Erase the Past

Jose Manganes, associate professor at Lima University on social anthropology, spoke to an attentive class of undergraduates,

‘Good afternoon, everyone! Today, I want to pose a question that may seem bold, even a bit extreme: What if you, as budding scientists and thinkers, could invent a time machine with a singular mission—to go back and erase the Nazca lines from history? Now, this mission may sound drastic, even sacrilegious, but there are compelling, and very real, reasons that governments might find such an idea worth pursuing.

So let’s begin with some historical and technological context, and then I’ll explain why I believe you are uniquely positioned to make this journey and undertake this task.

Part 1: The Science of Time Travel and Its Feasibility

Time travel is a concept that has fascinated humankind for centuries, but it’s only with the development of certain theories in physics that it became more than just fiction. Concepts such as Einstein's theory of relativity introduce the idea that spacetime is flexible, able to bend and warp under the influence of mass and energy. Theoretical physicists have built on these foundations, exploring ideas like wormholes and closed time-like curves. While still mostly theoretical, these ideas have opened doors in quantum mechanics and other fields to make time travel at least imaginable within the boundaries of modern science.

But let's imagine that we could overcome the technological barriers. Your generation could be the one to achieve this milestone, not just as a thought experiment, but as something tangible. And that brings us to the "why" of this journey back to the Nazca lines.

Part 2: The Nazca Lines and the Government Interest

The Nazca lines have been a source of fascination and debate for over a century. These vast geoglyphs in Peru, etched into the desert by the ancient Nazca civilization, depict animals, plants, and geometrical shapes visible only from the sky. Many believe they served religious or astronomical purposes, while others speculate they might be markers for water sources or even something related to extraterrestrial communication.

But in recent years, there’s been a shift in how we view these lines. From the perspective of government agencies and geopolitical strategists, these ancient symbols pose a different kind of intrigue. Let's say, hypothetically, that new data indicates these lines are not just cultural relics but perhaps markers of something with a much greater strategic significance. Imagine, for example, that the lines might contain information encoded in ways we don’t yet fully understand—something hidden in plain sight, accessible only to those who understand the historical language of symbolism and pattern recognition.

Governments may not fully disclose their motives, but we can infer that something valuable enough to warrant "erasing history" must have been discovered or deduced from these lines.

Part 3: The Sociological Impact of Time Travel

Now, some of you, especially the sociologists in the room, might be wondering about the ethical implications of erasing something as culturally significant as the Nazca lines. What would it mean to lose a part of our heritage, a piece of the past that connects us to an ancient civilization?

Consider this: certain knowledge has the potential to destabilize modern society. If governments have information that the lines contain something far beyond cultural significance—something that could pose an existential threat—wouldn't it be prudent to prevent that knowledge from reaching the wrong hands? This is where the ethical dilemma intensifies, and where sociology intersects with physics. How much is the preservation of culture worth if it endangers future generations?

Part 4: Your Role as Innovators

You might be wondering why I’m suggesting that you should be the ones to take on this task. Here’s the reason: you represent a generation of scientists who are fearless, open-minded, and driven by a quest for truth. You’re entering a world where technology and information flow at unprecedented rates, where borders between disciplines are dissolving, and where challenges are rarely straightforward.

With your insights and innovations, you could pave the way to unraveling time itself. You could develop technology that isn’t just a spectacle for the future but a tool with real implications. And let’s face it—our governments may need young, courageous thinkers like you to help manage threats and mysteries that older institutions are ill-equipped to handle.

Part 5: The Power of Science and Human Curiosity

I encourage you to approach this challenge with both caution and ambition. Should you ever find yourselves in a lab with access to advanced temporal technology, remember that the implications of your work stretch far beyond yourselves. Erasing the Nazca lines—or preserving them, if that’s the outcome you come to believe in—isn’t just an action. It’s a declaration of humanity’s relationship with its own history and future.

If we build time machines, we do so not only as scientists but as stewards of time itself. Whether to erase the Nazca lines or not might ultimately be a decision that transcends personal or academic interest and touches on the very heart of human responsibility. So, I ask you, are you ready to embark on that journey? Are you ready to make history by changing it?

Thank you, and I look forward to seeing what your future holds.’

Hector Mares and Giselle Prata folded their notebooks and with it glanced at each other with looks of ambition and frail hope. Jose Manganes, a physicist known for his vision as much as his intellect, spoke with such fierce conviction, his words cutting through the air like the keenest of blades. His subject was time itself—a machine that would allow humankind to undo its errors, correct its courses, and perhaps, prevent catastrophe. In Manganes’s voice was not the soft hum of academic speculation, but the sharp ring of purpose, as he declared, “Fate is resourceful, but so are we!”

That line rang in their minds long after the lecture ended. The crowd dispersed, but Hector and Giselle lingered, two strangers drawn together by the electric pull of shared fascination. Giselle, her voice sharp as it was earnest, speculated aloud, “What if we went back to Cuba? Castro and Guevara—could we not persuade them, steer them from revolution?”

Hector's laugh was dry, yet laced with admiration. “Persuade, perhaps—but not alter. Our machines would make us no more than ghosts.”

Together, they envisioned what might come of Manganes’s dream. The time machine, they agreed, would be built to observe rather than interfere. They imagined this machine like a knife-edge, cutting through the moments of history yet leaving no scar, all while the laws of physics held them in check.

And through Hector’s expertise in protective suits and Giselle’s insights into ancient cultures, they developed a deep bond just as the time machine project became a reality, a method for reaching into history’s depths—yet always with hands bound by the rule of observation.

Years passed, but the itch to intervene, to truly grasp fate and mold it, haunted them both. Then came a discovery so bold it seemed almost heretical. Pablo Tonel, a physicist possessed by visions of particles faster than light, declared that he had found a solution to alter the past: a tachyon field. Unlike the familiar Higgs field, this new field would carry time travelers into history as they pleased, granting the power to change events and return to their own timeline with reality reshaped to fit their design.

A decade of relentless work turned this vision into reality. Ten years later, Hector and Giselle stood on the threshold of this newfound power. They knew they might indeed hold the means to grasp fate’s very threads, yet something deeper restrained them, urging caution. As they prepared for the journey, they understood that they were no longer mere observers but actors, responsible for whatever ripple their presence might bring.

One evening, beneath a star-filled sky on the Nazca plain, the pyramid appeared without warning, its surface glinting with a metallic sheen that captured the surrounding ancient geoglyphs in an eerie, reflective glow. The artifact held within it a silent warning, each line and angle a message from the future.

Days later, reports surged in: Mars-bound rockets began malfunctioning, failing as if in answer to some cosmic prohibition. A presence unseen, unknown, compelled space agencies to recall all missions, leaving scientists and astronauts alike to ponder what forces lay at work beyond Earth’s bounds.

Within the pyramid, Hector and Giselle saw the full mystery revealed. The interior walls bore images of the Nazca lines, yet altered, carrying words of warning in an arcane language. Here, in lines and symbols familiar and strange, the Eternals’ message emerged—a prohibition, a call to resist the stars.

Giselle, an anthropologist who knew each line’s meaning as a historian knows their own past, felt a gravity she could not shake. “This is more than a message,” she whispered, her voice tight. “This is a plea to stay.”

Hector’s grip tightened on hers, and in that moment, the world around them faded. Together they stood as if bound by the truths the Eternals had laid before them.

As they left the pyramid, the stars above seemed less a destination, more an unyielding reminder of what humankind must first learn. Only when humanity mastered its own restless spirit could it hope to reach for the stars, a lesson written long ago by a lone shaman in the sands of Nazca—a lesson that still lingered, etched deep in the heart of time.

The night hummed with a low and ominous energy as Hector Mares and Giselle Prata prepared for their journey into time’s distant past. In the dim glow of the tachyon field, their forms shimmered like specters, all the more mysterious in the layered folds of their desert garb. Giselle’s wispy hair clung to her face, half-concealed beneath the hood of her suit, while Hector, the Panama hat perched at a rakish angle, adjusted the dial of the time machine with hands steady as iron. Their mission was clear: to observe the shaman of Nazca and his followers as they etched lines into the desert—symbols that would one day become a beacon across the ages, visible to the Eternals from distant eons.

With a final adjustment, the tachyon field shuddered and swept them into a vortex of time, a pulsing silence enveloping them as the machine slipped through epochs like a blade through silk. When the shuddering ceased, they emerged, cloaked in the fabric of the past, hidden from the very people they had come to witness.

In the distance, a lone figure emerged against the sprawling backdrop of stars—the shaman. He stood tall and severe, wrapped in earth-colored cloth, his form crowned by an elaborate headdress of feathers that seemed to quiver with a life of their own. A handful of devoted followers clustered around him, their eyes alight with devotion, their bodies weary but resolute. They moved in a disciplined manner, wielding tools that seemed primitive, yet precise, as they scraped and swept their way across the hard-packed earth.

Giselle and Hector moved closer, skirting the edges of the vast plain, their footsteps light as shadow, barely stirring the sands. The desert air hung thick with anticipation, a gathering tension that crackled with each sweep of the followers’ hands across the soil. The ancient shaman, his gaze like fire against the night, seemed to guide them with gestures that spoke as loud as any words.

“He’s leading them in ritual, an orchestrated performance of power,” Giselle murmured, her voice just above a whisper, eyes alive with intensity. “Victor Turner would call this communitas—a unity forged in purpose. Through this shared rite, they are making sacred their bond with the land, with each other.”

Hector’s eyes narrowed as he adjusted the cooling system in Giselle’s time suit, watching the intricate dance unfolding under the shaman’s command. “So, it’s more than just art, these lines—more than symbols drawn in the dirt?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on the figures before them. “The lines are maps, pathways laid down for those who wander this arid land, each one a landmark for future travelers and spirits alike. And they’re asking the heavens for rain, marking the ground as a supplicant, a pilgrim in search of mercy.”

The shaman’s followers moved in calculated synchronicity, weaving their bodies like threads into the canvas of the desert. Each scrape of their tools, each drag of their feet against the hard ground, created a pattern both fluid and eternal. Giselle marveled at the simplicity of their movements and the profound meaning they imbued with each step. The shaman watched them, his face a mask of intensity, his eyes gleaming as though he gazed into worlds beyond mortal sight.

And Giselle, studying his face, recognized what Turner had once called liminality—the shaman existed between worlds, straddling the line of the sacred and the profane. His voice, barely audible, rose like smoke against the stars as he spoke in a language old as stone, words whose meanings were lost to time yet somehow resonant with timeless purpose. The followers seemed entranced, suspended in a trance of faith, their actions not merely acts but performances of deep, ritualistic truth, intended for all of time to witness. As she turned on her custom language translator, that would pick up a language never written down, she heard references to pottery and weaving, and the echoes of the mentors who had instructed the shaman in his vast canvas which was above the city of Nazca.

In this manner, they inscribed vast shapes upon the earth—the hummingbird, the spider, the tree. Each line, each curve, was laden with meaning beyond what any single man or woman could know. Hector’s breath caught as he realized these lines were as much for them as for the Eternals—as for anyone in the shaman’s own era. It was a message across the millennia, a declaration that the land was alive, sacred, and a part of an ancient communion with time itself.

“These markings,” Hector murmured, his voice rough with awe, “are like flares in the dark. They show us the path through time, like a signpost from the past to the future. It’s as if they knew someday we’d be here to find them.”

“Yes,” Giselle replied, a spark of understanding igniting in her eyes. “The Eternals could follow these signs like markers across time, tracing our origins back to this moment, to the footsteps of this shaman and his people. They leave these lines as a testament to the journey—to link worlds.”

The shaman, still in his ritual trance, raised his arms to the heavens, his followers mirroring the motion. Silence spread over the desert as the stars shone in only the way the southern hemisphere can. And in that silence, Giselle and Hector saw the past speaking to the future, a bridge between two worlds woven from sweat, faith, and sheer will. They realized the lines weren’t just for humans—they were a message to the universe as much as rockets were to their era, urging respect for the land, a reverence that even the Eternals honored.

The shaman’s final gesture swept across the plain, his voice low, resonant, like thunder rumbling in the bones. His followers raised their hands, palms open, and as they did, a strange sense of unity spread across the plain, binding all within it. In that moment, Giselle and Hector felt themselves pulled into this performance, their hearts quickened with a respect they had never known.

“The Eternals understand what these people knew all along,” Giselle said, her voice fierce and reverent. “The past and the future are bound together by these symbols—each one a covenant, a promise to those who follow.”

Hector felt his heart pounding with the weight of this revelation. “Then we are the witnesses, and perhaps the last in a long line who will see these marks as they were meant to be seen.”

As dawn’s first light bled across the sky, Giselle and Hector withdrew, retreating to the tachyon field as silent and unseen as they had come. The shaman and his followers continued their labor, unaware of the eyes from the future that had honored their ancient rite. And as Giselle and Hector returned to their own time, they knew that they carried with them more than data—they bore the wisdom of a people who had drawn lines in the earth to guide not only themselves but all who would follow in their steps.