Timeless: What's Rittenhouse?
Feb. 27th, 2024 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThe streaming TV series Timeless (2016-2018) open with a simple premise. A brilliant inventor has secretly invented a time machine. But then a terrorist steals it and uses it to go back in time to muck with key historical events. A small team of heroes have to jump in the other time machine— an earlier prototype the inventor built— to chase after the terrorist and prevent him from changing history in ways that could upend the modern world. What if Nazi Germany triumphed in WWII? What if the US fell apart after the Civil War?
As with any good story, we readers/watchers soon learn there's more to it than that.
In the first episode the villain of the story has a chance moment alone with the protagonist. Rather than fight her he challenges her, "Ask them about Rittenhouse." She gets home and asks the government agent leading the task force. The agent says she's never heard of Rittenhouse. But the seed of suspicious is planted— both with the protagonist and with us. There's a deeper story here.
Over the next several episodes we learn that Rittenhouse is the name of some conspiracy, like the Illuminati or the Freemasons. It's a shadowy organization of powerful people with influence in government and industry. They're secretly pulling strings. In fact they funded the creation of the time machines— so they could travel to the past and change things to enhance their power. But what are their goals?
What are their goals? is a legit question, because you wonder how bad this group really is. Do they want wealth? Do they want power? What's their vision for how to use that wealth and power? I mean, plenty of wealthy and powerful people want to amass more wealth and power. How is this any worse?
At this point the series reminded me of various table top games about conspiracies and/or time travel. For example, there's the Steve Jackson Games classic Illuminati and the card game Chrononauts. In these games the players represent rival conspiracies. Each has its own victory conditions it's trying to achieve. Some want to amass fabulous wealth. Some want to control the levers of power. Some want to... destroy the world as we know it.
Is Rittenhouse the proverbial space cockroaches, happy with nuclear annihilation of the earth as an outcome? Presumably not; members of the Rittenhouse conspiracy are portrayed as human. But the writers don't give us much other than assuming because it's a conspiracy it's got to be bad. I mean, they could portray Rittenhouse as, say, a Nazi type organization. But they don't. Yeah, they're a bit sexist and racist. But frankly less so in this 2016 streaming series than mainstream Republican politicians in real-world 2024.
As with any good story, we readers/watchers soon learn there's more to it than that.
In the first episode the villain of the story has a chance moment alone with the protagonist. Rather than fight her he challenges her, "Ask them about Rittenhouse." She gets home and asks the government agent leading the task force. The agent says she's never heard of Rittenhouse. But the seed of suspicious is planted— both with the protagonist and with us. There's a deeper story here.
Over the next several episodes we learn that Rittenhouse is the name of some conspiracy, like the Illuminati or the Freemasons. It's a shadowy organization of powerful people with influence in government and industry. They're secretly pulling strings. In fact they funded the creation of the time machines— so they could travel to the past and change things to enhance their power. But what are their goals?
What are their goals? is a legit question, because you wonder how bad this group really is. Do they want wealth? Do they want power? What's their vision for how to use that wealth and power? I mean, plenty of wealthy and powerful people want to amass more wealth and power. How is this any worse?
At this point the series reminded me of various table top games about conspiracies and/or time travel. For example, there's the Steve Jackson Games classic Illuminati and the card game Chrononauts. In these games the players represent rival conspiracies. Each has its own victory conditions it's trying to achieve. Some want to amass fabulous wealth. Some want to control the levers of power. Some want to... destroy the world as we know it.
Is Rittenhouse the proverbial space cockroaches, happy with nuclear annihilation of the earth as an outcome? Presumably not; members of the Rittenhouse conspiracy are portrayed as human. But the writers don't give us much other than assuming because it's a conspiracy it's got to be bad. I mean, they could portray Rittenhouse as, say, a Nazi type organization. But they don't. Yeah, they're a bit sexist and racist. But frankly less so in this 2016 streaming series than mainstream Republican politicians in real-world 2024.
