Johnny O'Brien - Day of Deliverance

“What kind of plot?”

“As you know, Jack, this is a dangerous period in history. Phillip II of Spain has finally lost his patience with England. English ships have continued to steal from Spanish ships. Under Elizabeth, England is a Protestant country — Catholics are tolerated, although there is much tension between the two religions. The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, a few days ago, was the final straw. Mary was implicated in a plot to overthrow Elizabeth and for this she was executed. Killing a fellow monarch is a grave act. The history books tell us that Phillip plans to capture the English throne and finally get rid of Elizabeth. He is mobilising a mighty navy — the Armada.”

“Didn’t Miss Beattie tell us that that the Armada was defeated?” Angus said.

“It will be. The whole thing is badly conceived, badly planned and badly executed. In addition, the Spanish do not take into account the superior design of English ships, gunnery and tactics. And finally, of course, there is the weather; the storms that finally scatter Phillip’s great ships off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Half of the Armada’s one hundred and thirty ships will be lost or irreparably damaged. England will lose none. The loss of Spanish crew and soldiers will be equally severe. Two-thirds of the Armada’s thirty thousand men will die — and for every one killed in battle, another seven will perish by execution or drowning, or die from disease, starvation or thirst.”

Pendelshape had a glint in his eye as spoke. It was as if Jack were back in his History class.

“The Armada’s attempted attack will end in tragedy. And from that point on, the balance of power in the world will gradually tip in England’s favour. The defeat of the Armada is a turning point.”

“But why does this concern you? You’re not just on another field visit, are you?”

“No, Jack, as I’m quite sure you are aware.” He refilled his coffee cup. “Let me show you something.”

Pendelshape got to his feet and walked over to a case on the other side of the kitchen. He opened it up, took out a slim laptop and placed it on the table in front of them. The device looked completely out of place in the old kitchen.

“Nice computer, Sir.” Angus had not quite lost the habit of calling Pendelshape ‘Sir’.

“Indeed. But you won’t find this one on the market at home. We’ve had to make a number of modifications to run our simulation software.” He tapped the keyboard. “Now, this should do it. Yes, you can take a look if you like.”

Pendelshape swivelled the screen round to allow Jack and Angus a better view. It showed a picture of earth. It looked a bit like Google Earth, except in one corner there were the words ‘Timeline Simulator’ and in the other the date and time. There were a number of complicated toolbars at the bottom and left of the screen.

“So this is a political representation of the world as it is today, February, 1587. You can see England and Scotland (two different kingdoms, of course), France and the Italian city states. And there is Spain, shaded in yellow. You can already see Spain’s influence in the New World — Central and South America — and in other places like the Netherlands. In fact, it is the Spanish army in the Netherlands that Phillip II plans to transport to England, using the Armada to defeat the English. You can see just from the colouring on the map that Spain is a major power, although you don’t see the wealth of Spain, which is also huge, because of the stream of gold and especially silver transported from the New World. Anyway, look what happens if I run the simulation forward. I’ll do this on the ‘Baseline Simulation’ — this shows what happens if you don’t make any interventions in history as it currently stands.”

Pendelshape touched the screen, and the year counter on the right started to count forward the months and the years.

“Cool!” Angus was impressed.

Jack rolled his eyes.

As the years progressed on screen the colours on the map grew and shrank in line with the political influence of the various countries of the world. The yellow of Spain began to shrink. The small red blob that denoted England slowly started to grow. First, it extended to Scotland and then to North America. As the year counter ticked its way through the nineteenth century, the red shading grew across all parts of the world like an infectious disease: India, Australia, Africa — the British Empire. At the same time, the extension of power of the other European nations was shown: blue for France and black for a unified Germany. The counter then moved on through the twentieth century to show the rise of the Soviet Union and the United States and the decline of the old European countries.

“It’s like a game,” Angus said.

Jack was a little less impressed. “Looks nice — but what does it mean?”

“Jack, this is the Timeline Simulator — or at least a part of it — the full thing is too resource-intensive even for this mighty machine. This software is the key to it all.”

“Key to what?”

Pendelshape sighed. “Let me explain. VIGIL and your friends, Inchquin and the Rector refuse to accept that Taurus can be used as a tool for good.”

“Yes. And they have a point. We saw what could happen when we went back to the First World War,” Jack said.

“You nearly got us all killed, Sir,” Angus said bluntly.

“I admit, at that time we thought we had got it right — but we were still not quite there. VIGIL’s concern is that by intervening in the past you can trigger changes, however well intentioned, that may have unforeseen consequences in the future.”

“Yes and it can be extremely dangerous. Those consequences could lead to worse things happening. Intervening can backfire,” Jack said.

“And VIGIL is right up to a point. But this,” Pendelshape tapped the laptop with a chubby index finger, “this little chap changes everything. We have developed causal models of history to such a degree that we can show precisely the impact that changes we make in the past will have on the future. We can also evaluate the different scenarios that arise from this. If necessary, we can make subsequent interventions in time to optimise the results. These interventions may also be used to ensure that we can keep the Revisionist team untouched.” He smiled, knowingly. “Obviously there are some things in the present we want to keep… ring-fenced, if you like.”

Angus finally finished his breakfast. “So what?”

“So what, Angus?” Pendelshape continued, a note of frustration in his voice. “So we can make measurements of our scenarios. We can evaluate changes we make in terms of their impact on economic wealth, political stability, health and a whole range of other things, including, believe it or not, an index of human happiness.”

This was too much for Angus. “You’ve got to be kidding, Sir. You’re saying that you can kind of use that computer to say what would happen to the world if you assassinated Hitler and measure how happy everyone would be as a result?”

“Indeed. It sounds strange, I know, but every scenario has up sides and down sides; winners and losers. What we are seeking to do is to find the best overall scenario which optimises human well-being in the long term — and for that matter the well-being of the planet, and, yes, we can’t really do the comparison unless we can measure the scenarios. Happiness is one of those measures. All the measures together are called the Utility Index — the UI.”

“So you’re saying that you’ve managed to develop the software to a point where you can really run ‘what ifs’ and measure the impact.”

“Yes, Jack, exactly.”

Jack lowered his voice. “But Dad didn’t agree with your plans, did he?”