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2006-08-30 05:12:41 ET He was sitting alone in the study, frantically turning through the pages of all sorts of books of history, quickly jotting down the dates and characteristics of various plagues and outbreaks that have beset mankind. This, to those who knew him, was quite odd since his usual obsession was that of esoteric technology - aetheric energy, infrasound, time travel, things of such nature. This new and sudden turn of interest made no sense. But in his mind the connection was quite clear. The idea came to him when he was contemplating the various logical and environmental implications of time travel. Suppose that time travel is possible and is used by man at some point during the lifetime of the species. Suppose then, men from the future travel backwards through time to points in their history. What are the implications? It struck him that they would quite reasonably be biological and more specifically pathogenic in nature. After all, throughout the various decades, and centuries, and millenia of human existance the entire race of man has lost and gained all sorts of immunity to disease. Chickenpox, the common cold, the flu - we've developed at least a moderate resistance to all sorts of disease. As the diseases themselves mutated and evolved and some lived and some died out our bodies had adjusted in turn. A slight case of chickenpox nowadays could be brushed off as almost insignificant. Take the disease, in a vial, back a few millenia, and set it loose on the populace. No chance. Hundreds, even thousands dead, depending on what population center you let the beasties loose in. And their diseases would affect you too for you had not encountered them in a thousand years. But the future has much better medicine, see? And hygeine too comes into play. You'd affect them more then they'd affect you. And unless you'd travel back in a bubble or avoid all contact with humans from the era you'd guarantee and almost instant plague. And that would be the sign, he realized, of a successful landing back through time. Perhaps a sort of retro-temporal colonization to escape some dramatic cataclysm. Perhaps a pilgrimage. For whatever purpose they'd travel back and unavoidably, like a meteorite, take out whole civilizations wherever, and whenever, they landed. |
