Notes

A ferret is a domesticated polecat. Didrik is a European badger. Raccoon dogs are real and super cute.

Yes, “to thunk” is not a word. I was looking for a good description of the sound an arrow makes when it hits a wooden shield. These were my best options: thwock, thud, thunk.

(I find it acceptable to use one made-up word per story. I mean, how do you think we got our modern vocabulary? Someone needed a word but couldn’t find one, so they invented something. And it caught on because others sometimes needed that word too. Before you know it, everyone knows it and it’s in the dictionary.)

The battle

The sides are mainly based on geography. (That was easiest for this first story in the Second Conflict.)

One side has: elephants, apes, deer, foxes, owls, wolves, lions => the upper continents

The other side has: rhinos, hyenas, ferrets, martens, snakes, pigeons, raccoon dogs, half apes => the lower continents

This (old) story

This was one of the very first stories I wrote for the Saga of Life. Long, long ago.

Because of that, it’s a bit different than newer stories. It’s more … “full”. The chapters vary drastically in length. (Chapter 9 is more than twice as long as an average chapter if I were to write it now.) It has a lot of dialogue. It presents many key ideas that will be explored for the remainder of the entire saga.

In the end, I made many adjustments before the Saga of Life officially began. (Maybe I should’ve completely rewritten the entire story, from scratch. Hindsight is 20/20.)

For instance, this story was far too long at first. Unfortunately I had to remove many time travel jokes and action scenes. (Like one where Didrik shows how well he can fight and more of his Comrade training.)

Not only did the story need shortening, I also thought the time travel should be better explained. Because time travel is confusing. As such, left and right, short sentences were added to repeat or clarify something.

It says a lot that this is the only story (so far) that was edited significantly after its initial publication.

The time traveler is a very important figure in the Saga of Life. Something around which I planned many other characters and events when I first had the idea as a kid. As such, I really wanted her to appear in the first cycle, with a solid introduction that didn’t give away too much.

About the sisters

Originally I wanted to make the sisters a time dancer and place dancer. That second one—at least in Dutch—already had certain connotations in an area not so suitable for children …

Then they became time bender and place bender. But yeah, Avatar (the Last Airbender) exists.

After a brainstorming session, words like “jumper” and “magician” were also rejected. They make the words hard to pronounce and are a bit cliché. So they became timefolder and placefolder. Partly because this (later) provides extra explanation about how they do this exactly.

• Ismaraldah (timefolder): black panda, goddess of Time. Feels very responsible for everything and doesn’t trust others to do things the right way. Sad she always has to say goodbye because no one can truly time travel with her (except her sister).
• Jacintah (placefolder): white panda, goddess of Place. Sees everything more as an adventure, not so serious, quickly makes friends and can take them to other places (albeit with some side effects). Moves in little spurts and wants to move at all times, can’t sit still.

Ismaraldah often makes jokes about sayings that don’t exist yet. (Like “killing two birds with one stone” when birds aren’t around yet.)

Didrik is a Comrade without a King. A terrific fighter, but otherwise very sweet. Speaks quite casually, with many nicknames for people or funny interjections. He is a European badger. He adopts Ismaraldah’s phrase “it would break your brain” and uses it all the time in other stories.

About the ending

Maybe it’s too subtle. I didn’t think so.

The last chapter shows they prevented nothing with all the time traveling. Yes, they prevented the literal battles you see in the story itself. In the eyes of literally all other creatures, those things never happened, and they don’t know any better.

But the Second Conflict still comes. Gunpowder is still invented, which is why Chimp has a rifle. It now even appears sooner. It’s a fixed point, they merely changed how it happens.

The events that led to the Second Conflict, like the revolutions in America (Elwar) and France (Franberri), are also new to Didrik. They only took place because they had changed the timeline.

How time travel works

I debated whether to reveal the “sacrifice” Didrik spoke of in this story already. The story of the time traveler and Didrik is one of the few things planned from the start (5 or so interconnected stories, from beginning to end).

The story, however, was already quite long. And time travel is so complex I need more time to properly explain or set things up.

Below is a short summary of how the Saga of Life approaches Ismaraldah’s powers. (There are many ways to do time travel, some overdone, some not so useful.)

The core idea

It all hinges on one crucial idea.

Whenever Ismaraldah changes something, the entire timeline is rewritten to make the new events possible.

For example, say she returns to five years ago and destroys a random tree. Then the timeline would creatively change to make this event fit.

• Maybe a lumberjack was nearby.
• So the timeline invents a reason to lure him away from his previous path.
• He finds the tree. (Instead of the one he otherwise would have visited.)
• And chops it down.

The event Ismaraldah created now has a logical reason to happen in the current timeline of the world.

In other words, Ismaraldah herself is actually invisible to time: her actions are always explained away by a changed timeline, removing any link to her existence.

Other stories explore, expand and change these rules. (In, hopefully, interesting ways.)

Fixed points

These events have so many reasons for happening, that any timeline will contain them in some form at some point.

You can see it as a current. Time is a river that flows from the top of a mountain to the ground. You can slow down the current, you can try to block it or reroute, but the water will find a way to move downwards and continue flowing.

Certain conflicts are a fixed point. Didrik’s presence in Ismaraldah’s life is a fixed point.

Why?

The original version of the story had basically no rules. I invented whatever was needed for the story, then wrote a big question mark in my notes.

Later versions had solid rules, but they weren’t interesting. Didrik could time travel, but only within the time frame of his life. What use was that? It meant he had a ~50 year window for time travel and that’s it.

It used the common explanation for time travel: whatever happens, happens. Hence the earlier chapters in which Didrik is told he must “be at the clearing to make the meeting with Ismaraldah happen, otherwise paradox” (Which isn’t even a good explanation, as the story also shows.)

This final version actually has something unique, with way more potential for strong stories. Yes, I have to say “magic!” about the shifting timelines. (Because how can a timeline be creative and completely rearrange itself to fit all events?) Otherwise, everything fits neatly and naturally leads to good stories later.