posted
Alright as a medium to explain some of the events in my alternative history stories I need help formulating a scientifically plausible sounding way of time traveling.
The way I wrote it (without much thinking) is that I have a space station that can travel through time AND use time dilation effects say that the progress of time around them is much faster to their frame of reference if they want to.
So sometimes they travel forwards in time and skip large sections of history, other times they can speed up time to oversea events when they have "agents" on the ground.
Now my problem is if they have a time dilation device while travel forwards in time at all if they can just wait it out? I need help coming up with a response.
My possible solution is: 1- they only use the time dilation effects while waiting to be able to jump forward in time.
2- They can only effect and change the course of events at certain points in history using my stories version of psycohistory except applied to changing and not just predicting history so why bother wait it out and just skip to the next adjustable point of the time line.
Another reason for using time dilation that even with the advent of radio and radar they can remain undetectable by human means.
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quote:Originally posted by Achilles: What you ask for is not. There is no "scientifically plausible" time travel.
Face it. You've got fantasy. What's wrong with just having an alternative history?
There is "scientifically plausible" time travel, the only problem there having now is trying think of how to amass enough negative matter(or is it anti-matter?) to keep a worm hole open. The other big problem seems to be that you can only travel back as far as your time machine was made, while forwards can go on forever.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
me and King of Men play this game and write back stories for it, I won the last epic campaign so in our new round of games his backstory is that the evil norweigians went back in time to try to allow Norway to conquer the world. So I countered.
Anyways, would you deny that back to the Future, 2 episiodes of babylon 5, and several episodes of stargate, and the host of other science fiction stories are Science Fiction? I know that the difference in Asimov's words between good science fiction and bad science fiction is trying to use proper science even if unproven science is better then using no science at all.
The point I'm trying to make is something that in the context of Science Fiction sounds plausible even if later proven to be incorrect.
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posted
Nah. The only plausible solution that I've heard of intimated that if it was ever used, it would destroy the universe.
Which is a no-go for me. I consider time-travel stories to be fantasy. I like them, and used to write them myself.
But I also consider much of what passes as Science Fiction today to be Fantasy in disguise.
And there's nothing wrong with that. Just come up with a device that has realistic seeming limitations and somehow explain the paradox problems. As long as you are internally consistant, I see no problems at all.
Posts: 496 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
While I'd agree that the idea of time travel is definitely a no-no with our current scientific understanding, it's also true that most of the tropes of the science-fiction genre fall into this category. FTL would be a strong example. Good science fiction isn't characterized by the absence of these tropes but in the manner of their application. The deeper you go into the science behind, especially with a lay person's understanding of the issues involved, the worse it's going to come off.
A basic description and a few hand waves (paradox absorbing crumple zones?) would be the best way to go. Furthermore, a sci-fi story that has these tropes as the central focus of the narrative often come off as amateurish. It's a rookie mistake to emphasize the lasers and the FTL drive and the probulator. Good sci-fi focuses on characters, which is what makes OSC such a genius. If you're worried about writing a good story, then keep the time machine in the background and try asking, "how so I make a a compelling protagonist."
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
SciFi is basically all alternative history.
If you're writing soft SciFi (and I deeply hope you are), just pick one of the classic ways of dealing with Time Travel, assign some arbitrary rules to it, and then never question it for a second.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
As i was taught and have confirmed in my mind, you can travel back in time, but only to the earliest point a time machine was active.
Which in a literary focus would work very well with Aliens or extremely A.I. named pluto or some nonsence like that.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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quote:If you could only go back to a point in time where the time machine existed, then the machine isn't very useful.
That's not necessarily true. There are a lot of times I've wished I could have the last ten minutes back to do over.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Blayne, why not follow my example of hand-waving a Quantum Device? I never bothered with the details except to assert by author fiat that I could send agents back to appear at 25-year intervals, because that's all that's relevant to the story. Just have as many agents appear, at proper time intervals, as you feel you need. Done.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
The problem is that I wrote my story without thinking and now I have a slight inconsistency:
Why would my time travelers need to use time travel (to the future) at all when they also have time dilation technology? I am trying to resolve the need to use both story wise.
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10 minutes is enough to make a lot of money. You could trade penny stocks, bet on a horse race, basically anything where you can place down a wager and have the results come out within ten minutes.
Alternately, you could exist in Galaxy Quest.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Can I ask why it matters which method they use, Blayne? What if all their methods of traveling into the future are a form of time dilation?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
the problem is I already wrote them as using BOTH, I am trying to figure out how to explain later why they need/can use both.
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Bradley why not just say that time dilation alone takes to long so they also have instatanious time travel?
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
Though the movie was lame, I like Crichton's idea in the novel Timeline. Infinite numbers of universes, and a hole opens up to one just like ours but it is still the 1500s.
Then there are the books Timescape and Thrice Upon A Time where messages are sent back, rather than people.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Well according to my physics teacher, since both an entry and exit wormhole are needed for time travel you can only go as far as the original time machine. Although if you had say a worm hole that was recorded in 1500b.c. you could hypothetically go back to that point, make a time machine, and then be able to travel from any time between.
That said, finding accuratly a worm hole that long ago with exact cordinance would be nearly impossible.
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Unless a certain Norweigian agent went back in time to that point! Thanks KoM
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posted
You need a device powered by balonium, which can be made to do whatever you want. Just make the rules consistent.
(Actually, why *not* just wait it out? Are you doing backward time travel too? If so, you can have one mechanism for both -- just set the transdimensionalization circuits to a different polarity with a coherent graviton pulse. Or something like that.)
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Elmer's Glue: If you could only go back to a point in time where the time machine existed, then the machine isn't very useful.
Not true. I suggest you watch the movie Primer. (And then read the wiki on it and watch it again.)
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