History Shattered

Ethics – 1. study of morality’s effect on conduct: the study of moral standards and how they affect conduct. 2. code of morality: a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct for a person or group.

Morality – 1. Accepted moral standards: standards of conduct that are generally accepted as right or proper. 2. How right or wrong something is: the rightness or wrongness of something as judged by accepted moral standards. 3. Virtuous behavior: conduct that is in accord with accepted moral standards.

Genocide – murder of an entire ethnic group: the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this. (synonyms: extermination, termination, elimination)

Miscellaneous definitions from Bing Dictionary

Tyler was asleep with his head still resting on the surface of the Station 28 console when the meeting reconvened. The cast of characters was identical to that of the first portion of the meeting except that Colonel James was the only military representative still present. Majors Timpanelli and Hailey had been dismissed to attend to other responsibilities during the break. Monica was admittedly relieved to have Major Hailey no longer in attendance. The man had always made her feel on edge, and she had the sense that the man genuinely disliked her and virtually every scientist on her team. That was it, she reasoned. The man disliked scientists. Maybe it wasn’t even a dislike, but it was most certainly a lack of respect at a minimum. It was quite troubling to think that Colonel James viewed the man as one of his most trusted advisors. Why would an officer with such views even be allowed to work at PD?

Monica called the meeting to order. Since the image of a snoozing Tyler was on the giant screen behind her, several of her scientists pointed to it.

“I know he’s asleep, and I’m making the call that he needs his sleep more than he needs to listen to our questions about what’s been presented so far. If there are questions which can only be answered by Tyler, we’ll have Jasmine write them down, and when he wakes up, we’ll ask him. For now, let’s let him sleep. OK, who wants to start?”

“Does it bother anyone that Tyler’s history seems so much more violent and filled with wars than ours does?”

Jasmine responded. “Well, of course it does, but human history is full of examples of that. Wars have been fought for all kinds of reasons…, power, religion, economic advantage. To me the most troubling part was the actual use of nuclear weapons in the World War II that Tyler described, not once but twice, and not because they were dropped on Japan either. That’s a really ugly page of human history, even if it isn’t ours. On the positive side, that action did help end the war and appears to have demonstrated that the nuclear option was a poor choice, since it never seems to have been used again. Tyler’s world is a much more crowded, contentious place. It’s different than the world in all of our heads.”

“We seem to have greater advancement in the field of medicine than in the alternate history, and yet, apparently in just about every other measure of intellectual progress, we seem to be trailing from a developmental standpoint. Does that perplex anyone else as much as it does me?

“Yeah, I was confused by that, too.”

Again, the normally quiet and shy Asian scientist responded. “We aren’t necessarily going to get nice, neat little answers gift-wrapped for us. What we’ve assembled is far from an exhaustive history. At best it’s cursory and skeletal. It’s also reasonable to assume that alternate histories would produce different outcomes. The changes and shifts in populations and this facility’s development being delayed by a quarter century are just a couple of examples of that. Developmental paths could very reasonably be uneven. It makes total sense when you approach it that way. My personal theory, which I expressed earlier, is that Tyler’s work as a physician may have been enough to trigger progress in the field of medicine which would’ve been unavailable to advancements in other fields. After that, the decimation of Europe, which appeared to be the center of enlightenment in Tyler’s history, probably accounts for the vast majority of the additional developmental delays.”

“So what does that say about the rest of the world? Was everybody else stupid?”

“Joe, don’t personalize this. It isn’t an indictment of the rest of the world that development in lots of fields has been at a slightly slower pace. Our history doesn’t have the sheer numbers to throw at innovation and invention. And while we all abhor war, it is often a fertile ground for invention and innovation. Tyler’s history has had far more opportunities to take advantage of such windows for creativity.”

“So now you’re labelling war as a positive opportunity?”

“I detest war as much as anyone in this room, but that doesn’t change the fact that from a strictly historical perspective, war has produced significant innovation and invention. You seem like you’re still trying to demonize Tyler’s version of history because it’s bloodier than ours. I think that’s both a mistake and patently unfair.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it bothers me.”

“I accept that, but you should also get just as unbothered by the scientific advancements and lots of the other positives which are present in Tyler’s history.”

“Let’s not be burying the lead here, guys. Why aren’t we talking about the billions of people who haven’t been alive over the past seven hundred years because, apparently, of Tyler’s interjection into a crucial moment in history?”

“Maybe they weren’t meant to be here.”

“What? That’s absurd. How could the four or five billion people who were wiped out by accidental exposure to a virus that wasn’t even supposed to exist yet be meant to be?”

“Maybe it was part of God’s plan to send Tyler back to do exactly what he did.”

“If we’re going to have a theological discussion, then there’s a lot of material to talk about here. But we sure as hell shouldn’t be starting it with an assumption that a particle collision mishap and its unintended and extreme consequences were an act of God! Shit, how pompous would that make us sound?”

“I’m just saying it’s possible.”

“If God was the reason Tyler got sent back in time, I’d like to think it would be for far more benevolent reasons than to trigger what I can only refer to as some kind of generational genocide. My God certainly doesn’t seem like a God who would do something like that to his people.”

Monica decided to curtail this particular discussion before it ended up in the ditch with scientists yelling at one another. She stood and held up her hands in an outstretched way to get the attention of everyone in the room. The fact that her pose resembled the image of a God addressing his people was completely lost on her in the moment.

“OK, people…, let’s settle down. This is an argument that cannot be won. Any presumptions regarding a divine aspect to this scenario would require proof we don’t have and wisdom we don’t possess. Regardless of any of your personal beliefs, we need to keep those to ourselves. I’m not telling any of you to discard your spiritual beliefs or feelings, but we’re not going to debate them right now. There’s no way short of God himself walking in here and explaining it all to us to resolve this particular argument, and we lack both the time and the energy to engage in that luxury right now. And knowing my scientists the way I think I do, even if God did walk in here, several of you would want to debate him or her on the subject. We need to move on.”

“OK, well, I don’t wanna make a religious debate out of what’s happening, and I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all about us, but all of these people would be dead anyway. What about us right now?”

“How can you make that distinction? And how can you dismiss billions of lives simply because they occurred in the past? We’re all a product of the past…, of those who have gone before us. If you dismiss them…, their lives, then in some ways aren’t you dismissing us?”

“You’re missing my point. Whether it’s Tyler’s history or ours, it’s still history. We’re not supposed to change history. We’re supposed to learn from it. But in the end it’s still history. There may be different interpretations of what happened, but the events are what they are. Ultimately, whether Tyler killed them or they died some other way, they’d still be dead.”

“That seems like an unbelievably naïve statement. It’s like you’re trying to give us a free pass for doing something wrong. What if we could change what we’ve done?”

“Whaddaya mean? Try to recreate the anomaly? Try to make another wormhole and hope it went back to exactly the right time and place? Shit, we did this by accident. It wasn’t intentional. You may call that naïve, but I call it reality. Sometimes things don’t go as planned. This was one of those times. Even if there was a way to recreate the wormhole, and even if it could be targeted to go back to the right time and place, and by the way…, both of those seem like longshots to me, then who would go and what would they do when they got there?”

Tyler raised his head off the console. He had been awake for almost the entirety of the ongoing discussion but was resting as he listened.

“I’d go back. What happened was my fault. I wandered away from the wormhole. I entered Caffa knowing I had the flu. I used my medical knowledge to gain me a place to sleep and food to eat and to curry favor with the villagers. Sure, I helped a few soldiers who might’ve otherwise died either from their injuries or from infection, but look at the cataclysmic chain of events I set in motion. Besides, I’m already in Station 28, and no one else should be in here given the quarantine situation. I speak Latin. I know who I interacted with. I’m the logical choice. I’ve got antibiotics with me here that could be used to offset or at least delay the effects of the plague and the flu, and I’m trained as an epidemiologist, a virologist and a doctor. If anyone of us could be handpicked for a mission like this it would be me.

Let’s also face some additional facts. I’m now your colleague in some weird, detached way. I’m still inside 28, but I might as well be on the moon. I’m from a different world, one with its own very different history. For God’s sake, I’m twenty-five years younger than all of you that I’ve been working with, and half of you don’t even know me. The woman I love, the woman of my dreams, is now old enough to be my mother. Shit, people…, if there’s a way to send me back, then we should all be trying to figure out how to make that happen. And…, since none of us can be sure exactly how much longer I may be alive, the sooner we could make such an attempt, the better. I really don’t have much to lose.”

“You’ve obviously been giving this a lot of thought.”

“Funny how facing death and realizing you killed more people than anyone else in the history of the world will trigger a little introspection.”

Monica found her heart in her throat at hearing Tyler’s words. Jasmine saw the pain etched on her countenance and decided to speak.

“Pat, do you think there’s a way to duplicate the energy surge from the particle collision?”

“Well, there are some fried circuits that would need to be replaced, and we’re still running numbers on the electromagnetic failure. But the best way to prove or disprove those theories would be another test. This is the only facility on the planet capable of creating a surge powerful enough to trigger a failure. We’d be doing it eventually anyway. There are risks, but I think they’re manageable. I think we could probably be geared up to try another collision within forty-eight hours. Now that we know what we’re up against, we could use the monitoring stations around the ring to try to regulate as precisely as possible the amount of energy flowing into 28. There’s no way to be exact, but I think we could come close.”

“You guys are all nuts. Do you hear what you’re saying? This is insane!”

Tyler spoke again, this time with greater strength and emotional intensity than had been in his voice at any time since the test. “No, it’s not. Great moments in history have always come with risks. Scientific experiments, invention, exploration, hell…, even war are all incredibly risky undertakings. It’s what we do, people, and it’s what’s been done every time there has been some great milestone of human advancement. Don’t shy away from the moment. We didn’t a couple of days ago. We shouldn’t now.”

“I’m curious to hear the Colonel’s take on all of this. What are your thoughts, Mike?”

“Hey, you folks are the scientists. I’m just here to make sure the facility is secure and functional. As long as there’s a scientific process that the team agrees upon, my men and I will support it.”

“Yeah, OK…, that’s the boilerplate government-approved response. What do you really think, Mike?”

“You guys are in uncharted territory. You’ve created a way to produce a burst of energy of a greater magnitude and intensity than has ever before been seen. You accidentally created an unintended and heretofore only theoretical construct of quantum physics, which has now altered human history in ways I know I couldn’t’ve imagined. Frankly, I don’t see how things could get any more fucked up than they are right now. Is that non-government-approved enough for you?”

“Well, it’s certainly both colorful and blunt enough.”

Monica had remained silent in her chair up on stage since Tyler’s earlier emotionally charged remarks. She now refocused and remembered her earlier conversation with Colonel James. She decided it was in nobody’s best interest to permit her scientists to keep pushing for additional answers from the officer. Eventually the topic of militarizing time travel would come up, and an entirely new discussion would begin.

“OK, the Colonel has already indicated his troops will support our efforts. Let’s leave it at that and not badger him for opinions on matters that are more correctly within our purview rather than his. Pat, how realistic do you feel a forty-eight hour timeframe is to be back online?”

“It’s do-able. Obviously, I’d like more time, but given our current circumstances and Tyler’s health, I think we could make it happen.”

“OK, then that takes us back to the most fundamental of questions. Should we do it?”

“Should we what? Should we attempt another particle collision? Should we attempt to recreate a wormhole? Should we risk Tyler’s life further by sending him somewhere when we can’t know where that somewhere is? Should we risk a second run-in with history? Just exactly which of those ‘should we’s’ are you referring to?”

“Any and all…” Monica left her response hanging in the air for everyone in the meeting room to absorb.

“Before we go much further, I think I’d like to hear from Tyler again, since you’ve framed the parameters of the question so nicely. Tyler, what do you think?”

Tyler looked directly into the camera. Either he was feeling stronger or he was forcing whatever energy reserves he had left into the effort of speaking passionately and eloquently to his colleagues.

“We could debate the ethics of this undertaking for literally months without reaching a consensus. The morality of what we’ve done is not in question. What we did the other day was accidental. The consequences of that event are accidental. What has already transpired is without moral dilemma. However, when we shift from what has already occurred to what we can or should do about it…, well, my friends, there is no such thing as a black and white answer. First, let me say that if there’s a chance to send me back in time to undo what I’ve done, then I want to make that attempt. It doesn’t need to be a great chance or even a good chance. It just needs to be a chance. Second, I think we have a moral and ethical obligation to make such an attempt if we perceive we have the capability to do so. Third, I know all of you are out there in an environment twenty-five years distant from the one I left after the test. Many of you are older versions of the colleagues I was working with and many of you are new to this grand scientific effort. I imagine virtually all of you are my friends, either as I remember us being twenty-five years ago or as you remember with the older version of me a coupla days ago. My friends, the here and now needs to take a backseat to fixing what we’ve done to history.

I am as uncertain as any of you what undertaking such an attempt means to me personally, or to this facility, or to any of us, our careers, or even our very existence. But I know that ethically, it’s the right thing to do. I can’t help but think back to a portion of the Hippocratic Corpus which is only a bit different than the Hippocratic Oath I took when I became a physician. It, in essence, is where the commonly known phrase ‘first, do no harm’ is believed to have originated from. Together, these ancient writings beseech us in science and medicine to do our best to prevent disease, to work tirelessly for our patients, and place our own interests secondary to those we serve. Everything in those writings screams to all of us as to what the right thing to do here is. I know I can’t convince all of you, and I accept that. But I’m telling all of you this is the right thing to be attempting to do…, morally, ethically, historically…, every way but selfishly.”

The meeting room was silent. Finally, Pat rose to his feet and began to applaud. Surprisingly, Laura was the second to stand and begin to clap. Slowly, scientist after scientist began to rise and applaud. Jasmine stood on the podium and found herself joined in the standing position by Monica on one side and Colonel James on the other. There were less than a handful of holdouts still seated in the entire room. Monica addressed her colleagues.

“Well, I guess that settles that. Pat, you’ve got a big job ahead of you over the next coupla days, for sure. Let us know whatever you need. As far as I’m concerned, your team has the highest priority in terms of computer time, access to Tyler, support, maintenance…, just let the appropriate people know. Jasmine, you need to tighten up the dual history timelines as much as you can. I also want as full a picture of this entire endeavor put together as you can within this timeframe. I don’t expect any kind of catastrophic event, but if there is one, I want to leave as detailed a trail as we can for whoever has to come in behind us and mop up. Everyone else, let’s assume you are in the forty-eight hour countdown to a particle collision. Unless you hear from either me or Pat that you need to alter your procedures, just stick to the playbook. That applies to absolutely everyone except the members of Pat’s and Jasmine’s teams.”

Monica turned to face the camera feeding into Station 28. She smiled a weary smile.

“And you, of course, Tyler. I’m afraid we’re gonna have to ride you pretty hard between now and the collision, and we don’t exactly have a script for a time travel astronaut to follow. But…”

“Monica, I know. It’ll be OK.”

“Yeah, it will. But for now, you look absolutely exhausted. Take your meds and get some shuteye. The next two days and the following seven centuries will probably be pretty hairy.”

“I sure as hell hope so! Goodnight, Monica. Thanks, everybody! Jasmine, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Tyler took off his headset and disappeared from the camera’s view. The meeting room was rapidly clearing out, a buzz of excited chatter accompanying the exodus. Colonel James walked over to stand beside Monica, in a spot where only she could hear his voice.

“You sure about this?”

“I’m not really sure about much of anything at this point.”

“Yeah…, well that makes two of us. We need to talk.”