Re: A Quora - Can we really stop global warming at this point? Pastwatch

On 11/7/2021 8:35 AM, R Kym Horsell wrote:
> In alt.astronomy a425couple <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Interesting enough views, with some facts and opinions.
>> The really long time periods, fit best
>> with astronomy.
>> Go to the original Quora for charts and graphs
>> David Miller
>> Former Former Faculty, Department Chair and Advisor at Various Colleges
>> and Universities (1982-2015) Updated Oct 31
>> Can we really stop global warming at this point, after all of the damage
>> we've done?
>> Remember back when we were in an ice age and most of the upper US and
>> Canada were covered with ice? Well, granted it was before your time, but
>> it really wasn't that long ago, only 20,000 years ago. Do you want to
> ...
> 
> I'm sorry. This is a mish-mash and pretty much just a reiteration
> of all 

OK

Fair amount a change of subject.
Did you ever read
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
by Orson Scott Card ?

This book seems fairly unconnected to those who
are upset about Card's religion. Try it.

It starts after great human disaster, dawn of 23rd century,
they think the earth is now healing, and humanity is
recovering.
Opps, they were optimistic too soon, the damage was
irreversible, all are doomed, so really not much
to lose to go back in time and totally alter it all!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40293.Pastwatch

one reviewer writes this:

Joe Valdez
Nov 22, 2014Joe Valdez rated it really liked it  ·
Shelves: sci-fi-time-travel
The next stop in my time travel marathon was Pastwatch: The Redemption 
of Christopher Columbus, the 1996 novel by Orson Scott Card. This was my 
introduction to Card, one of the more prolific science fiction authors 
working; his Ender saga alone equals the flex of most writers out there. 
Pastwatch was rumored to be the beginning of a series, and with the 
attention to both character and history, as well as dedication to a 
rousing good tale, I couldn't be more excited to visit this world again.

Pastwatch begins at the dawn of the 23rd century. Mankind has stepped 
back from the brink of destruction to unite in the restoration of the 
earth's resources. Agriculture has eliminated hunger. Education has 
uplifted the minds and futures of the youth. Science has given the world 
the Tempoview, a machine that permits the members of Pastwatch to 
observe history. Pastwatch has no ability to alter the past, only to 
view it, study it, document lives that will prevent mankind from making 
the same mistakes over and over again.

Tagiri is a historian who has used to Tempoview to trace her ancestors 
back seven generations to a mountainous village in Africa. Tagiri begins 
to follow the lives of the village's women in reverse, from death to 
birth, a method that takes her from the misery of one of her subjects to 
its cause: the abduction of the woman's son by a slaver. Tagiri later 
makes an even more alarming discovery when one of her subjects relates a 
dream of being watched by a dark woman seven generations in the future. 
This indicates that Pastwatch might not be as neutral as believed.

It is Tagiri's theory that the genocide of the New World began with the 
return of Christopher Columbus to Spain, where he made extravagant 
promises of gold and spices he had not actually found on his maiden 
voyage. Tagiri's colleague Hassan is promoted to what becomes known as 
The Columbus Project, a study to determine what exactly led Columbus to 
cross the Atlantic in the first place and whether his discovery might be 
stopped. Tagiri and Hassan marry and have a daughter, Diko, who grows up 
observing scenes of Columbus' life so often she comes to regard him as 
an uncle.

The novel forks off to trace the rise of Columbus, son of a Genovese 
weaver, born without wealth or title. He watches his tradesman father 
disrespected by the gentleman class and becomes obsessed with the 
procurement of gold to alter his family's fortunes. Learning everything 
he can about marine travel, charts and navigation, Columbus achieves 
some notoriety for exhibiting bravery and surviving a pirate attack on a 
convoy to Flanders. He improves his social standing by taking as wife 
the daughter of the late governor of Porto Santo, the homely Felipa 
Moniz. Columbus neglects her and their son to focus on his true passion: 
achieving his destiny by crossing the Atlantic.

Diko becomes so skilled at using the latest in Pastwatch technology, the 
TruSite II, that she locates the moment in history Columbus decided to 
cross the Atlantic. After being shipwrecked by the pirates, he 
experiences a prophetic vision in the form of the Holy Trinity. The 
spirit speaks to Columbus, instructing him to sail westward. "There are 
great kingdoms there, rich in gold and powerful in armies. They have 
never heard the name of my Only Begotten, and they die unbaptized. It is 
my will that you carry salvation to them, and bring back the wealth of 
these lands."

With Diko's alarming discovery, two additional researchers join the 
Columbus Project. Kemal is a Turkish meteorologist who used the 
Tempoview to study historic sea level rise; this led him to the Red Sea, 
where Kemal traced the origins of both the Noah myth and the legend of 
Atlantis. He begins studying the rise of civilization in Mesoamerica 
when he learns of Tagiri's research into stopping slavery. Hunahpu is a 
Mayan historian whose thesis that a great civilization was on the rise 
in the Caribbean -- until the arrival of Columbus -- proves unpopular 
with his colleagues, except for Diko.

She believes that Columbus' prophetic vision and his obsession with 
sailing west was hardly divine but the work of some alternate version of 
Pastwatch, which reached back in time and tampered with history, perhaps 
to avert the conquest of Europe by the bloodthirsty tribes of 
Mesoamerica. While this might have spared war in Europe, the alternate 
history enslaved the indigenous people of the New World, a historical 
evil that The Columbus Project seeks to atone for. While Columbus 
campaigns the court of Queen Isabella for a charter across the Atlantic, 
Diko, Hunahpu and Kemal volunteer to be sent back to stop him from 
succeeding, at least, succeeding as history recorded it. As a result, 
they will destroy the present and everyone left behind in it.

Pastwatch is science fiction first and foremost, historical fiction 
second and maybe thriller much, much further down the line. In spite of 
this, I was enthralled by the novel and once the time travelers meet 
Columbus and begin alternating history, our history, I couldn't flip the 
pages fast enough.

The novel started off fuzzy for me. I found it difficult to get a handle 
on exactly what was happening in the 23rd century, who all these 
characters with the strange names were. Even the conceit of Pastwatch -- 
with monitors that "see" into the past -- seemed sketchy to me.

What makes the novel so spellbinding are the characters. Card does an 
outstanding job of populating his future trek with compelling human 
beings, scientists cut with passion and intelligence that I was able to 
relate to throughout. It was refreshing to find two African women and a 
Mayan and Turk featured so prominently -- there's nary a white man 
around. I was also surprised by how compelling the historical scenes 
were. Without the benefit of tech and with the outcome already known by 
history, Card devotes just as much energy to the launch of the Nina, the 
Pinta and the Santa Maria, a mission of discovery that parallels the 
efforts of Pastwatch 700 years in the future.

I felt that the mechanisms for time travel might've been explained 
better and that it took too long for the time travelers to physically 
arrive in the past, but I did enjoy the cutting back and forth between 
science and historical fiction. Rather than blasting off into the Delta 
Quadrant, the drama is intertwined in the genocide and injustices of the 
past. And the speculation that Card gives in to late to build a history 
where the "discovery" of the New World turned it much differently, and 
much more beneficial, for all interested parties, was a pleasure to 
read. (less)
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