The plot is not as important as the message put across. This book is written with that belief in mind. The descriptions of the certain moments are what define Billy as a human.
Billy slips in and out of time. He knows that he will marry Valencia. He knows that he will be in a plane crash. He knows that "old Edgar Derby" will be shot and he knows about the firebombing of Dresden. As he slips in and out of time he experiences sadness, for he knows that tragedy is coming. He feels helpless because of this knowledge of the future. Billy feels as though merely an "actor" acting out his own life. "Billy closed that one eye, and saw in his memory of the future poor old Edgar Derby in front of a firing squad in Dresden." (112) .
Billy really cannot "slip in and out of time" but in fact, he really is just having flashbacks of life from an old age. What comforts him is that he believes that he could not do anything to help the people that he saw die. He believes that humans were destined to die. As if, that moment was predetermined or "stuck in amber." A moment that was unable to be changed. He believes that what happened in that exact moment will always be there. Billy makes up the Trafamadorians to rationalize his beliefs. Trafamadorians share the same beliefs that Billy has.
If you knew the future, would you do anything about it? Trafamadorians know the future. They know when wars come or when horrible things occur before they happen. However, they choose to look away, look only at the good. They accept all the bad things that happen. When Billy talks to some Trafamadorian tourists during his captivity about the lives of the Trafamadorians, they exchange questions about their lives on their relative planets.
""But you do have a peaceful planet here?" "Today we do. On other days, we have wars as horrible as any you have ever seen or read about. There is not anything we can do about them, so we simply do not look at them.