One characteristic of those who are ideologically obsessed is their preoccupation with the past. Some insist that our current problems stem from past mistakes, and thus we must return to the past to straighten them out. Others wish to bring back their country’s magnificent past, not realizing that times have changed. The question is: Would it be desirable to do it?
A 2016-2018 American science fiction TV show entitled “Travelers” illustrates the problems of our firm but ungrounded conviction that we can build a better present and future by changing the past. In the show, thousands of people from a post-apocalyptic future are sent back to the 21st century to rectify past mistakes.
They are sent by the “Director,” an almighty artificial intelligence that rules and governs human beings in the future. The Director transfers human consciousness into the past, placing it into the bodies of people who are about to die. Thus, a “Traveler” inherits their host’s preexisting job, marriage and life.
Initially, Travelers seem to accomplish their sacred mission to change the past and save humanity. They seem to solve past problems by righting wrongs, preventing disasters and redressing injustice. However, despite their efforts and hard work to alter history, the future remains the same or becomes worse.
Travelers believe they can stop current disasters by solving past problems. On the contrary, it turns out that they speed up the annihilation of humanity. In the final episode, an FBI agent points out this fatal flaw to a failed leader of the Travelers who claims there is still hope. The agent says, “Hope? You did this. Your people didn’t stop the collapse of civilization. If anything, you sped it up!”
Indeed, the grand plan of returning to the past entails numerous problems. The first problem is that the Travelers lack freedom or autonomy; they must strictly follow the Director’s orders and designated protocols.
Protocol 1 is “The mission comes first.” This means that humanitarian considerations, individual lives, and personal feelings must be sacrificed for the grand cause of building a better future.
The second problem is that a rebel group called “The Faction” opposes the Director. The Faction also sends thousands of men and women, called “Messengers,” to the past through a device called a “Quantum Frame.” Consequently, Travelers and Messengers fight and compete fiercely to control the past.
The third problem is that Travelers and Messengers justify whatever they do, including murder, in the name of the grand cause. They even set up a political show for propaganda and kill their colleagues under the excuse of the greater good. In one episode, a US congressman, who is a Traveler himself, delivers a public speech. Other Travelers plan to assassinate him during his speech to make him a martyr for political gain. When the congressman suffers cardiac arrest while talking, the sniper hesitates because he is already dying. But another Traveler urges her to pull the trigger, saying, “He won’t die a martyr if he has a heart attack.”
The fourth problem is that when Travelers alter the past, the future changes too. If so, the people currently living in the future cannot exist. This indicates that changing the past will eventually end up destroying the present and the future, killing people in the process instead of saving them.
Interestingly, “Travelers” predicted COVID-19 just before the pandemic began to spread worldwide. In Season 2, a deadly, flu-like disease spreads across the globe, causing an astronomical death toll. The drama suggests that the Messengers brought the pandemic from the future to solve the problem of overpopulation by killing old people with weak immune systems.
Pandemic viruses resemble dogmatic ideologies in many respects. Both are highly contagious. Both infect our bodies and minds. Both replicate through social contact and mutate as they move from one host to another. Both exploit our vulnerability, and both exhibit an incredibly fast velocity of transmission. Additionally, just as people are brainwashed by ideologies, a strong brain wave hits the hosts when Travelers take over their bodies in the drama.
The dying congressman says in his final speech, “We must protect humanity’s future, regardless of our political beliefs, regardless of our religion or the color of our skin, regardless of personal cost.”
Equally important is that we must admit that what is done cannot be undone, and we cannot change history.
“Travelers” warns us that our obsession with the past will inevitably destroy our present and future, wiping out humanity on Earth in the end. The past is just a mirror reflecting the present and the future, not something we can fix or alter. Therefore, instead of continuing to return to the labyrinth of the past, we should move “back to the future.”
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Kim Seong-kon
Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
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