If its possible and you had access to the Time Machine what would you use it for assuming all things are equal. The acculmination of wealth? Power? Would you bring modern weapons back and time and conquer an Empire? Or like me would you just travel back in time for quiet observation of dead civilizations, to reclaim lost knowledge? Sure some wealth being made would be okay if it paid for the Expensives.
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
Personally, I wouldn't go into the past, since I'd be afraid that even my presence there would change the present and eliminate me in some way. I'd rather go to the future and see how things turn out. Probably even beyond my own lifetime, just so that way I don't know too much about my own future.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Ah but thats why I said "all things being equal" meaning that if you could do it in such a way that mathamatically you couldn't change your personal future.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Do you mean expenses?
I would be a historian, like you, Blayne. Talking to people, observing .
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
Honestly? I think I would attempt to prove Christianity wrong.
Not sure how I would do this. Perhaps document that Mary did, in fact, have sex nine months before Jesus was born. Or perhaps document that Christ's followers never saw any resurrection. Or perhaps record Jesus' sermons which contradict the New Testament (perhaps statements Jesus made regarding his own divinity). All of the above, probably.
Of course, the joke's on me if I go back and witness the things in the New Testament exactly as it is claimed to have happened. But that wouldn't be a bad thing, since I would then have the evidence needed to become a Christian myself, and would have the teachings directly from Christ's mouth.
Posted by xtownaga (Member # 7187) on :
I'd go the historical route. See Jesus, find out how the ancient egyptians built the pyramids. Maybe have a nice long chat with Budda. Go see the plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11 just to be absolutly sure. And I'd videotape it all. I might head into the future too, eventually, if only to trade my ancient historical artifacts for some cool gadgets. The problem would be though that, when you travel to the past, you'd be seeing what actaully happened, when you travel to the future, you'd see what might happen.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
*puts on reading glasses*
*sipps tea*
*ponders quantum mechanics*
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Rather than an actual time machine, I'd settle for the technology from The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
I think I'd go to the time of Moses and see if everything in the Torah actually happened. All of the miracles and everything. And then I'd pick up a few artifacts just so I could be a millionaire in present time .
And for those who want to see Jesus, haven't you seen the Family Guy movie? Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Sure some wealth being made would be okay if it paid for the Expensives.
I like that. I just need enough money to cover my expensives. Because, as we all know, once the expensives are taken care of, the inexpensives take care of themselves.
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
I would travel back and meet all the greatest military minds of history (not to mention the great conqueres). I would have in depth discussions with Sun Tzu, I would down ale with Gengis Khan, sip wine with Alexander the great, sip tea with the first emperor of china, argue with Atilla the Hun, and other great men.
I'm not sure wether or not I would use their knowledge to conquer the world or save it... I think I would try to save it though. After all I think I'm a good person.
p.s. Oh and don't make fun of Gengis, he still united dozens of tribes into a coherent government.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
How are you going to manage to get close enough to them that they'll want to talk/drink beer/sip tea with you? Don'tcha figure they (or more likely their guards) will kill you first? You won't be dressed right, you won't be the right ethnicity, and you won't speak the right language.
In other words, even if time travel were possible, I wouldn't be too worried about you coming back and conquering the world. Or, you know, coming back.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: Honestly? I think I would attempt to prove Christianity wrong.
Not sure how I would do this. Perhaps document that Mary did, in fact, have sex nine months before Jesus was born. Or perhaps document that Christ's followers never saw any resurrection. Or perhaps record Jesus' sermons which contradict the New Testament (perhaps statements Jesus made regarding his own divinity). All of the above, probably.
Go ahead. As long as the "love thy neighbor" stuff stays in, the rest won't matter a bit to me.
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
Come on, you don't think I wouldn't bring back a couple of guns and armor so that I could impress them enough to speak with them. Or I could just give them valuables.
And what would be the point of having a time machine at all if you could only understand the historical figures who spoke english?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
How many shots do you think you could get off before you are crushed by the sheer numbers of the Mongol horde, or the endless Imperial army? Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
Come on, they would think I was a god. And why are you being so serious? Wouldn't you want to talk to some dangerous person?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
They would be much, much more likely to think you were a demon than a god.
I don't think I would try to talk to anyone, honestly. I would mostly observe quietly and try to stay inconspicuous. The past is a dangerous place.
Posted by Tante Shvester (Member # 8202) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: The past is a dangerous place.
True. A lot of people from there landed up dead.
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
Okay so I'd be seen as a demon, even more reason for them to talk to me.
But why not learn as much as you can from the greatest minds and/or strategests of their times?
You can only learn so much from observation.
EDIT: Maybe I could just point you out from your hiding place, make them think your a foreign spy, THEN I would make them think that I was a powerful demon (one whom they could form an alliance with).
Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :
The Vulcan Science Directorate has conc...
Sorry.
I'd go hear stories wherever I could. I'd be the random face in the crowd who never shows up again.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Remeber, 500 Conqueistadors conquered a multimillion people civilization because they had tech to our perspective was only 1-2 notches above theirs.
In all actuality that would be fixed; say if this was an organized effort by a the ministry of Time Travel and its multiethnical you'ld have Chinese going to China, Italians to Acient Rome, French to the Napoleanic Wars, Nordic Aryans to the Third Reich etc etc. Jews to ancieant Israel.
But then again if we're advanced enough for time travel don't you think we'ld have universal translaters? We could also simulate what they were wearing back then rather easily consider our various historical movies.
But then again how much could Mandarin change in 500 years? We still have people who speak Latin or Aremaic or Hebrew, their accent may be different but words can be understood.
The Problem is that present day circumstances place an empthasis on equality, so if we sent equal gender teams (say 1 male and one female) won't it pose a problem soemtimes in certain societies? Oh the details, they could concievably pose as man and wife I geuss. But often woman working in an advanced scientific fields blah. I'm confusing myself now.
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Advent, Your ambition to become one of the great military minds makes me nervous when taken with the population reduction sentiments your mentioned in the abortion thread Posted by Rico (Member # 7533) on :
I'd travel back in time and get myself a pet Raptor which I would then tame so I could ride it, like a horse.
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
I don't plan on killing people, although the birth restriction laws don't sound so bad.
I'm kidding, I would never do that. But I am afraid that such mesures may be neccesary in the future. Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
Nobody thinks that they would stop the assasination of Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, John Lennon, the Holocaust, etc? I expected somebody to say that.
Posted by Anti-Chris (Member # 4452) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: How are you going to manage to get close enough to them that they'll want to talk/drink beer/sip tea with you? Don'tcha figure they (or more likely their guards) will kill you first? You won't be dressed right, you won't be the right ethnicity, and you won't speak the right language.
In other words, even if time travel were possible, I wouldn't be too worried about you coming back and conquering the world. Or, you know, coming back.
I've seen plenty of movies to know that if you carry twinkies through time, no one will attempt to kill you.
Honestly, I've thought about time travel enough to know not to try to alter history. If you go back to prevent the JFK assassination, you end up traveling four more years in the future to convince him to kill himself from a grassy knoll. The best thing to do in time travel is observe. Also, tell your dad to invest in Microsoft, but not to say anything to you until 1 day after you leave the present to go to the past. It's the only way.
Oh, and if you go back to prevent the MLK/JFK/Lennon assasinations, the challenger explosion never happens and pot is legalized.
Posted by GaalDornick (Member # 8880) on :
"the challenger explosion never happens and pot is legalized."
Score!!!
Are you saying that if you're going to go back in time to change things, you should change those? Or those would change as a result of preventing those assasinations?
Posted by Anti-Chris (Member # 4452) on :
Well, it depends. I mean, do you even want to do that, or is it just going to be easier to collect 3 different Mona Lisa's? Cause it's pretty hard to find patches to fix Space Time holes. If you go back in time and prevent those assasinations, then those things happen, not vice versa.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I would avoid tampering with the space time continuim UNLESS as I said you could change things at will because for whatever reason has no effect on YOUR timeline, alternate timelines sort of thing. Alot of theorizing involved here. I planned to write a whole book series on this but neevr got around to it.
Posted by Anti-Chris (Member # 4452) on :
Oh, so you're referring to checker board time travel. Cool, I can dig that.
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
Well, probably about half the time the event that you'd change in the past would result in you never existing, so that you couldn't have gone back in time to change whatever it was in the first place.
And then the universe would implode. Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
I want to visit alternate timelines, so I can see how my life could have turned out if some of my choices had turned out diferently.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
yeah but what happens if you come back and accidentily see yourself because you missed your universe by an almost negligible difference?
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
Thats why I would be invisible.
Hey, if we can have time travel, then I can have an invisiblity thingy. Posted by Geekazoid99 (Member # 8254) on :
i would find out where moses was buried solve all the problems of the world and take pictures of the gardens of babylon
Then i would stop my friend from taking it to the future to find out how to make a babymogifier
DON'T ASK
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Time: The Final Frontier
Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
If I had a time machine, I would go to the future so I can find out who will be my husband and start looking for him. True love is taking its time in getting to me.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Maybe that whats happens you go to the future to find your mate and come back to the present and marry him thus completing destiny. Somethings are meant to be simply because you altered it, like in Chrono Trigger.
Posted by Evie3217 (Member # 5426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Maybe that whats happens you go to the future to find your mate and come back to the present and marry him thus completing destiny. Somethings are meant to be simply because you altered it, like in Chrono Trigger.
Like in Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox's parents meet him in the past and decide to name their kid after him, thus completing the destiny.
But I think AoD has a good idea. Finding true love right now wouldn't be such a bad thing. Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
What AoD, I'm not good enough for you? Posted by Amilia (Member # 8912) on :
Am reminded of Black Adder: Back and Forth Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'd go back in time and steal the library at Pergamum the day before the first time the library at Alexandria was destroyed.
Security would have been lower in Pergamum.
Heck, maybe I'll steal the library at Alexandria too. Either way, both libraries were destroyed in Egypt, who'd miss them?
Mostly though, I'd go back and find as many writings from Carthage as I can.
Posted by Celaeno (Member # 8562) on :
I'd like to have a conversation with Socrates. I think that would make me happy.
Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
I'd check out if the Atlantis legend was true or not. And the rest of old stories, like King Arthur and the rest
(if this post shows twice as did all my latest posts, I'm sorry. Something must be wrong with my computer)
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
quote:I'd check out if the Atlantis legend was true or not. And the rest of old stories, like King Arthur and the rest
They're true.
There. Ya don't need a time travel machine after all. Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
Wow, thanks, didn't know it was as easy as that!
Could you give me any more details? The newest version has it that Atlantis was in South America, contrary to the usual East Atlantic Version. I'd be much obliged for clearing it up. Yrs, sincerely Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
I can't tell you that. It's classified. But when my tell-all book is published, I'll let you buy a copy. Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
I would travel back to different epochs and forcibly abduct various great personages, who I would then exploit to ensure I passed my history presentation.
And I would say "Whoa" while doing it.
--ApostleRadio
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.
Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
Oh, great quidscribis, hail to thee, I'll buy all the copies to make you disgustingly rich and to be the only one who knows your secrets!
prolixshore: don't be too cruel, spare them the 'whoa' part of abduction Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Everyone will fear the arrival of prolixshore. His coming will only bring tidings of "whoa".
Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
He'll be The Knight Who Says 'Whoa'
('No, no, I won't say anything!' 'Whoa! Whoa!' 'Oh, please, stop, I can't bear it!' 'Whoa!' 'All right, I'll tell everything!')
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
quote:Oh, great quidscribis, hail to thee, I'll buy all the copies to make you disgustingly rich and to be the only one who knows your secrets!
Cool. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I'd go back in time and steal the library at Pergamum....Heck, maybe I'll steal the library at Alexandria too. Either way, both libraries were destroyed in Egypt, who'd miss them?
Wait--the library at Pergamum was destroyed in Egypt? How'd that happen?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
actually if you went back in time to take the library you thus are the one responsible for taking it originally dont ya think? Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
Now that is a trippy thought. Does that mean that whatever we do in the past was preordained? If so then my choice to meet the great conquerers of history may have resulted in the fact that they were so succesful....
It's my fault that they did so well! What has my future self done!
Maybe I should destroy myself now so that I don't get to go back, but if I do that then who knows how much worse I could make the world.
Now this is a delemma.......
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Unless of course you go back and cant do what you set up to do, because it was preordained that you failed. Or... MIB agents stopped you.
Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
They couldn't travel back in time.
Man this reminds me of Sphere....
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Indeed, being present at that crucifixion and taking video footage to prove that there damn well wasn't a resurrection, that would be cool. Though I suppose people would only say I'd faked it.
Posted by Anti-Chris (Member # 4452) on :
You say that as if you know for sure. I respect your opinion not to believe in God, but don't act like the answer you choose is the obvious true answer.
Posted by Rabid Newz (Member # 7704) on :
Rabid, try carrying an umbrella if you're going to rain on threads. Yeah, there have been multiple threads, but so what? This thread, IMO, is different enough to enjoy it, regardless of previous discussions.
Posted by Rabid Newz (Member # 7704) on :
You say that assuming that I don't carry around an umbrella already. Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
You'll notice he didn't say where he carries it.
...and that he walks funny.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote: Indeed, being present at that crucifixion and taking video footage to prove that there damn well wasn't a resurrection, that would be cool. Though I suppose people would only say I'd faked it.
Honestly, KoM, do you really not understand that, at least to some of us, it wouldn't matter ? I've said it several times - at least once on this thread.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Well according to Star Trek, it doesn't matter if its true or not for as long as the message is understood.
But aside from that thats probly one time period I would avoid just to avoid the consequences, however I would ask him on his stance of Same Sex Marriage and show that to the Bible Thumpers ah ha!
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Indeed, being present at that crucifixion and taking video footage to prove that there damn well wasn't a resurrection, that would be cool. Though I suppose people would only say I'd faked it.
Well, that depends on who it is you're trying to prove it to. If you wanted to risk time paradoxes and the possibility of altering much of history, you could just use it to prevent early Christianity from even starting. maybe. hmmm, maybe it would have started either way.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Actuallyif the Romans exiled Joshua to say Brittain Idontthink it would've ever gotten off the ground.
Posted by timothytheenchanter (Member # 7041) on :
i know someone else would do this, but i'd go back to dallas texas in november of 1963, to get a good curry?
dang i'm hungry. maybe a curry, and a lager.
seriously, this topic, has been mildly explored in the book enchantment, and more heavily explored in pastwatch.
I'd be more interested in knowing what happened in some of the less colorful times in history, i'd probably get a kick out of just talking to people who knew my ancestors back 1000 years ago, find out who your history was.
wealth taken from the past would seem a bit like stealing to me. but the ability to know people from different cultures at different times in history would be fascinating. i'd probably be viewed as an idiot by medievel europe for not knowing how to do basic chores in the area. but i'd love to know if society has really changed that much in 1000 years,
history has changed vastly in the last 150 years, with revisionists trying to make history fit their perspective. the original story would fascinate me.
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