Time Travel and Identity in Alternate Purpose

A rescue plan with a fatal obstacle

In Christopher Coates’s Alternate Purpose, a pandemic has devastated the world. Two scientists propose traveling into the past to stop the accident that released the pathogen. Their intended intervention is clear, but the journey itself kills anyone who attempts it.

Their response is to create someone able to survive crossing timelines. That decision gives the time-travel premise a second focus: the person carrying out the rescue is also the answer to a technical problem. The mission depends on a particular traveler rather than on simply sending any willing volunteer.

Devin’s mission is also personal

Devin Baker takes on the task of changing the future. Alongside the demands of the mission, he must confront a past he is not prepared to face. His suitability for the journey does not mean he is ready for everything that comes with it.

Devin's assignment asks him to contribute to a plan intended to help others while carrying personal questions of his own. The mission gives him an outward purpose, but it does not remove the significance of those private concerns. His effort has to accommodate both the work and the person undertaking it.

Choosing a mission-centered story

Alternate Purpose suits readers who enjoy a high-stakes intervention complicated by the traveler’s own history. Its pandemic and survival mechanism belong to a fictional setup; the interest lies in the mission and Devin’s response, rather than in an asserted scientific solution.