting room, she could feel the tension. Her gaggle of scientists was on edge. Ever since the test they had all been working extremely long hours, and that could make for short tempers if there were disagreements, which there were sure to be. She saw two of Mike’s support staff, Majors Hailey and Timpanelli seated in the throng. That in itself was quite unusual, especially when it involved Major Hailey. It was widely believed among the facility’s scientific community that Hailey had great disdain for the civilian scientists he worked with, and that he lacked respect for their work. His appearance in the room pretty much guaranteed that the meeting would get off to a bumpy start and made her feel even more anxious about the brief and somewhat hostile encounter she had just experienced with the man’s superior.

She moved to the center of a table on the room’s temporarily constructed stage. Joining her there were Colonel James, Pat, Jasmine and the leaders of each of the respective teams. Tyler’s ill, but youthful image was being projected onto the room’s large projection screen behind them. He sat at the control console inside Station 28 looking as though the sleep Jasmine had ordered had done him little good. He wasn’t at all sure how long he’d last in a seated position. The simple act of walking into the control room and sitting down in front of the console had been an exhausting bit of exercise.

“OK, people, let’s get started. Tyler, can you hear us OK?”

Tyler nodded his head. His less than enthusiastic look spoke without the need of an audible response.

“I know you must be exhausted, so we all appreciate you joining us, but if at any time you feel the need to take a break, please feel free to do so. I have no idea how long this meeting might last.”

Monica hadn’t really had any kind of private, personal conversation with Tyler since the incident. She wasn’t sure what to say beyond her current attention to his precarious health. Their personal situation had obviously been altered in a most radical way, and she wasn’t at all comfortable with attempting to address it just yet. She had decided she needed to focus on finding answers to what had transpired within PD over the past few days, and that Tyler needed to focus on overcoming his health issues and aiding the research process. Whatever needed to be said between them and however their relationship had bizarrely morphed were topics which could be set aside for a little while longer.

Each of the respective team leaders had been allotted a ten minute window to present their team’s findings. This was true for everyone but Jasmine, since she was being asked to compare approximately seven hundred years of conflicting histories. Pat’s presentation was so overtly technical that only a handful of the room’s scientists, and those mostly already members of his team, understood much of what he was saying. One by one, each of the team leaders finished their prepared remarks and opened up for questions. There were few of those as everyone seemed to be waiting for Jasmine’s historical recounting. At one point, Tyler disappeared from view for several minutes, but he returned before Jasmine’s turn arrived.

Jasmine’s presentation had intentionally been saved for last. She seemed a little nervous as the microphone was placed in front of her. The enormity of the moment was obviously resting heavily on the diminutive Asian scientist. Hers was not usually the loudest voice in the room, but when Jasmine spoke her words were usually given considerable weight. She looked up and scanned the room as she began.

“Based on many of the reports already delivered, it seems apparent that there’s now a general level of acceptance that the anomaly created within Station 28 was a wormhole and that Tyler actually traveled back in time. Also, based on his contracting of the bubonic plague, it’s also reasonable to assume that his recounting of the day and a half he spent in 14th century Crimea is essentially accurate. My team took both of these premises as givens, and we were tasked with attempting to analyze the impact Tyler’s unintended visit has had on human history. We, of course, have the history all of us have come to accept. We now also have Tyler’s version of history, a version which ostensibly existed before the anomaly was created and Tyler somehow changed it.

It’s only reasonable to expect a great deal of skepticism about these events. If we hadn’t seen and verified the authenticity of Tyler’s collision morning photos which show many of us as we were twenty-five years ago, and if we hadn’t confirmed that Tyler had contracted the plague, when the only way for him to have done so and still be alive was to have been exposed, as he contends, in Caffa in the autumn of 1346 on the very eve of The Black Death, the worst pandemic in human history, then such doubts would be more than reasonable. However, Tyler does have the plague, and those photos are real. Inadvertent and totally accidental though it may’ve been, Tyler experienced time travel. And his travel has impacted history in such astonishing ways that I find the words difficult to come by. Nonetheless, my team and I have been tasked with doing just that.

Let’s start with the moments of Tyler’s interaction with the townsfolk of Caffa. He told them he was a doctor, and he performed some surgery on a few wounded soldiers who had been defending the outpost against the invading Mongolians. As all of you know by now, Tyler was sick. He was one of the very few of us who failed to get a flu shot, and he somehow managed to contract the flu. He contracted the Bird Flu to be precise, or even more specifically, the H2N2 strain of Influenza A. Here’s where we have our first and possibly most dramatic divergence in what I’ll refer to as our dueling histories, Tyler’s and ours.

In Tyler’s version of history, the H2N2 virus was first identified in 1957. It was also known as either Russian Flu or Asian Flu in addition to the Bird Flu. Prior to that time, it did not exist. Therefore, prior to his unintentional delivery of the virus to 14th Century Crimea, there was never a historical opportunity for it to interact with the bubonic plague. The unintentional introduction of H2N2 into the path of The Black Death produced staggering results. What was a death toll of between 75 and 200 million Europeans, or expressed differently, between 30 and 60 percent of the continent’s population, suddenly turned into 325 to 350 million deaths, roughly 95 percent of the entire population of Europe. The math suggests that the death toll, when factored against the likely missing future generations, ends up being something like four or five billion people.”

“That number can’t be right, can it? I mean, how many people are on the planet altogether?”

“Good question, Laura. In our version of history, and realize we’re in 2043, there are approximately 6.2 billion inhabitants of Planet Earth. In Tyler’s history, which is in 2018, there are 7.2 billion people in the world. If we factor in reasonable growth over that twenty-five year gap, then there appear to be about 1.2 billion people unaccounted for. That’s a polite way of saying missing, or gone…, or never here in the first place. I’m not sure how to explain it. I won’t bore you with the specific details right now, but the population shifts reflect the most dramatic decline in Europe, as we’d all assume, but also dips in North and South America because of the delays in exploration which were conducted by Europeans in Tyler’s history who were never born to become explorers in our history. Asia’s population remained relatively unchanged between the respective versions, and the only continent showing an increase in population in our history is Africa.”

“So…, are we supposed to believe that Tyler’s day and a half in 14th century Crimea resulted in the death of 4 or 5 million people?”

“No…”

“Good, cuz I don’t!”

“Laura, it’s not 4 or 5 million people. It’s 4 or 5 billion people. And I’m not telling you to believe it. I’m telling you how Tyler’s version of history differs from our own. I think the reason we’re all here is to digest this new information, and then see what we all make of it and where we go from here.

Now, I’ve got separate timelines on science, medicine, politics, warfare, religion, slavery, economics, art, and architecture, and I’m sure if you have a historical question you’d like to pose that we can’t answer, Tyler can probably fill in any such blanks.”

She turned to face Monica and glanced upward toward the corner, to the camera providing the video feed back to Tyler in Station 28. She offered an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.

“How much more of this do you want me to go into? I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I could probably fill another couple of hours, and that would be without questions.”

“How about if you just hit a few highlights on each of the topics, and then let’s see where we are?”

“OK.”

Jasmine looked in the direction of Tyler’s camera, and then to his countenance projected on the big screen.

“You’re doing great, Jasmine. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Thank you, Tyler. Alright, let’s start with science…, manned flight, space exploration, electricity, telecommunications breakthroughs all occurred somewhere between ten and fifty years earlier in Tyler’s history than ours. That probably explains why his version of the particle collision occurred in 2018 and ours is happening in 2043.

Medicine seems to be the one area where we appear to be more advanced than Tyler’s history. My own personal theory there is that Tyler’s medical initiatives performed in Caffa led to medical advancements in wound treatment, sterile conditions and whatever else they might’ve gleaned from his techniques to make that the one area where we’re actually ahead of his version.”

“He was only there for a day and a half. How could he have made such a difference?”

“The same way he could make all these other differences. I don’t know how to answer that except to say that this change is not really any different than the changes which appear to have occurred across the board. It’s just that this one has allowed for advancement while all the others have triggered what I’m referring to as a cultural deceleration.”

Tyler spoke from Station 28 just before Monica could speak. “Laura, I don’t know you and it’s clear you’re a skeptic, but please let Jasmine give her report. She’s just the messenger here. I don’t mean to be harsh, and I hope we’re friends in 2043, but for now just hear her out.”

Jasmine blushed, although she was grateful that Tyler had intervened. She stuttered for just a moment and then regained her verbal stride.

“OK, next is politics. North America is comprised entirely of democratic republics as is much of Europe in Tyler’s world. Even countries that are labelled as monarchies like Sweden and England have royal families that are essentially figureheads. The Middle East seems to be in constant political upheaval. Communism is essentially considered a failed experiment. The US is considered to be the most powerful nation on the planet. We all know how different that version of the world is from our own.

Tyler’s history is filled with far more bloody conflicts than ours. For example, if I just focus on the US portion of his history, there was the American Revolution against England in the late 1700’s. That was followed quickly by the French-Indian War and the War of 1812. Beginning in 1860 there was the Civil War. Then, moving into the 1900’s there was World War I in 1917, World War II in the 1940’s, the Korean War in the 50’s, Vietnam in the 60’s and 70’s. There have also been lesser conflicts into this century involving Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. That’s a lot of wars in less than 250 years. Tyler says that after World War II, the US position as the world’s superpower was pretty much sealed, and we got involved all over the globe, sometimes to our detriment and sometimes in places we shouldn’t have. I should clarify here that I’m merely reflecting Tyler’s opinion on those last points.”

“What about the Muslim Freedom War?”

“That didn’t happen in Tyler’s history.”

“What about the Japanese Korean War?”

“Nope. That didn’t happen either. Tyler’s world saw the creation of a country called Israel after World War II in the Middle East. It was a Jewish state established after the atrocity of something called the Holocaust, a sort of ethnic cleansing which took the lives of six million Jews, was committed by the Nazi’s, the party in power in Germany that started the war. Anyway, I’m getting off the subject. My point is that the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East gave the Muslims a different enemy to focus on, so the Shiites and Sunnis and other Muslim sects looked externally for conflict rather than amongst themselves. As for the Japanese Korean War, well, Japan got devastated in World War II. The US dropped two atom bombs on the country pretty much wiping the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki off the map. Japan was left in such disarray and so compromised economically and militarily that there was no way they could mount an effort to take over Korea. Also, in Tyler’s history, there are two Korea’s after the Korean War, which, except for military support from the US, Russia and China, was pretty much a civil conflict. Tyler even told us it has been renamed the Korean Conflict rather than the Korean War in some historical accounts.

I’m getting off track again. Anyway, the point here is that the Japanese Korean War didn’t happen, and in Tyler’s world there is a North Korea, which is one of the few remaining Communist countries, and South Korea, which is progressive and democratic. I’m sorry, you just asked me what time it was, and I told you how to build a watch, didn’t I? It’s easy to start running down rabbit trails on a project like this.”

“Are there any positives we should know about from all of these wars? Right now it sounds like a horrific waste of life and provides numerous examples of human cruelty toward one another.”

Jasmine looked into Tyler’s camera. “Tyler, do you want to answer that one. I don’t think I can.”

Tyler coughed and took a deep breath before responding. “There aren’t a lot of positives that came out of most of these wars. The Revolutionary War gave us our freedom and the Civil War ended slavery and set this country on the path of western expansion and industrialization. It’s impossible to project how things might’ve turned out differently without the wars. The League of Nations was formed after WWI and the United Nations was formed after WWII, and both those wars were necessary to stop Germany and its allies from global domination. I guess each time there was a war, there were industrial advancements, as industry geared up to support the war effort and developed new weapons, new vehicles, ships and planes. There were medical and scientific advancements like the invention of plasma to treat those wounded in battle…, stuff like that. But no matter how you slice it, war is just plain ugly. Maybe we’re twenty-five years ahead of you partially because of some wartime advancements, but it may be because lots of European advancements and western exploration took place when they were supposed to as opposed to either not taking place or being severely delayed in your version of the past. And for the record, that’s just me speculating. I have no proof to support that contention.”

Monica interjected, “Thanks, Tyler. People, if we’re ever gonna get through this, we need to allow Jasmine to finish her report. Let’s hold all questions until the end. Jasmine, please continue.”

“Yes, Director. Religion is my next timeline. You’ve already heard about two major changes involving Judaism and the formation of Israel and the shift in Muslim aggression externally in Tyler’s history. Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism remain very strong in certain regions of the globe in Tyler’s history but are far less ubiquitous than they are in ours. Also, Christianity has splintered into literally dozens of smaller Christian faiths due to something called the Protestant Reformation which occurred in 17th century Europe in Tyler’s world. So in his world, there are Baptists and Methodists and Episcopalians and all kinds of religions that are considered to be under the Christianity umbrella rather than there just being the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox faiths. It would make for a fascinating study if we had more time.

Anyway…, onto slavery…, this may be the biggest left turn of all, folks. I’m going to present it as quickly and matter-of-factly as possible. You can all draw your own conclusions from there, and I know some of you have already heard this so please just bear with me. Rather than slaves being white serfs who fled Europe after The Black Death and who became enslaved in Africa, and who were then later sent to the US by black slave traders to work in our southern agrarian economy until slavery was abolished in 1904, in Tyler’s history, slaves were African blacks, who were shipped to the US by both white and black slavers to work in the fields of the southern US plantations. Ultimately, the practice led to the Civil War in 1860 and slavery was officially abolished later that decade. So from a civil rights perspective, Tyler’s world seems to have been about forty years ahead of ours, which almost seems counter-intuitive when you consider how much more warfare is occurring in his version of history than in ours.

Finally, in the interest of time and wrapping this up, I’m gonna combine economics, art and architecture at least a little. After The Black Death, there was a period in Europe referred to as the Renaissance. It was a rebirth after the pandemic and the dark period following the fall of the Roman Empire. It evidently was a rebirth in many ways, including economically in Europe. It fueled the exploration of the western hemisphere. Artists including Italian sculptors, French impressionists and Spanish abstract artists flourished. Architecture similarly flourished through the Gothic period all the way into the International style in the early twentieth century. Tyler’s not much of an art or architecture buff so we’re a little light on those subjects. Anyway, the invention of steam power began what Tyler refers to as the Industrial Revolution, which first took hold in Europe and then spread to America and other areas of the globe. This created a major economic and societal shift from an agrarian to industrial economy and from a largely rural and agrarian population to an urban-industrial one. Beginning in the late 20th century, the US economy began shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. It sounds like that could be likened to what’s been happening in our version of history over the past couple of decades. OK, that’s it. I’m done with my report. I’m almost afraid to ask for questions.”

Monica interceded. “Before we go there, let’s take a fifteen minute break. We’re all being asked to digest a great deal of new and often shocking historical information on top of everything else that’s been going on around here the past couple of days. Everyone grab snacks and drinks. Go to the bathroom…, whatever you need to do. Let’s be back here in fifteen, and plan to be here for quite a while. While we may spend a little more time on what I’m going to call factual information related to our alternative histories, I want to shift the discussion to a higher plane and examine this in the larger context. So be ready for that dialogue when you get back, please!”

She glanced back at the image of Tyler on the big screen behind her. He offered a weak smile, a nod of agreement, and then he closed his eyes and put his head down on the console. Jasmine walked beside her and whispered in her ear.

“Monica, we’re killing him. Even if the drugs are working, Tyler’s pushing way too hard given his current physical condition. We’ve gotta do something and soon, or he’s gonna die!”