See, I think that it has the potential to be simplified and used against us routinely.
All that is needed is a solid point A, and a definite goal at Z. As each new point in between is met,
the project is manipulated again to form a suitable outcome with Z in mind.
You guys are looking at it with too much complexity, simplify it to a bare bones how could I use this
to get what I want without people seeing Z coming.
With calculated moves a predetermined outcome could be achieved through each step, but there will always be variables that would need to be
addressed and manipulated along the way.
How could the theory have been used in the past and what current events could it be a part of?
Well, only just within the last year did they finally prove that a Field does exist that Higgs predicted in some very complex math.
It is a type of matrix algebra, and though I have a bit of the garden variety calculus, this all seemed so goofy to me. In fact when I reviewed it 2 years ago, I said WhA??? How does this possible predict anything???
It wasn't Higgs that solved it. He predicted that it could be solved and he is still alive and it was. A true wonder.
So, if they have done more than "Men who Stare at Goats" (did you see that movie?) by definition we would not know.
They may have separated the timelines to win the Cold War and that butterfly sneeze strengthened Jihad as a backlash.
I've read literally I am sure, a metric ton, of Si-fi. I probably still own a few hundred pounds.
This subject was covered perhaps as time travel. DNA manipulation, not covered. Although Quantum science was know in the Golden age of Si-fi, it seemed to have no practical application, so, not covered. Alternate universes are barely beginning to be touched on.
Benford, Greg Bear, the greats of high energy Physics si-fi, seem a little stymied right now.
We are getting to the point in quantum science that not only anything can be anything, but, can be anywhere, any time.
That is some boring si-fi, because it is actually now Magic.
So, yes, if even a smattering of technique exists to identify and cause a reason for something to happen or not in Iran, without any risk and seems like actual magic, you know they will. If it is sufficiently advanced tech, the elected leaders have a strict duty not to tell. If it seems like magic we are too superstitious to know. Simple as that.
You and I will be fine, but look at the idiots that would howl about us "fucking with the timelines." How could they manage to explain, we would all be dead, if they didn't? Or woops we are already dead being inside the black hole event horizon that swallowed the Solar System is 1215 AD.
What the leaders will/could/should do with something like this, doesn't matter, does it? They cannot tell us. We can't handle it. We riot if there is no toilet paper.
