MythTickle by Justin Thompson for January 22, 2016

How about leaving everything as it is so you don’t alter my present?….I may not exist in the new continuum. ;-)

Fast-growing bamboo for the easily bamboozled….

Merlin, are you sure you’ve thought this through?

Stopping a mob of fanatical arsonists isn’t adventurous enough?

Mind you, removing the texts before they’re burned is probably the least damaging to the time stream. And there are several other library fires, even up to the present day, where much knowledge was lost.

Wouldn’t that be a dream come true? That is, to have all that incredible literature available to us here today? I wonder how the world might have been different had we been able to study that vast wealth of knowledge…

Merlin understands about those ‘fixed moments’ in time.

This the start of a new story arc?

Unless, of course, you assume a “future” extending from your “present” already exists, in which case bringing the documents to your “present” would alter that “future.” Unless you believe in determinism, in which case the “future” is already predicated on your having brought the documents to this particular “present” moment.

Assuming, of course, that time is a continuum and a real phenomenon. If you instead assume it’s a traveling wave in an otherwise timeless universe (see Bailey, “Collision Course”), then you’re fine, as there is no future to worry about; there is only this moving wave called the present. Of course, that also means you can’t prevent the fire because you can’t change the past, as time has already happened there. But you might still be able to scan the books.

Timey-wimey stuff indeed…

“taking the documents doesn’t exactly change anything”

Well, not as long as you remember to replace them with something sufficiently similar (see Varley, “Millennium”). In this case, the primary qualification would seem to be combustibility…

The trick would be to send teams of Travelers far back before the various fires and PHOTOCOPY the documents with ‘sneaky-cams’. The actual documents don’t matter, only the data therein. Once in our time the information would be safe wherever the government then hid it…

Temporal distortion waves from altering the timeline are a major navigation hazard for nearby spacecraft, which use temporal manipulation to beat that pesky light speed limit & make nifty turns that freak natives who don’t have the tech. Most aliens avoid us, UFOs are more likely time travelers; Oops altered my past, & I disappear with all evidence.

Merlin may have to fight with the librarian of Unseen University for those books — and he’s an orangutan! (ook!)

Merlin specializes in creating Space-Time paradoxes and other amusement park rides.

Yes he is.If he takes all the Books, there goes 90% of the Fuel for the fire and it’ll go out.Afterwards, everyone will look at the small burnt spot and realize that someone Set the Fire to cover up the theft of all the books..The Arson At Alexandria will become the Mystery of the ages: “Who Stole the Library?” will be the new Number One Question in the Game of Clue.

See Jodi Taylor.