Pastwatch Reflection #1

In the first section of the book Pastwatch, the Redemption of Christofer Columbus, by Orson Scott Card, the author introduced the setting and main characters of the book. Primarily, the book takes place in the distant future, where the human race has developed the technology to view the past, but not change it. A group called Pastwatch are the people responsible for such monitoring of the past. However, it was always believed that while using the device that was used to look back in history, called the TruSite, Pastwatch couldn’t change the past in any way. However, one day a member of Pastwatch named Tagiri found evidence that this wasn’t true.

In Pastwatch, the character Tagiri is a member of Pastwatch who has devoted their life’s work to uncovering the long forgotten stories of the slaves of history. One day during their research, Tagiri and her partner, named Hassan, were watching two people living in a small tribal village, about forty generations in the past, who were in danger of becoming slaves. The two of them were seeking guidance from the gods to help them not be captured and be sold as slaves. While sleeping, they both had a different dream.

The first of the two had a dream of pure chaos, plague and death. All the people in the dream became slaves except for those of them who died first. In the book it says, “‘This is our healing then’ said Putukam ‘To die. Better to have been captured by Caribs. Better to have our hears torn out and our livers eaten. Then at least we would be an offering to god’” (Card 31). The second had a much different dream. In this dream they saw two people, a man and a woman, who were always watching them from forty years in the future. Immediately Tagiri noticed that she could be talking about her and Hassan. Hassan was doubtful at first, but then they described Tagiri’s appearance, he admitted that it seemed as though they were talking about the two of them. Therefore, Tagiri discovered that it was very likely that, using the TruSite, they could change the past.

This made me think about what I would have been doing in the situation of PastWatch in this setting. 

Though Tagiri’s intentions seem mildly insane, I see her motive for wishing to take such actions. She is an extremely compassionate character and cares about nothing more then to help people. So when she discovers there is a way to communicate into the past, and potentially change it, she immediately takes her chance. If I were in the same setting as Tagiri and Hassan, I would definitely support Tagiri. However, for her own good, I would help her focus on the consequences of her actions. What she does to change the past could completely rewrite history and change the future, which could make it impossible for her to ever even make the changes to the past. Such a thing would make a time paradox, and bring unpredictable results. So I would certainly join Tagiri’s cause. However, I would have to really work over the logic of the whole situation with her and hope to bring her to her senses or at least help her to come up with a legitimate plan which would not cause huge unpredictable results.

Moving to PC Narrative