This wonky 1955 SF novel has lessons for 2026
A year or so ago, a Medium article appeared with the name "Noÿs." I recognized the name as a character in a book I started but did not finish. This science fiction novel is about time travel, a topic which I have found confusing. When time goes circular instead of linear, I can't see how this works.
But this novel was written by Issac Asimov. I thought I would make another attempt at this popular book. I put the book on my e-reader, and eventually got around to reading it.
I’m not sure when The End of Eternity starts, but sometime after the 27th century. That’s when humanity invented time travel. And from that time on, the “Eternals” are moving back and forth in time to adjust history and society to keep humanity on the more or less peaceful side. The protagonist, Andrew Harlan, is a master Technician. He travels in “kettles” from century to century, fixing past and future societies. The Eternals are saving humans from themselves.
The “downwhen” limit is the 27th century because time travel did not exist before then. The “upwhen” limit is around the 100,000th century. Kettles could not move past this time for reasons I did not understand.
The Eternals manage these times between the 27th and 100,000th centuries — and call their period “Eternity.”
Then, in the 482nd century, Harlan falls in love with a woman named Noÿs. But when he travels a bit upwhen of her time, he finds no record of her — as if she never existed. One of the previous Eternal adjustments wrote her out of humanity. Harlan is dejected.
Then Harlan learns of a secret project conducted by the Eternal Council. It seems that the calculations predicted that humanity eventually becomes extinct. The Eternal Council reasoned that time travel needed to be introduced earlier to humanity than when it was. So they sent an agent to the 20th century. His mission was to build a time distortion device, leave it there, and let that time’s scientists analyze it. In a few centuries, they figure out the math to understand how the machine works. With that math, they discover time travel, with Eternity having somehow moved its starting point back a few centuries. It is this change that deletes Noÿs.
Harlon, with his knowledge of Eternity, uses his skills to delay the arrival of the Eternal agent. This would mean Eternity does not exist anymore, but Harlan can spend the rest of his physical life with Noÿs. So the loss of Eternity was an acceptable outcome to him.
When Harlan’s supervisor, Twissel, learns of Harlon’s action, he convinces Harlan of his error. So they set about trying to correct it, keeping both Eternity and Noÿs. So Harlan and Twissel go hopping around from century to century — including a couple of trips past the 100,000th century. As they make changes, they often conclude because they are still there, Eternity has not been lost.
I could kind of follow the logic and sending the Eternal agent to the 20th century. But not really. How could Eternity exist if it started in the 27th century but needed to place an agent in the 20th century when the 20th century did not have the technology to receive the kettles from Eternity?
There were more loose ends that totally escaped my ability to rationalize them. I blamed myself because I just could not get into the time travel way of thinking.
With all this time hopping, changing this and that — which had repercussions for the future and past, I lost the storyline. There were times when I thought: “Why am I still reading this book?”
The Last Chapter
Drudgingly, I reached the last chapter. I was not expecting much.
But this chapter started tying up all the loose ends I had been noticing before. Noÿs changed from a secondary character to a main character. Her part of the plot was quite important to the outcome of the story.
I’m not going to spoil the book for you. If you like a science fiction mystery, this story is worthy of your time. While it is not that important to understand the nuances of time travel, keep track of the loose ends you find. Asimov deliberately put them in place — to bring them together in the last chapter. Things made more sense in that last chapter (kind of).
The Philosophy of “The End of Eternity”
Asimov published this book in 1955. At that time, the United States was in a totally different place than it was in 1925. This nation developed a superiority complex after defeating two military powers in WW2. It was putting its surplus economy into rebuilding Europe and Japan. It set up the Bretton Woods system, which put the United States as the most influential economic player in the world.
Many white men saw their economic opportunities improve. They became more educated. They found work that put themselves and their families above destitution. For many Americans, 1955 was a golden age of “Happy Days.” A large middle class was born.
In the last chapter of The End of Eternity, Asimov wrote:
Any system like Eternity, which allows men to choose their own future, will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.
For those of you who have read Asimov’s Robot series, a similar thought also guides the societal actions of the Spacers, the non-Earth humans who relied too much on robots. They were stagnating as a society.
For those of you who have read Asimov’s Foundation series, he tells us that societal systems come and go; democracies are not forever.
These Asimov messages were not what the happy people of 1955 wanted to hear. But these messages were couched inside some great stories: it was easy for readers to gloss over them. Maybe these prophecies were too far in the future to worry about.
My summation of these messages is that social systems designed to organize society are not able to change fast enough. Instead these systems decay and are eventually replaced by another system outside that system. History has many examples. We are living in a similar example.
If this summation is accurate, then readers of this article have three possible paths:
The first path is to continue to believe that the current system, western democracy especially the American version, is able to change. We need only put the right kind of pressure on the overly ambitious players who aspire for high positions to effect the change we want. Many political writers on Medium believe posting certain kinds of articles on the internet, plus the usual protesting and voting, will achieve this objective. But if the Asimov prophecy is right, this time and energy will be for naught.
The second path is to allow the various political actors to fight it out. When a new system emerges from this conflict, we should not assume it will be better than western democracy. But many of us will learn how to work around and under the new system. It will not be the end of the world.
The third path is to build a new system. This new system is Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG), which I initially conceptualized in 1992. It is the kinder, wiser democracy many of us yearn for. If you have come this far in this article, you are one of those yearning people.
Investigating the TDG
The TDG book is about a three-hour read. Most readers of this article will spend three hours this week on Medium; if you have doubts about the success of the first path, you will find the time to read this book.
I have three TDG novels which show how average Americans can build this democracy. Americans just like you. These stories will take about six hours.
The TDG blog has 558 articles. In particular, I recommend the section TDG Mechanics where you can get more details of the various moving parts of the TDG. That will take you another three hours of reading.
In essence, I am asking 12 hours of reading from you. Then you can make a fair assessment of the TDG and your part in this future.
My books and blog are available for a free read from my website.
Conclusion
If you decide to participate in the TDG, then you have moved from political spectator/complainer to political player. Except you are playing in a much better game than our current political players. You will be learning then showing the world a new way of doing politics.
This new way will give you connections, purpose, and hope, in this crazy political decade.
Your early TDG work will last several generations.
And you need only 10 hours a month to start building the TDG.
Building a kinder, wiser democracy will provide the instructions on how to spend those 10 hours.
I know you can do it!
The choice is yours! And you will now be making a choice.
Is it Path 1? Path 2? Or Path 3?
If I have made you uncomfortable with choosing #1 or #2, that was my intention.
No wonder I am still a bottom writer. I’m not as tactful as Isaac Asimov.
But he was so right. He is still right.
Published on Medium 2026
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