Most of you know I'm a bit of Star Trek fan. Don't worry, though - I'm not a Trekkie. I've never been to any conventions, I don't own a uniform (although the getups they wore in Errand of Mercy were pretty cool) and I don't have a pair of Spock ears laying around anywhere. But, fact is, the series often produced scenarios that were handy as the basis for what Mr. Einstein referred to as a gedanken - a thought experiment.
Let's make one up now . . .
In Star Trek: First Contact the Enterprise crew is fighting the toughest bad guys of the entire series - the Borg. They are the quintessential enemy - relentless, unfeeling, incapable of independent thought, wholly subservient to a collective philosophy, availed of virtually limitless power, with the sole purpose of destroying any life they encounter and absorbing the pieces into their robotic existence, they resemble nothing so much as the end result of what government would become if it didn't run out of other people's money so soon. Determined to complete their assimilation of Earth, they decide the best method is to time-warp their way back into Earth's history and prevent the initial contact between Earthers and Vulcans. If you don't know why that's important or what happens after that, rent the movie. In the meantime, let's use that idea of going back in time to set up our gedanken.
Let's imagine that I have a determined enemy, one who has the kind of power that you only see in movies or read about in fantasy works. He (at the risk of stereotyping we'll make him a guy) is determined to kill me. And not just kill me, but to completely wipe out my entire existence - all of my experiences and any influence I ever had while alive, depriving me of any humanity whatsoever. In order to accomplish this, my personal Borg comes equipped with both the ability to go back in time as well as a very unique weapon - a Men in Black-type affair that will only kill me, no matter how many people are around and get hit by the blast. Fortunately, it is the only weapon he has, and he doesn't know how to use any other method.
My nemesis has another advantage: he's a thinker. He knows I'm human, so he knows that in order to completely eliminate my life he must eliminate me before I become one. He reasons that in order to be certain, he must prevent my existence as a human not only before there is any biological evidence of it, but before my society imparts to me any legitimacy as a human by way of traditions or legal status. He is absolutely determined to make certain that the human being I am never exists at all.
How far back does he go? And why does he stop there?
More later . . .
