- Sep 28, 2001
- 8,464
- 155
- 106
Back in 2167, when they finally found a way to build a time machine, the scientific community, the entire world really, was very excited. Time Travel was hyped up as the best thing ever, like that it would be the best way to learn about history or simply as a new form of entertainment.
However, with all the hype about time travel and then how easy it really was to build a "time machine", scientists and everyone really just didn't think over things. It was a little too late tho since this new multi-million dollar industry was blooming in full force and everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative pie. All the major retailers started to carry time machines and the ads for them were all over VR.
The thing that people did NOT consider was that time travel really totally sucked.
Joe got his time machine right the day when they came out. Like so many, he lined up at the local store at 4:00am in the morning. He made it home in time, exhausted and said to himself he wants to sleep over it first before trying the machine out. He wanted to make the first trip really special and didn't want to rush anything.
When he woke up later that day, he got his coffee and started to read the manual. The machine was really effing easy to use, not much different as to what you know from movies etc. Basically, there was a dial where you entered a desired time where you want to travel to and then a button "Start" and that would take care of everything. Easy as pie, really.
Joe plugged the machine in. He figured he wanted to go back in time first since he'd always been interested in history and besides, things were always better in the past anyway. For his trip, he set the dial 30 years back to a time from where he had particular good memories from, basically just as a test before he would travel further. He planned to see all kinds of things, from how they built the Pyramids in Egypt, visiting ancient Rome and other cool things, basically the entire history book up and down.
So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start"...
What happened is that the machine did indeed work but the great miscalculation there was what would actually happen, especially if someone goes "back in time" The instant he pressed the button, the machine ran about a split second until Joe was back right there where he was about to press the button. So he once again found himself about to press the button to start the machine, pressed it, the machine started, and the entire thing repeats itself and this for a very long time, forever actually. And "forever" is really an effing long time, it is even longer than 800 billion trillion years multiplied with 9000. Joe is now stuck in a darn loop where his entire existence is the nano second between where he pressed the button and when the machine kicked in to send him back to this very moment.
What followed was a gigantic lawsuit by the families of thousands of people who, like Joe, got the machine and are now stuck in this loop for all eternity.
And this is the reason that we here in the past have never seen one single traveler from the future, besides that the odds that someone would at some point in the future use one and visit us are actually very big!
Because time travel (at least traveling back in time) totally sucks!
** Notes: The interesting aspect here, isn't it that even if time travel WOULD be possible (and there are indeed speculations it would be, eg. when a space ship that traverses through a black hole etc. would EXCEED light speed so to that time "flows backwards"), how would someone prevent this from happening?
So yes, maybe we figure at some point out how to exceed light speed, or bend gravity or whatever, time starts to "flow backwards", but it would flow back right up to the moment before the ship reaches the critical speed, again trapping the ship in an endless, never ending loop. A time machine would have to "protect" the one who uses it from the altered time, but how should that look in practice? So, to the other well-known paradoxes of time travel (like your nasty grandmother who'd like to kill you or vice versa) comes the paradox that a time machine may well work, but time travel still won't. I think people would just "disappear" for an outside observer, since for an observer time would continue as normal, with the time traveler stuck in this moment. Unpleasant, to say the least...
** More notes: There would be some potential for a nice short story. For example, a spin on the story could be that "the government" very well would knows that time travel "back in time" doesn't work. They would promote the machines, nevertheless, but it is a giant scam which is essentially nothing but a new, cheap and convenient form of corporate punishment.
(Mind you that the time traveler "stuck" in the moment would not even know this, he would simply relive this moment indefinitely and not even realize that he is "stuck".)
"The government" or whoever would use the machines to get rid of criminals and whatever "undesirables" by luring them with exciting travels etc...and they would simply "pop out" of existence. No requirement for prisons etc..
However, with all the hype about time travel and then how easy it really was to build a "time machine", scientists and everyone really just didn't think over things. It was a little too late tho since this new multi-million dollar industry was blooming in full force and everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative pie. All the major retailers started to carry time machines and the ads for them were all over VR.
The thing that people did NOT consider was that time travel really totally sucked.
Joe got his time machine right the day when they came out. Like so many, he lined up at the local store at 4:00am in the morning. He made it home in time, exhausted and said to himself he wants to sleep over it first before trying the machine out. He wanted to make the first trip really special and didn't want to rush anything.
When he woke up later that day, he got his coffee and started to read the manual. The machine was really effing easy to use, not much different as to what you know from movies etc. Basically, there was a dial where you entered a desired time where you want to travel to and then a button "Start" and that would take care of everything. Easy as pie, really.
Joe plugged the machine in. He figured he wanted to go back in time first since he'd always been interested in history and besides, things were always better in the past anyway. For his trip, he set the dial 30 years back to a time from where he had particular good memories from, basically just as a test before he would travel further. He planned to see all kinds of things, from how they built the Pyramids in Egypt, visiting ancient Rome and other cool things, basically the entire history book up and down.
So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start"...
What happened is that the machine did indeed work but the great miscalculation there was what would actually happen, especially if someone goes "back in time" The instant he pressed the button, the machine ran about a split second until Joe was back right there where he was about to press the button. So he once again found himself about to press the button to start the machine, pressed it, the machine started, and the entire thing repeats itself and this for a very long time, forever actually. And "forever" is really an effing long time, it is even longer than 800 billion trillion years multiplied with 9000. Joe is now stuck in a darn loop where his entire existence is the nano second between where he pressed the button and when the machine kicked in to send him back to this very moment.
What followed was a gigantic lawsuit by the families of thousands of people who, like Joe, got the machine and are now stuck in this loop for all eternity.
And this is the reason that we here in the past have never seen one single traveler from the future, besides that the odds that someone would at some point in the future use one and visit us are actually very big!
Because time travel (at least traveling back in time) totally sucks!
** Notes: The interesting aspect here, isn't it that even if time travel WOULD be possible (and there are indeed speculations it would be, eg. when a space ship that traverses through a black hole etc. would EXCEED light speed so to that time "flows backwards"), how would someone prevent this from happening?
So yes, maybe we figure at some point out how to exceed light speed, or bend gravity or whatever, time starts to "flow backwards", but it would flow back right up to the moment before the ship reaches the critical speed, again trapping the ship in an endless, never ending loop. A time machine would have to "protect" the one who uses it from the altered time, but how should that look in practice? So, to the other well-known paradoxes of time travel (like your nasty grandmother who'd like to kill you or vice versa) comes the paradox that a time machine may well work, but time travel still won't. I think people would just "disappear" for an outside observer, since for an observer time would continue as normal, with the time traveler stuck in this moment. Unpleasant, to say the least...
** More notes: There would be some potential for a nice short story. For example, a spin on the story could be that "the government" very well would knows that time travel "back in time" doesn't work. They would promote the machines, nevertheless, but it is a giant scam which is essentially nothing but a new, cheap and convenient form of corporate punishment.
(Mind you that the time traveler "stuck" in the moment would not even know this, he would simply relive this moment indefinitely and not even realize that he is "stuck".)
"The government" or whoever would use the machines to get rid of criminals and whatever "undesirables" by luring them with exciting travels etc...and they would simply "pop out" of existence. No requirement for prisons etc..
Last edited: