Saving the Future Part 4

fiction?

As you Remember if you read Saving the future part 1, 2 and 3; I, Jonathan Flow, was talking in Ragna's time space conveyance in a pine forest near the ocean on the coast of Central to Northern California. Ragna had set the alarms because the ship is invisible and from 7000+ AD from the Swiss Italian border at that time and didn't want any other hikers or their dogs getting a concussion from walking into a temporarily invisible time space ship.

Time Shards. . .

Jonathan spoke up, "Ragna? Could you tell me if you are allowed to about what Time Shards are? I still don't quite know what that is all about to my satisfaction. When others tried to explain this to me I was just too horrified about the whole idea and couldn't really take it in."

Ragna looked a little like he wanted to throw up and said, "It's not easy for any of us who work in the Time Altering business whether we are Earth based or beyond Earth based.
It's a really awful phenomena. When the Galactic Sentience gave Time Travel to Earth through the United States Government based scientists, Tesla as the visionary and Einstein as the Scientific theorist and pragmatist, he knew that it was very 'iffy' I guess would be the right word I guess. Do you understand what I mean by 'iffy'.

Jonathan looked a little blank and said, "Yes. But I think since we come from cultures 5000 years apart that I need you to say more than 'iffy' about it."

Ragna said, "Fair enough. The best way to put this was that time travel was a better outcome than the annihilation of earth by nuclear weapons or any of about 100 major and 1000 minor ways."

Jonathan liked what he heard, "Yes. This makes more sense than what I thought was going on. I felt whoever did this was pretty flaky and not knowing fully this last part I can see it wasn't flaky at all. It was a kind of desperation to keep Earth alive any way possible."

Ragna said, "Exactly. That is telling me you finally understand what I have most needed you to know from day one but I couldn't just blurt this out until you felt the lack of clarity yourself so you could ask this question if or when you were brave enough. So, if you are brave enough to ask that question then maybe you can hear about time shards and not puke like most people do, especially if they know the people involved who live on time shards."

"To begin time shards are sort of like the clutch on a stick shift car. It's like first the clutch is engaged in first gear and then it gets up to the right speed and then the shifter is changed while the clutch is pushed in and then reengaged and then the engine gets up to speed and then the clutch is disengaged and then the shifter is move into third gear and the clutch is reengaged. And if the transmission is a 3 speed then you are done unless it is a 4 speed or even a 5 speed with a manual overdrive. Are you with me so far?"

Jonathan said,"I don't get the real relation between time travel, time shards and transmissions."

Ragna smiled, HE said, "I'm getting to that. If we see time shards as the clutch, and the shift between gears as the growing awareness and sophistication of a culture through time then the 1930s were 1st gear, World War II and all the 1940s were second gear. Third gear was the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s. Fourth gear was the late 1960s to 1992 and the end of the Soviet Union. But the clutch was burning for 8 years until 2000 and then 9-11 when we went into overdrive. Overdrive turned out to be the single scariest proposition so far. I know that doesn't really make sense. But the best way that I can explain it is that change is now coming so fast to all mankind that NO ONE can keep up with it in any real way. Whereas, at least some scientists could keep up with 1st gear and half of 2nd gear. But now, no one intellectually can keep up in any real way. And intuitives, though they might begin to understand 5th gear can't really convey just how fast everything is warping into lightspeed. I would say the biggest problem humans are now having is that there is no way to actually communicate what is happening on earth in any useful way. And that is the real problem of 5th gear, Time travel."

Jonathan looked confused and said, "But what does that have to do with time Shards?"

At this Ragna looked angry and said, "2000 was the end of time shards!" Ragna looked away.

Jonathan wouldn't back down and said, "How many versions of me and everyone else on earth died on time shards between the 1930s and 2000."

Ragna looked sick and said, "About 100 versions of every man woman and child alive between the early 1930s and the year 2000. Their sacrifice was necessary in order to bring the earth from a potential permanent nuke of the planet to where that could no longer happen again just after 2000."

Jonathan finally understood what the real sacrifice had been for humans to survive the 20th Century at all. At least 100 versions of each of them had been sacrificed in order to get one version past 9-11-01 without causing most of the world to become uninhabitable for about 20,000 years. For those 20,000 years the only good place to live would have been around Switzerland and Northern Italy. Most other places humans were animal like from radiation. North and South America were gone. Asia and all the Pacific Islands were gone too. I can't believe it took 100 versions sacrificed to time shards to get the one we now live on.

Jonathan looked at Ragna and said, "Are we on another time shard right now?" Ragna said, "It depends if humans can survive Global Warming with a civilization intact."

Ragna looked sad and said,"The real scope of Global warming hasn't yet been reported in the news, Jonathan. The real science has been repressed because it is just too awful to report. If you want to know why President Bush is acting odd lately it is because he knows the real reports and what they say."

Jonathan said, "What do they say?"

Ragna said, "I'm not authorized to tell you."

Jonathan said, "I already figured that out for myself."