The End of Eternity

In article <0nktl25rpgueqbv8s9t569binjmtuulvj9 DeleteThis @4ax.com>,
David Johnston <rgorman DeleteThis @block.net> said:

>>> Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic
>>> Empire, and lead to the extinction of the human race by keeping
>>> it trapped on Earth for 12.5 million years until intelligent
>>> species had evolved throughout the galaxy!

> 12.5 million years? Not a bad run really. A lot of species don't
> make it that long.

Yes, but that's 12.5 million years without Tang or freeze-dried ice
cream, so it hardly seems worth living.

(In fact I'm fairly sure that the Tang wasn't actually invented for
astronauts, but why let that get in the way of a good line?)

--
William December Starr <wdstarr DeleteThis @panix.com>
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Hils wrote:

> Darth Nub <gonzo88888.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> writes
>
> >Hi, I'm new to this NG, & I thought I'd start with a pretty irritating
> >topic - is The End of Eternity regarded as a 'legitimate' part of the
> >whole Empire & Foundation canon these days?
>
> [snip]
>
> Hi! One way to see Eternity is as a parallel universe to that of the
> robot and empire books, but not quite parallel in that they intersect in
> a few places--which would itself be consistent with the work of the
> Eternals. At the same time, the Galactic Empire may only have been able
> to develop because of the destruction of Eternity.

Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic Empire, and
lead
to the extinction of the human race by keeping it trapped on Earth for
12.5
million years until intelligent species had evolved throughout the
galaxy!
 >> Stay informed about: The End of Eternity 

Darth Nub wrote:

> Hi, I'm new to this NG, & I thought I'd start with a pretty irritating
> topic - is The End of Eternity regarded as a 'legitimate' part of the
> whole Empire & Foundation canon these days?
>
> I was a huge fan about a decade ago & have just come back to Asimov's
> future history - I always thought the story of the Eternals was a part
> of that universe, & still like to think so. Of course, being a time
> travel story, it existed outside it, but the references within the
> novel to the possibility of a Galactic Empire, plus the inclusion of
> the good old Neuronic Whip seemed to plant it firmly within that
> cosmos. The fable mentioned in Foundation & Earth seemed to confirm
> its inclusion, at least as a story, & time travel did occur at least
> once within the Empire, with Joseph Schwartz.
>
> Now, however, I've looked up a few sites, & it seems the general
> theory is that it's regarded as some sort of in-joke & nothing more. I
> know Asimov wasn't all that concerned with continuity or canon, but I
> bet he liked tying all the stories together, or he wouldn't have done
> it.
>
> Unfortunately, it's an unanswerable question - Asimov would no doubt
> come up with some sort of smart-arsed riddle if he was around to be
> asked, & the very nature of the story means that its events can
> technically have no influence on the others, or at least not be shown
> to.

According to Senior Computer Twissell, Eternity got started in the
following manner: A man named Brinsley Sheridan Cooper from the 78th
century was inducted into Eternity and was trained in mathematics by
Twissell, in Primitive History by Andrew Harlan, and in temporal
engineering by an unknown person. He was then sent back in time to the
24th century, where he tried to train Mallansohn in temporal engineering
so that he could invent a Temporal Field Generator. However, Mallansohn
died, so Cooper had to take his place and invent the generator himself.
After convincing others that the generator was for real, he worked with
California Institute of Technology to duplicate the generator, but
didn't
dare give them information from the future, so couldn't teach them the
mathematics needed to create Eternity. Eventually, Cooper realized that
he WAS Mallansohn, and wrote a memoir that he left in a tube of Time
stasis. In the 27th century, the tube was opened by the first Computer
and the memoir read. Eventually, Twissell was given the memoir and put
in
charge of the project to send Cooper back in time to invent the Temporal
Field Generator. The memoir, of course, gave Twissell much guidance in
how to send Cooper back in time. I wonder how the time loop ever got
started.
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Darth Nub wrote:

> Hi, I'm new to this NG, & I thought I'd start with a pretty irritating
> topic - is The End of Eternity regarded as a 'legitimate' part of the
> whole Empire & Foundation canon these days?
>
> I was a huge fan about a decade ago & have just come back to Asimov's
> future history - I always thought the story of the Eternals was a part
> of that universe, & still like to think so. Of course, being a time
> travel story, it existed outside it, but the references within the
> novel to the possibility of a Galactic Empire, plus the inclusion of
> the good old Neuronic Whip seemed to plant it firmly within that
> cosmos. The fable mentioned in Foundation & Earth seemed to confirm
> its inclusion, at least as a story, & time travel did occur at least
> once within the Empire, with Joseph Schwartz.
>
> Now, however, I've looked up a few sites, & it seems the general
> theory is that it's regarded as some sort of in-joke & nothing more. I
> know Asimov wasn't all that concerned with continuity or canon, but I
> bet he liked tying all the stories together, or he wouldn't have done
> it.
>
> Unfortunately, it's an unanswerable question - Asimov would no doubt
> come up with some sort of smart-arsed riddle if he was around to be
> asked, & the very nature of the story means that its events can
> technically have no influence on the others, or at least not be shown
> to.

Noys Lambent did influence our history, by stimulating the discovery of
nuclear fission so that humanity would be distracted from ever
discovering
Temporal Field Generators.
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Howard Brazee wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:13:54 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni RemoveThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic Empire, and lead
> >to the extinction of the human race by keeping it trapped on Earth for 12.5
> >million years until intelligent species had evolved throughout the galaxy!
>
> While the solution could very well be best, it doesn't fit with human
> nature. Political people who recognize the problem would change
> their goals - to produce a dominant space going civilization, and
> still be in charge.

I have heard many politicians express opposition to wasting taxpayer
money on
space when there are so many problems at home to solve. Few politicians
can see
a decade into the future, let alone 12.5 million years!

Also, Noys said that the Eternals, by ironing out the disasters of
Reality, had
also ruled out the triumphs, such as interstellar travel. In fact,
Harlan
himself initiated a Reality Change that destroyed electrogravitic space
travel,
as a side effect of reducing drug addiction. I don't know why reducing
drug
addiction would destroy electrogravitic space travel. Maybe Hari Seldon
would
know.
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Among the most important people in Isaac Asimov's Eternal society are
the Technicians, who calculate the Minimum Necessary Change to produce
the desired Reality Changes. No Section has enough Technicians.
Eternity does have matter duplicators, which it used to create Sections
all the way to the end of the Earth. The duplicators can even duplicate
people! I suggest putting Andrew Harlan and other top Technicians into
a matter duplicator to create as many Technicians as needed.
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Howard Brazee wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:13:54 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni.TakeThisOut@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic Empire, and lead
> >to the extinction of the human race by keeping it trapped on Earth for 12.5
> >million years until intelligent species had evolved throughout the galaxy!
>
> While the solution could very well be best, it doesn't fit with human
> nature. Political people who recognize the problem would change
> their goals - to produce a dominant space going civilization, and
> still be in charge.

Another issue: When Cooper found himself in the 20th century, he put an
ad in one of Harlan's favorite periodicals to attract his attention so
that Eternity could send a rescue mission. Cooper's ad read:

ALL THE
TALK
OF THE
MARKET

against the backdrop of the outline of an atomic bomb mushroom cloud.
This got Harlan's attention because of the word "ATOM" going down the
front and because of the mushroom cloud in a magazine issue dated March
28, 1932. (In the Eternity timeline, atomic bombs weren't detonated
until the 30th century!).

The ad also gave Cooper's address as "Investments Newsletter, P.O. Box
14, Denver Colorado". Why didn't the ad also list Cooper's name as an
additional flag to Harlan?

I wonder what people would have been investing in anyway? After all,
the U.S. was in a Great Depression!
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Howard Brazee wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:13:54 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni.RemoveThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic Empire, and lead
> >to the extinction of the human race by keeping it trapped on Earth for 12.5
> >million years until intelligent species had evolved throughout the galaxy!
>
> While the solution could very well be best, it doesn't fit with human
> nature. Political people who recognize the problem would change
> their goals - to produce a dominant space going civilization, and
> still be in charge.

Another issue: Eternity had a severe shortage of woman, but it had a
mass duplicator that could duplicate women. Why didn't the Eternals use
the mass duplicator to duplicate the prettiest women it could find in
Reality, or duplicate the women who do temp work for Eternity?

Why didn't the Eternals rescue women from the types of disasters that
destroy bodies?

Why didn't they import artificial wombs from the 482nd century and grow
female babies in them?
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David Johnston wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 00:22:42 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni RemoveThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >John Fairhurst wrote:
> >
> >> In article <4opke2dbm5is9n2fbfimj86p1q5mnf75a7 RemoveThis @4ax.com>, Howard Brazee <howard RemoveThis @brazee.net> wrote:
> >> >On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:13:54 -0700, Tim Bruening
> >> ><tsbrueni RemoveThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>Noys Lambent said that Eternity had prevented the Galactic Empire, and lead
> >> >>to the extinction of the human race by keeping it trapped on Earth for 12.5
> >> >>million years until intelligent species had evolved throughout the galaxy!
> >> >
> >> >While the solution could very well be best, it doesn't fit with human
> >> >nature. Political people who recognize the problem would change
> >> >their goals - to produce a dominant space going civilization, and
> >> >still be in charge.
> >>
> >> The societies that tried for space travelling civilisations were found by
> >> Eternity to be high drug using and eventually collapse due to Mankind being
> >> locked in a virtually barren solar system. Eternity didn't select for a
> >> civilisation that would see space as a proper challange, instead going for a
> >> solution that appeared to give the widest satisfaction to the widest number of
> >> people.
> >
> >What changes would you make in 20th century history to reduce drug addiction?
>
> Prevent the wars for a start. Without the wars fewer soldiers will
> be exposed to free samples of morphine, heroin, and yes, tobacco. And
> without the postwar population boom, there is no 60s. But of course
> the wars also spurred the development of rocket technology.

Which wars would you prevent, and how?
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Mike Schilling wrote:

> "David Johnston" <rgorman.RemoveThis@block.net> wrote in message
> news:6bcve2pqv5ee8v0ud3b5hen9nr2k35kgen@4ax.com...
> > On Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:03 GMT, "Mike Schilling"
> > <mscottschilling.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>> some good points, here. personally, i think mussolini would never have
> >>> been signficant without Hitler...
> >>
> >>Though the idea that preventing the crises and disasters we're familiar
> >>with
> >>wouldn't have caused others, perhaps as awful, is overly optimistic (or
> >>pessimistic, depending on how you look at it.)
> >
> > I'm pretty sure that there was no historical inevitability about World
> > War II so that something comparable had to happen.
>
> But you're not sure that preventing WWII (say, by eliminating Hitler during
> the failed putsch, or wrecking the Munich conference so that a short wart
> resulted in a decisive German loss in 1938) wouldn't result in something
> worse, like a full-scale nuclear war in the 1960s..

I figure that preventing World War Two would prevent nuclear weapons by
removing the prod.
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At the end of the End of Eternity, Noys Lambent and Andrew Harlan erase
Eternity from the timeline by deciding not to rescue Cooper from the
20th century. However, they are protected from the Reality Change by a
physiotime field.

If any Eternity personnel were in Reality at the time of the Noys/Andrew
Change, and were protected by physiotime fields, would they have been
protected from the Change also? If so, how would they have coped with
the sudden shift to a mostly radioactive Earth?
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David Johnston wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:35:27 -0700, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni RemoveThis @pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >At the end of the End of Eternity, Noys Lambent and Andrew Harlan erase
> >Eternity from the timeline by deciding not to rescue Cooper from the
> >20th century. However, they are protected from the Reality Change by a
> >physiotime field.
> >
> >If any Eternity personnel were in Reality at the time of the Noys/Andrew
> >Change, and were protected by physiotime fields, would they have been
> >protected from the Change also? If so, how would they have coped with
> >the sudden shift to a mostly radioactive Earth?
>
> I'm guessing they would have died.

Now consider the fate of any Eternity personnel who were in time periods
preceding the massive increase in Earth's radioactivity, and therefore
wouldn't die of radiation poisoning. How would they cope with the
change in
their surroundings?
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David Johnston wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:27:53 -0800, Tim Bruening
> <tsbrueni.RemoveThis@pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> >> >Was it a good time to run an "Investments Newsletter"?
> >>
> >> Since it really wasn't an investments newsletter, that doesn't matter.
> >
> >Cooper would need to make the newsletter realistic to avoid rousing suspicion
> >among the Primitives.
>
> Suspicion of what?

That he's insane, incompetent, or a criminal. Also, the newsletter would have to
be realistic so that people would continue buying it.
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