Message from a Time Traveler

Dan Simmons - Official Web Site ^ | April 1, 2006 | Dan Simmons

[txhurl]

Freepmail me your guess? I can't spend weeks on this..

[Slip18]

I think you've got it! Those three words were repeated three times.

But I don't think America will be destroyed. How did the Grandfather live? How did the Grandson live (if he really is the Grandson)?

This is a very interesting thread. I, personally, have enjoyed it immensely.

[TexasTransplant]

Bump for later

[steve-b]

True enough, but ask yourself if the future of the Jew would have unfolded differently has they moderated their religion as did Christianity at about the same time frame. Would not the Holocaust be missing from the historical record?

WTF? The notion that the occurrence of the Holocaust is dependent on what Jews did or did not do is ahistorical (and, frankly, offensive).

[steve-b]

Are we winning losing or breaking even in Iraq.

The reminder that our response to 9/11 was to conquer not one, but two, Islamic countries makes the "we aren't being tough enough" wailings sound rather comical.

[steve-b]

I got it! "Klaatu barada necktie nictu!"

[Cold Heat]

I fully understand how you would see it that way, but the Nazis were largely Christian, and all of this crap is religious based hatreds being played out. The mistake is to believe that only one, two of the major monotheistic religions are at fault. None of them have a pass or clean hands.

Truth should not be offensive, but to anyone belonging to a Dogma it often is. The first thing that happens is that the debate is silenced by screams of offense, declarations of anger and often resulting actions, all in the name of God..

This is why it continues and probably why it will never stop, at least for a few hundred years. It must be quite a disappointment to God. But it is what it is.

[txhurl]

I think literally the words were America Delende Est.

[Cold Heat]

After rereading your reply I discovered that I may have missed something in my reply.

I want to make it clear that I don't blame the Jews for the Holocaust. I blame the relationship between Christians and Jews and that had this relationship been better, the Holocaust may not have occurred.

As evidence I suggest the fact that no Pope had ever visited a Synagogue before John Paul is telling.

This is what I was getting at.

[archy]

Thanks for the link. Easily confirmed stuff too.

It's no secret to any newspaperman covering aviation or business in the late '70s- early '80s. Including the editor of the newspaper for which I worked in the late '80s- early '90s, who nbow runs a rag in the Texas Big Bend country. We still keep in touch.

[archy]

I think literally the words were America Delende Est.

Nope. Nuke Iran First.

[archy]

If you're looking for some good "old School" hard science fiction material and you've not read him before, check out Jack Chalker. One of my favorites. He recently passed so his works are complete.

Chalker's output is excellent. But I prefer it for dessert, after a heavy course of H. Beam Piper.

[dfwgator]

OK, I give up. What are the three words?

Drink your Ovaltine.

[Ancesthntr]

OK, so what is the nature of "the 3 words"?

“Enjoy these last days and months and years of your slumber, Grandfather,” said the scarred old man. “Your wake-up call is coming soon.”

The Time Traveler said three last words and was gone.

I put the pistol away – realizing too late that it had never been loaded – and sat down to write this. I could not. I waited these three months to try again.

...

It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the Time Traveler’s last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.

1. The words can't be "I'm your grandson" or anything like that, because the Time Traveler already identified himself as such.

2. The words can't be "phobos, kerdos, and doxa" because the Time Traveler already mentioned them in this piece and the writer said "...three words I will not share here in this piece."

3. The words can't be strictly personal to the writer, since "...any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally." ANY Replayer or time traveler - that phrase means something, and implies that it need not be an American time traveler.

4. I don't think the words are "Goodbye, Mr. President" or "Goodbye, President X" or anything like that - this would certainly affect the writer a lot, but they likely wouldn't cause a future time traveler to react emotionally.

5. The words are ones that any Replayer or time traveler would react to "first and most emotionally." Emotions are many - this could be (in the context of this story) anger, sadness, shock, horror, contempt (for our present-day weakness) or extreme gratitude/reverence (for an action or warning that saved people, similar to our reverence for Churchill now).

6. These are words "that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come." These words are ones that caused the writer to say that he couldn't write this story, not for 3 months.

7. I don’t believe that the words are “New York City” or “New York nuked” or “Remember New York” or “The White House” or anything of that kind. Yes, these words would cause a person from the future to react emotionally (as would saying “Auschwitz” to a Jew now), but they wouldn’t have the same kind of effect on the writer – they wouldn’t keep the writer from putting this down on paper for 3 months.

8. Words to the effect of “It has begun” or “Its too late” or “You are next” or “Its Coming Soon” also don’t qualify for the effect on the writer and also a future time traveler.

9. “Resistance is futile” doesn’t work because the war is still going on and its result is undecided in the Time Travelers day.

10 “Load the gun” doesn’t work – no effect on a future time traveler.

I believe that the writer was kept up at night for months and years because of extreme guilt about what he wrote - i.e. this story, which condemned 2 of his 3 grandsons to death. The story itself is the key. Now, the words also have to have meaning to future time travelers - meaning that causes them to react "first and most emotionally." The Time Traveler came back for a reason - the story is a message, a warning. As such, I think that the 3 words are something to the effect of "Write 'The Message' or "Wake the Dreamers" or "Warn the world." Only something of this sort would both keep the writer awake at night (knowing that he had just put himself and his whole family at risk) while causing future time travelers to react first and most emotionally, knowing that these words may have saved our civilization.

[archy]

"Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally –"

Where's the beef!?!?!

[txhurl]

Even over at his website's forum his readers haven't figured it out, nor has he given them any clues.

[archy]

They are so great! I have a Red Dwarf cup.

Yeah? Do you have a Mr Flibble sock puppet?

Big deal. I've got a Dalek dudtbin and ale dispenser.

[archy]

My guess on the traveler's last words, at least the gist of them? Put it this way. Most of his words, the latter part, were a target list. The Islamic nutters think of us as the Great Satan. Given that, what more obvious target is there than the devil's palace?

Their plan is to salt the Earth with their islumist poison not just in one country or continent, but worldwide.

Don't think it's just *our* palace that's a target.

[txhurl]

But that doesn't line up with 'nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them'

Like everyone knows 'katrina' or '9/11' etc...?

It's as if he expects the world to learn these words before these words have any shocking emotional meaning.

[TAdams8591]

Marking.