The End of Eternity

Published in 1955, The End of Eternity is one of Isaac Asimov’s finest novels. I have read it several times. It is a fascinating story that is relatively easy to follow, but it also sticks in your mind and makes you think about the implications of time travel, altering history and causality paradoxes.

Eternity

The story revolves around an organization called Eternity. Its members, the Eternals, exist outside of time and observe the history of the earth like one huge canvas stretching over approximately seven million years. They control time from the 27th to the 70,000th century. Its members are culled out of Time and replaced when they die. They begin their careers as Cubs and then become Observers. Their work as Observers will define whether or not they will be given a promotion to a higher rank. Those who don’t make the cut spend the rest of their lives in maintenance, looking after the machinery and time travel kettle shafts. Those who are successful are divided into four ranks: Communications, Sociologists, Life-Plotters and Technicians, hoping that they will later become Computers. Those with the most eminent careers are eventually given the title of Senior Computer and appointed to the powerful Allwhen Council that rules Eternity. And everyone is identified by the colour of their shoulder emblems: red double-headed arrow on a black background for Maintenance; blue bar on white background for Communications; solid white for an Observer; blue for a sociologist; green for a Life-plotter; rose red for a Technician; and yellow for a Computer. Most of the members are men due to the fact that removing a woman from Time is far more likely to produce a change in history than removing a man. When first established, Eternity went about solving such problems as deforestation and trade of anti-cancer serums. Centuries that had heavy pollution, for instance, were saved by Eternity transporting fresh topsoil from other, cleaner times. But it was not long before the Eternals discovered Reality Changes. In the early days when Eternity stretched no farther upwhen than the 50th century, Senior Computer Henry Wadsman prevented a war by removing the brake from a politician’s car a few years before the conflict began. From then on, the goal of the Eternals was to make human life as comfortable as possible, preventing wars and diseases and even trying to stamp out smoking. As physiotime passes for centuries and centuries, generations of new Eternals tweak and tinker with Time over and over again, all in the name of improving the lot of humanity.

However, there is a downside. It might happen that a Change (with a capital C) results in a great work of literature never being written or a talented musician never being born or becoming a plumber instead. In that case, the original works of these people are stored in the libraries of Eternity. And it also happens that human beings never achieve successful space travel. Many Changes to history involve stamping out adventures into the heavens. In one scene of the book, when a Change takes place, the observers see an enormous, shiny space ship turn into a rusting wreck. Eternity views space travel as a waste of resources that prevents mankind from achieving the greatest good for all.

Some members of Eternity also ponder and write about the paradoxes of time travel. What would happen should a man travel in time to visit himself as a younger or even an older man? What if an Eternal were to return to his own time after a Reality Change and meet the new version of himself that exists as an analogue in the wake of the Change?

And so this work continues, with Eternity manipulating Reality and pondering the philosophical issues involved, all the while making sure that the inhabitants of the earth do not realize that the Changes are taking place. Humanity is only dimly aware of the time travellers, believing that their function is trade. But as the book unfolds, it is revealed that Eternity must guarantee its own existence by the closing of a bizarre time loop.

The Characters and the Plot

The leading character in the book is newly promoted Technician Andrew Harlan, who discovers that the very existence of Eternity lies in his hands. The other main protagonists are Senior Computer Laban Twissel, dean of the Allwhen Council, Noÿs, the mystery woman of the 482nd century, a newly recruited overage Cub called Brinsley Sheridan Cooper from the 78th century and Computer Hobbe Finge, Harlan’s superior who apparently has it in for him. Technicians are the least popular Eternals, looked upon as those who engineer the Changes and alter the personalities and lives of the unsuspecting humans on earth. Consequently, Technicians are shunned. Although all of Eternity is geared to making changes, strangely enough the Technicians are the scapegoats, taking the brunt of the blame for callously altering or doing away with the lives of billions (“Cold as a Technician’s heart” and “A trillion personalities changed, a Technician’s yawn” are common sayings in Eternity).

Harlan begins as the ideal Eternal, but with an unusual interest in primitive history, i.e., history before the establishment of Eternity in the 27th. Originally from the 95th century and stationed in the 575th, he is dedicated to his work and disapproves of women in the organization, believing them to be a distraction. If Eternals wish to have a girlfriend, they must apply for liaisons with women in Time, and all applications must go through the council. Yet, despite being over thirty, Harlan has never applied for a liaison. But now Computer Finge has recruited Noÿs Lambent out of time to work as his secretary. Noÿs is a beautiful girl with long, black hair and seductive perfume. Despite a few feeble attempts to avoid her, Harlan is assigned to work in her century and inevitably falls in love with her.

In the meantime, he is surprised to find that he has become the object of interest of Senior Computer Twissel, the chain-smoking head of the Allwhen Council. Harlan is made Twissel’s personal technician and introduced to the twenty-four year old Cub, Brinsley Sheridan Cooper. As Cubs are usually recruited at the age of fifteen, Harlan is somewhat taken aback by this, but nevertheless agrees to teach primitive history to Cooper, who has to be taught as much as possible about the times prior to the establishment of Eternity. Cooper is also being taught a crammed crash course in mathematics and temporal engineering.

Harlan’s suspicions are aroused and he does a little investigating into the life of the legendary Vikkor Mallansohn of the 24th century, the first person to build a temporal field. He discovers that the establishment of Eternity in the 27th century was only possible in the wake of the discovery of the Lefebvre Equations in mathematics at about the same time. Therefore, it would have been impossible for Mallansohn to build a temporal field three centuries earlier. Harlan guesses why Cooper is being given all these classes and confronts Twissel with his discoveries. He believes that Cooper is to be sent back to the 24th century to teach mathematics from the 27th to Mallansohn so that Eternity might be established; in other words, a time loop that must be closed. Twissel is shocked at Harlan’s deductions, but tells him that it is more complicated than that. It turns out that there is a closely guarded book called the Mallansohn Memoir, that is passed along from one Senior Computer to the next in the greatest secrecy. Nearing the end of his long life, the mysterious Mallansohn put pen to paper to tell the story of his life. This great man who was credited with the discovery of the temporal field was a recluse who lived in the California wilderness. In 2317, he was visited by Brinsley Sheridan Cooper, who claimed to be from the future and set about teaching him all he needed to know about time travel. However, Cooper became frustrated. Mallansohn was no great pupil, and Cooper himself turned out to be no great teacher. To make matters worse, Mallansohn suffered an accident one day and died. Cooper found himself at a loss. After a long time, he decided to make a bold move. He himself would take on the identity of Mallansohn and finish the work Eternity had assigned to him. He built his first temporal field and wrote out instructions for the future Eternals. At the end of his life, which was very long, he realized at last that he himself had always been the Vikkor Mallansohn that the Eternals so revered. In other words, he was the loop of the circle in time, and Eternity itself was responsible for the establishment of Eternity. In his book, he mentioned that he had been given invaluable teaching from Technician Harlan and other training under the direction of Laban Twissel. Therefore, at the appropriate time, the Allwhen Council went about finding Harlan and Twissel and putting them in the positions that had been described by Mallansohn. Harlan, from an early age, had been encouraged to take an interest in primitive history so that the circle in time might be closed. Mallansohn had also mentioned the special kettle that had transported him past the downwhen terminus of the 27th into the 24th. Twissel now reveals to Harlan that they are only hours away from sending Cooper into the past. He also reveals that there is a danger that the circle can be broken. A rash act by anyone in on the story could put an end to Eternity. He also explains why it is important to establish Eternity three centuries before it would be established by the natural course of events. It turns out that without the temporal field and the attention of scientists being directed to time travel, alternative technological developments would have led to the destruction of the human race. In other words, Eternity had to be set up to save and guide humanity.

In the meantime, Harlan has broken the laws of Eternity by removing Noÿs from the 482nd prior to a Change. Using blackmail, he had a Life Plotter trace Noÿs and discovered that she would not exist in the new Reality. Desperate to keep his true love, Harlan rescues her from the doomed reality and hides her far upwhen in the Hidden Centuries. From the 27th to the 70,000th, the Eternals can view time and choose when and where to enter it. However, from the 70,001st to the 150,000th, they cannot break through from Eternity into Time. No one knows why. They are free again to enter Time only after the 150,000th, but find that no human life exists on earth. The Eternals believe that the most likely explanation is that human beings have left the earth and gone to live on other planets. But that still does not explain the barrier that prevents them from viewing the earth after the 70,000th. It is in these sections of Eternity that Harlan decides to hide Noÿs while he works on his final days with Cooper. They travel into the far upwhen in a kettle and surprisingly it is the time-travel-ignorant Noÿs who stops the kettle at the 111,394th century, saying that it was far enough. Harlan thinks nothing of this at the time and leaves her in the empty section of Eternity there, convinced that no one will be able to find her. However, when he next attempts to return to Noÿs, he finds that the kettle cannot pass the 100,000th century. Believing this to be a ploy of Finge’s to keep Noÿs from him, he rages back to find out what is happening. Finge tells him to consult Twissel and Harlan does so. It is at this point all is made clear about the real mission of Cooper and that it is now time to see him off. Twissel assures Harlan that Noÿs is perfectly safe and takes him to the special kettle that will transport Cooper to the year 2317. The memoir had mentioned Harlan at the controls, so he is locked into the control room and told to wait. He sees the controls set at 2317, but now believes that Twissel and Finge will double-cross him. He sabotages the controls and when Cooper finally sets off, Harlan sends him further downwhen, into the 20th century, preferring to put an end to Eternity rather than let Twissel get the better of him. With Cooper in the 20th, there is no chance of Eternity being established, and death will come to all of them.

Twissel now frees Harlan and tells him he can have Noÿs, believing that all has gone well and that the circle is closed. He is shocked when Harlan tells him what he has done, that Cooper is now in the 20th century but it is not clear exactly where. Twissel upbraids Harlan, saying he had given his word that Noÿs was safe. But Harlan confronts him about the barrier across the 100,000th. The Senior Computer says that no such thing is possible and that Harlan has made a huge mistake. He tells of his own story, of how he too once broke the laws of Eternity and had a child in Time with a woman he fell in love with from the 575th. He tells of how he had a fine son who was turned into a paraplegic by a Reality Change engineered by Twissel himself, and that the son is still out there in Time as a paraplegic. Harlan feels sorry for him and realizes that Twissel was actually his friend all along. Twissel then realizes that there is a way to save Eternity. They find that Cooper placed an ad in an edition of Time Magazine with his mailing address. All Harlan has to do is go back in time to find him and return him to the 24th. Then the circle will close and all will be well.

Harlan, however, demands to be reunited with Noÿs. They travel up the kettle shafts and the barrier at the 100,000th is no longer there. Twissel gives no further thought to it, but Harlan can’t understand it. During the trip, the two men have a conversation about evolution. Twissel reveals that he is from a century in the 30,000s, and despite he and Harlan being separated by three million years, there is no great change between their bodies. They then speculate about the people of the Hidden Centuries and the interference of Eternity in time. This sets Harlan on a train of thought.

They find Noÿs in the 111,394th and she is well. They return to the 575th and Harlan demands that he should be allowed to take Noÿs with him on his trip to the year 1932. The idea is to collect Cooper at the exact moment of his arrival and return him to his mission without any perceptible time lapse. Twissel agrees, as no one else is capable of negotiating life in the Primitive except Harlan.

Harlan and Noÿs set off in the special kettle and arrive in 1932. They find Cooper’s cave and some money that he has left for them. Next day, Harlan will set off to find the young Eternal. But now he and Noÿs indulge in a strange conversation. His conversation with Twissel in the kettle has got him thinking and he works out something important: Noÿs is a woman of the Hidden Centuries and her people put up the barrier over the 100,000th.

Noÿs now reveals what has actually happened to humanity between the 70,000th and the 150,000th. Humanity has died out, unable to compete in the Galaxy. In the 125,000th, human scientists worked out how to travel quickly to other stars using the hyperspatial jump. But when they arrive on other planets, they find that other intelligences in the galaxy have beaten them to it. Although humanity is an older intelligence, they took too long to develop the jump through space and allowed younger races to overtake them. The humans suffer a sense of loss and eventually die out by the 150,000th.

The people of Noÿs’s time have developed time travel of their own, but based on different scientific principles from those of Eternity. They have learned how to view history and alternative history and discover that they live in a low probability time. They suspect that some Change in the far downwhen initiated by Eternity is responsible for this. Had it not been for this Change, mankind would have reached the stars before the other younger races in the galaxy, thereby achieving humanity’s Basic State, i.e. the most likely Reality possible, rather than the low probability Reality.

Thorough investigation showed that the Change that was caused was not a Change made by Eternity but rather the very establishment of Eternity in the first place. Noÿs explains to Harlan that Eternity must never be established. All they have to do is send the kettle away and never seek out Cooper.

Harlan is furious and threatens to kill Noÿs. But finally he succumbs to her argument. She tells him that she had viewed their Reality together and fallen in love with him even before she met him. All they have to do is send one letter to Italy so that scientists will develop nuclear technology instead of temporal technology. This will mean the first nuclear bomb in 1945 instead of the 30th century. But the result of this will be that men will reach for the stars, seeing the danger of having only one planet that could be blasted away in a nuclear war. Harlan agrees. They send the kettle away and Cooper disappears from the 20th century. Noÿs and Harlan are protected by a physiotime shield and survive. This is the end of Eternity and the beginning of Infinity.

Comments on the Story

Asimov was inspired to write this story by an actual advertisement in Time magazine. At the Boston University library, he had become known as the “Time professor” because he loved going through old editions of the magazine. On November 17, 1953, he came across an advert in a 1932 magazine that appeared to have a mushroom cloud drawn on it. As this was thirteen years before the first nuclear explosion, the whole thing seemed out of place. Closer examination showed that it was not a mushroom cloud; it was a geyser, but this was seedling he needed for The End of Eternity. The message that Cooper leaves in the old Time magazine for Harlan is an ad with a mushroom cloud and the caption: All the Talk Of the Market, spelling out the word ATOM.

The book is different from most of the Good Doctor’s other books in that he makes little attempt to link it to his Foundation and Robot universe. Although a brief mention is made of the Eternals in Foundation's Edge (1982), the book stands on its own.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it has to be admitted that there are a few weaknesses. The most obvious is the sometimes clumsy characterization. The romance of Harlan and Noÿs is not always very well handled. We have to remember that going into sex was not the done thing in the 1950s, but even so Asimov never seemed to be at ease with intimacy. It was only towards the end of his career that he dealt with it more adroitly, with the relationship between Gladia and Elijah Baley being handled quite well in his Robot novels, and the sexual exploits of Golan Trevize in Foundation and Earth.

The most serious criticism of the story to the modern mind is that there are almost no women in Eternity. Asimov does attempt to justify this by saying that extracting women from world history would mean a greater chance of upsetting causality; but with the Eternals already altering Reality so much, that argument is hard to sustain. The fact is that Asimov came from a male-dominated society and could only write his book from that viewpoint. It is one of the few aspects of the story that sound dated. Another is that in Eternity there is no central library or storage system, and people check out book films from individual libraries or line their shelves with them.

I also found Noÿs’ trump card, her closing argument so to speak, too simplistic. Harlan, of course, is not too keen on wiping out Eternity and the revered Cooper-Mallansohn whom he is supposed to save. Noÿs then says that Harlan should not allow “psychopaths” to dictate the future of mankind. Harlan does not approve of the word, but then, at Noÿs’ urging, he reconsiders it:

“He thought of the caste system in Eternity, of the abnormal life that turned guilt feelings into anger and hatred against Technicians. He thought of Computers struggling against themselves, of Finge intriguing against Twissel, and Twissel spying on Finge…”

This could have been done a little better. If we’re going to wipe out every organization that has in-fighting and passing the buck, petty jealousies and envy, then it’s not only Eternity that would have to go. In-fighting is found just about everywhere.

Nevertheless, the flaws of the story are easily compensated for by its general greatness. The blurb describes it as “science fiction for the connoisseur”, a description that I fully agree with. First of all, there is Eternity itself. The kettle shafts and shifting realities and Changes are a brilliant piece of work. But most importantly, the story is thought-provoking and opens up the mind to many ideas. We can speculate about the paradoxes of time travel and how better things would be if mistakes could be corrected.

Although the book is in certain respects a product of the fifties, the story as a whole stands up well to the test of time. I first read the book in 1994, nearly forty years after it was published and even today it still goes down a treat. Some details can be criticized, but in general the story is a masterpiece, a mammoth undertaking that only a great writer could hold together and keep under control. One of the most interesting points is how the Eternals talk of centuries on such a broad scope, seeing each century as an evolving entity that they strive to understand, monitor and manipulate. Individuals within the centuries are not as important as the quest to achieve the greater good, a recurring theme in the Asimovian universe.

Asimov wrote very few time travel stories, but The End of Eternity is certainly a great read. His favourite fiction themes were robots, of which he was the undisputed master, and psychohistory. However, in my opinion, Eternity is right up there among his greatest works. Looking back on the story thirty years after publication, Asimov lamented how it was underrated, overshadowed by the Robot and Foundation series. Some commentators have pointed out that the plot is too complicated and that all the changes and tweaking of Reality are too overwhelming for many readers. That may be the case for some people, but if you enjoy thought-provoking science fiction, this is a book you can savour.