ARC Riders

Like Poul Anderson's Time Patrol, the ARC Riders are an elite time traveling force, totally dedicated to preserving history as it is, preventing (or reversing) any attempt by "Revisionist" time-travelers to change it, and severely punishing any such Revisionists which they catch. ("ARC" stands for "Anti-Revision Command"). ARC Riders was followed by a sequel, The Fourth Rome, in 1996.

The protagonist ARC Riders return from a routine mission to their 23rd Century base, to find that somebody had interfered with history. Their home base - and the entire world - are dominated by highly belligerent Orientals. They barely manage to escape, and head back to the 20th Century to locate and reverse the interference, and restore history to what it should have been.

They discover that the change of history was due to the misguided efforts of a 23rd Century American nationalist. By his time, the United States had diminished to a backward, second-rate country with no influence on the global level. Seeking the reasons for the American decline, he came to the conclusion that the turning point was the Americans' failure to launch a ground invasion of North Vietnam in 1969, and that such an invasion would have enabled the US to win the Vietnam War and retain its status as the dominant world power. Obtaining a time machine he proceeds to go back to 1968, engineer a coup d'etat and have the cabal of American generals duly launch the invasion; there was no election in 1968 or any time later, with President Lyndon Johnson retained by the generals as a figurehead with no real power.

However, the results were far from what the would-be savior from the future expected. When the ARC Riders emerge in a changed 1991 they find the Vietnam War still going on, further than ever from resolution. Though the whole of North Vietnam was long since occupied by American troops, the war continues unabated in central China. After decades of harsh military rule and all civil rights stamped out, the US is on the verge of collapse and a nuclear civil war. President Johnson is still kept alive by constant medical attention, with no real power and little knowledge of the acts perpetrated by generals and secret policemen in his name.

The ARC Riders discover the interloper from the future responsible for all this, commanding a motley force of half-criminal anti-Communist militia in occupied North Vietnam - a scene reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". Having long since come to realize the folly of what he had done, he is happy to help the agents reverse it and restore the original timeline - even though as a "Revisionist" he can expect a harsh punishment.