Ancestral Voices
- by Nat Schachner
- Short Story
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- “Ancestral Voices” by Nat Schachner, Astounding, December 1933.
Time traveler Emmet Pennypacker kills one ancient Hun without realizing who will disappear from the racist world of 1935.
—Michael Main
The year of grace 1935! A dull year, a comfortable year! Nothing much happened. The depression was over; people worked steadily at their jobs and forgot that they had every starved; Roosevelt was still President of the United States; Hitler was firmly ensconced in Germany; France talked of security; Japan continued to defend itself against China by swallowing a few more provinces; Russia was about to commence on the third Five Year Plan, to be completed in two years; and, oh, yes—Cuba was still in revolution.
Tags
(12)
- Time Periods
- Timeline Models
- Leaky Timelines: At the mmoment in the story when Pennypacker kills the Hun, all of the Hun's ancestors (including Pennypacker) disappear from the story.
- Sensing Unfamiliar Timelines: Sam Corey and others remember all the people who disappeared.
- Someone Is Completely Erased
- Time Travel Methods
- Time Spheres, Eggs, et al.: “Resting on a movable platform was a large square box, tall enough and wide enough to accommodate several men, as well as a cluster of shiny machinery, tubes, numerous gadgets and controls.”
- Themes
- Grandfather Paradox
- Never Change the Past!: “ What’s done is done. ‘The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on’—You know the rest. We try to introduce an anachronistic element into the past, and the consequences may be incalculable.”
- Real-World Tags
- Attila
- Roman Empire: the sacking of Aquileia
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “Ancestral Voices” by Nat Schachner, Astounding, December 1933.