# problems of time travel being common and ordinary



## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

I've long thought that when the first time machine gets invented and switched on, somebody from the future will instantly come out of it - travelling as far back in their past as they can.  That person will be regarded as the temporal equivalent of Neil Armstrong.  

If, in the future, time machines are machines in which a person travels through time (to the earlier or later days of that machines existence - think of it like a temporal teleport) then one day such machines will be as common as trains are today, and time travellers can come and go as they please to whenever a time machine exists.  Just like train passengers can go to wherever railways lines have been laid.  Before there were railways lines nobody took trains anywhere, and when they were invented people worried about not being able to survive such a journey.  Nowadays train travel is common and ordinary and worldwide.  Apply the train analogy to time machines.

My question is, in a world where such time travel has become common and ordinary, what are the consequences?  For example, everyone who'll be famous for any reason will be known from their birth right through their life, even before they achieve whatever it is (for a real life example, think of when Prince Charles or Prince William were born).  Criminals would know that they will get away with it, millionaires won't bother working hard to get there (because their names will be in a list of millionaires) and the register of marriages will tell everyone the name of their future spouses.

What else?  What would happen to religions, in a world where the future history books tell you which religions are going to die out and which will become huge?  If an asteroid causes worldwide destruction in the year N, won't everyone time travel away from that year to a future time when the effects of the destruction have faded?  What else?


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## Tecdavid (Mar 19, 2013)

If what your suggesting was put into practice, and that's how time travel played out, I think you would have a _massively_ complicated story on your hands!  If people knew what they were destined to do, thanks to their future selves becoming famous in the past, then their knowledge of their future achievements, or lack thereof, could encourage them to change things, thus changing history. And if they were to do that, then the achievements made famous by their future selves never would have happened, and therefore they _wouldn't_ know about their destiny, wouldn't seek to change it, and...
Well, it loops on like that. Paradoxes would occur very easily. 

However, it all depends on how you perceive time travel. Some theorize that travelling to the past would take you to a _different _time-line, in which any change you make to the past will not affect the future you came from, thus averting a paradox. (You might screw up time as far as this alternate world in concerned, but hey, no paradox!  ) So maybe you could make that work. Still, time travel is considered one of the hardest plot-points to get right. Even masters of sci-fi storytelling can mess it up, so you'd better take great care if you're thinking of giving it a go.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

Yes I'd have a massively complicated story, but it's a future world that could possibly become fact someday, so if I can work out all the problems, or at least identify them, then I'd have something special.

People changing things wouldn't work out, if the history books say so-and-so lives to be a hundred, then no assassination attempt will work (but it will be known about and prevented, of course)

I think the surprises and interesting stuff would be among the obscure things and people who never achieve big things, never get a mention in the history books.  Those people would be the free ones, and the Movers and Shakers would be stuck in their temporal rut.  Their biographies would say everything about their lives, and not reading ones own biography wouldn't change anything, because many of the people one'd meet would have read it.


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## ratsy (Mar 19, 2013)

If time machines became common place like trains, then the world would be in chaos.  There are just too many complications with this.  Any person travelling back to change one thing can change the future for everyone. By this Butteryfly Effect the future would be changing constantly.  Can you imagine sitting at your desk at work and seeing the sky change color or cars disappearing, the news online would constantly change.  Your co-worker could just vanish as you talk about last nights Dancing with the Cavemen episode.

Time travel is just too complicated so there needs to be rules in place.  

On a side note, I always wanted to write a story about a guy who can time travel, but only 1 minute in the past.  How would this affect him, how could he use this for the better of the world.  At least he could take back an embarrassing pick up line at the bar


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

This is exactly why I'm asking for suggestions and opinions - it seems to me that the world would be in chaos (imagine, let's say, that Vatican City gets destroyed by an asteroid in a few hundred years - what would news of that do to Catholicism?)

But I don't know if things would change colour or vanish.  If the sky changes colour in Year N, then it does, and that will always be a fact.

I think we consider it impossible in the same way that heavier-than-air flight used to be thought impossible, or horseless carriages, or instantaneous communication with people in other countries.


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## ratsy (Mar 19, 2013)

OK, that is where it gets confusing. 

eg. I am sitting at my window. The sky is blue.  You travel back in time and destroy the atmosphere because you can.  Are you saying that while I look out the window at that moment, I will just not notice that the sky is no longer blue? 

I understand what you mean by it has always been that way but there has to be a moment of change, because just because one person travels back, doesn't mean all other time lines are not live and moving.

I would think that if time travel were possible then time would not be linear.  Things I have already done could all be altered.  So time is just a crazy incomprehensible 4D mess when you think about it and it hurts my brain.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

and people said similar things about trains & planes & phones before they existed.  It's impossible for us to get our heads around, I know, but if such a machine gets invented and switched on, then continues to work for (let's say) a century, then the day it is switched on is going to be visited by travellers from throughout that century.  And those at the latter end will bring the latest portable time machines with them, in order to share them with the world ( at a price, of course)

When a machine breaks down, it will always have been known that it'd break down, and a new machine will be placed next to it (think of elevators in very tall skyscrapers - each one takes people up & down a certain number of floors but none cover the entire height of the tower)


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## Boneman (Mar 19, 2013)

Time travel is only possible into the future, or a time-traveller from 4500AD (which is when they invent time-travel)  would have been to see us... Does that help?


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## TacticalLoco (Mar 19, 2013)

Well, of course you could have a 'Time Police" that prevents (or attempts to prevent) anyone from mucking about with the time lines. Information about the 'future' would have to be sealed and guarded from those in the 'present'. I can see a number of cool plot possibilities there.

Or you could have a universe where is it simply not possible to alter the past or one's destiny. No matter how a character tried to change things that either have (or are supposed to) happen, things remain the same.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

Boneman said:


> Time travel is only possible into the future, or a time-traveller from 4500AD (which is when they invent time-travel)  would have been to see us... Does that help?


 
You missed my point earlier - if a time travel machine doesn't itself travel anywhere (like a railway line or a road) but instead is a machine in which people may travel to any time during that machine's existence (like a passenger in a car or a train) then time travellers can go anywhen that such machines exist.  The earliest they can travel is the time when the first working time machine is first switched on.


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## ratsy (Mar 19, 2013)

TacticalLoco said:


> Well, of course you could have a 'Time Police" that prevents (or attempts to prevent) anyone from mucking about with the time lines. Information about the 'future' would have to be sealed and guarded from those in the 'present'. I can see a number of cool plot possibilities there.
> 
> Or you could have a universe where is it simply not possible to alter the past or one's destiny. No matter how a character tried to change things that either have (or are supposed to) happen, things remain the same.



Ugh, just had a flashback to "Time Cop" with Van Damme...and Damme that was a bad movie! haha

I like Bonemans comment....but maybe there have been time travelers and we just don't know it.  If they have a time machine they most likely have a cloak of invisibility! 

Have you guys seen the time traveler in the Charlie Chaplin movie?  If not, Google Charlie Chaplin Time Traveler...its worth a watch.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

( I just noticed this thread has eleven posts and eleven views - everyone who looks wants to say something)

(or maybe the counter is broken?)

edit: now it says 61 views, so yes the counter was faulty.


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## ratsy (Mar 19, 2013)

Harpo said:


> You missed my point earlier - if a time travel machine doesn't itself travel anywhere (like a railway line or a road) but instead is a machine in which people may travel to any time during that machine's existence (like a passenger in a car or a train) then time travellers can go anywhen that such machines exist.  The earliest they can travel is the time when the first working time machine is first switched on.



I didnt grab that part either.  Actually that is a cool idea.  Almost like a teleport from Star Trek but a teleport through time instead.  I like it.  Still has all the complications but the premise is sound.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

Sorry I wasn't sufficiently clear at first.  Back to the railway analogy - imagine we all live in a mountainous country with no railway lines, and we can see any railway lines nearby either, but we'd love to not have to clamber up and down the mountains.  Without somebody laying down tracks, no trains can ever visit our country.


As for the premise, it gets around that old "time travel will never be a reality - otherwise we'd see time travellers visiting us" argument.  No time travel until Year N, and then more time travel than anyone could possibly hope for.


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## Boneman (Mar 19, 2013)

Harpo said:


> You missed my point earlier - if a time travel machine doesn't itself travel anywhere (like a railway line or a road) but instead is a machine in which people may travel to any time during that machine's existence (like a passenger in a car or a train) then time travellers can go anywhen that such machines exist. The earliest they can travel is the time when the first working time machine is first switched on.


 

Ah, but surely if they can travel to any time during that machine's existence (I like this idea, btw) then it's only capable of travellling into the future initially, until the 'past' of the machine is available for travellers to go back to, yes? 

Invented time machine 2567AD and in 3567Ad travellers will be able to go back to when it was invented, but no further... Complicated in its simplicity, really.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

Boneman said:


> Ah, but surely if they can travel to any time during that machine's existence (I like this idea, btw) then it's only capable of travellling into the future initially, until the 'past' of the machine is available for travellers to go back to, yes?
> 
> Invented time machine 2567AD and in 3567Ad travellers will be able to go back to when it was invented, but no further... Complicated in its simplicity, really.


 That's what I said at the start - when the time machine is switched on, a traveller from the future will arrive in it.


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## barlennan (Mar 19, 2013)

I think the question depends very strongly upon the viewpoint. If the story never involves the perspective of someone who travels time, then it would be very difficult to work out what has changed as the result of time-travel. It would be a very linear story with lots of comings-and-goings, likeThe Time-Traveller's Wife[/i] with a cast of thousands, each hopper proclaiming themselves the saviour of humanity from some tragedy or another. A historian trying to thread together the course of averted history, musing whether his current timeline would be preserved, might make an interesting short story.


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## Glitch (Mar 19, 2013)

ratsy said:


> On a side note, I always wanted to write a story about a guy who can time travel, but only 1 minute in the past. How would this affect him, how could he use this for the better of the world. At least he could take back an embarrassing pick up line at the bar


 

Have you seen Next with Nicolas Cage?

Harpo, have you read the grandfather paradox? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox

It's an interesting idea you have. Would time travel technology become so wide spread? Wars could be fought to control the technology. Business could expend great amounts of money to keep it to themselves. I like your railway analogy, but I think the dangers of time travel would make it a different problem.

Anyway, to run with your idea of it being widespread. What about a side effect? A dose of radiation each time you travel; only safely allowing a dozen or less journeys?


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## ratsy (Mar 19, 2013)

No i have not seen Next but I assume I would be stealing its premise....and I would have zero time travelling writing skills so it will never happen anyways!


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## steve12553 (Mar 19, 2013)

I would suspect if you built a time portal in 2563, you would then be able to travel only to that portal as long as it existed. Some how the traveler would have to have a way to determine whether or not the portal was empty at the moment he or she was going to travel to so you didn't have a temporal version of the Fly. You would not be able to travel to April 3, 2581 at 6:00 PM GMT because of a power failure caused by Anti-Tempite's bomb. Of Course, then it starts to get complicated.


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## J Riff (Mar 19, 2013)

The answer is - it won't be invented, ever.
So its a puzzle for writers. I watched _Looper_ last nite and it is typical, utter trash. writing-wise.
Ghad its bad... people flippin back and forth thru time like its a walk in the park.
 Try and write one and you will see. My latest has a guy waking up in a primordial jungle. Then he goes back and forth thru time, a few times. Immediately the problems begin - is he wearing clothes when he travels to the ancient past and back? Becos if he is... then what's in his pockets? Shouldn't he be able to etc.etc.etc. Headache-inducing.
 So the trick is in dodging the paradoxes. Hollywood gets around this using visuals and lots of exciting gun battles which tends to make one forget what the original premise was.
 The movies get away with it, but writers shouldn't. It's a minefield, the more you think about it the worse the paradoxes get.


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## Harpo (Mar 19, 2013)

It won't be invented?  How do you know?  Imagine yourself two centuries ago saying that The Internet won't be invented.
And please read my posts in this thread, I've dealt with the "where are they?" argument already.



steve12553 said:


> I would suspect if you built a time portal in 2563, you would then be able to travel only to that portal as long as it existed. Some how the traveler would have to have a way to determine whether or not the portal was empty at the moment he or she was going to travel to so you didn't have a temporal version of the Fly. You would not be able to travel to April 3, 2581 at 6:00 PM GMT because of a power failure caused by Anti-Tempite's bomb. Of Course, then it starts to get complicated.


 
Again, see my earlier posts.


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## Drakai (Mar 19, 2013)

Time travel is a complex thing and it's exhausting to think about it because it almost always creates paradoxes. Travelling through time, changing it and affecting future probably needs some kind of parallel universes or timelines theory to explain it. But if you disregard the paradoxes and the explanation; I think you've got a good idea to start from. When thinking about time travel being a common thing, the first thing comes to my mind is an ever-changing future. Everything always changes and you are aware of it. Your friend with whom you were talking suddenly disappears to be never seen ever again. Or one day, when going to work, you notice the building you were working is now a military camp. Or your wife of twenty years is now your best friend and she is married with someone else. But it has always been like this since your birth and you have to adapt in order to preserve your sanity. Yup, I think this is a fun and surreal start to a story.

But to be honest, I don't believe time travel as it is. I think it is only possible to travel into the future because I believe time to be a linear line. So time travel in my stories are pretty simple and easy to write.


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## Dave (Mar 19, 2013)

Harpo said:


> It won't be invented?  How do you know?  Imagine yourself two centuries ago saying that The Internet won't be invented.
> And please read my posts in this thread, I've dealt with the "where are they?" argument already.


If I have this correct, you say that we see no "time tourists" because the time tracks to those particular events will never ever be built.

Sorry, but have to ask *Why not?* Unless you are making it some kind of physical law then there is considerable profit and a huge commercial incentive to build those particular time tracks rather than any other tracks. Even if they were officially banned, and locked off, with extreme penalties for breaking the law, criminals will still build them because of the demand. It is simple economics. But actually there is more than that since you have the religious aspect. The birth of Jesus Christ, the Crucifixion of Christ, and the Flight of Muhammad - those three events would probably draw 80% of the "time tourists" IMHO, with another 10% wanting to see Dinosaurs. To use your own analogy, very few people are going to want to see the invention of the Internet (or the invention of anything else.) The only future event that might have a greater pull would be our First Contact with the aliens, but that will be shrouded in secrecy and government conspiracy in order to keep the ordinary public away.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

Thanks Dave.  The reason (in my opinion) that we don't see time tourists and never have, is that time travel won't work that way.  If a time machine itself goes nowhere (in the same way that railway lines stay where they are laid) then time travellers merely step into a machine at one point during that machine's existence, and step out of it at another time during its existence.  Changing machines (like changing elevators to go higher up a sky scraper) enables more distant time travelling.  But the earliest possible time (Basement in my elevator analogy) would be the limit for travel into anyone's past.   'Year N' being the year the first machine gets invented, it'll become a very important moment historically.

I'm awake at 5am because I can't sleep for thinking about another possible idea relating to this - something I hadn't thought of before, and wanted to write it here - suppose Year N marks a transition as important as that between the Prehistoric era and the Historic era?  Call it the Post-Historic era, maybe? 
It'd happen that way because (thanks to time travellers from the far-distant future sharing their own time's inventions and discoveries) we would all have teleportation and immortality drugs and easily transmutable objects and stuff that I can't even imagine.  There'd be space colonies throughout the galaxies too, providing the raw materials for all of it.  So every year from Year N onwards would be basically the same, and anyone can travel to any time.  Which then begs the question - why bother noting the passing days & months & years if they're all the same forever?  No noting the passing of time equals no history.  There'd be no wars if the losing side knew in advance it would lose, and no wars equals no armies, no famous generals, no nations at all probably.  Post-Historic.

Or maybe I need a cup of coffee?


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Mar 20, 2013)

No, haven't read the whole thread, but will back track after initial comments.



> My question is, in a world where such time travel has become common and  ordinary, what are the consequences?  For example, everyone who'll be  famous for any reason will be known from their birth right through their  life, even before they achieve whatever it is (for a real life example,  think of when Prince Charles or Prince William were born).  Criminals  would know that they will get away with it, millionaires won't bother  working hard to get there (because their names will be in a list of  millionaires) and the register of marriages will tell everyone the name  of their future spouses.



This is exactly why you see time travel dealt with the way it typically is, meaning it's either restricted to few devices or there's laws against messing up the past.

But what are the consequences? That's easy: the universe wouldn't exist. Really. More after the jump.



> What else?  What would happen to religions, in a world where the future  history books tell you which religions are going to die out and which  will become huge?  If an asteroid causes worldwide destruction in the  year N, won't everyone time travel away from that year to a future time  when the effects of the destruction have faded?  What else?



No, they'd time travel to prevent the asteroid hit. Because it would be easier. And humans are nothing if not lazy.

Over the course of all the galaxies, all the universes, all the dimensions proposed by real physicists, and the vast amount of time between the big bang and the possible heat death of the universe, anything that can or could happen, will. Somewhere, somehow, anything that is physically possible is not only possible, it passes probable, and becomes essentially mandatory. From weight of sheer numbers.

Okay, so therefore, if it were ever possible under any physics paradigm for time travel to exist, it will, and might already. And considering it's time travel, that means if it ever happens in the future, it still exists now as they could travel to now. My head hurts already. But, the point being, if time travel inevitably exists, then also inevitably someone's invented it and used it. In some dimension or pocket universe somewhere someone has gotten the hair-brained idea to go watch the big bang.

But, not only would our one time traveler have done so, just about anyone with access to the device and an ounce of curiosity would as well. Remember, weight of numbers. So you have tens, hundreds, thousands, millions? Billions? of time travelers taking a gander and the pop gun that started the race. Over all of time after the device is invented, all species, all planets with access to it, again, sheer numbers dictates that not only will someone do it, but a massive amount of beings are likely to do so.

Forget the doctor letting Rory's da dangle his feet out of the TARDIS and have a snack, watching the big bang would be like a stadium event. You'd have people hawking tickets and punters queued up round the block... you know what I mean. Now, the presence of the time traveling punters would interact with the bang itself. The energy released would interact with the matter of the devices and travelers themselves...

Which would mess up the distribution of stuff released from the big bang, causing those universes to evolve differently. Or exactly as they "were meant to." Point being, things would get messy. If any of a billions things didn't go just so, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. If you've got millions of punters having a go at the big bang, they're going to mess with the distribution of matter and energy in their universe altering it impossibly.

So... any universe where the physics make it possible for time travel to exist, it inevitably would exist... which would cause a temporal traffic jam just as inevitably thereby mucking about with the early universe which would make that universe go sideways in a hurry. 

Thankfully our universe is here, as far as we can tell, therefore, time travel is impossible with our universe's physics.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

The obvious response to your Big Bang comments is - maybe it was caused by tourists there to watch it happen? 

But in my concept of time travel, nobody would ever be able to travel to a time before the invention of time travel.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Mar 20, 2013)

Harpo said:


> The obvious response to your Big Bang comments is - maybe it was caused by tourists there to watch it happen?
> 
> But in my concept of time travel, nobody would ever be able to travel to a time before the invention of time travel.



Sure. On both counts. And the obvious response it that there's no reason to assume it would work that way if it were invented. In all likelihood it wouldn't work that way. Again, weight of numbers. It's just as likely that time travel exactly fits your model as it would be limited to N -1, or N -2, or N +1, or N +2, on and on to infinity with each direction. Then there's only forward or only backward travel combinations, then there's all the other ways it could be possible. Each one with equal likelihood. So if time travel were invented, not only is it unlikely to fit your model, it's odds against working that way are astronomical. So if you want to limit time travel like this for a story, go for it, but it's just an arbitrary conceit. Any other individual method is just as likely, and there's an unlimited supply of alternate possibilities.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

Assuming there are various possible ways for time travel to exist - my idea of future time travellers arriving when the first time machine gets switched on could just be the first of several possibilities.  Let's call the different methods of Time Travel 'method 1', 'method 2' etc.  So swicthing on the first ever time travel machine is the start of 'method 1'.  But immediately we'll have visitors from the future, who will have knowledge of all the other methods of time travel and bring them along when they come.  But since we're looking around in 2013 and the world isn't filled with future people, none of the various methods will ever involve travelling back to 2013 or earlier.


(Unless it's a 'view only' method,or similar idea)


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Mar 20, 2013)

Again, only if you assume your method is correct, which you have no reason to assume it would be, as it's completely arbitrary. That we cannot see, or do not know of time travelers now isn't support that therefore they don't exist, it's basically the argument from ignorance, a logical fallacy. It's axiomatic to say that the abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

Yes I'm assuming my method is correct, but this is fiction, I can do that.
In fiction we know of plenty of time travellers - there's HG Wells' chap, there's yr man in his TARDIS, there's Bill & Ted, there's etc etc....


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## barlennan (Mar 20, 2013)

The great problem that this time portal idea and _The Time Machine_ manage to avoid, which is never confronted elsewhere, is that the spatial location you appear at is anchored. Why do time-travelers never materialise ten feet above the ground, or upside-down? If you go back in time to the same point in space, the the Earth will be at a different point in it's orbit, the galaxy woud be less expanded, and your corpse will be floating about in outer space.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

In my version, the time machine doesn't travel.  it just exists for a long time.  It could be moved up & down & sideways, of course.


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## barlennan (Mar 20, 2013)

Or, how about this? You can only power up for one jump. When you turn the machine on, the first person to step into it uses up a one-shot, one way journey back to the intial switch-on. The portal can then be powered up again. This means that there can be multiple  portals, which almost all immediately release a one-way traveller. But do avoid the temptation to rip off Heinlein by having one guy appear, only to loop back again at the end, having us wonder where he came from in the first place...


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

I want to focus on the world where time travelling is commonplace, rather than just one traveller and what they get up to.


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## barlennan (Mar 20, 2013)

Well, it could be commonplace, but the mechanism could be simplified, to stop yourself getting in a plot tangle. Remember that you are creating a device to move on a plot that you want to write. As a pure thought experiment alone, you'd need to explore all the ramifications, and you'll tie yourself in knots doing that. With a one way hop, you can contrast the motivations of the portal builders of the past (modern-day geeks want eloi ladies) with the motivations of the jumpers (morlocks want to see metallica).

Robert Silverberg wrote _The Time Hoppers_ about this sort of idea and I thought it was a great idea, woefully under-explored. 

A story is a linear form, no matter how you segment and cross-reference. You can only write one story. The history of the might-have-been is interesting, but eventually you end up with only one narrative. So you have to either have a jumper (Marty McFly) who experiences multiple realities serially, or several whose multiple threads interweave chaotically, or one person who never jumps and wonders what the impacts are and that story is very metaphysical and the plot can't be based on the premise alone.

All of these are hard to write and not much easier to read.


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## Harpo (Mar 20, 2013)

I envisage the arrival of future merchants bringing portable devices (or self-assembly, maybe ) back from the future to earlier times, and distributing them everywhere for whoever can pay the price. of a journey.


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## J Riff (Mar 21, 2013)

The more complex and/or common it is. the worse it gets, if you are trying to write about it,
 Imagine asking some million-year old alien race about time travel... they would look at us like some kind of infantile idjuts.
 Nope. Not happening. Sorry. But, tis fun to write about, if you are very careful that is.
 Think now... reflected light from the surface of the Earth of a million years ago... is still out there, moving away from us. If only we could catch it and at least have a _look_ at the Earth in ancient times! This is, theoretically, possible, but we aren't within a thousand years of being able to do it. Actual time travel, changing events that have already happened? Nah. Next impossible question. Wait till the aliens show up, then you will believe me.


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## hopewrites (Mar 21, 2013)

There will always be skeptics, perhaps some countries will ban it (akin to the countries who ban or chock hold internet within their power) creating a black market time travel where you'd have to say you did your time jumps in another country, or passports would include your when as well as your where of origin.
There could spring up religious fanatics who decry the evils of disturbing the purity of gods time and defiling oneself with the temptation of knowing.
I wouldn't say that millionaire's wouldnt work as hard, if I knew I made a million dollars doing something I'd do it harder faster better than before I knew it would work, perhaps in the hope of making more, perhaps out of extacy in knowing something about it would go right. Food for optimists! " this set back is just a set back. I'm not defeated because my future self says I'll make it. I just have to find out how."

I would be interested in the 'time puritans' like those who chose to live lives in a pre-industrial revolution style nowadays, will their be those who refuse not only to travel themselves, but to accept any technological advance before its time? Would they become a religious sect? What else would they oppose? What would they promote?

Voting campaigns would get interesting in that candidates would base their platforms not on what they would do but what their future selves have done. Opposition would still be naysaying and have to make campaign promises. Some voters would not bother voting because its all decided anyway. Some would vote against the future they know is coming just because they can or in an effort to change it. Some would vote for the future they know is coming just to be right about something or because they believe in it and want to see it happen.

Even if things are set in stone people will try to change them. What you've got a hold of sounds like a modern Greek tragedy. Fate is a set and inescapable thing - so naturally some humans want to escape it.

There would be criminals who still commit their crimes knowing they get caught. Some wouldn't. Massacres might be prevented by knowing in advance they will be attempted, but the courts will have a hayday trying to pass judgment on a future crime. There will be those who demand that because a person can change from one moment to the next his future shouldn't be held against him. Innocent til guilty acts are commented, could easily replace til proven guilty. Time investigators would only need to show up at the scene of the crime and gather evidence (film it happening, get something with DNA samples) to prove guilt so that would be an easy thing to take for granted.
It might be conclusively shown that innocent people held for crimes not yet commented would be X% more likely to commit said crimes, having already done the time for them. Creating an ethical debate on holding people for future crimes as deep and passionate as the modern debate on death sentences.

I've always disagreed with the argument one would notice ones time changing. If my timeline got altered, my current memories would all coincide with the past changes made and I wouldn't know any different. If your coworker disappears right infront of you, your memories of him would be equally gone.

Creating a new discipline for mental health workers. Memories of people that don't belong in this time line. "But we were married I loved her" "well something must have changed that because your life doesn't reflect what you remember."
No one would have to swallow the "I can change" line without prof that the person who can will.


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

That's the sort of reply I was hoping for, something I can get inspired by.  Thanks Hope


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## barlennan (Mar 23, 2013)

hopewrites said:


> I've always disagreed with the argument one would notice ones time changing. If my timeline got altered, my current memories would all coincide with the past changes made and I wouldn't know any different. If your coworker disappears right infront of you, your memories of him would be equally gone.




You're getting into a grandfather paradox territory, here (you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather as a child, because then you will never be born, and there'll be no-one to go back and kill your grandfather).

What if you were the person that altered your past by jumping? Surely that person would need to remember the reality that they left. That is what the archetypal hero of these stories is: Marty McFly must go through time fixing the mistakes he made in 1955 and ensuring a happy future for his family.

What I have been cautioning Harpo against is writing a story based on a time-travel premise, rather than writing characters and conflicts. The story of someone who never jumps and who meets people who claim to have altered history is interesting, a quest for truth, but it's a very dry, philosphical approach. It worked well in _The Time-Travellers Wife_ where there was essentially one time-traveller, but the plot was not the sort of hard SF / serious social SF that Harpo wants to explore.


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

in my version there will be no changed-event paradoxes, because no matter how many times people try to change an event, the final version is the one that'll be remembered, and the other might as well not have happened.


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## Abernovo (Mar 23, 2013)

Harpo said:


> in my version there will be no changed-event paradoxes, because no matter how many times people try to change an event, the final version is the one that'll be remembered, and the other might as well not have happened.


So, perhaps, you could effectively be creating an alternate universe by changing something, but you would never know, because your reality has changed. If you killed your grandfather, you might cease to exist, or you might transform into the grandchild of another grandfather, your grandmother having moved on.

You could even have factions changing something back and forth, not realising that they've done it repeatedly in the past, or something like it.

The branching realities theory. Works for me, Harpo.


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

OK then, it might have to be the branching realities theory.


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## Drakai (Mar 23, 2013)

hopewrites said:


> I've always disagreed with the argument one would notice ones time changing. If my timeline got altered, my current memories would all coincide with the past changes made and I wouldn't know any different. If your coworker disappears right infront of you, your memories of him would be equally gone.



I think that is arguable. What about soul? What if the memories are what makes our soul? Then that would either mean when our memories change we are going to be a totally different person or that even if the memories change, the soul will somehow restore itself to it's former self, reclaiming the lost memories. Your version too could very well be the case but we can speculate as much as we want.


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## TacticalLoco (Mar 23, 2013)

Drakai said:


> I think that is arguable. What about soul? What if the memories are what makes our soul? Then that would either mean when our memories change we are going to be a totally different person or that even if the memories change, the soul will somehow restore itself to it's former self, reclaiming the lost memories. Your version too could very well be the case but we can speculate as much as we want.




Very interesting thread.

1st of all; Harpo forget about all the posts saying time travel in impossible or you're not doing it right. The only important thing is that your story is consistent. One might as well argue unicorns are not real and dragons could never fly. Good luck.

2nd of all; Drakai introducing a soul would be adding the supernatural to the story. That is fine, but it moves the work from scifi into fantasy. Interesting concept though.

3rd of all; All this talk of other universes got me wondering what could happen if people from different timelines started mixing together. Yikes!


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

TacticalLoco said:


> 3rd of all; All this talk of other universes got me wondering what could happen if people from different timelines started mixing together. Yikes!


 
I'm thinking of a spin-off story in which a wanted supercriminal hides in a year when the world is enveloped in a huge dust cloud in space - everyone would avoid that year, of course, and so it'd be a great hiding place.  He'd just keep revisiting the start of the dust year when he gets to the end of it, and there would be many of him (each aged a little more or less than the next)


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## Drakai (Mar 23, 2013)

TacticalLoco said:


> 2nd of all; Drakai introducing a soul would be adding the supernatural to the story. That is fine, but it moves the work from scifi into fantasy. Interesting concept though.



Sci-fi and fantasy seem distant but I think they are pretty similar and as an enthusiast of both I find it difficult not to mix them.


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## AJB (Mar 23, 2013)

To get sciency...

Time is a vastly complicated and mind bending concept in itself! Especially when it has been scientifically proven to be relative to each person/obect i.e. time speeding up when travelling (the faster you go the faster time goes) and also goes slower when in a stronger gravity field. Also the idea that space and time are part of the same substance _spacetime_ and that mass bends spacetime and that this bend is essentially gravity.

The consequences of some of this is fascinating. Just say an alien billions and billions of lightyears away is exactly stationary and so are we, you could say that we are both experiencing time in the same NOW. But if this alien moves in one direction , the aliens NOW-ness turns equivelent to our time (or NOW-ness) many years into our future, but if it then the alien moves in the opposite direction, the alien NOW-ness is equivelent to many years in the past to our NOW-ness. This large fluctuation only becomes so dramatic because of the VAST distance between us though. These relative time of now-ness is so minute to say us on Earth, we don't really notice it. 

Also, there is suggested thoughts that time moving in a linear fashion is perhaps just our _perception_ of time moving. Scientists believe that the past, present and future happens all at the same time simultaneously. This, Harpo, may go along with your idea of the taintrack analogy (which I like btw, as well as the significant point in history when the first timestation (if you will) is created): Travelling from one point in _spacetime_ to another point in _spacetime_....

Hope some of these facts help!


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

Yes thanks AJB!  Terrific


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## AJB (Mar 23, 2013)

btw, when I said "Scientists believe that the past, present and future happens all at the same time simultaneously" I think is just a science theory, not fact.... I think....


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## AJB (Mar 23, 2013)

No probs Harpo, I'm glad you were able to understand my explanation. 

Time is definitely one of those subjects that can have you thinking and thinking more about it when you start to unravel it. 

Good luck with the story!


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## Harpo (Mar 23, 2013)

It might be a series of Branching Realities stories now.  Like interconnected short stories that don't have to fit into one big story but are part of the same conceptual universes.


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## Darth Angelus (Mar 23, 2013)

Interesting topic.

I am in the very sceptical camp, when it comes to (backward*) time travel, which I think would entail far too many paradoxes for a reality to fulfill the coherence it needs to work. I have yet to see a time travel story where I have not needed to suspend disbelief at all, which tells me a great deal about the (paradoxical) nature of time travel.
Most of these problem have been pointed out already. One point bothers me in particular, though, and it is ignored in movie narratives such as _Terminator_ and _The Looper_ what makes the "first"** interference from the future to any one point in time final. If we look at _Terminator_, and one terminator (T1) is sent back to time X from time Y to kill John Connor (JC), and it succeeds to destroy the resistance's terminator (T2) and JC, why can't the resistance send back another terminator (T3), to time X, or even time Y, to destroy T1 before it succeeds
 Ok, one might argue (rightly or wrongly) that the future resistance would not know about JC's importance (or likely, would not exist) if JC is taken out at an earlier point, but the point stand for narratives following this structure. If two future parties have opposing interests in the outcome of one particular event, they could just send more and more agents/forces back in time to point X. What would close point X in time off from further future interference, so there could be a final outcome?

Confusing? Probably, yes, quite a bit. However, this confusing state of matters does very much seem to fit into the convoluted mess created by backward time travel.

All in all, I agree with Fishbowl Helmet on time travel, save for the part about big bang, which doesn't seem to fit into what I have learned about the latter subject. It is more than just a big explosion, whose radius travellers could be outside. Space itself is expanding since big bang, rather than galaxies moving outwards in space from some center point. If we travelled back in time to the very start (and, for that matter, that were even possible), we would find ourselves within that singularity (scale factor = 0, and space itself does not yet exist), which would certainly not be able to contain living beings in their current form... Let us just say it would be a bit less attractive than curiosity would suggest.
Other than that, good posts, Fishbowl.


As for the specific rule of time travel in the OP, that it is "time train" rather than "time automobile" (or something even more flexible, like "time airplane"), it is an a decent idea, although this restriction was not made clear from the start. I agree that a time traveller would indeed probably come out of such a machine as it is activated for the first time in history.
While a completely arbitrary restriction, the writer may indeed make such a rule. However, it doesn't really solve any paradoxes.

By the way, I like _Dr. Who_'s way of making paradoxes created by time travel harmful to the structural integrity of the universe. That very much seems to be the way it should be, in my mind.
Like J Riff, I am less impressed by _Looper_, writing-wise. Sure, the actors are quite good, but the story leaves a lot to be desired, and in particular the way it deals with this subject


By the way, sorry if I sound like just another negative voice. I do not mean to discourage, but this is a difficult plot point to get right.


* Time travel only forward obviously creates no paradoxes, as it doesn't create duplications of any point in time.

** First and last may be a bit hard to define in a universe where backward time travel is possible, as time is no longer a straight line. I refer to the first in sequence, here. The second time someone travels back to point X would be in from the "alternative universe" created by the first backwards time travel (to point X) but may actually be a shorter backwards leap in linear time (as in first being from 2465 to 2432 and second being from 2447 to 2432 in the changed timeline).


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## Glitch (Mar 23, 2013)

I think time travel is an interesting theme. I have several ideas involving the subject in my notebook. Like any theme, there are good and bad stories. It depends how well the author can pull it off.

Most stories I've read/seen which use time travel, only really use it as the inciting incident. If you intend to have multiple time jumps throughout the story, like The Time Traveler's Wife for example. I think you need to keep good notes on what's going on. It can be easy to confuse yourself and the reader.

Harpo. I wish you luck with this endeavour; and look forward to seeing it in the critiques section


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## psychotick (Mar 24, 2013)

Hi,

My first thought is that there are always ways around whatever restrictions you place on any law. And having a fixed first point at which people can return to is one such law. I could get around it without even having to break it.

Consider, you can only go back to points (stations I suppose) where time receivers are in existence. And the first one is at say 2013. So can't go back any further? Wrong. It's easy. Assume that the universe is filled with intelligent races. Assume that space travel is easy. And then assume that since the technology is easy enough to develop, they built it too. So what's to stop someone from finding another race that developed time receivers a million, a billion or more years ago, going through their portal, and then buying a spaceship. After that to save themselves the hassle, they build a new one on Earth a billion years before 2013. Easy.

Having said that I don't find it a convincing argument that something that is possible in a limited sense is never going to be able to be developed to something that is not limited. My view is that if time travel is possible in any limited way, then it's fully possible when the technology is developed.

It's like the old beliefs. Mankind can't fly. Then we invented balloons. Then it became mankind can't have heavier than air flight. Then we did. Then it was that we can't fly faster than the speed of sound. We did. After that we can't fly into space. Damn that one's gone too. To the moon? Well been there done that. Next it'll be Mars, the rest of the solar system, and then the stars. They'll all be impossible for one reason or another, until we do them. 

So if you allow for backwards time travel to be possiblewithin whatever limited capacity you want to imagine, my view is that sooner or later that limit will be removed.

Next your paradoxes. Granddad dies early, butterflies get stomped on in the Jurrasic. What are the chances that someone back there, and consider that the number of time travellers wandering around back then will be potentially billions or trillions or even more, won't stuff something up? Zero. It's Murphy's Law. (Though actually I'm a believer in Brady's Law - Murphy was an optomist!)

So your guy sitting in his office won't witness the sky change colour. He might however notice himself and the entire world wink out of existence as intelligent life never arose on Earth. (Some say it still hasn't!)

And then there's the physical / temporal hotspots problem. Everybody wants to go to see the crucifiction or the big bang right. So when that everybody can include every intelligent person from every race across all of the rest of time (another fourteen billion years?) how many people does that mean landing in one particular time and place? And if they brought their time ships, well yes, that could equate to the genesis of the Big Bang. I've written that story.

However, as the others have said, it's a story. Don't get hung up on the paradoxes and technology. Just work on the characters and scenarios. Thethings the technology allows.

Cheers, Greg.


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## barlennan (Mar 24, 2013)

Metaphysics of the affair aside, the social impact of a great number of time travellers appearing would most likely be a cultural flattening as everyone of any interest or distinction is erased from history. How many people would need to acquire the ability to time travel backwards before abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther king Jr or Barack Obama were wiped off the face of US history? Or, for that matter, Nixon, Reagan, or Grandma Bush?

Even artists and scientists would fear to take credit for their work, should they fear that some unforseen notoriety or ramifications would, in the future make them the targets of future time-assassins. And forget any political groups emerging that might seek to regulate this new industry or interrupt the timeline: they would not exist if there were an infinity of dedicated time-hoppers gunning for them.

And as for hiding in a dust cloud, no time-criminal would need to discover a series of inhospitable times to evade his pursuers, only to go to a time with very little history of any note. Also, the idea of lying low and biding one's time in a time travel setting... Not really necessary.


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## J Riff (Mar 25, 2013)

NO. There are ten ways that time can be messed with, but actual physical time travel will never, ever happen. So there.
 Geez...dint you read EC comics? By the fifties they ran through every possible twist.
You can leave Earth for a week, and a year will have passed when you return. Is that time travel? You can experience actual stored memories from thousands of years ago. Time travel? Technically, yes, physically, no.
 You can't travel through a concept, which is all time is.


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## Harpo (Mar 25, 2013)

J Riff said:


> You can't travel through a concept


*Harpo travels through the Chrons to this thread, and replies*

I'm travelling through time right now - Fell asleep last night, got up this morning, and later I'll travel through lunchtime


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## Darth Angelus (Mar 25, 2013)

Harpo said:


> *Harpo travels through the Chrons to this thread, and replies*
> 
> I'm travelling through time right now - Fell asleep last night, got up this morning, and later I'll travel through lunchtime


I am fairly sure that is not what he means, though.

While time is sometimes described as a fourth dimension of space, and it certainly has an intricate relationship with the three physical dimensions of space, the fact remains that it is little more than a concept for us to separate events. Whether or not the past and the future even exist is a philosophial discussion mostly, and depending on viewpoint, either yes or no could be correct. The point is that time is not tangible in the physical world (even to the extent of this forum, which does exist on a physical server somewhere). There is a level of abstraction needed to accept the past and the future as real.

Can you travel through an abstract concept for the separation of events?


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## Harpo (Mar 25, 2013)

I accept the past as real, based on knowing that the post you wrote was written before the post I am currently typing.  And similarly I accept that after I have posted this reply it will appear in this topic (in the future, as I type) 
So yes the past and the future are real 

Can you travel through an abstract concept? In fiction you can do anything, as we know from such examples as The HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy, in which we can dine at the end of the universe if we've done six impossible things before breakfast


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## Darth Angelus (Mar 25, 2013)

Harpo said:


> I accept the past as real, based on knowing that the post you wrote was written before the post I am currently typing.  And similarly I accept that after I have posted this reply it will appear in this topic (in the future, as I type)
> So yes the past and the future are real


Yeah, I accept the past and the future as real, too, for normal intents and purposes. However, it is an abstract, because linking to your example, your post does not exist as you type it. Neither the past nor the future IS. Just the present.
You can argue semantics all day, but the fact remains that if you take away abstractions that we use to understand the world around us, some things will just not be there.



Harpo said:


> Can you travel through an abstract concept? In fiction you can do anything, as we know from such examples as The HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy, in which we can dine at the end of the universe if we've done six impossible things before breakfast


In fiction, yes, of course. The writer has to deal with some issues and conflicts this may create, though.


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## Harpo (Mar 25, 2013)

And that's why short stories become long stories, which become longer stories


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## psychotick (Mar 26, 2013)

Hi,

Just to add to the abstract idea of time. There are two competing theories of time - i.e. what time is. 

The first is the one we know, the A series of time, in which time passes. In this model time passes, the past is gone and therefore is no longer anything save an abstract concept, and the future does not yet exist. People who accept this view are often known as presentists, because in their understand there is really only the present.

The B series of time however takes the opposite view. Instead of time moving, we move through time. In this model the past exists in a very non abstract way as does the future, and the difference is that we are like readers of a book, reading only a fraction of a page at any one time while all other pages concurrently exist. Stalwarts of this view are known as Eternalists.

These two views have profound implications for time travel. For a presentist time travel is not possible because among other things it would lead to all sorts of paradoxes. For eternalist there are no such paradoxes, though time travel may still be impossible.

To explain, for an eternalist if you go back to the past and change it, however you want to, it's like going back to an earlier page of a book and rewriting it. Since the book is already written, all previous and future pages in black and white, changing what happens on one page will have no effect on what is written on any other page. So if I go back and kill grampa I will still exist with my happy memories of grampa. The only grampa that's dead is the one that was dead on the pages I went back to and killed him on. After that the old bugger was fine again.

Cheers, Greg.


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## J Riff (Mar 26, 2013)

Which is why it's so dang much fun to write about. I just read one whre a guy and his Dad see an alien ship land. A monster comes out and they kill it. The alien ship is capable of interstellar travel, so the son trains for 5 years, then flies out to Alpha Centauri and lands on a planet where time runs backwards. (! The planet spins, uh, backwards, too...) 
 The son gets horribly ill on the planet and it takes him five years to fix the ship.
He returns to Earth and gets out of the ship, but he is now a hideous monster from his illness. He sees himself and his Dad, and they kill him.
So who built the ship?
Thats a 50s comic book story, but the same paradox applies every time, so good luck writing around it.


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## Dave (Jun 2, 2013)

Jacob Von Hogflume 1864-1909


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