Saturday 22 December 2012

Changing History

I am currently in a race to finish the Stephen King book, 11/22/63, before 29 December when it has to go back to the library and as i am only on page 200 of the 700 odd page time travel epic, i can't see me finishing it. Its my own fault for such scandalous procrastination when i first got it but it's not a bad story so far, usual Stephen King fare which tends to meander around pointlessly in parts before getting
back to the main story but by then you have already read it and find yourself thinking well that was 30 pages i could have missed out.
Anyway, Mr King's tale concerns a man who goes back to stop the Kennedy assassination, I'm guessing he never and will have it confirmed in 500 pages time but King makes the point that if you were to go back in time and change things, nobody would know in the future because to them it is business as usual as they didn't know there was an alternative and that you had gone back and tampered with the order of things.
So for example, if i hadn't used that time portal in the back of my wardrobe to go back to 1952 and assassinate Thomas Rand on his trip to Brighton, he would have developed that faulty flu vaccine that wiped out half of the population of Europe. Today, because Thomas Rand wasn't around to develop the vaccine, half of Europe are alive and well but nobody else knows that. 
No-one knows that before last Wednesday, the global superpower was Norway and America was a Third World country devastated by a nuclear attack in 1979 by the Ivory Coast over a dispute which started out over fishing rights.
If i hadn't been at Plymouth docks in 1620 to guide the pilgrims towards taking the Mayflower and not the poorly maintained Oranjebooom ship as planned which sank off the coast of Iceland just days into their trip across the Atlantic, than we wouldn't have the America we know today and Buffy would never had been made. Problem is, nobody else knows these things because this is the norm for everyone.
With this in mind i am writing it here so i have proof that the World is a better place today thanks to me.
In my time portal as soon as i finish typing this, i will first head to the Middle East and start spreading a few stories about an all powerful creator who made the World and sent down his only son to Earth. Maybe introducing religion to that region will calm it down a bit.
Then i plan to move on to 1666 and see if we can wipe out the plague that decimates 95% of the British population by starting a fire in London and then stop off in Serbia around 1914 and see if i can persuade someone to take out the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand before he gets the chance to write that damn annoying song. One final stop in the late 80s to see if i can get someone to put words to and perform my 'Sweet Child Of Mine' tune.   
Of course, if i succeed nobody will know because to you, it will not be any different which is why i am writing it here now before i do it so i have proof.
Wish me luck and remember me when you check your history books. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hang on, we need to coordinate our efforts. i was going to contaminate the water supply in 1666 to expand the plague...

q

Lucy said...

My big book of things from history explains that in 1666, just as the fire was breaking out, a man wearing futuristic clothing was chased away from the water treatment plant by pitch fork wielding locals. An eyewitness described him as 'speaking verily with an unaccustomed accent of which we know not of'.