Time Travel discussion
Time Travel TV Shows
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Timeless
I enjoyed it, but had a lot of questions. Just the normal for any time travel story. :)But I guess I don't see the sense in trying to stop someone from changing something in history. It won't change the timeline that already exists. It can't. Paradox. :)
I did and I liked it a lot. What I like especially was that the script writers seems to want to show the consequences, both intended and unintended, of any time travel to the past and its utterly unpredictable effects. That in my mind is much more realistic than all those old time travel series and films about people going to the past, with little or no consequences to history. While not well known, I thought as well that the actors did their roles well. This series has a huge potential in my mind, if the script writers keep a tight ship.
Randy wrote: "I enjoyed it, but had a lot of questions. Just the normal for any time travel story. :)
But I guess I don't see the sense in trying to stop someone from changing something in history. It won't cha..."
I kind of disagree about that. What the writers of the show seem to want to do is follow the principle known as 'the butterfly effect', basically that any manipulation of the past, including the presence of something or someone not meant originally to be there at a certain time and place, will have unpredictable consequences. According to that principle, the future will actually rewrite itself as disturbances or anomalies happen in the past. What you would like to see, if I am getting you right, is a world with multiple parallel timelines, one new timeline popping up each time a major manipulation takes place in history.
But I guess I don't see the sense in trying to stop someone from changing something in history. It won't cha..."
I kind of disagree about that. What the writers of the show seem to want to do is follow the principle known as 'the butterfly effect', basically that any manipulation of the past, including the presence of something or someone not meant originally to be there at a certain time and place, will have unpredictable consequences. According to that principle, the future will actually rewrite itself as disturbances or anomalies happen in the past. What you would like to see, if I am getting you right, is a world with multiple parallel timelines, one new timeline popping up each time a major manipulation takes place in history.
Mod
There is a great blog called Faces of The Hindenburg that explores the event from each person's position.
Mod
I thought so too. I guess that they needed the dramatic effect for the episode.
Michel wrote: "According to that principle, the future will actually rewrite itself as disturbances or anomalies happen in the past."That doesn't work though. What happened to Eve-2? The Eve that has memories of living with a mother that isn't sick? Or didn't have sister?
Suppose Eve had ceased to exist in timeline-2, instead of her sister? What would be the result? Would she suddenly disappear? Or would she return and have all the scientists say, "What happened to time traveler xxxx, and who is this woman you returned with?"
As I see it, they traveled back in time from timeline-1, changes occurred, and then they traveled to the future on timeline-2.
This is one of the things I hated about the movie TimeCop. When Van Damme returns to the future, he finds his wife and daughter still alive. And that's supposed to be a happy ending? No! The wife has now lost a husband she lived with for 15 years. And the daughter has a doppelganger returning, one that has absolutely no memories of any of their 15 years together. A virtual stranger, who just happens to look like her father. Whose personality is different because of 15 years of different experiences.
In other words, Eve-1 and Eve-2.
Here's a short rendition of the multiple-worlds hypothesis, which looks to be at work in this series:I go back in time and change something. How after the change would I in the future know to go back in time in the first place to change the event? Well ... we could say PL1 (from World 1) goes back in time, makes something change, which creates World 2, where the event didn't take place. In that World 2, PL 2 doesn't know about the event. But since it was PL 1 who went back in time, he or she will remember the event that was changed, even after PL 1 returns to the future and World 2.
Here's a big problem I see -- suppose Eve-2 had never gone back in time, and Eve-1 returns to the future where Eve-2 exists. Is that going to cause the catastrophic event they were concerned about? Or are Eve-1 and Eve-2 completely different entities?As it is, it seems that anyone that goes back in time can NEVER return to their original timeline. Just by the very act of going back, they HAVE changed something, even if it's extremely minor.
It's kind of like the TV show Sliders. If there are billions of dimensions to move between, how could you ever be sure you're returning to your own dimension? There may be millions that are so close, you'd never even notice the differences.
Another issue -- they said they couldn't go back to the Hindenberg disaster again, because they might meet themselves and cause a temporal disaster of some kind. So why not just send back another team, with three different people?Who decides whether timeline-1 is better than timeline-2?
And how do we know which will be better 500 years from now? Or a thousand years from now?
Mod
I still think that the 'butterfly' principle used in TIMELESS is the most realistic one to use for that show. As for Eve 1, she was protected from the modifications the team caused to history because she was in the past when they rippled upwards towards the future and was not in the path of those ripples.
I would suggest that the viewers simply enjoy the show instead of splitting their heads (and hairs) about speculations concerning timelines. For me, the message of the show is simple and clear: for every intervention/disturbance in the past you will get an impact/modifications on the future beyond that date.
I would suggest that the viewers simply enjoy the show instead of splitting their heads (and hairs) about speculations concerning timelines. For me, the message of the show is simple and clear: for every intervention/disturbance in the past you will get an impact/modifications on the future beyond that date.
Michel wrote: "For me, the message of the show is simple and clear: for every intervention/disturbance in the past you will get an impact/modifications on the future beyond that date."For me, every trip to the past means you return to a different timeline in the future. It's nearly impossible not to have changed the timeline.
I always like the write-up someone did proving time travel isn't possible.
Because when we travel into the past, we bring along germs that didn't exist back then. Germs that might be fatal to those that haven't grown up with them and built resistance to them. Imagine bringing along a current version of the latest bugs that current antibiotics can't kill. Or a Zika-infected mosquito.
Likewise, the people in the time we would travel to might have bugs that we have no resistance to. So the time travelers would die.
Nathan wrote: "The odds that the exact same sperm/egg combo would happen again..."I like it!
So they should be able to travel back to the Hindenburg disaster again, because the three that are there from timeline-2 are not EXACT copies, not similar copies.
Mod
I felt as though NBC was overly careful and was treating me as a child. At times the science was over simplistic or not explained at all. So the rules of this show is no repeat episodes...They are trying to maintain a linear feel when all things linear goes out the window.
(view spoiler)
I think it had a solid enough start, enough to keep me watching.
I like this episode a lot better than the first. Maybe because it had a bit more humor AND it covered some of the issues I had with the first.For example, one comment on the Internet about the first episode was, "Why would they still have papers flying about every time they send the capsule? Haven't they learned that it happens?" and the off-hand comment on the show, "We should get some paperweights". And then we see the paperweights on the return trip! :)
Have they mentioned why they don't return a second after they leave? It appears that if they're in the past for 36 hours, they return 36 hours later...?
The capsule must be a time AND space traveling device, since it looks like they can choose where it ends up on the specified date. How do they choose?
Could it be used as a space exploration vehicle? For example, delivering supplies to a colony on Mars?
Hi everyone,I was asked to write a review of the television show "Timeless" and in particular the episode that featured the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
My review appears at the link below. I was asked to write this review as I've got a great deal of interest in this topic for you see my novel "36 Hours to Save the President" is about a time traveler who is given the chance to stop the Lincoln Assassination.
I hope you'll enjoy the review and also think about purchasing my novel/
Here is the link to the review: http://timetravelnexus.com/timeless-e...
I knew I had seen a TV pilot for another show similar to Timeless (even down to the black time traveler complaining about no place in history would be good for him). Rewind was a SyFy 2013 pilot for that show. Actually better, I think. Another forum pointed out it was available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi6u1...
What I don't understand is why jump back and forth. If you go to the Hindenburg first and prevent it catching fire then go to when Lincoln was assassinated couldn't the changes you caused in Lincoln's time period cause the Hindenburg to burn again?
Only if the two historical events have some kind of ramifications linking them. However, a severe enough change to early history could completely alter the future history. Maybe the Hindenburg doesn't get invented or built at all if a previous action in its past is severe enough.
Yes, technically you're right, any changes made in the past, after you've already changed something in the past, further up the line, could undo those changes you made earlier. That would require a much more rigorously plotted narrative for the series, though.
I think it would make more sense if they started farthest back and worked their way forward.
A great idea for another series - though, hey, Timeless could make a decision to go that way for its second and subsequent seasons.
I am going to continue to watch, but I am hoping they will stop being so cliché about which events they travel to. I think the story would be much more interesting if smaller lesser known historical events were visited and used to have huge impacts on the future.
Someone on Reddit had a great idea for this episode. Basically, have Wyatt stay behind like he wanted to, to die in the Alamo. Then, when Lucy and Rufus return, have them find out that they had LEFT with Baumgartner, who has been the special forces guy from the beginning. And his replacement is Wyatt, who has already been briefed and is ready to go on the next mission.
A good idea, but too late for that!
I'm waiting for the episode in which they return to the "present" and find that one of them doesn't exist in this timeline. Since the story's premise is that the past can be altered and we've already seen other characters disappear, it seems likely that a major character could be erased as well. That brings me to my biggest concern with this type of story. In a case of good characters vs. a single bad character, sooner or later someone will get the idea to go back in time and erase the other before they cause trouble. Since Flynn is in complete control of all of their time jumps, he is free to do anything he wants to our heroes. He could easily jump back and alter their personal timelines to either sideline them or erase them completely. Maybe answers lie with the ominous Rittenhouse.
Erasing any character, including a central character, would create a new world - call it W2 - in which the character did not exist. But the heroes come from W1, and they would still be at large even if the past were changed to erase them.
Possible big spoiler, and trying to avoid spoilers but how did the person that Rufus was phoning know what to say? 3rd time machine? Although the guy did hint about who he was talking too. Mystified.
Vague, unspoilerful answer: the set-up of this narrative, only revealed in brief glimpses, is that there are all kinds of connections across time, between people in the future, present, and past. This is the metaphysical set-up underling the series.
Seems like once the cat is out of the bag, there is no going back. What good is trying to maintain a timeline if future generations can mangle it all they want?Unless some type of "scrambler" can be created that would prevent time travel from working.
It's one reason I subscribe to the multi-verse theory.
I agree that the multi-verse theory is the most rational approach to time travel.But you can still have fun trying to change a single-verse, and then work like hell to make sure no one from the future undoes it.
I like the idea of using the multi-verse theory but I would be interested in seeing the characters deal with the possibility that they are doppelgangers of the version of themselves that is from the "new" universe.If Time Traveler A jumps back and forth in time and ends up in Universe B, what happened to Time Traveler B? Assuming that Time Traveler B had also jumped around in time and ended up in Universe C, then you still have only one of each character in each universe. However, if Time Traveler B had stayed home instead, Time Traveler A might go "home" and run into B. This is a simplistic example that can easily be dealt with, but I think it would be interesting to see how they might resolve it.
Time travelers bumping into their earlier selves is a feature of many a good time travel story, because of the loops and paradoxes it engenders, and the consequent attempts to avoid it.
Paul wrote: "my review of 1.8 http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2016... best episode so far"Nice review. I liked this episode too but (view spoiler)
Did anyone else notice that Anthony referred to Rittenhouse as "her"?
http://www.nbc.com/timeless/video/pil...
It just aired on October 3rd.