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The End of Eternity

by Isaac Asimov
Andrew Harlan, Technician in the everwhen of Eternity, falls in love and starts a chain of events that could lead to the end of everything.
— Michael Main
He had boarded the kettle in the 575th Century, the base of operations assigned to him two years earlier. At the time the 575th had been the farthest upwhen he had ever traveled. Now he was moving upwhen to the 2456th Century.
DEBUT
The End of Eternity (Doubleday, August 1955).
VARIANTS
3 English variants
TRANSLATIONS
45 translations
PRIOR WORKS
expansion of “The End of Eternity” (1954)
DERIVATIVE WORKS
  1. Konets vechnosti[/ex] by Будимир Метальников and Андрей Ермаш, directed by Андрей Ермаш, (unknown release details, 1987).
TAGS(SPOILERS!)
Time Periods Timeline Models
  • Delayed Change to a Timeline: The Change did not necessarily take place at the precise moment of the Technician’s Touch. In particular, Reality is resistant to small changes, and even bigger changes don’t effect future Reality until the probability of reverting the change become zero (or maybe just below some cut-off threshold).
  • Hypertime: Asimov’s Eternity—living as it does outside of Time and seeing a single timeline at any given hypertime—is the very definition of hypertime, even if he calls it Eternity.
  • Remembering Different Timelines: The Eternals remember all previous Realities, and even the Technician who makes a Change is protected from Changes by a “wrist-borne field generator.”
  • Resilient Timeline: Any alteration in its flow must reach a certain magnitude before a Change, a true Change, is effected. Even then, Reality has a tendency to flow back to its original position.
  • Time Barrier: both the inability to travel from Eternity to Time in the Hidden Centuries and the block at year 100,000 on the kettle shaft
Time Travel Methods
  • Time Spheres, Cubes, etc.: Officially a ‘time kettle,” but it sure felt like a booth to us.
  • Time Tethers: The big kettle sounds like a catapult (It can only be pushed, not pulled.), but it is actually a tether since it automatically returns.
Themes
TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)
  1. From the 95th century ⋙ to the 482nd century. Note: We’ll present Harlan’s timeline in the order of his physio-life, even though the book presents the episodes out of order. Thus, the timeline begins in Chapter 2 where a young Harlan first traveled from his home in the 95th to the 482nd to undergo training as an Eternal.
  2. From the 482nd ⋙ to the 575th. Note: Chapter 3: After his training as an Eternal (which involved many observation trips into ordinary Time), Harlan is selected to work with the renowned Twissell as a Technician in the 575th.
  3. From the 575th ⋙ to the 223rd. Round trip. Note: Chapter 3: As a Technician, Harlan goes to the 223rd to enact his first Minimum Necessary Change. Presumably, he went on many other missions after this, but they are not part of the story being told.
  4. From the 575th ⋙ to the 3,000-something century. Round trip. Note: Chapter 3: Without telling Twissell, Harlan takes Cub Cooper along with him on a mission to the three-thousand-and-something century.
  5. From the 575th ⋙ to the 482nd. Note: Chapters 4 and 5: Harlan is explicitly summoned back to the 482nd by Finch to carry out several observations including an extended stay with Noÿs during the current Reality of the 482nd where they fall in love and spend an intimate night together.
  6. From the 482nd ⋙ to the 111,354th. Round trip. Note: Chapters 8: After learning of Finch’s plan to Change the 482nd, Harlan takes action to save Noÿs by hiding her away in the empty Eternity corridors of the 111,54th! Only Harlan returns.
  7. From the 482nd ⋙ to the 575th. Note: Chapter 9: Back in the 482nd without Noÿs, Harlan moves his own personal things back to the 575th.
  8. From the 575th ⋙ to the 482nd and the 111,345th. Multiple round trips. Note: Chapters 9–10: Harlan makes multiple trips to see Noÿs in the far future and retrieve things for her from her home time in the 482nd, actually running into himself on one of those trips!
  9. From the 575th ⋙ to the 2456th. Note: Chaptesr 10, 1, and 6: Harlan travels to the 2456th where he meets Sociologist Kanto Voy, fixes Voy’s mistake, and blackmails Voy into using his Life-Plotter to determine how the Change in the 482nd will affect Noÿs.
  10. From an unknown time ⋙ to the 100,000th. Note: Chapters 7 and 10: With the info obtained from Voy’s Life-Planner, Harlan head back upwhen to Noÿs. (So he went racing upwhen to tell Noÿs the great news, [. . .]). But—horrors!—the kettle runs into a barrier at the 100,000th! From this point onward, the rest of the story is told chronologically from Harlan’s point of view.
  11. From an unknown time ⋙ to the 575th. Note: Chapter 10: He carried himself to the 575th and sprang from the kettle with a reckless disregard for his surroundings that he had never felt before.
  12. From an unknown time ⋙ to the 482nd. Note: Chapter 10: Harlan felt as though he were running a temperature when he arrived at the 482nd.
  13. From an unknown time ⋙ to the 575th. Note: Chapter 11: It was with a dull surprise that Technician Andrew Harlan, on bursting into the 575th, found himself in the night shift.
  14. From the 575th ⋙ to an unknown Primitive time before the 24th century. Note: Chapter 13. This jump through time is Cooper, who is supposed to go back to the 24th but Harlan (locked in the control room) altered the controls to some earlier century.
  15. From the 575th ⋙ to the 111,354th. Round trip. Note: Chapter 16. Harlan and Twissell head to Noÿs and the barrier is gone! All three return.
  16. From the 575th ⋙ to March 1932. Note: Chapter 17: Harlan and Noÿs head back to rescue Cooper.