Days of Future Past: A Study In Time Travel

WARNING:  Do not read this unless you either have seen the latest X-Men movie or do not care to be spoiled. There will be spoilers contained herein; there might also be headache-inducing discussion of time-travel concepts as presented in various media. You have been warned…so have at thee! (Wait…that’s an Avenger, not an X-Men.)

Seems there is confusion concerning the timeline based on the events that occur in X-Men:  Days of Future Past. In my opinion, I felt the movie did an impressive job of shoring up some of the continuity issues encountered in the previous trilogy and spinoffs, while maintaining certain nods to them moving forward. As someone who has watched and read countless movies, television shows, science-fiction and non-fiction books, etc, I consider myself somewhat of an amateur time-travel expert (i.e. self-anointed). Thus, allow me to make sense of the matter with my own analysis/theories:

Let’s just get this one out of the way…X-Men Origins:  Wolverine has been ignored and is not canonical to the X-Men cinematic universe, and was disavowed almost immediately after its widely-panned release. At the very least, it is not a part of either the previous or current movie series. This minimizes one (minor) issue between it, X-Men 2 and DoFP:  William Stryker’s age in each time period. (This also would mean Deadpool is alive and kicking, without being a mutant-Frankenstein stuffed doll…roll sequel reboot for his character!)

[WARNING:  SPOILERS AHEAD. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.] 

In my opinion, this probably is the source for most of the confusion:  how time-travel works – at least, for someone’s “conscious” – in the X-Men cinematic universe is explained at the very beginning of the film. (I will allow that many people may have missed it, as it was stated rather quickly without extensive discussion.) Wolverine’s mind is sent back in time to his younger self; anything that he does as his younger self will affect the future. If you’ve ever seen the series Quantum Leap or the movies Somewhere In Time, The Butterfly Effect or Timecop, it’s the same fluidity concept of time:  events changed in the past warp and refigure events of the future, and whether someone’s physical or mental essence is sent back in time – like Bishop, who mind jumps back a few hours to warn the others when Sentinels arrive – they don’t create a new timeline but rather simply change the current one in the past. AGAIN, NO ALTERNATIVE TIMELINE IS CREATED. I mean, it’s in the title…THE FUTURE LIES IN THE PAST! There was also the assertion that if Wolverine succeeded in changing the timeline, his mind would return to his “present” self and only he would remember both the events of the dystopian and changed future (albeit, with some necessary memory updating à la Butterfly Effect or Timecop). If he failed to change the timeline, his mind would simply return to the dystopian future.

The Star Trek franchise – mind you, my all-time favorite – is notorious for using the alternate timeline concept quite frequently, which I feel is the reason for the confusion. Although there are multitudes of theories on time-travel, this is the concept most people are familiar with because it has been used in countless movies and television shows. The reason for this is that it presents the least paradoxical situation encountered with a singular timeline concept:  if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather before you are born, how can you go back in time and kill your own grandfather? [See Back to the Future] Theoretically, you can’t because you’re not killing your own grandfather; you’re killing the grandfather of an alternate version of you, who now will never be born or never existed in that alternate timeline in the first place. Theoretically as well, even if you again travel back in time in order to undo the change(s) to the timeline, yet another alternate timeline is actually created that, yes, is, and will be, similar to the timeline from which you originally came but it is not, and will never be, the original timeline. The original timeline either continues on without you or it blinks out of existence the moment you travel back in time – not to mention that the original you is now a person out of sync from any timeline, as this new alternate “original” timeline will already have an alternate you…who, by and large, is you. There’s no way for you to get back to the original timeline. [Think Prime Spock and Alternate Spock in the reboot Star Trek; even if Prime Spock were to again travel back in time to stop Nero at the point he first appeared in the past, yet another Alternate Spock – in every way similar to Prime Spock – would be created with Prime Spock now stuck in that alternate “original” timeline rather than returning to the original timeline. Star Trek: First Contact glosses over this idea when they return to the future; theoretically, they wouldn’t be returning to “their” future.]

A Weary Nation Seeks Normalcy

Calls for renewed isolationism in reaction to war, a resurgence of nativism and a turning away from government activism – is this a foreshadowing of the U.S. presidential election in 2016? Or lessons from 1920? These were three pillars that eventual winner, Warren G. Harding, ran on as part of his “Return to Normalcy” campaign in the aftermath of World War I and in opposition to Woodrow Wilson's ideologically progressive administration. No doubt, it seems eerily juxtaposed to the present political atmosphere created foremost by more than a decade of war against terrorism and the exasperating policies of the current administration.

Due to scandals that rocked his administration [Teapot Dome], Harding typically is voted to the bottom rungs of presidential rankings. It should be noted, though, that his administration accomplished a modicum of normalcy in the early 1920s, which witnessed fiscal accountability and economic prosperity, more favorable labor laws and the advancement of women's enfranchisement, particularly in voting rights and the political sphere in general. More than any policy of his predecessor ever accomplished over the course of two terms in office. Given unemployment numbers and overall bleak economic conditions the last few years, the negative effects the “affordable” healthcare law is wreaking on the job market and the continual clash over alleged disenfranchising election laws (i.e. voter IDs) meant to stem fraud and ensure the integrity of the electoral process, does it not seem we again walk along a precipice seeking normalcy from an administration run amuck [Solyndra; Fast & Furious; Benghazi; IRS]?

Then there is the contentious debate over immigration reform and border security, issues that every generation has faced in determining the ethnic makeup of the nation. Yes, as every pundit reminds, the United States is a nation of colonizers, immigrants, refugees, émigrés, etc, from other countries; yet, as history shows, it has always been a welcoming skeptic as well, restricting those deemed contradictory to American culture and society. And while it is wise not to erode liberties in exchange for a false sense of security against certain groups, it is likewise necessary not to give up security to certain groups that potentially could be the downfall of those liberties. This has been a longstanding argument between upholding law-abiding sovereignty versus a misguided open-arms policy that would negatively affect the stability of national cohesion and identity. Whichever path is taken, it is certain not to end any time soon.

With the U.S. pulling out from Iraq and Afghanistan, there also is a renewed call once again for isolationism – naturally, within the context of a globally-connected world quite different from a century ago. For some, the U.S. appears in retreat from supporting allies and engaging enemies alike; for others, the U.S. should continue this policy and further cut defense spending. However, the history of 1920s isolationism and military downsizing is the lesson of a decade later that witnessed the rise of both Germany and Japan in the absence of U.S. influence and strength. What happens when Iran or North Korea decides it is time to flex their muscle, or, as already has happened, a resurgent Russia? We would yet again face the same consequences that befell the world 80 years ago – perhaps made even more dire with the proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, particularly concerning rogue regimes and terrorist entities.

The wheel has rotated fully to another defining moment, and a weary nation once again seeks normalcy from chaotic uncertainty. 

©2014 Steve Sagarra

Common Cause Against Compliance

“It has been found that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.” - Benjamin Disraeli

As prime minister at the height of the British Empire's power and glory in the 1870s, Disraeli knew what it took to govern with imperial vigor. Government, at all levels, is not composed of leaders, but rulers dictating over the led. Any person who believes the government is naively blind, and even more forthrightly stupid to trust them. But if you would willingly give up individual and natural rights in compliance with coercively mandatory measures, you are nothing less than an accomplice in the downfall of liberty. People are wanting, needing, and what do government officials do? Betray their duties to the people who elect them, or feel no such obligation in cases of appointment by decree.

Therefore, I believe it is past time that every American – born, naturalized or otherwise loyal in citizenship and allegiance – as well as all global rebel patriots re-dedicate themselves to the immortal words set forth by our Founding Fathers in the penultimate founding document, The Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The consent of the governed is being overrun by the destructive means of the governing, and the abuses and usurpations must come to an end before it is too late. Like Disraeli, these bureaucratic overseers understand that indoctrination is best begun early in order to achieve obedience that has the appearance of consent; is it little wonder the recurrent application of education “reforms” – from pre-K to secondary – toward that end? While resistance may be futile, compliance, brought about by a certain degree of lassitude, is nothing short of defeat. As President Calvin Coolidge stated, “freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.

©2014 Steve Sagarra