“It seemed more often than ever, chronmen were trying either to escape from the present or meddle in the past. It was to be expected, of course. Each year, humanity died a little more. ChronoCom’s charter was to fight that decline, yet things had never gotten better. Every year, there was a little less power to utilize. People went hungry a little longer. Lived lives a little harder. They were losing this war.”
Like any other dystopian world, the destroyed universe is a result of human greed, exploitation, and unbridled ambitions. In this future Earth is a barren land that is devoid of natural resources and anything that is left is toxic. The hope for humanity is in the outer solar system where the human colonies are run by the ChronoCom system. However, the program that involves tapping into resources of the past through time travel seems like historic recurrence. Rather than seek a better solution that entails altering the human condition, the system still relies on exploiting natural resources. Therefore, with these same mistakes, history will continue to repeat itself as the statement implies.
“For abyss’s sake, how many damn times do you have to wander off and get in trouble before you learn your lesson?”
While the major conflict in the narrative is the pursuit of freedom, a minor clash is the difference between James and Elise’s perceptions. Elise comes from the 21st century and is introduced into a timeline that is five centuries ahead of her own. This is bound to cause some culture shock and even incongruities since Earth is no longer the free and beautiful universe it once was. James is always on edge because he has lived in a world that limits the freedom of the people and keeps tabs on their lives. This is a reality that Elise has to get accustomed to taking into account their lives are in danger as fugitives. The quote highlights one of these instances where James is angry because Elise fails to grasp the magnitude of their situation.
“They discovered that the subjects were not only severely temporally displaced but caused abnormal ripples that tore holes in the chronostream. All subjects’ physiologies and mental states also became unstable and degenerated at the molecular level within a four-week period.”
The means by which the system has been able to control the masses is through misinformation and propaganda. The time-traveling organization had to create a rule to control the misuse of the technology but also to psychologically contain the people. To avoid the chronmen from bringing subjects into the future, they spread conspiracies that discourage deterring from the mission. The statement is one of these propagandas that Levin’s superior demystifies to showcase the great conspiracy of all time. But before that, it is a truth that most hold since it seems scientifically viable, especially with time travel as a real concept. After James becomes a fugitive on Earth he finds out that the hope for humanity still exists but the organization is not it.
