Admittedly, this is a "playing God" exercise, and there are a lot of places to go with that.
To me, the most obvious idea is to make the Treaty of Versailles less punitive on Germany. Without the economic hardships Germany had to face when the Great Depression hit the world, we might not have seen the rise of Hitler, which might have prevented the Holocaust and World War II. On the other hand, World War II might have still happened. But instead of fighting the Axis powers, it might have been a war between the West and the Soviet Union. Also, would this have left Japan in control of China?
What if we eliminate Mohammed from history? Without the religion of Islam, would there be no Crusades, and no Islamic terrorism today? Maybe, but the Crusades might have been against the Jews instead of the Arabs. It is also possible that another religious philosophy might have taken hold in the Arab world. If I am playing God, I would probably make such a philosophy more peaceful. Unfortunately, that would also leave the Arab world vulnerable to later conquest from nations like the Holy Roman Empire or the Mongols.
Maybe we try something simpler, like preventing President Lincoln's assassination? That would have allowed for a more merciful Southern Reconstruction era after the Civil War. Then again, Lincoln might have faced the same problems which dogged his successor Andrew Johnson, and maybe even gotten himself impeached. It was Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin Stanton who led to Johnson's troubles, and eventual impeachment.
That is the problem with history: Fix one problem, and create another.
I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled Tapestry. As Wikipedia describes the plot:
During a diplomatic mission, Captain Picard is shot by terrorists and dies. He awakes to find himself in an otherwordly realm, where he is greeted by the god-like alien Q. He explains that the peculiar weapon that shot Picard destroyed his artificial heart, and that a natural heart would have survived. Picard lost his original heart as a young officer, when he was stabbed during a bar brawl, an event that he regrets and led to him becoming the disciplined and restrained man he is today. When Picard remarks that he would do things differently if he could relive that moment, Q sends Picard back in time to two days before the brawl, where he meets with fellow cadets and friends Corey Zweller and Marta Batanides. They are surprised by Picard's change of personality; no more devil-may-care attitude.
Zweller is cheated by a group of Nausicaans at a bar game, and he plans his revenge by rigging the next match. When the Nausicaans lose, they are enraged and goad Zweller. But instead of joining the fight as he did before, Picard holds Zweller back, averting tragedy but humiliating his friend. Both Corey and Marta leave him in disgust.
In a parallel event, Picard has intimate relations with Marta, something he never did and had regrets about. The next day, she regrets that decision and he realizes that their friendship will never be the same.
Q returns Picard to the Enterprise in the present. Instead of being captain, Picard is just a junior science officer. In this alternate timeline, he has led an unremarkable career doing routine work. Picard consults Commander Riker and Counselor Troi, who explain that his aversion to risk meant he never distinguished himself.
Picard confronts Q, who tells him that although the bout with the Nausicaan nearly cost him his life, it also gave him a sense of his mortality. It taught him that life was too precious to squander by playing it safe. Picard realizes that his attempts to suppress and ignore the consequences of his indiscretions have resulted in him losing a part of himself. Picard then declares that he would rather die as captain of the Enterprise than live as a nobody. Q sends him back to the bar fight and events unfold as they did originally, with Picard being stabbed through the heart and laughing as he collapses to the floor. In the present, Picard awakens in sickbay, a Captain again. As Picard recovers from his injury, he wonders if his journey into the past was one of Q's tricks or merely a dream. Nevertheless, he is grateful for the insight the experience gave him.The lesson here for individuals is the same as the lesson for humanity: We cannot change our history, for it makes us what we are.
No comments:
Post a Comment