Steampunk, Time Travel and Suspension of Disbelief
By
AncientSpirit_NA,
Posted on: 2009-05-31 16:42 in Mission Architect
I forget the title atm, but there was a novel co-authored by Clarke and Baxter (I think), where the wormholes opened to the past were extremely small, just big enough for them to function as viewers to past events.
This led to consequences such as a drop in crime rate, since law & order types could go back and see the actual crime.
PIs could investigate infidelity. Pervs could spy on naked celebrities. And so on.
The rebels in this society took to meeting in absolute darkness and communicating w/ touch language.
Interesting stuff.
Last interjection.
There is also the possibility that every possible scenario of existence started into being upon its creation. Every conceivable origin, progression, nuance and outcome continues to be created at an infinitely exponential rate; our own view only a microcosm within multiple mircocosms.
A would be traveler would need to be able to scale out of the many mini scales many times over in order to see what would appear to be hard to follow hairline fractures dancing withing hairline fractures across an unknown medium.
But most would only find themselves traveling to a point already catered to the progression that they wish to follow (as it has already been created).
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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As far as I know, the real world has yet to discover any methods of time-travel, so there's no way to know how actual time-travel works. If it even works at all....
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And even if it does get discovered someday soon, there's no outside point-of-reference from which to examine the overall effects. It would solely come down to the traveler's experience, and how would he know if he was in an alternate timeline or not? Maybe he's been removed from timelines in general, and so gets to retain his memories of how things "should be". Or maybe he's actually in a branching timeline due to his own meddling.
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There is no right answer, only conjecture.
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Yes.
There is good conjecture and there is bad conjecture. It comes down to this: Are you using Time Travel because you want to invoke Cause & Effect, or are you using Time Travel because a different Time is a great place to visit?
As far as I know, there is no hint of any possible Physics mechanism that would make Time Travel possible. That Time is just an observed dimension of Physics and has no physical underlying cause or component. Personally I hope that Time Travel never, ever becomes possible. It would be interesting, educational, and enlightening at being able to observe past events in their original context. It would bring about many "Ah!", "AH-HA!", "Oh...", "OH!NO!", and "I told you so!" moments. The possibility of the future meddling with the past is something that I find rather horrifying. It is bad enough that politics often tries to alter history and science books and spin and flavor perceptions of current news.