Fiction in progress: Alt.History

[Please read NDE first]

We are familiar with temporal inertia, which is basically the same as the familiar inertia associated with mass in space. Since mass equals energy equals information, and space and time have become roughly one thing since Einstein came around, we know that we a)  can travel through time, provided that b) we don't mess things up too far. Good.

Now on with the storyline. Something went horribly wrong. And when I say wrong, I mean a serious major mother-of-all-fuck-ups in which almost all humankind dies horribly and slowly and/or the world becomes a very nasty place to live. Things have to be put right, but in the past rather than in the present. Luckily one time machine (see NDE) did survive, but there's only energy left for two interventions.

We also learn that, while similar, the timeline of this world isn't exactly the same as the one we live in. The slowly revealed big difference  being that christianity, judaism (and islam) never caught on. Never in fact even happened.

But they will happen this time, because wise men in our alternate timeline decide that an economic cause is to be blamed for the current situation. That economic cause must be cured radically.

After studying history, our wise men decide that only two insertions need to be carried out. The first one will insert Moses into Egypt. He will lead the jews out of Egypt and start a religion, for it is calculated that this will restore the world economy. Regrettably a very rigid legal system must be enforced to ensure success. This sounds like a nice solution, but back in the future, it soon becomes clear that around the year 0 (CE) the romans will undo the effect of the insertion, while the same time the jews will happily undo their religion by interpreting the aforementioned legal system even more rigidly.

Calculations prove that this is counterproductive to the plan. So a new plan is drawn, this time involving Jesus being inserted into Israel. He saves the day loosening the rules, with christianity as a side effect, and leaves the place using some nifty 2300 century techniques, baffling the locals.

The second insertion got us back on the right path, but temporal inertia has been violated on a major scale. To prevent a cosmic breakdown of spacetime (and to enable one more essential insertion) our wise men first need to clean up the mess they created, so they plant a third guy, Adolf. He is tasked with getting rid of all the jews in an organized manner, so they can harvest the information. But that doesn't work out as planned (as we are well aware). He did however collect a lot of information, so a final insertion can be made, which will bring X. to the start of the twentyfirst century to do Y. Now things can start getting really interesting.