Paratime Chronography

"Sectors are areas of paratime on any level in which the prevalent culture has a common origin and common characteristics. They are divided more or less arbitrarily into sub-sectors. Belts are areas within sub-sectors where conditions are the result of recent alternate probabilities."
— Verkan Vall (H. Beam Piper), "Police Operation"

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The Structure of Paratime

"Gunpowder God" illustration by John Schoenherr (Image served by the Luminist Archives)

Piper's Paratime yarns of alternate, parallel universes patrolled by the cross-time-traveling Paratime Police began with 1948's "Police Operation" and culminated in the 1965 novel Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.  Besides the thousands of alternate timelines of the Paratime setting Piper also described an extensive background for the "First Level" civilization which stretches from its ancient origins — on Mars, or perhaps not — to the time when it is exploiting and policing thousands of those timelines from Terra's "Home Time Line."

First Level | Second Level | Third Level | Fourth Level | Fifth Level

First Level of Paratime Probability

"Last Enemy" illustration by Walt Miller (Image served by the Luminist Archives)

"There are five main probability levels, derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet, seventy-five thousand years ago.  We're on the First Level — complete success, and colony fully established."
— Verkan Vall, "Police Operation"

"We've been paratiming for the past ten thousand years.  When the Ghaldron-Hesthor trans-temporal field was discovered, our ancestors had pretty well exhausted the resources of this planet.  We had a world population of half a billion, and it was all they could do to keep alive."
— Verkan Vall, "Police Operation"

"Twelve millennia ago, the world of the First Level had been exhausted; having used up the resources of their home planet, Mars, a hundred thousand years before, the descendants of the population that had migrated across space had repeated on the third planet the devastation of the fourth.  The ancestors of Verkan Vall's people had discovered the principle of paratime transposition and had begun to exploit an infinity of worlds on other lines of probability."
— H. Beam Piper, "Time Crime"

"Twelve thousand years ago, facing extinction on an exhausted planet, the First Level race had discovered the existence of a second, lateral, dimension of time, and a means of physical transposition to and from the worlds of alternate probability parallel to their own."
— H. Beam Piper "Gunpowder God"

First Level is one of "five main probability levels, derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize [Terra from Mars], seventy-five thousand years ago."^[PO]  First Level represents "complete success" and the "colony fully established."  (In later source, it is not clear whether there was a First Level colonization of Terra from Mars or simply a First Level discovery of "worlds of alternate probability parallel to their own."^[GG])

In the first Paratime yarm, "Police Operation," there are a "myriad" of First Level timelines — arriving from out-time, Verkan Vall must establish his distinctiveness as compared to other Verkan's on other First Level timelines.  While other First Level sectors are mentioned in "Time Crime," Piper never revisited the idea of multiple timelines for the Paratimers themselves in any other Paratime yarn.

• "Home" Sector (presumed)

      • Home Time Line

• Abzar Sector ^(TC)

• Dwarma Sector ^(TC)

Second Level of Paratime Probability

"Down Styphon!" illustration by Kelly Freas (Image served by the Luminist Archives)

". . . Second Level . . . time-lines descend from the probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a civilization of their own here."
— Verkan Vall, "Last Enemy"

"Second Level that had been civilized almost as long as the First, but there had been dark-age interludes. Except for paratemporal transposition, most of its sectors equaled First Level. . . ."
— H. Beam Piper "Gunpowder God"

The timelines of the Second Level of Paratime "descend from the probability of one or more shiploads of colonists having come to Terra from Mars about seventy-five to a hundred thousand years ago, and then having been cut off from the home planet and forced to develop a civilization of their own here."^[LE]  (In a later source, it is instead suggested that Second Level is one of the levels of Paratime which "had devolved from low-probability genetic accidents."^[GG])  Second Level has "been civilized almost as long as the First, but there had been long Dark-Age interludes."^[GG]  The civilizations of the Second Level are "equal [to those of First Level] in every respect but knowledge of paratemporal transposition."^[TT]  There is "one Second Level civilization which is approaching the discovery of an interstellar hyperspatial drive, something [First Level has] never even come close to."^[TT]  (In another source, it is suggested that there "are Second Level civilizations . . . that have over-light-speed drives for interstellar ships."^[LKO])

Second Level is mentioned only briefly in "Police Operation," Piper's first story about the cross-time travelling Paratime Police.  There are passing references to the Khiftan and Jak-Hakka civilizations with only minor details suggestion both groups of timelines are rather barbaric places.

• Akor-Neb Sector ^(LE)

• Interworld Empire Sector ^(LK) (could be the same as Triplanetary Empire Sector)

• Triplanetary Empire Sector ^(TC) (could be the same as Interworld Empire Sector)

• Jak-Hakka Sector(?) ^(PO)

• Luvarian Empire Sector ^{(TC; PO)} ("Police Operation" implies Third Level)

• Khiftan Sector ^{(PO; TC)}

Third Level of Paratime Probability

"Time Crime" illustration by Kelly Freas (Image served by the Luminist Archives)

"Third Level; probability of abortive attempt to colonize this planet from Mars about a hundred thousand years ago.  A few survivors — a shipload or so — were left to shift for themselves while the parent civilization on Mars died out.  They lost all vestiges of their original Martian culture, even memory of their extraterrestrial origin."
— Verkan Vall, "Time Crime"

"The Third Level civilizations were more recent [than Second Level], but still of respectable antiquity and advancement."
— H. Beam Piper "Gunpowder God"

The timelines of the Third Level of Paratime arise from an "abortive attempt to colonize [Terra] from Mars about a hundred thousand years ago.'^[TC]  (In later source, it is instead suggested that Third Level is one of the levels of Paratime which "had devolved from low-probability genetic accidents."^[GG])  Cites are "higher and vaster" than those on Fourth Level on what tend to be "more civilized Third Level" timelines.^[TC]  "Third Level civilization was more recent [than that of Second Level], but still of respectable antiquity."^[GG]  "Too many thermonuclear weapons and too many competing national sovereignties . . .[had resulted in] a disaster-fraught combination . . . all over Third Level. . . ."^[GG]

"There [is a civilization] on Third [Level], that [has] over-light-speed drives for interstellar ships."^[LK]

• Esaron Sector ^(TC)

• Tsorshay Sector ^(TC)

Fourth Level of Paratime Probability

"Temple Trouble" illustration by Hubert Rogers (Image served by the Luminist Archives)

"There are five main probability levels, derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet, seventy-five thousand years ago. . . .  On the Fourth Level, the colonists evidently met with some disaster and lost all memory of their extraterrestrial origin, as well as all extraterrestrial culture.  As far as they know, they are an indigenous race; they have a long pre-history of stone-age savagery."
— Verkan Vall, "Police Operation"

"Fourth Level had started late and progressed slowly; some Fourth Level genius was first domesticating animals long after the steam engine was obsolescent all over the Third. . . .  Fourth Level was the big one. The others had devolved from low-probability genetic accidents; it was the maximum probability.  It was divided into many sectors and subsectors, on most of which human civilization had first appeared in the valleys of the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates, and on the Indus and Yangtze."
— H. Beam Piper "Gunpowder God"

• Indus-Ganges-Irriwady Basic Sector-Group ^(TC) (or "Eastern Continent Great South-central River Valleys")^(Ap)

      • Indo-Turanian Sector ^{(PO; TC; LK)} (described as "Nilo-Mesopotamian" in "Temple Trouble" but more likely an "Indus-Ganges-Irriwady" sector)

      • Kholghoor Sector ^(TC)

• Nilo-Mesopotamian Basic Sector-Group ^(TT) (or "Southern and Eastern Continents Great Northeastern-Southwestern River Valleys")^(Ap)

      • Alexandrian-Punic Sector ^(TT)

      • Alexandrian-Roman Sector ^{(TT; TC; LK)}

      • Aryan-Oriental Sector ^(LK)

      • Aryan-Transpacific Sector ^(LK)

            • Styphon's House Subsector ^(LK)

      • Europo-American Sector ^{(PO; LE; TC)}

            • Hispano-Columbian Subsector ^(LK)

                  • Hitler Victory Belt(?) ^(PO)

                        • Second War Between The States Belt(?) ^(PO)

      • Macedonian Empire Sector ^(TT)

      • Proto-Aryan Sector ^{(TT; TC)}

• Yangtze-Yellow Basic Sector-Group(?) ^(LK) (or "Eastern Continent Great Eastern River Valleys")^(Ap)

      • Sino-Hindic Sector ^(LK)

• Primitive Sector-Complex ^(TC)

Fifth Level of Paratime Probability

"Time Crime" illustration by Hubert Rogers

"There are five main probability levels, derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet, seventy-five thousand years ago. . . .  The Fifth Level is the probability of complete failure — no human population established on this planet, and indigenous quasi-human life evolved indigenously."
— Verkan Vall, "Police Operation"

"And Fifth Level on a few sectors, subhuman brutes, speechless and fireless, were cracking nuts and each other's heads with stones, and on most of it nothing even vaguely humanoid had appeared."
— H. Beam Piper "Gunpowder God"

• "Home" Basic Sector-Group(?)

            • Police Terminal Time Line ^{(TC; LK)}

      • Commercial Sector ^{(PO; TC)}

      • Interplanetary Sector ^(TC)

      • Industrial Sector ^(TC)

      • Passenger Sector ^(TC)

      • Service Sector ^(TC)

Chronography sources:

Ap:   Apocrypha — non-canonical material.  See "Newton's Rule."
DS:   "Down Styphon!," Analog, November 1965, (when not also in Lord Kalvan).
GG:   "Gunpowder God," Analog, November 1964 (when not also in Lord Kalvan).
LE:   "Last Enemy," Astounding, August 1950.
LK:   Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, New York: Ace, 1965.
PO:   "Police Operation," Astounding, July 1948.
TT:   "Temple Trouble," Astounding, April 1951.
TC:   "Time Crime," Astounding, February 1955, and March 1955.


Thanks to Piper fans John W. Braue III, and Erik Fischer for their work to identify the "chronography" of Paratime.

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