Date: Wed, 9 Jun 93 18:31:01 MDT
From: tperreau@banshee.VLA.NRAO.EDU (This space for rent)
Message-Id: <9306100031.AA00726@banshee.vla.nrao.edu>
To: alt-ql-creative@cisco.com
Subject: Future Perfect -- Author's Notes

				Future Perfect

				Author's Notes

Perhaps the best advice that any new author can use, besides the one of 
"write, write, and write some more" is "write what you know about" -- and 
so I did.  I have visited Iona, and Perth (though I missed Scone to go to
Comrie), along with many other Scottish places on a whirlwind vacation 
about two years ago.  Scottish (and Irish) history and customs are one of 
my favorite reading topics, along with Irish mythology and the new wave 
of fantasy novels based on Irish tales.  Now, a little history.

Iona
Iona is a small island (3.5 miles long by 1 mile wide) off the coast of 
the isle of Mull, which itself is off the coast of Scotland.  The only 
way to reach Iona is by ferry.  There are bus tours that leave from Oban 
on the western coast and travel through the southern half of Mull to reach 
Fionnphort, where one takes a single car ferry across the sound to Iona.
The abbey is roughly 300 yards distant from where the ferry docks, and you
go by a ruined Augustinian nunnery.  The abbey itself is a reconstruction
of the 15th century Benedictine abbey (they did use the original stones in
the reconstruction).  The oldest building on Iona is the chapel of St.Oran, 
which was built by Somerled, Lord of the Isles, in the 12th century.  
In Future Perfect, the chapel is about where the chapel of St. Oran is, 
and the bee hive cells were to the north, roughly the location of the 
present day abbey.  There was one omission that I will most likely correct,
in that of the cross of St. John.  This was a massive Irish celtic style
cross, 15' tall and 7' across at it's widest point.  Carved with the now
famed knotwork, it is a piece of art which is under shelter.  A replica
stands in it's place.  This cross is the oldest known piece of construction
on Iona, dating back to the mid-7th century.  This cross would be visible
anywhere in the area.

Reilig Oran
This was the famed burial place of the Scottish kings up to the time of 
MacBeth (who was the last king buried here).  Forty Scottish kings are 
buried here, along with four Irish kings, and eight Norse kings.  For 
almost 600 years, Iona was the center of the Celtic Christian Church, 
which was different in organization than the Roman Catholic Church.  
Eventually, the Catholic Church, with it's greater number of followers, 
wealth, and power, won out against the poorer Celtic Church.  There is an 
ad in The Highlander magazine that reads "Before Charlemagne and a strong 
papacy, St. Columba's disciples brought Celtic Christianity to Scotland 
and beyond by starting monestaries as far away as Russia."  The Celtic
Christian church on Iona was founded by St. Columba in the year 563.  For 
many years, the services were held exposed to the elements.  Future Perfect 
is set in the waining days of the Celtic Church, though it gained some 
strength during the rule of MacBeth, it would never be as powerful as it 
once was back in the mid-700 to mid-800's when it's power covered Ireland,
Scotland, Northumbria, and monestaries in France and Germany.

Loch Ness
The Great Glen is the natural division line in the Highlands.  At the western 
end is the isle of Lismore and Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland.
At the eastern end is Inverness, and Loch Ness.  Inverness, the english 
translation of Inbher Ness, was the capital of the northern Picts (Scone, 
incidently, was the capital of the southern Picts).  St. Columba did travel
here in the 570's, when he was in his late fifties to early sixties.  The 
first documented sighting of the Loch Ness monster was at this time, and 
according to legend, Columba commanded the water demon to depart, which it
did.

The Book of Kells
The Book of Kells was actually started on Iona.  However, due to the 
increasing number of attacks by Norsemen, the book was taken to the abbey
of Kells in Ireland (also founded by Columba) where it was completed.  
Today it resides in Trinity College in Dublin, sealed under glass in a 
nitrogen atmosphere.  There are several good books on the Book of Kells.
Perhaps the most reproduced page is the Gospel of St. John, which is 
also called the Chi Rho page (for the two Greek letters that predominate
in the illustration).  The Book of Kells is considered by many to be the
pinnacle of Celtic illumination.

MacBeth
Contrary to Shakespeares' play, MacBeth had an equal right to the
throne of Scotland.  He was cousin to Duncan, and moarmer of Moray, 
probably second in power only to the King of Scots.  Thorfinn, the jarl 
of Orkney, was MacBeth's half-brother.  Together, they would rule Scotland
for seventeen years; MacBeth the land and Thorfinn the sea.  Was MacBeth
a good king?  Little is known, other than he was able to leave Scotland for 
a year while he went to Rome to visit the pope.  Few leaders dared to do 
this, for fear of not having a kingdom to return to.  MacBeth was probably
very much a man of his time.  It must also be said that MacBeth gained 
the Scottish throne in the time honored way -- he killed for it.  The 
majority of Scottish kings before MacBeth were either killed in battle 
(as was Duncan), or assassinated.  In the year 1040, MacBeth would be killed 
in battle by Duncan's bastard son, Malcolm, who would turn out to be one of 
Scotland's better monarchs.  MacBeth was the last of the line of Celtic kings
that had ruled the Scots for over 500 years.

Temporal Corps and Starfleet
It made sense to me that in a "Star Trek" universe, that Starfleet would 
eventually start to monitor and research time travel -- heaven knows that 
there has been enough time warps, time loops, space-time continuum ruptures, 
etc; not to mention the Guardian of Forever!  The point from investigating 
to actually tampering with the timestream would be almost a given.  Thus, 
at first, the Monitor program (part of Ziggy, now known as Tempora) which
would make sure that the proper past remains that way, then agents that 
could travel backwards in time to correct problems.  I feel that the 
Paratemp Corps would be a natural outgrowth of Starfleet, and exist side 
by side with Starfleet.  The concept of "ephem" leapers was shamelessly 
borrowed from the movie "Trancers".  The injecting of a drug, along with 
some other steps, to allow your spirit, soul, ka, whatever you want to call 
it, to travel back into the past to take over an ancestor of yours.  Armed 
with enough knowledge from the 27th century, one could significantly alter 
the timestream, creating a "broach".  Broaches are disruptions in the 
timestream.  The problem that one faces when writing about linear time 
travel is that is the affect in the past instantaneous in the future?  If so, 
then why have Monitor and Paratemp agents?  I decided that, like throwing 
a rock into a stream, there are ripples (the expanding wavefront of the
broach) but they are not felt instantly a mile away downstream. The same with 
broaches and the timestream.  This would allow Monitor to detect, track, 
and send agents back to correct the problem.  Naturally, the bigger the 
rock, the bigger the splash -- and Dr. Beckett is a very big rock!

Further Reading
There is a book called "MacBeth the King" by Nigel Tranter.  If you can 
find a copy, get it!  It's an English print book, and probably unavailable 
in the US unless it is special ordered.  Folks near Canada might run 
across the border and get a copy.  It's good reading, and historically 
accurate.  For general Scottish history, the best book that I've found 
is "Lion in the North:  A Thousand Years of Scottish History 745 - 1745" by
John Prebble.  Any good bookstore or library should have this book. I've 
seen it advertised in Barnes & Noble.  It's not too detailed, but has 
enough information to get you started.

Thanks
Thanks go out to the several people who wrote me, expressing
enjoyment in reading Future Perfect.  This is the reason why I write, 
to spin a tale that others will enjoy.  I guess that every writer has 
an inspirational author that they try to emulate, and mine is H. Beam 
Piper.  His science is simplistic, but he could tell a story.  If you've 
never read anything by him, pick up "Little Fuzzy".  If I can tell a 
tale half as good as Piper, then I will consider myself an author (now, 
in my next QL story, I'm going to be closer in spirit to H. P. Lovecraft 
than to H. Beam Piper (I hope) ).
I wnat to express thanks to Cheryl Bellucci, who informed me that the
Foriegn Technology Division at Wright-Pat is no longer called the Foriegn
Technology Division, but something else.
I also want to thank Roberta Chi-Woon Kwong for her discussion on Star-
fleet, and her comments about the set up of Future Perfect.
And last, but by no means least, a big thank you to Terri Librande, who
said that I should write this in the first place.  Now I know the meaning
of "the woman behind the man"! :)

Tony Perreault
Array Operations
Very Large Array Radiotelescope Observatory
Socorro, New Mexico