Thrice Upon a Time
Encyclopedia
Thrice Upon A Time is a science fiction
novel
by James P. Hogan
, first published in 1980. Unlike most other time travel
stories, Thrice Upon A Time considers the ramifications of sending messages into the past and/or receiving messages from the future, rather than the sending of physical objects through time.
in Storbannon, Scotland
. Sir Charles is a Nobel prize
recipient for his work in particle physics
, more specifically the isolation of free quarks.
Supposedly, when a nucleon
decays into three quarks, the first two quarks appear immediately, while the third quark appears only a brief moment later, on the order of a millionth of a yoctosecond. An accepted theory was that the original decay produced two quarks and a third unknown particle, dubbed a quason, which subsequently transformed into a third quark. Charles, however, offered a different, radical explanation: all three quarks were created at once, but the first two were propagated back in time. Charles dubbed the energy which had allowed the propagation through time as tau waves. Although his theory was completely valid and consistent, the researchers of his time refused to accept it because of the implications involved, namely the failure of the laws of conservation. He retreats to the family castle in Storbannon to continue his research in private, finally succeeding in building a working time machine capable of sending messages to the future and past.
When the two young men arrive, Charles takes them down into the basement, where the machine is located. As they enter the basement, a computer attached to the machine print
s out a sheet of data, which Charles hides from the others. He asks Murdoch to type in a 6-character random message into the computer, which he does. Charles then activates the machine and transmits the message one minute
back in time. Finally, he shows the paper printed out previously, and Murdoch and Lee are amazed: the printout contained exactly the same random characters typed, which were printed before Murdoch had typed them in.
After Murdoch and Lee have gotten over their initial shock, they decide to experiment with the machine. Murdoch tries to fool the machine into creating a causality paradox, by deliberately receiving a message from the future, and not sending the message back at the due time. Suddenly, the entire system turns bizarre, and they are flooded with messages from all over the ten-minute range of the machine. They abruptly turn off the machine and leave.
While outside, Murdoch and Lee talk about the implications of the machine's existence and how the time continuum could allow for time travel without introducing a paradox. They formulate theories similar to the many-worlds interpretation
, finally deciding that none of the theories discussed fit their previous observations.
The next day, Ted Cartland, a friend of Charles and a former RAF
officer, arrives to examine the machine he had helped build. They repeat the experiment, and Ted is bewildered as well. Ted, however, has a trick up his sleeve: he writes a computer program
to do what Murdoch had done the day before, to remove the human element from the experiment.
The machine picks up an unexpected message, telling the experimenters that a jar
had been broken. True enough, Lee was on the verge of accidentally pushing a glass jar off a shelf. However, they are unable to contact their future selves with the broken jar, as they apparently no longer exist. Charles postulates that upon sending the message back, their selves in the future had changed their past and thus had been erased from existence; the altered timeline, with its unbroken jar, overwrote the old one rather like recording over an old program on a video tape. Thus causality
is preserved. The fear of being erased chills
them, and so they quickly disable the machine again.
As time goes by, they establish an experiment protocol
, and set up automated tests to gain more information about the physics behind the machine. The machine is upgraded to allow for more data throughput
and a range of twenty-four hour
s. Murdoch also meets a girl named Anne Patterson when she trips over Sir Charles's kitten while out shopping in Kingussie
, and immediately falls in love
. It turns out later that she works as a doctor
in the new fusion reactor
in Burghead
. Elizabeth Muir, another close friend of Charles, works there as well, and Charles invites her to his castle to investigate the peculiar machine.
Consortium (EFC) has commissioned a large fusion reactor
in Burghead, to compete with the technologies of the United States
and the USSR. The colossal energy obtained from fusion meant that huge amounts of power might someday be available at negligible cost. All three parties used inertial confinement
technology, with the EFC opting to use ion beam
s as the power source.
During this time, Murdoch and Lee get to tour the large Burghead facility through Elizabeth, who is Principal Physicist
there, and Murdoch builds a relationship with Anne. One day, the reactor, still in the testing phases while producing power, is shut down when apparent erosion
is detected in the fusion chamber. Two days before, the team at Storbannon had experienced an apparent failure in the time machine, with Lee asserting the failure to be due to interference
. The machine then suddenly resumes operation again, and they elect to ignore the problem. Shortly after the incident, strange events start occurring around the world, with so-called bugophants (a portmanteau of bug
and elephant
) drilling tiny, long, straight holes through a myriad of objects, from human bodies to telescope
mirrors.
Finally, the team finds out the cause of the erosion in the Burghead plant, the interference with the machine, and the bugophants themselves: the repeated fusion tests at the plant had, over the course of two days, produced some two million microscopic black hole
s, which had tunnelled through the basement of the plant and concentrated around the Earth
's core. As the black holes annihilated matter
, they emitted tau waves and caused interference even before the reactor tests. Although conventional theory stated that black holes could not form from the comparatively low pressure produced in the reactor, and small black holes could not survive long
anyway, the conventional theory had failed to take into account the existence of tau waves and their effects.
Lee suddenly goes into spasm
s and loses consciousness
during a dinner with Murdoch and Anne. He is rushed to a local hospital, and then transferred to a special unit created to deal with a new outbreak, which had apparently affected him and several others in Burghead.
While the rest of the team is away, Murdoch finds that the machine is about to be swamped with interference, and may soon be unusable. He decides to take matters into his own hands and transmit a message far back into the past to remedy the situation. To get around the twenty-four hour limit of the machine, he asks Anne, who had learned low-level programming
in university
, to write a program that would repeatedly bootstrap itself back in time until it reached the date desired. Anne complies, despite deep misgivings. They manage to send the message, knowing they will be reset into the new timeline, and that anything could be different.
Their past selves receive the message and act on it immediately. They have no choice but to tell the bewildered managing committee at Burghead of their findings, including revealing their time machine. Pending investigations, the reactor is shut down indefinitely. And although neither Murdoch nor Anne is aware of it, the flood of tau particles accompanying the message upset delicate quantum probabilities; she did not trip over the kitten and begin a relationship with Murdoch.
, and other places. Lee turns ill in the castle one day, and suddenly collapses. As a doctor, Anne contacts Murdoch, who is away, and suggests Lee has succumbed to a new outbreak
, apparently a variant of multiple sclerosis
, but progressing much faster (only a few weeks as opposed to years) and very deadly.
Murdoch pressures Anne to reveal more information about the outbreak, which appears to be highly classified. Anne doesn't know much either. However, Murdoch finds out that a distinguished medical specialist, Sir Giles Fennimore, has arrived from London
to investigate the outbreak. He learns that the disease is somehow connected to the United States West Coast
, where Lee had been residing in September 2009, and his suspicions are raised further.
Ted and Elizabeth help Murdoch investigate. After interrogating Ralph Courtney, chairman at the Burghead facility, and a chance meeting by Ted with a young RAF pilot, they eventually find out (Ted knowing much of this from his previous RAF experience) that Anglo-US
authorities had wished to establish an advanced laboratory
for potentially dangerous research into virus
es, genetic manipulation
, and similar subjects. Naturally, this project stirred up a large controversy
over public fears of containment failures and contamination, and was eventually scrapped. However, the possible scientific advancements offered were simply too great to pass up. Thus a satellite
, QX-37, was constructed and launched into space
, purporting to house an observatory
. QX-37 continued the experiments secretly.
In August 2009, the satellite passed right through the path of the Perseids
meteor shower
and was hit by a large meteor, against astronomical odds. It broke up and disintegrated into the atmosphere
. After the breakup and fallout, to prevent public panic the entire effort was classified and codenamed Centurion. Again, surpassing the odds, a single, mutant strain
of multiple sclerosis survives on its way back down to Earth, and infect
s the entire population of the West Coast, with an incubation period of nine months. It was during this time that Lee was infected, as he was in the West Coast at the time.
The West Coast of the United States is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and soon thousands of people start reporting symptoms and getting hospitalized. The new strain is named omnisclerosis Californians. A vaccine
is announced and vaccinations begin in California
; however they are stopped after 811 of the people treated die from neural disorders triggered by one of the production batches, which had not been manufactured properly. Even though the vaccine worked, the public would not trust it anymore, and were now left with no defense against the virus.
The team decide to contact Fennimore through Minister
of Advanced Technology
and Science
Graham Cuthrie. Though initially skeptical, he is convinced of the machine's authenticity after a demonstration. They propose a pilot test: instead of changing many months of history, they offer to reset the events leading to the vaccine mishaps which had caused Fennimore much distress, five days ago. He reluctantly agrees. He is asked to prepare a comprehensive document detailing the manufacturing problem, with additional measures taken to ensure its authenticity
.
In the new reset timeline, the faulty vaccine batch is retracted and the 811 deaths do not occur. Fennimore becomes a spokesman for the team, convincing world governments to take action. It is decided that information needed to produce and distribute the vaccine will be sent back several months in time, as well as other current events, to help their past selves make superior decisions
.
announcing the message, and the message body itself arriving an hour later, to allow the team to attach more computer memory
to the machine for the message to be received in its entirety.
That very day, in this third iteration of the timeline, Murdoch and Lee go out shopping in Kingussie, and a certain young woman named Anne trips over Sir Charles's kitten... This is the origin of the story's title, Thrice Upon A Time.
is a component of everyday life, with most devices equipped with a printer; this includes vi-sets and the time machine itself.
which allows live video
transmission between callers, as well as the transmission of arbitrary data, and can print out hard copies
of this data.
s come with an automated control system allowing one to cruise hands-free on most official roads and highways. All road vehicles are thus also bound to the local traffic rules on controlled roads. However, older models, without full automation support, can bypass this restriction.
PDP 22/30, the model number presumably intended as pastiche on the PDP 11 series (Hogan is a former DEC employee), and machine code is still used for many programming tasks, though High-level language
s are mentioned. It should be noted, however, that the programming tasks mentioned in the story would have to be done at a low level, being mostly hardware programming with very strict size requirements. The computer for the time machine had less than 50 Megabyte
/Mebibyte
s of computer memory, a far cry from the situation today, where a typical personal computer
could easily contain one or more Gigabyte
s/Gibibyte
s of RAM, and hundreds of times that for hard disk
drives. However, scientific computing often makes use of only the resources required, which may differ greatly from those for normal home computing.
On the other hand, the story illustrates the concept of public utility grid computing, which is only just recently coming to fruition through services such as Amazon
's EC2.
) to carry information back in time.
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
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by James P. Hogan
James P. Hogan (writer)
James Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.-Biography:Hogan was born in London, England. He was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London...
, first published in 1980. Unlike most other 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...
stories, Thrice Upon A Time considers the ramifications of sending messages into the past and/or receiving messages from the future, rather than the sending of physical objects through time.
Synopsis
It is December 2009. Murdoch Ross and his friend Lee Francis Walker visit Murdoch's grandfather, Sir Charles Ross, in his castleCastle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
in Storbannon, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Sir Charles is a Nobel prize
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
recipient for his work in particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
, more specifically the isolation of free quarks.
Supposedly, when a nucleon
Nucleon
In physics, a nucleon is a collective name for two particles: the neutron and the proton. These are the two constituents of the atomic nucleus. Until the 1960s, the nucleons were thought to be elementary particles...
decays into three quarks, the first two quarks appear immediately, while the third quark appears only a brief moment later, on the order of a millionth of a yoctosecond. An accepted theory was that the original decay produced two quarks and a third unknown particle, dubbed a quason, which subsequently transformed into a third quark. Charles, however, offered a different, radical explanation: all three quarks were created at once, but the first two were propagated back in time. Charles dubbed the energy which had allowed the propagation through time as tau waves. Although his theory was completely valid and consistent, the researchers of his time refused to accept it because of the implications involved, namely the failure of the laws of conservation. He retreats to the family castle in Storbannon to continue his research in private, finally succeeding in building a working time machine capable of sending messages to the future and past.
When the two young men arrive, Charles takes them down into the basement, where the machine is located. As they enter the basement, a computer attached to the machine print
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
s out a sheet of data, which Charles hides from the others. He asks Murdoch to type in a 6-character random message into the computer, which he does. Charles then activates the machine and transmits the message one minute
Minute
A minute is a unit of measurement of time or of angle. The minute is a unit of time equal to 1/60th of an hour or 60 seconds. In the UTC time scale, a minute on rare occasions has 59 or 61 seconds; see leap second. The minute is not an SI unit; however, it is accepted for use with SI units...
back in time. Finally, he shows the paper printed out previously, and Murdoch and Lee are amazed: the printout contained exactly the same random characters typed, which were printed before Murdoch had typed them in.
After Murdoch and Lee have gotten over their initial shock, they decide to experiment with the machine. Murdoch tries to fool the machine into creating a causality paradox, by deliberately receiving a message from the future, and not sending the message back at the due time. Suddenly, the entire system turns bizarre, and they are flooded with messages from all over the ten-minute range of the machine. They abruptly turn off the machine and leave.
While outside, Murdoch and Lee talk about the implications of the machine's existence and how the time continuum could allow for time travel without introducing a paradox. They formulate theories similar to the many-worlds interpretation
Many-worlds interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction, but denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an...
, finally deciding that none of the theories discussed fit their previous observations.
The next day, Ted Cartland, a friend of Charles and a former RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
officer, arrives to examine the machine he had helped build. They repeat the experiment, and Ted is bewildered as well. Ted, however, has a trick up his sleeve: he writes a computer program
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
to do what Murdoch had done the day before, to remove the human element from the experiment.
The machine picks up an unexpected message, telling the experimenters that a jar
Jar
A jar is a rigid, approximately cylindrical container with a wide mouth or opening. Jars are typically made of glass, ceramic, or plastic. They are used for foods, cosmetics, medications, and chemicals that are relatively thick or viscous...
had been broken. True enough, Lee was on the verge of accidentally pushing a glass jar off a shelf. However, they are unable to contact their future selves with the broken jar, as they apparently no longer exist. Charles postulates that upon sending the message back, their selves in the future had changed their past and thus had been erased from existence; the altered timeline, with its unbroken jar, overwrote the old one rather like recording over an old program on a video tape. Thus causality
Causality (physics)
Causality is the relationship between causes and effects. It is considered to be fundamental to all natural science, especially physics. Causality is also a topic studied from the perspectives of philosophy and statistics....
is preserved. The fear of being erased chills
Chilling effect
In a legal context, a chilling effect is the term used to describe the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right by the threat of legal sanction. The right that is most often described as being supressed by a chilling effect is the right to free speech...
them, and so they quickly disable the machine again.
As time goes by, they establish an experiment protocol
Protocol (natural sciences)
In the natural sciences a protocol is a predefined written procedural method in the design and implementation of experiments. Protocols are written whenever it is desirable to standardize a laboratory method to ensure successful replication of results by others in the same laboratory or by other...
, and set up automated tests to gain more information about the physics behind the machine. The machine is upgraded to allow for more data throughput
Throughput
In communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. This data may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or pass through a certain network node...
and a range of twenty-four hour
Hour
The hour is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds...
s. Murdoch also meets a girl named Anne Patterson when she trips over Sir Charles's kitten while out shopping in Kingussie
Kingussie
Kingussie is a small town in the Highland region of Scotland. It is one settlement in the Highland Council ward of Badenoch and Strathspey, and is the capital of the district of Badenoch. It lies beside the A9 road, although the old route of the A9 serves as the town's main street...
, and immediately falls in love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
. It turns out later that she works as a doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
in the new fusion reactor
Fusion power
Fusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion processes. In fusion reactions two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus . In doing so they release a comparatively large amount of energy arising from the binding energy due to the strong nuclear force which is manifested...
in Burghead
Burghead
Burghead is a small town in Moray, Scotland, about 8 miles north-west of Elgin. The town is mainly built on a Peninsula which projects north-westward into the Moray Firth, meaning that most of the town has sea on 3 sides. The present town was built between 1805 and 1809, destroying in the...
. Elizabeth Muir, another close friend of Charles, works there as well, and Charles invites her to his castle to investigate the peculiar machine.
Burghead and black holes
The fictional European FusionNuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
Consortium (EFC) has commissioned a large fusion reactor
Nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...
in Burghead, to compete with the technologies of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the USSR. The colossal energy obtained from fusion meant that huge amounts of power might someday be available at negligible cost. All three parties used inertial confinement
Inertial confinement fusion
Inertial confinement fusion is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium....
technology, with the EFC opting to use ion beam
Ion beam
An ion beam is a type of charged particle beam consisting of ions. Ion beams have many uses in electronics manufacturing and other industries. A variety of ion beam sources exist, some derived from the mercury vapor thrusters developed by NASA in the 1960s.-Ion beam etching or sputtering:One type...
s as the power source.
During this time, Murdoch and Lee get to tour the large Burghead facility through Elizabeth, who is Principal Physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
there, and Murdoch builds a relationship with Anne. One day, the reactor, still in the testing phases while producing power, is shut down when apparent erosion
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
is detected in the fusion chamber. Two days before, the team at Storbannon had experienced an apparent failure in the time machine, with Lee asserting the failure to be due to interference
Interference (communication)
In communications and electronics, especially in telecommunications, interference is anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a signal as it travels along a channel between a source and a receiver. The term typically refers to the addition of unwanted signals to a useful signal...
. The machine then suddenly resumes operation again, and they elect to ignore the problem. Shortly after the incident, strange events start occurring around the world, with so-called bugophants (a portmanteau of bug
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
and elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
) drilling tiny, long, straight holes through a myriad of objects, from human bodies to telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
mirrors.
Finally, the team finds out the cause of the erosion in the Burghead plant, the interference with the machine, and the bugophants themselves: the repeated fusion tests at the plant had, over the course of two days, produced some two million microscopic black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
s, which had tunnelled through the basement of the plant and concentrated around the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's core. As the black holes annihilated matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
, they emitted tau waves and caused interference even before the reactor tests. Although conventional theory stated that black holes could not form from the comparatively low pressure produced in the reactor, and small black holes could not survive long
Hawking radiation
Hawking radiation is a thermal radiation with a black body spectrum predicted to be emitted by black holes due to quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974, and sometimes also after the physicist Jacob Bekenstein...
anyway, the conventional theory had failed to take into account the existence of tau waves and their effects.
Lee suddenly goes into spasm
Spasm
In medicine a spasm is a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ, or a similarly sudden contraction of an orifice. It is sometimes accompanied by a sudden burst of pain, but is usually harmless and ceases after a few minutes...
s and loses consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
during a dinner with Murdoch and Anne. He is rushed to a local hospital, and then transferred to a special unit created to deal with a new outbreak, which had apparently affected him and several others in Burghead.
While the rest of the team is away, Murdoch finds that the machine is about to be swamped with interference, and may soon be unusable. He decides to take matters into his own hands and transmit a message far back into the past to remedy the situation. To get around the twenty-four hour limit of the machine, he asks Anne, who had learned low-level programming
Machine code
Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit. Each instruction performs a very specific task, typically either an operation on a unit of data Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions...
in university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, to write a program that would repeatedly bootstrap itself back in time until it reached the date desired. Anne complies, despite deep misgivings. They manage to send the message, knowing they will be reset into the new timeline, and that anything could be different.
Their past selves receive the message and act on it immediately. They have no choice but to tell the bewildered managing committee at Burghead of their findings, including revealing their time machine. Pending investigations, the reactor is shut down indefinitely. And although neither Murdoch nor Anne is aware of it, the flood of tau particles accompanying the message upset delicate quantum probabilities; she did not trip over the kitten and begin a relationship with Murdoch.
Centurion
In the new timeline, word of the time machine spreads to the EFC headquarters in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, and other places. Lee turns ill in the castle one day, and suddenly collapses. As a doctor, Anne contacts Murdoch, who is away, and suggests Lee has succumbed to a new outbreak
Outbreak
Outbreak is a term used in epidemiology to describe an occurrence of disease greater than would otherwise be expected at a particular time and place. It may affect a small and localized group or impact upon thousands of people across an entire continent. Two linked cases of a rare infectious...
, apparently a variant of multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, but progressing much faster (only a few weeks as opposed to years) and very deadly.
Murdoch pressures Anne to reveal more information about the outbreak, which appears to be highly classified. Anne doesn't know much either. However, Murdoch finds out that a distinguished medical specialist, Sir Giles Fennimore, has arrived from 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...
to investigate the outbreak. He learns that the disease is somehow connected to the United States West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, where Lee had been residing in September 2009, and his suspicions are raised further.
Ted and Elizabeth help Murdoch investigate. After interrogating Ralph Courtney, chairman at the Burghead facility, and a chance meeting by Ted with a young RAF pilot, they eventually find out (Ted knowing much of this from his previous RAF experience) that Anglo-US
Anglo-American relations
British–American relations encompass many complex relations over the span of four centuries, beginning in 1607 with England's first permanent colony in North America called Jamestown, to the present day, between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of...
authorities had wished to establish an advanced laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
for potentially dangerous research into virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
es, genetic manipulation
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
, and similar subjects. Naturally, this project stirred up a large controversy
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
over public fears of containment failures and contamination, and was eventually scrapped. However, the possible scientific advancements offered were simply too great to pass up. Thus a satellite
Biosatellite
A biosatellite is a satellite designed to carry life in space. The first satellite with animal was Soviet Sputnik 2 at November 3, 1957. On August 20, 1960 Soviet Sputnik 5 first time recovered animals from orbit to Earth....
, QX-37, was constructed and launched into space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
, purporting to house an observatory
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...
. QX-37 continued the experiments secretly.
In August 2009, the satellite passed right through the path of the Perseids
Perseids
The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. The name derives in part from the word Perseides , a term found in Greek mythology...
meteor shower
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
and was hit by a large meteor, against astronomical odds. It broke up and disintegrated into the atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
. After the breakup and fallout, to prevent public panic the entire effort was classified and codenamed Centurion. Again, surpassing the odds, a single, mutant strain
Strain (biology)
In biology, a strain is a low-level taxonomic rank used in three related ways.-Microbiology and virology:A strain is a genetic variant or subtype of a micro-organism . For example, a "flu strain" is a certain biological form of the influenza or "flu" virus...
of multiple sclerosis survives on its way back down to Earth, and infect
Infection
An infection is the colonization of a host organism by parasite species. Infecting parasites seek to use the host's resources to reproduce, often resulting in disease...
s the entire population of the West Coast, with an incubation period of nine months. It was during this time that Lee was infected, as he was in the West Coast at the time.
The West Coast of the United States is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and soon thousands of people start reporting symptoms and getting hospitalized. The new strain is named omnisclerosis Californians. A vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
is announced and vaccinations begin in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
; however they are stopped after 811 of the people treated die from neural disorders triggered by one of the production batches, which had not been manufactured properly. Even though the vaccine worked, the public would not trust it anymore, and were now left with no defense against the virus.
The team decide to contact Fennimore through Minister
Cabinet of the United Kingdom
The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the collective decision-making body of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, composed of the Prime Minister and some 22 Cabinet Ministers, the most senior of the government ministers....
of Advanced Technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and Science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
Graham Cuthrie. Though initially skeptical, he is convinced of the machine's authenticity after a demonstration. They propose a pilot test: instead of changing many months of history, they offer to reset the events leading to the vaccine mishaps which had caused Fennimore much distress, five days ago. He reluctantly agrees. He is asked to prepare a comprehensive document detailing the manufacturing problem, with additional measures taken to ensure its authenticity
Signature
A signature is a handwritten depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying...
.
In the new reset timeline, the faulty vaccine batch is retracted and the 811 deaths do not occur. Fennimore becomes a spokesman for the team, convincing world governments to take action. It is decided that information needed to produce and distribute the vaccine will be sent back several months in time, as well as other current events, to help their past selves make superior decisions
Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
.
Epilogue
The message is sent to the afternoon of January 16, 2010, from July 28, 2010, shortly after the message about the black holes is received. The message is split up into two parts, a headerHeader (information technology)
In information technology, header refers to supplemental data placed at the beginning of a block of data being stored or transmitted. In data transmission, the data following the header are sometimes called the payload or body....
announcing the message, and the message body itself arriving an hour later, to allow the team to attach more computer memory
Computer memory
In computing, memory refers to the physical devices used to store programs or data on a temporary or permanent basis for use in a computer or other digital electronic device. The term primary memory is used for the information in physical systems which are fast In computing, memory refers to the...
to the machine for the message to be received in its entirety.
That very day, in this third iteration of the timeline, Murdoch and Lee go out shopping in Kingussie, and a certain young woman named Anne trips over Sir Charles's kitten... This is the origin of the story's title, Thrice Upon A Time.
Themes
- Paradigm#Paradigm Paralysis. Most scientists have blind faith in current knowledge and are very hostile to what-if scenarios. The story in the book is an interesting parallel to the actual 2008 controversy surrounding the Safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.
- SkepticismSkepticismSkepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
. Nearly everyone outside Charles' immediate circle of acquaintances are initially skeptical of Charles' invention, despite being shown live demonstrations, with some going as far as to accuse him of fraudFraudIn criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
, or compare him to Uri GellerUri GellerUri Geller is a self-proclaimed psychic known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other supposed psychic effects. Throughout the years, Geller has been accused of using simple conjuring tricks to achieve the effects of psychokinesis and telepathy...
.
- BureaucracyBureaucracyA bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
. It is difficult for the team to contact any high-ranking officialOfficialAn official is someone who holds an office in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority .A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public...
s, even in dire situations. This is compounded by the fact that most of these officials are skeptical of the existence of a time machine, and do not want their time wasted.
- PoliticsPoliticsPolitics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
. Politicians and governments are reluctant to trust each other and collaborate, even on extremely important matters. When the Prime MinisterPrime Minister of the United KingdomThe Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
hears of the machine, he immediately considers its defenseMilitaryA military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
implications, instead of its applications to world improvement.
- SecrecySecrecySecrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups, perhaps while sharing it with other individuals...
and trust. The governments behind the Centurion project classify all information and tightly restrict its dissemination, even to people like Murdoch and Charles who might be able to offer help. The people do not trust authority either; a single defective batch of drugs is enough for people to avoid the life-saving omnisclerosis vaccine.
- Love and destiny. No matter how significantly the timeline is reset, Murdoch invariably ends up meeting and falling in love with Anne. This implies that love transcends even timeTimeTime is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, and that they are naturally destinedDestinyDestiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
for each other.
Technology
Being written in 1980, some of the technology in Thrice Upon A Time differs from today's realities.Paper
PaperPaper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
is a component of everyday life, with most devices equipped with a printer; this includes vi-sets and the time machine itself.
Vi-sets
Video sets, abbreviated to vi-sets, are some sort of modern telephoneTelephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
which allows live video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
transmission between callers, as well as the transmission of arbitrary data, and can print out hard copies
Hard copy
In information handling, a hard copy is a permanent reproduction, or copy, in the form of a physical object, of any media suitable for direct use by a person , of displayed or transmitted data...
of this data.
Vehicles
All modern automobileAutomobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s come with an automated control system allowing one to cruise hands-free on most official roads and highways. All road vehicles are thus also bound to the local traffic rules on controlled roads. However, older models, without full automation support, can bypass this restriction.
Computers
The computer controlling the time machine is a DECDigital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
PDP 22/30, the model number presumably intended as pastiche on the PDP 11 series (Hogan is a former DEC employee), and machine code is still used for many programming tasks, though High-level language
High-level programming language
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In comparison to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language elements, be easier to use, or be from the specification of the program, making the process of...
s are mentioned. It should be noted, however, that the programming tasks mentioned in the story would have to be done at a low level, being mostly hardware programming with very strict size requirements. The computer for the time machine had less than 50 Megabyte
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
/Mebibyte
Mebibyte
The mebibyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The binary prefix mebi means 220, therefore 1 mebibyte is . The unit symbol for the mebibyte is MiB. The unit was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 2000 and has been accepted for use by all major...
s of computer memory, a far cry from the situation today, where a typical personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
could easily contain one or more Gigabyte
Gigabyte
The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...
s/Gibibyte
Gibibyte
The gibibyte is a standards-based binary multiple of the byte, a unit of digital information storage. The gibibyte unit symbol is GiB....
s of RAM, and hundreds of times that for hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
drives. However, scientific computing often makes use of only the resources required, which may differ greatly from those for normal home computing.
On the other hand, the story illustrates the concept of public utility grid computing, which is only just recently coming to fruition through services such as Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
's EC2.
Real World
A paper was published in March, 2011, which suggests a theory very similar to the one underlying the plot of this novel--and directly connected to the Large Hadron Collider, mentioned above--but using the Higgs singlet (a companion to the Higgs bosonHiggs boson
The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. Its existence is postulated as a means of resolving inconsistencies in the Standard Model...
) to carry information back in time.