Well, well, well...
Originally posted by Doc Brown@Nov 16 2004, 04:28 PM
I'm enjoying this thread, but I got a little confused, so I'm going to see if I have the story right:
Future Coyote posted claiming to be a time traveller from 2242.
Perry Nelson then posted welcoming Coyote.
Now Perry and others seem to believe that Coyote is not who he claimed to be, so the general consensus is that Perry is the real time traveller and Coyote was a fake who was pretending to be one of \"Them.\"
Perry, what led you to believe that Coyote was not who he said he was? And do you know why Coyote included Paul in his story?
Perhaps I can clarify the situation a little.
In my opinion, Perry has attached himself parasitically to the Coyote narrative. Or think of him as a hermit crab. This is not meant as an insult: on the contrary, it is Perry who insults us by witholding vital information. Look at it this way: the forum is full of people striving for small scraps of worthy information-- shards-- fragments-- and we test what we think we have to see if our suspicions are correct. Why bother? Because we are trying to find the truth. What are we trying to find the truth about? Time travel.
Why? Because we suspect that time travel may be invented in the near future; if so, it stands to reason that it would be used; if used, it stands to reason that a time traveler would visit us. Where is this traveler? Would he or she or they post here? Why not? Wouldn't you?
Now, here comes this character who says that he has many of the answers to the questions that we have been struggling to find. My instinct tells me that if he is telling the truth, he would give the answers to us and let us bat them around and test them against our experiences and discussions. You see, Coyote has given us many answers up front, and stepped back and let us bat them around. Titor used to do this, too. This is why these kind of claimants have some credibilty right away.
But when someone like Perry protects us from the truth, and conceals information, and uses the forum for his own peculiar ends, my instinct tells me that he is lying and has nothing. Furthermore, when this kind of clandestine discourse gets going, it leads to further concealment and destroys the very purpose of the forum: for example, someone says he can debunk Coyote, but does not reveal what he has. For another example, we are urged to work behind the scenes and withold important information from one another to enjoy the "game."
This is not a game. I have written here before that you are all more important than you realize. Others may use you in some sick game; the government may think that your minds and energies are expendable. Actual agents and timetravelers (if these are different) may "lurk" (a perfectly fitting word for their actions). But what we need is the light of day, and the courtesy and honesty of the simple truth. If you have it, give it to us; if you have no intention of giving it to us, please just shut up-- we can easily guess the worst things about your motives.
Now I have been singled out as someone of importance in the development of time travel technology. This would be a very strange claim for anyone to make unless that person had somehow become familiar with an unpublished novel I have written. Of course you are all aware of the special impact fiction has had on time travel theory, and I have allowed myself to entertain the idea that this is what Coyote was referring to.
I think that I have permitted my vanity to overcome my common sense; but you see, it makes no sense to me that Coyote is telling the truth here, because he mispells my name. This means that I am not all that important, at least to him, especially since I have seen my name spelled in the forum correctly thousands of times, and anyone familiar with the site at all (especially a historian from the future) could hardly have overlooked it. Language is important in its details; an odd spelling is a
tell.
I hope that this clears it up from my point of view. It does not add to the lustre of Coyote's claims to convince
me of their reality through flattery to
me. The issue, to my mind, is still Titor. If Coyote is not a hoaxer, it would seem that his motive would be to divert our attentions from Titor. If he is a simple student, he sure did pick a coincidental time and place otherwise to show up to do his studies.