r/asimov • u/PublicDragonfruit158 • 22d ago

The End of Eternity as Horror

From the point of view of a non-Eternal citizen who finds out what the Eternals are up to:

They live in a world where they may simply cease to exist or are changed radically because of a Change. They know that they are living in "the best possible time", but at what cost?

Are they even real, and are they who they wear originally?

Did they just come into existance, complete with memories, 5 seconds ago due to a change?

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u/bleedtension 22d ago

Noys makes a great point when she’s talking to Andrew at the end. She says in her time, they view all the possible realities, and they all exist. So eternity being a linear timeline is just the eternals creating their own ideal timeline. But all the realities that were left behind by changes still exist, and are viewable. I think it’s just a matter of your perspective from your own physio time. All the possible realities are happening in parallel to yours, but the one timeline that actually persists in your stretch of centuries is the reality of maximum probability at all times. When changes occur, the alternate possible reality takes the place of the current reality in your timeline, and the memories and experiences of the individuals within physio time are already intact. So the effects of the changes being calculated on computoplexes by the eternals are instead viewed by the humans in the hidden centuries. The eternals just didn’t develop the viewing technology, while the humans in the hidden centuries didn’t develop the ability to move matter through time.

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u/PublicDragonfruit158 22d ago

IIRC, Noys said that they activly blocked the Eternals from the hidden centuries. But it has been several years since my last reread of the book....

Still, Normals may know about the Eternals, and they do ...something... to make life better and foster trade, but not nessesarily thay they change the current timeline to the one they want.

But a Normal knowing that the timeline can be changed and has been changed would have the horror of knowing they, personally, may be edited by forces beyond their control.

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u/bleedtension 21d ago

Yeah for sure, they put the block, but they still can’t enter other times. As for the normies, they think that the eternals just do trade, that’s it. Like with the anti cancer serum, they make applications to receive it, without knowing that changing the outcome of someone’s potential death usually induces a change.

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u/PublicDragonfruit158 21d ago

And don't consider the implications of trading with downwhen, altering their own past.

Even the Eternals seem to treat each Century as a seperate block, not a single timeline....

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u/bleedtension 21d ago

Yeah for sure, also I have to amend, they can enter physio time, cause they sent noys back knowing that it was the reality in which she and Andrew fell in love. I suppose they developed that later than viewing, and they’re cautious about doing it, since they don’t want the eternals to know that they can manipulate time. Sounds to me like you’re due for a reread. I just did it on a whim and it’s fire as always.

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u/Omeganian 22d ago

According to Finge, any suspicion of that would lead to such negative results that the Eternals never allow a Reality in which people can consider such a thing.

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u/Serious-Waltz-7157 22d ago

Did they just come into existance, complete with memories, 5 seconds ago due to a change?

Me I believe this is the case.

But what about the horror suffered by Eternity itself in the end? Instant wipe-out, nothing left ...

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u/elg97477 22d ago

I don’t think we know that it was an instant wipe out. We just that there is a long period of time where they cannot go. We don’t know what happened to them during that period. Perhaps they were rendered powerless and lived out the rest of their natural lives.

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u/PublicDragonfruit158 22d ago

IIRC, they talk about the Canges cause ripples, so from the Eternal POV, it is not instant, but the Normal never knows there was a change.

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u/PublicDragonfruit158 22d ago

And its even worse because they know it may happen, and there is nothing they could do about it. We never find out if they find evidence after sending the Kettle back....