The Time Orphan Universe

As promised in the previous blog post, we’ll talk more about time travel, namely my book, Orphans of Space-Time.

I need to emphasis it here: Orphans of Space-Time doesn’t follow the rules laid down by Emmet Brown (Back to the Future), nor the Many Worlds theory of Hugh Everrit (I have a different series that subscribes to those rules). I need to emphesis it because, though the rules of the game are clearly spelled out in the narrative, at least two reviewers stated that there was a plot hole because the actions of the time traveller didn’t erase his own existence. 

All the editions since, begin with a prelude, simply stating the Three Observable Facts of Time Travel. I’ll paste them in at the end of this email. But first, here’s a storyteller’s description of how it works (You’ll also find this in the book, in the appendix):

  

So, what happens if you go back in time and kill your own paternal grandfather when he’s 11 years old? In the universe in which these stories are set, you’ll simply return to your own time and find that no one knows you. Your father was never born, and therefore, neither were you.

But you still exist. You're now a time orphan. Contrary to both Drs Hugh Everest and Emmett Brown, you neither created another parallel universe, nor a time-space paradox; simply a new timeline that replaced the previous one. All the people whose birth you erased, such as your brothers and sisters, never existed. Only you do, simply because you established the fact of your existence from a time-location before the critical event.  

...And, your older sister, also a time traveller, has survived, even though she was in the timeline as it got erased.

That's because two weeks earlier, she travelled back to try to discover King Arthur, who lived long before you killed your and her grandfather, thus establishing the fact of her existence ever since King Arthur's time.

So there she is, two weeks later, lying in a hammock in her backyard reading Malory’s Mort d’Author, when suddenly… the impression of lying in a hammock in her backyard reading Mort d’Author is only a very dim memory that comes to her while she’s actually sitting in the lobby of the local youth hostel going over her research into her grandfather’s death at age 11.

Returning from her adventure, she had popped back into a house that isn't hers, no hammock in the backyard, and she probably gets arrested for trespassing even though it was her own house in the old timeline (that explanation usually doesn't stand up in court). She has no brothers or sisters, or Father, and you haven't popped back into the new timeline yet. Her mother is married to her old history teacher, and doesn't know her. Her research tells her that her grandfather once existed, but was mysteriously killed at age 11.  

But she has the dim recollection of a concurrent timeline which ended with her lying on her hammock reading Mort d’Arthur. It's way too dim to remember events with any clarity.  

Of course she remembers her life before she jumped back to find King Arthur. That's because it's her personal timeline, and she’ll always remember that even if no one else does. By jumping so far back in time, she had established her own life as a pre existing fact, so she didn't get erased by the new timeline. However, most of her memories are now of things that never happened.

But now she has popped back into a changed timeline, where she already existed up to the point where you made your time jump to visit wee Grandpa. Because she is now imposing a new memory over the existing memory of those two weeks, causing the original to appear as deja vous.

There’s something about the discontinuation of a timeline that activates the original memory, so she suddenly becomes awar of an alternate sequence of events for those two weeks. While she was sitting in the overstuffed settee in the lobby of the hostel, reviewing her information about her grandfather, she suddenly has the impression she's been lying in her hammock in her own backyard reading Mort d’Arthur. It’s only a residew of memory, unless something happens to trigger a full memory, like, maybe, a dream brought about by thinking hard about something. 

Then, you suddenly reappear in her new timeline. She puts two and two together.

Now, you're in trouble!

  

So, how did you and your sister become time travellers? It started when you both realised you were having dim memories of discontinued timelines - or at least confused by alternative facts regarding recent events. That was the first clue that you had the gift of time travel. From there, there are two ways to become a time traveller: 

• Through long and rigorous training in concentration techniques, 

• The use of a small mind focusing device, that was designed in a medieval Japanese Christian monastery in a world in which Rome was conquered by Hannibal Barca, and never rose to be an empire. 

So, there you are, having jumped back in time, and tracked down your 11 year old grandfather. He is just inches from you. You are about to grab him, when suddenly, there stands your sister, giving you a look that would wake the dead.

‘Don't. Even. Think. About. It.’ she says, in her most convincing tone.

She grips you by the ear, drags you away from young Grandpa, and time-jumps you back to your own time, where you merge with your selves of the restored timeline. Then she confiscates your mind-focusing device.

  

Now, do you notice how you and your sister’s personal timelines seem to go both forward, backwards and sideways, weaving in and out through various timelines? Yohan, in the narrative, explained four dimensional space-time, so I won't do it here, except to say there’s also a fifth dimension. That's what enables us to refer to ‘original timeline', ‘new timeline’ and ‘personal timeline’. It seems that in the fifth dimension, from the timetravellor’s point of view, time moves sideways from old to new in a different direction than time in the fourth dimension. A timeline can go on for a million years in the fourth dimension, and yet be short lived in the fifth dimension. How? One person initiates a critical event that starts a new timeline, then his arch-enemy jumps a million years into the future, and then straight back to prevent the first person from initiating the critical event.

The above was reedited from the appendix of the book. There’s more, but to paste it here would provide too many spoilers. 

Anyway, here’s how it works, simplified:

The Three Observable Facts of Time Travel

1. What really happens when you jump back to an earlier time and prevent your own birth? Do you produce a time-space paradox? Do you create another parallel universe?
   No, you become a Time Orphan. Other people may cease to exist if their birth was affected by your action, but you go on existing, because you now have a new point of origin, the earliest point of time you travelled to.

2. If, by jumping backwards in time, you change the course of your own life to the extent that you wouldn't have made the time jump when you did, you produce another instance of yourself, a Time Dopple. Dopples can coexist in the same timeline, as long as they don't come too close together. If they come within each other's event horizon, they merge back into one - one person with two sets of memories. That's because it's against the laws of physics for two instances of the same matter to exist at the same time.

3. Only certain people have the gift of time perception. Such people remember broken timelines, be it only the residue of a memory, or a deja vous. If they develop that gift, they can become time travellers themselves.

So, Isaac Asimov has his "three laws of robotics", I have my "three facts". All the stories in this collection are based on the Three Observable Facts.

  

And here’s where to get it:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M1AIZGS

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M1AIZGS

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01M1AIZGS

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01M1AIZGS