(urth) Pirate Freedom revisited

[Ed EDson]

Many moons ago I worked out the chronology below & posted it to this list.
Having just re-read PF I think this can be elaborated in interesting ways.

The idea starts with my observation that Chris seems to return to the
future in the same year he was born, around 2007. This leads to thinking
about Chris' transitions. We are told nothing about how or why these occur,
but I think at first it is natural to suppose the transition ot the past
has something to do with Chris being at the monastery.

However,  there are objections. First, only Chris and Ingnacio appear to
make the transition - Chris is convinced he would not be able to return to
the monastery, for example. Second, his return to the future happens from a
different place, out in the sea - so at least that transition doesn't
depend on the monastery.

What if the transition is personal to Chris, dependent on time and not on
place? Wherever Chris is in ~2024, he would be sent to the past, and
wherever he is in ~1675, he would be sent to 2007.  But Ignacio is Chris,
so he goes back when Chris goes back - but also, he goes forward when Chris
goes forward.

Now the direction in which this is heading should be obvious - perhaps
Chris is his own father. If the baby Novia is carrying is in fact Chris, it
(and hopefully she herself!) will be carried forward from 1675, along with
Ignacio.

Obviously we don't know exactly what happens then, but we can make up
plausible stories. Perhaps Novia-in-the-future dies, perhaps Ignacio sells
her or kills her. In any event, whatever he says or believes of himself,
Chris' actions are motivated, overwhelmingly, by money. (Eg: see what
happens when he meets Lesage before the massacre at Rio hato - he hugs him;
he *thinks* of Valentin, but it "didn't seem to be the time to bring it
up", because he was too busy pulling gold off the mules.) To me it's surely
the case that Ignacio-in-1675 was working with Ignacio, sealing a bond by
killing Valentin for him, and then plotting with him the hijack of the gold
and the massacre.

So when Ignacio and Chris meet at the end of the book, I think it's clear
enough that Ignacio has a share of the Rio Hato gold stashed somehwere and
of course plans to dig up Captain Burt's treasure also.

But then he gets snatched back to 2007, totally unexpected. Imagine how
pissed he must have been! Back to the drawing board. He's now ~36 years
old. He'll spend the next 10 years getting mobbed up and raising Chris in
NJ, sans Novia. Sent to Cuba to run the casino, he'll do what needs to be
done to "engineer" Chris, by making sure he is under the wing of his
younger self at the monastery, and setting in place the events leading to
his own birth.  When Chris goes back, he does too, as a ~53 year old, and
does what needs to be done to make sure that all the treasure is someplace
where he can retieve it in the future - he knows everything that Ignacio
has plotted, of course, so for a man of his resourcefulness ripping off
both his younger selves shouldn't be a huge problem.

Returning to 2007 as a ~55 year old, with access to treasure worth many
millions, and knowing everything that "Chris' dad" knew, perhaps on this
run-through he becomes some kind of mob top management, in a position to
send his younger self to Cuba to run the casino ...  Does he go back again,
or does he die sometime before the clock ticks on 2024 again - who knows?


Post from 2007:

"I come to the following conclusions:

- Chris1's "birthday" is around about now; 2007.
- Chris2 is writing in about 2017.
- Chris2 appeared from the past around about the same time as
Chris1 was born, so 2007 again (interesting ...)
- The pirate-action happens in about 1675.

Here's how I get there. First, we have some information about
various events in Chris1's time-line:

A: "Born"
B: Goes to Cuba
C: Enters monastery school
D: Begins novitiate
E: Ends novitiate & goes to past
F: Goes forward again

We know:

B = A+10 (he goes to Cuba at age 10).
C = A+13 (approx: he went to school "a few years" after arriving in
Cuba).
D = A+16 (approx: "A year seems like a lifetime at that age, so
three or maybe four lifetimes passed before I went from being a
student to being a novice ...")
E = A+17 (a novitiate normally lasting one year?)
F = A+19 (or less: the pirate-time doesn't seem to have been more
than this to me.)

For Chris2, we know he is 28 or 29 when he goes to Cuba to become
Ignacio: he's 28 at the time of his interview with Bishop Scully,
with maybe a birthday before he finishes writing. Assuming "F"
above is right, he was 19 when he appeared from the past, so that
was about ten years before he heads to Cuba.

And so, assuming he goes to Cuba at around "B", when Chris1 and his
father go, the date of his appearance from the past must have been
around about "A".

In other words, he comes back at about the same time he was "born".


We have reasonable dating for the "past" action.  Captain Burt
speaks of Drake in the Golden Hind sailing around the world "almost
a hundred years ago". This voyage lasted from 1577 through 1580.
Let's say "E" = 1675.

We can use this to kludge up an estimate for the "present" datings.
At the very end of the book, Chris2 says: "Today .. we have been
dead 300 years". This is rubbery, but let's assume that Chris2
assumes he's going to live a three-score-and-ten. That gives him
another 41 or 42 years at the time he's writing. So, back in the
"past", he would live until about 1675+42 = 1717. Three hundred
years on from then is 2017.

That fixes an approximate date for "B", the date when Chris1 and
(presumably) Chris2 both arrive in Cuba - about 10 years into our
future. And Chris1 is being decanted from his test-tube or whatever
just about now."
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