The Time Ships
Encyclopedia
The Time Ships is a 1995 science fiction
novel by Stephen Baxter
. A sequel to The Time Machine
by H. G. Wells
, it was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, as well as the British Science Fiction Association Award in 1995. It was also nominated for the Hugo
, Clarke
, and Locus
Awards in 1996.
, the Time Traveller (his first name, Moses, is given in the novel but applied to the Time Traveller's younger self) prepares, in 1891, to return to the year 802,701 and save Weena, the Eloi
who died in the fire with the Morlock
s. He reveals that the quartz
construction of the time machine
is suffused with a radioactive substance he calls Plattner
ite for the mysterious benefactor who gave him the sample to study twenty years earlier, in 1871.
The Time Traveller departs into the future and stops in AD
657,209 when he notes the daytime sky has gone permanently dark. He arrives and is abducted by a branch of Morlocks more culturally advanced than the ones he met before. One of their number, Nebogipfel (the name of a character from Wells' The Chronic Argonauts
), explains after hearing the Time Traveller's own story that the conflict between Eloi and Morlocks never occurred due to the Writer's publication of the story that became The Time Machine. The timeline
he sought to go to is inaccessible to him now. The Morlocks of this timeline have constructed a Dyson sphere
around the inner solar system
and use the Sun
's energy to power it. Humans as the Time Traveller knows them live on the sunlit inner surface of the Sphere while the Morlocks live on the outer shell. The Time Traveller convinces Nebogipfel that he will help him understand the time traveling mechanism of the Time machine if the Morlock takes him back to it.
When he thinks he is unobserved, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. Nebogipfel, who took hold of the Time Traveller once he realized what he was doing, follows him there. As the Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self, whom he asks to call "Moses" to avoid confusion, to stop his research by providing Nebogipfel as proof that reality is changed by time travel, a tank
-like Juggernaut pulls into Moses' yard. The army personnel on board, commanded by Hilary Bond and accompanied by an older version of the Time Traveller's friend Filby, take Moses, Nebogipfel, and the Time Traveller to their 1938, where World War I
has stretched over twenty-four years due to the discovery of time travel
which was influenced by the latter's work. Britain
's major cities
are all encased in Domes, and with the contributions of Austria
n expatriate
Kurt Gödel
, the government hopes to win the war by altering Germany's history conclusively.
Nebogipfel explains to the Time Traveller that they've entered another future as a result of their actions in Moses' past. During another bombing raid on London
by the Germans
, Gödel provides a vial of Plattnerite and leads to the only escape available, a Time-Car prototype
. Upon hearing this and what society would be like after the war (a pessimistic
view mirroring Wells' own), the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel mount the vehicle and insert the Plattnerite. Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save Gödel, and the Time-Car travels back to the Paleocene
and is wrecked on a tree. After weeks of bare survival, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are discovered by a scouting party from the Chronic Expeditionary Force commanded by Hilary Bond that arrived from 1944 to find them based on their remains in her time. Some time later, a German Messerschmitt
plane arrives over the campsite, drops a Carolinum bomb (analogous to an atomic bomb in our world; see Wells's The World Set Free
), and devastates the time-traveling Juggernauts and all but twelve of the Force. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are away from the campsite at the time.
Over the next year and a half, the stranded soldiers under Hilary Bond's command start the colony
of First London. In off moments, Nebogipfel has worked on repairing the Time-Car and acquired shavings of Plattnerite to power it on a journey through time. When the Time-Car is ready, the Time Traveller joins Nebogipfel in a fifty-million year journey through which they see First London expand and develop colonies on the moon
and in Earth orbit
. Eventually, human tampering with the Earth's environment
renders the planet uninhabitable, and they depart for the star
s. When the Time-Car finally stops due to loss of its Plattnerite fuel, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are tended by a Universal Constructor, a life form (or lifeforms) composed of thousands of nanotechnological
entities. They see that there are few stars left in the night sky; this is due to the human descendants colonizing many worlds and constructing Dyson Spheres
around the host star. The goal of the Universal Constructor is to harvest the energy of the sun to build time-travel vehicles from Plattnerite and travel to the beginning of the universe
. However, this goal is not due to be completed for a million years.
Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller acquire enough Plattnerite from the Constructors in order to journey to the point in the future (i.e., another million years hence) when the Constructors will have finished building their time ships. Once the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel reach this point, the Constructors integrate them into a time ship and thus begins the journey back to time's beginning. At this central point from where all matter and energy and timelines branch off, the Constructors apparently start a new history in which they become something even more grand and knowledgeable than before. These successors of the Constructors place the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel into the Time Traveller's original history in the year 1871. It is revealed that the Time Traveller himself is the mysterious stranger who gave his younger self the Plattnerite sample under the alias
"Gottfried Plattner", and that because of this, the circle of causality is closed and thus, the whole multiplicity of histories which ends up creating the Constructors and their successors begins anew. Nebogipfel, with his consciousness enhanced by his time with the Constructors, leaves the Time Traveller behind to travel with the successors of the Constructors. These successors plan to travel "beyond" the "local" multiplicity into a new realm of historical dimensions.
The Time Traveller then makes one final journey to A.D. 802,701, along his historical axis, and just barely saves Weena from the death
she suffered before. Since (the reader is led to suppose) traveling in time again would cause this reality to branch off and become inaccessible again, the Time Traveller destroys the machine and encourages the Eloi in an Agrarian Revolution
to reduce their dependence on the Morlocks for food and clothing, hoping to one day eliminate it entirely. As he works, the Time Traveller writes down the recounting of his adventures and seals them in a Plattnerite packet, a "time capsule
", so to speak, in the hope that it will travel in time to a faithful scribe. Before sealing the packet, the Time Traveller writes that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, hopefully to return and add an appendix to the story. The book ends by saying that no appendix was found.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...
. A sequel to The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
, it was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, as well as the British Science Fiction Association Award in 1995. It was also nominated for the Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
, Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke Award
The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant from Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987...
, and Locus
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
Awards in 1996.
Plot summary
After the events related in The Time MachineThe Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...
, the Time Traveller (his first name, Moses, is given in the novel but applied to the Time Traveller's younger self) prepares, in 1891, to return to the year 802,701 and save Weena, the Eloi
Eloi
The Eloi are one of the two post-human races in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine.-In The Time Machine:By the year 802,701 AD, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks...
who died in the fire with the Morlock
Morlock
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. They dwell underground in the English countryside of 802,701 AD in a troglodyte civilization, maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build...
s. He reveals that the quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
construction of the time machine
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
is suffused with a radioactive substance he calls Plattner
The Plattner Story and Others
The Plattner Story and Others is a collection of seventeen short stories written by H.G. Wells. This volume was first published in March 1897 by Methuen & Co.- Stories Collected :"The Plattner Story""The Argonauts of the Air""The Story of the Late Mr...
ite for the mysterious benefactor who gave him the sample to study twenty years earlier, in 1871.
The Time Traveller departs into the future and stops in AD
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
657,209 when he notes the daytime sky has gone permanently dark. He arrives and is abducted by a branch of Morlocks more culturally advanced than the ones he met before. One of their number, Nebogipfel (the name of a character from Wells' The Chronic Argonauts
The Chronic Argonauts
"The Chronic Argonauts" is a short story written by H. G. Wells. First published by the Royal College of Science in 1888, it is the first well-developed use of a machine constructed to travel through time in science fiction, as it predates Wells's more famous time traveling novel, The Time...
), explains after hearing the Time Traveller's own story that the conflict between Eloi and Morlocks never occurred due to the Writer's publication of the story that became The Time Machine. The timeline
Alternate history (fiction)
Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...
he sought to go to is inaccessible to him now. The Morlocks of this timeline have constructed a Dyson sphere
Dyson sphere
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a "sphere" would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output...
around the inner solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
and use the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
's energy to power it. Humans as the Time Traveller knows them live on the sunlit inner surface of the Sphere while the Morlocks live on the outer shell. The Time Traveller convinces Nebogipfel that he will help him understand the time traveling mechanism of the Time machine if the Morlock takes him back to it.
When he thinks he is unobserved, the Time Traveller reactivates his machine and travels to 1873 to persuade his younger self to stop his research on Plattnerite. Nebogipfel, who took hold of the Time Traveller once he realized what he was doing, follows him there. As the Time Traveller attempts to persuade his younger self, whom he asks to call "Moses" to avoid confusion, to stop his research by providing Nebogipfel as proof that reality is changed by time travel, a tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
-like Juggernaut pulls into Moses' yard. The army personnel on board, commanded by Hilary Bond and accompanied by an older version of the Time Traveller's friend Filby, take Moses, Nebogipfel, and the Time Traveller to their 1938, where World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
has stretched over twenty-four years due to the discovery of time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
which was influenced by the latter's work. Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's major cities
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
are all encased in Domes, and with the contributions of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
, the government hopes to win the war by altering Germany's history conclusively.
Nebogipfel explains to the Time Traveller that they've entered another future as a result of their actions in Moses' past. During another bombing raid on London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by the Germans
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Gödel provides a vial of Plattnerite and leads to the only escape available, a Time-Car prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
. Upon hearing this and what society would be like after the war (a pessimistic
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
view mirroring Wells' own), the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel mount the vehicle and insert the Plattnerite. Moses is killed in an explosion when he tries to save Gödel, and the Time-Car travels back to the Paleocene
Paleocene
The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...
and is wrecked on a tree. After weeks of bare survival, the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel are discovered by a scouting party from the Chronic Expeditionary Force commanded by Hilary Bond that arrived from 1944 to find them based on their remains in her time. Some time later, a German Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt AG was a famous German aircraft manufacturing corporation named for its chief designer, Willy Messerschmitt, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, notably the Bf 109 and Me 262...
plane arrives over the campsite, drops a Carolinum bomb (analogous to an atomic bomb in our world; see Wells's The World Set Free
The World Set Free
The World Set Free is a novel published in 1914 by H. G. Wells. The book is considered to foretell nuclear weapons. It had appeared first in serialized form with a different ending as A Prophetic Trilogy, consisting of three books: A Trap to Catch the Sun, The Last War in the World and The World...
), and devastates the time-traveling Juggernauts and all but twelve of the Force. Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are away from the campsite at the time.
Over the next year and a half, the stranded soldiers under Hilary Bond's command start the colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
of First London. In off moments, Nebogipfel has worked on repairing the Time-Car and acquired shavings of Plattnerite to power it on a journey through time. When the Time-Car is ready, the Time Traveller joins Nebogipfel in a fifty-million year journey through which they see First London expand and develop colonies on the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
and in Earth orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
. Eventually, human tampering with the Earth's environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
renders the planet uninhabitable, and they depart for the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s. When the Time-Car finally stops due to loss of its Plattnerite fuel, Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller are tended by a Universal Constructor, a life form (or lifeforms) composed of thousands of nanotechnological
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
entities. They see that there are few stars left in the night sky; this is due to the human descendants colonizing many worlds and constructing Dyson Spheres
Dyson sphere
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a "sphere" would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output...
around the host star. The goal of the Universal Constructor is to harvest the energy of the sun to build time-travel vehicles from Plattnerite and travel to the beginning of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. However, this goal is not due to be completed for a million years.
Nebogipfel and the Time Traveller acquire enough Plattnerite from the Constructors in order to journey to the point in the future (i.e., another million years hence) when the Constructors will have finished building their time ships. Once the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel reach this point, the Constructors integrate them into a time ship and thus begins the journey back to time's beginning. At this central point from where all matter and energy and timelines branch off, the Constructors apparently start a new history in which they become something even more grand and knowledgeable than before. These successors of the Constructors place the Time Traveller and Nebogipfel into the Time Traveller's original history in the year 1871. It is revealed that the Time Traveller himself is the mysterious stranger who gave his younger self the Plattnerite sample under the alias
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Gottfried Plattner", and that because of this, the circle of causality is closed and thus, the whole multiplicity of histories which ends up creating the Constructors and their successors begins anew. Nebogipfel, with his consciousness enhanced by his time with the Constructors, leaves the Time Traveller behind to travel with the successors of the Constructors. These successors plan to travel "beyond" the "local" multiplicity into a new realm of historical dimensions.
The Time Traveller then makes one final journey to A.D. 802,701, along his historical axis, and just barely saves Weena from the death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
she suffered before. Since (the reader is led to suppose) traveling in time again would cause this reality to branch off and become inaccessible again, the Time Traveller destroys the machine and encourages the Eloi in an Agrarian Revolution
Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution was the first agricultural revolution. It was the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicates that various forms of plants and animal domestication evolved independently in 6 separate locations worldwide circa...
to reduce their dependence on the Morlocks for food and clothing, hoping to one day eliminate it entirely. As he works, the Time Traveller writes down the recounting of his adventures and seals them in a Plattnerite packet, a "time capsule
Time capsule
A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...
", so to speak, in the hope that it will travel in time to a faithful scribe. Before sealing the packet, the Time Traveller writes that he plans to go into the world of the Morlocks again, hopefully to return and add an appendix to the story. The book ends by saying that no appendix was found.
Awards
- British Science Fiction Award winner, 1995
- John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner, 1996
- Philip K. Dick Award winner, 1996
- British Fantasy Award nominee, 1996
- Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 1996
- Hugo Award nominee, 1996
- Locus Award nominee, 1996
External links
- The Time Ships at Worlds Without End