Story 4. Written by Jim Waitlord

Someone always travels back in time to kill Hitler or bring about the fall of the Third Reich. In many versions, they even succeed, but whatever they do, the future changes in such a way that when they return to their own time, they only find the desolate remains of humanity. If we were to make a game out of this, perhaps this world we live in would be just one among millions doomed to extinction.

The Thousand-Year Reich

Hitler wins the Second World War; the Third Reich lives and flourishes. A thousand years pass. This future is very resource-conscious. Its structure resembles the brain in how the body efficiently distributes energy. It doesn't waste too much. Because energy is finite. For example, they share everything. It's rare for someone to have their own car or a huge house. Like living beings in nature, individuals of all groups live under similar conditions; talent and hierarchy develop based on evolution. For humans in the future, emotional intelligence matters more than general IQ, since the brain is capable of creating anything from matter in this quantum world. But for that, obviously, evolution had to create such a brain.

A dissident political group forms. According to their understanding, the actions of their ancestors in the past, although taught as heroic deeds at the time, were actually crimes against humanity based on their realistic and well-founded research, and this history is unjust. Obviously, many peoples who no longer even exist in their time, or perhaps only a few specimens remain in reservations, are actually no different from them, yet the system has practically deprived them of life. Deprived them of the possibility of life, because it labeled them as an inferior race. They want to give these peoples a chance too. They simulate what the world would be like if multiple types of humans lived on Earth. In every respect, a more interesting world would emerge, although the simulation is not perfect. Arts, music, films—everything is much more interesting in that imagined world that could have been, compared to their own reality, which isn't particularly interesting. Obviously, there's always something better; their reality, in its own way, might seem more desirable from our perspective than our current one. The point is, they want justice. They travel back to the past to rewrite history. Their plan is to lose the Second World War. They want a real, free, just world.

However, the simulation wasn't perfect, and every time they make the change and return to their own time, a dead planet always awaits them. They refuse to believe their eyes. Whatever they do, really, they try a thousand different ways—it's always the same outcome. They almost give up. Then they have an idea: what if, after ensuring the war is lost, they don't return immediately, but instead try to influence the subsequent, unfamiliar world to ensure its survival? If they were to become the masters of this new world, given their superior intellect, perhaps the locals would cede power to them, and they could convince the people living then, win them over, urging them to trust them because otherwise, they face extermination or, more likely, extinction. They are living in a reality without a future.

Understandably, the locals don't really believe them. In fact, the people in that reality fear for their own power and wealth and instead seek to destroy the time travelers. Meanwhile, back in their original future, the temporal fracture is detected. Panic takes hold: if these dissidents change the past, the very existence of those in the future becomes uncertain. However, physical time travel is only possible for a very small number of individuals. Even fewer can transfer their consciousness into the bodies of 20th- or 21st-century beings, be they human or animal. However, if they change the past, their original future bodies are lost to them. They get stuck in an unknown era, and everything becomes uncertain. In an unfamiliar form. Their original bodies in the future, however, are already immortal and multidimensional. Thus, the group members are taking a huge risk, because if the plan fails, they could actually die. However, if they succeed, everything will be theirs, and in time, they can steer science in a direction where they can recreate the type of immortal, multidimensional body they possessed in the future. Will they take the risk? That is the question. Is there even a way back at all? Will the future forgive them if they give up?

It's unlikely. Here, it seems the die has been cast, and everyone is on a forced path. Of course, consciousnesses are able to move from one living being to another in the event of the body's death. But they may even get to the point where they can only inhabit insects or scorpions because every other living thing has been wiped out by an unknown civilization in the past. Then they can wait millions of years for an intelligent species to develop. Even influencing evolution is too long. Their counterparts in the future, who fear for their reality, strive to erase the revolutionaries' consciousnesses, because that is the only way for them to continue to exist. If the past changes, they will never be born. You could argue that this is precisely what's happening in our world right now. Because this is around the time when the Mayan calendar turns over, and the new human appears, a more advanced form of Homo sapiens. The future ruling class are descendants of these new humans or perhaps are the same, because these individuals live much longer, maybe forever. This human species is Homo multiciple. More will be said about it in the following stories.

This story was written on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, at 2:02 AM.

There are already 56 stories uploaded to the site. This will be the fourth, and the fourth will be moved to 57th place.

Deja Vu Mirage