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Nothing to say, really. Just that every time I see the travel advice thread, my mind keeps seeing "time travel" in there. So I thought I'd open that up for discussion.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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If your trip will be spanning eons, don't start from a mountaintop, or you'll be in for a nasty fall when you get there. Always begin big leaps whilst resting firmly on continental shield rock, Nova Scotia, for instance.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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1. Give you're future parents some investing and parenting tips.
2. Deliver the complete works of Shakespeare to Shakespeare before he writes them. That way we can all wonder: "Who really wrote them if he never did?"
3. Go back and become the premier inventor of the day, invent the lightbulb pre Thomas Edison. The assembly line pre Henry Ford. The elevator Pre Samual Otis.
4. Go stand in the copse of trees and see if there really is a kennedy conspiracy.
5. Get help on your history homework.
6. Sign the Declaration of Independence.
7. Buy not yet antiques, then go and have a moment of glory on antiques roadshow.
8. Shoot Mrs. O'leary's cow.
9. Give Hitler art lessons. (Just think: If he'd had enough talent to make it as an artist, world war two could have been avoided.)
10. Leave obscure prophecies, then come back and make them come true. E.G. "Someday, a man will walk into this town wearing a kilt and a raincoat, he will hop on one foot." Then, go back to the future and enter the town hopping on one foot while wearing a raincoat and kilt.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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And if you discover a slightly curved, yellow fruit the size of a carrot, introduce it to the past. Remember to name it "banana" after the genetic engineer, Anna Bannon, who sequenced it.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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When in German airport, be prepared to be searched, and to show your pasport to six diferent people, even if you are just changing flights on your way from Athens to Chicago.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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If you meet your future or past self, make sure you kill them as to avoid any possible confusion.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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And if you don't meet 'em, try to kill your ancestors. Or if you head to the future, provoke your descendants into killing you.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I can understand how you could kill your future self and still survive, but if you killed your past self wouldn't you cease to be and therefore couldn't kill your past self so then you do survive and then you can kill your past self and then (continue on into infinity).
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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The best advice I have for time travelers is this:
1) You can not change the past.
2) You can, however, effect the present.
Example:
If you travel back in time and give your father stock advice, it would cause him to become rich, thereby eliminating your cause of time traveling.
HOWEVER, if you go back in time, tell your father some stock advice, but tell him to live his life normally as if he didn't invest up until the day after you leave, never hinting to you about it, it will work. So long as everthing happens after you return from time traveling, things work out pretty smoothly. You get home, next day, your dad cashes in, and you guys are rich. Simple.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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If you ever lose your keys, go back in time and steal them from yourself before you lose them.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Well, if you subcribe to the theory OSC presents in Pastwatch, by travelling to the past we are eliminating this future; therefore, we may do absolutely anything.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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But by eliminating this future, aren't you eliminating yourself (and thus how would you have gone back in the past to eliminate this future in the first place)?
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Which is why if you time travel, you must make sure that you exist outside of the time continuum. The problem, however, is that when you return, there are going to be two of you, thus upsetting the balance and causing the destruction of the universe. It's just best to make sure you don't mess up the past.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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1) Do not destroy the space time continuum. It is fragile, held together mostly by duct tape and prechewed wads of bubbiliscous bubble gum.
2) Do not us any Star Trek franchised time travel services. The number 1 rule for successful time travel is consistant knowledge of the rules governing time itself. Since those rules are never the same in any episode, and may drastically change in the middle of the episode, odds of both you and the time continum survive a Trek Time Travel Tour are 50%.
3) If traveling by TARDIS, do not travel with a Time Lord named "The Doctor". Nearly 60% of those traveling with him end up dead, married and living in another dime period, or stranded in some parellel finite universe.
4) If traveling by TARDIS, do not travel with a Time Lord named "The Master". Nearly 90% of those traveling with him end up dead, on purpose.
5) Do not travel with any franchise of the Heinlein travel agency. While they have a remarkable survival rate, of 92%--of those that survive 98% end up in incestous relationships (as do 48% of those who die).
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Don't be suprised if you leave immigration sprouting an impressive white beard, but 3 months earlier than you entered the queue.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Just on Saturday, my son and brother in law were discussing travelling back in time. My son thought that the farther back he went, the greater would be his advantage, since he would benefit from his advanced knowledge of modern ideas and technology.
I disagreed. The skill set that we have as modern folk is so different from what is necessary even 100 years ago that we would be at a decided disadvantage. I don't know my way around a horse, I require modern plumbing, stoves, and refrigeration in order to cook; I don't sew.
Maybe I could work as a nurse, but nursing has changed a lot over the years, and I would need retraining in doing things the old fashioned way.
My son thought that he would be like a Super Human if he could travel back 2000 years.
2000 years ago, in New Jersey, no one spoke English, and I doubt that the Leni Lenape Indians would be that worshipful of a stranger who arrived, unable to communicate with anyone, and who can't do the most basic tasks -- like get food, light a fire, walk around without getting hopelessly lost...
So, if I were going to travel back in time, I'd have to seriously learn some survival skills before I left.
I travel to the future all the time though. Every day, I go another day into the future.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by pfresh85: I can understand how you could kill your future self and still survive, but if you killed your past self wouldn't you cease to be and therefore couldn't kill your past self so then you do survive and then you can kill your past self and then (continue on into infinity).
There's a Galloway Gallegher story about a guy who reached into next week and killed himself. I think it was "The Time Locker".
And if you killed your past self, you'd probably take your own place.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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If H.G. Wells shows up with something that looks a bit like a sleigh, run. If some guy named Tempus shows up, don't bother. It's already too late . . .
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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