You must die!

Someone comes from the future and says the entire world/galaxy/universe is destroyed or in a very poor state... They show you proof... and they say it's all your fault... so you must die!

Do you allow yourself to be killed?

If you stop them from killing you do you try to make it so that future doesn't happen?
If not do you become villainous and hedonistic and stop caring, stop following the rules, and start criminal/villainous activities?

This brings up something from a professor, friends, or whatever conversation that started this up. I learned when dealing with time travel or knowing what happens in the future most times individuals who try to prevent said "events" most times end up creating the very future they are attempting to prevent, IE kill, warn or what have you of said person. Most time travelers only see the aftermath and what lead into it and say it was the end all be all and not really see the one action and what caused it from the start.

God of War comes to mind in this regard, I finally played every game and got the idea behind it, those who played it know where I am going with this. Can you imagine if Zeus actually left Kratos alone and ignored the Oracle, imagine what the world would be like in the GoW universe had he just watched and staying away. But by interfering and falling into his fears Zeus doomed himself and the gods by creating the future he tried so hard to avoid by his own actions by being told what was going to happen.

Too your event as to the "What if": I would hope they would look back further and see what that one event that turned me into a villain that either killed the world or enslaved it they probably see it was them that did it.

What if I believe my descsion is meaningless? Time branches at the point of the temporal anomoly and infinite options exist.

What if the “proof” is a fabrication designed to get you to trust him.

The possibility exists that the time traveler has an ulterior motive & is lying to you.





I also find it strange that the only viable option is for you to be killed; wouldn’t stranding you in another era be just as effective?

(Removing you from your timeline would prevent you from doing whatever he thinks you are going to do)

I'd want a better explanation for how time travel works. If their coming back altered anything, can they return etc.

Then I'd want to know the specifics of what I did, when and where, to cause the domino effect. If they are able to trace the event through time to get to me, they will be able to tell me in detail. Also exploring the possibilities of being elsewhere at that time, if it was at a specific location etc.

Then I will make the choice. If it appears that I indeed must die to prevent said disaster, I will arrange for them to come back and kill me 8 hours before. No sense in robbing me of weeks and or months when they know they exact time. 8 hours is reasonable to allow for unforseen problems getting to me.

I'd also caution them that, some events are inevitable and removing me from the timeline may simply alter the way 'the event' happens.

Nope, I'd just tell them I'm an agent of change

@ LegionAlpha; that reminds me of the Iron Man 2020 storyline. Arno Stark has to stop a terrorist in his time only to travel into the past and create that very same terrorist.

They irony is them trying kill me is probably what will cause their future to suck. If they'd just left me alone they wouldn't given me the proof I needed to get inspired. Ultimately I'd never trust anyone claiming this either way.

Plus if they really wanted me dead, they could just I don't know...off me as a baby or make sure my parents never took that trip to Minnesota in 1978 which I was created. If they have access to time travel and best they can do is convince me to allow my demise then they deserve whatever I did to them. Surely they'd have access to records and be able to hatch a better plan than that. I can think of several methods that I'd use if I were trying alter my own actions without needing to kill myself. If anyone really knew who they were dealing with, they'd know threatening me is probably worst way of getting what they want out of me.


This exactly what happened with Kang the Conqueror in Avengers:Earth's mightiest heroes. He saw that Captain America was the trigger for his timeline to turn to crap and tries to go back and kill him. Cap doesn't believe him and rightifully so as he defends himself along side the Avengers. There was more to the whole event than Kang saw, but he assumed just offing cap would correct the situation.

Given that I'd fight with every fiber of my being before I let someone else have the final say in whether I live or die.

Hell no I don't let myself get killed. I go from my current dull, unfulfilling life to causing a world ending catastrophe of some sort? I want to see that **** go down, man.

I'd just like to know HOW exactly I could cause the end of the world, I'd have a seriously hard time believing someone when they said it was me. What did I do...put the wrong DVD in someones rental?

I mean...I'm not a scientist working on some bio-weapon, I'm not actively trying to summon demons/raise the dead to do my bidding, I'm not programming an artificially intelligent AI.

So what the hell did I do to bring about the end of humanity...infact I'd more than likely tell them to bugger off just to see how I personally bring about this biblical level doomsday for humanity.

Besides it's more than likely if you did go the villainous route and stopped caring since 'doomsdays a'comin' that you probably avert the future where things go wrong anyway since by being told you cause this destruction, your personality has changed and thus doomsday would never appear because you'd be rotting in a jail cell OR in some place for the criminally insane if you did a crime bad enough to warrant that since you'd be spouting about how a time traveller told you that the end is nigh.

Simply put I would laugh in their faces and kick them in the gonads. Then I would go on with my life normally. I would also avoid mentioning an encounter with a time traveller to anyone... because that's crazy talk and I don't want to be locked up in the looney bin forever. I live in the present, not the past or the future, so the future is the time traveller's problem, not mine.

Now if they were insistant on killing me, I would have to defend myself, maybe even kill the time traveller and take their time travelling gear. ( Which might even cause the future timeline the time traveller came from, so in a sense, the time traveller caused the future he came from to happen by coming back in time and confronting me. That's the problem with this wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, unpredictable outcomes abound don't they?)

I would eat a bag of doritos and sleep the devils lettuce off.

Of course not. Why ever would I accept a simplistic explanation like that. Even if I were to be convinced that time was linear and that killing me would even work I wouldn't go along with it.

And probably the going back is what makes me the focus point.

No. If I'm going to go down, I'm taking everyone with me.

Option 1: Time Cant Be Changed Theory

The guy comes from the future to kill me. I defend myself and kill him but now I am wanted for murder (even if the man I killed cant be identified.) I become a wanted criminal and having killed once I am more likely to kill more. One thing leads to the next and I end up becoming the man that triggers the end of the world as consequence of that interaction.

Option 2: Time can be changed:

Dude, just tell me what I did and I wont do it, or move out of the area where it would be possible to do it. While at it, give me the winning lottery ticket numbers for the next 3 months. Since from your future I was never rich, making me rich will definitively change everything! Universe is saved, I die of old age as a trillionare.

The Theory of Divergent Realities goes something like this: Every time you are faced with a decision point no matter what decision you make, another you in another reality has made the other choice.

Or something like that...

The most recent Star Trek movie explained it better. The moment the future Spock & Romulans came back and started fiddling with the time line, their past (Kirk's future) became invalidated.

So, the moment the Mysterious Advisor stepped out of the time portal and told you what you were going to do... he completely changed the eventual outcome. You would now be armed with the knowledge you needed to alter the future.

The Moral of the Story: Maybe Shroedinger's cat knew what was going to happen and snuck an escape kit of plastic explosives and weapons into the box with him.

I kill him. Obviously if the world gets destroyed because of me, that means he can't kill me, so I win.

Right here is the only scenario I can imagine for time traveller/future me coming back and telling me I'm going to doom the world.

*swoooshy portal noise*
Future Me: Erm...hi!
Me: *faints probably and then comes too*
FM: Right...now that's out of your system we've got to talk about something.
Me: Next weeks winning eurolottery numbers?
FM: No, it's a little bit more important than that.
Me: Wow...that's got to be big.
FM: Right you know you've wanted to take a trip to the Vatican City with friends just to say you've seen the Pope?
Me: Yes...
FM: Well you DO get to do that, it's nice and all, you have a good time, there's just one small hiccup caused by this.
Me: Ok...wait is it to do with the..
FM: Yup, you can cross off 'Belly to Belly suplexing the Pope while dressed as the Ultimate Warrior' from your bucket list, infact cross it off right now, yeah it sounds awesome but it has implications.
Me: Wow...wait...how did I even get past the bodyguards?
FM: No idea, we were blind drunk at the time.
Me: Oh...
FM: So yeah, you can live safely in the knowledge that an alternate version of you has done something nobody in History would ever forget.
Me: Surely you'd be in prison right now?
FM: Well..you see that act kind of led to a slow destablisation of the world, people begun asking questions like 'how?' and 'Why?'...it's all very complicated, basically we're on the verge of World War 3 thanks to that little act. I've been sent back here, to talk to you, to tell you not to do it.
Me: Well buggeration...
FM: Indeed...so...yeah...don't do that...ever...infact don't go to Rome.
Me: Awwww...
FM: Tokyo is nice...
Me: Alright...
FM: Glad we could have this chat, hopefully I'll cease to exist in a moment since you'll never do that...so..catch you later!
*Future Me goes back through the portal*.
Me: I bet it looked awesome on TV...

Dude, future you is totally setting you up. Do you have any idea how often Tokyo gets attacked by giant... well, everything? Obviously he's trying to lead you off the path of that pope thing and get you squashed by Godzilla. I think you should book the first flight to Rome ASAP; Future you can't be trusted.

I would likely panic, at least at first.

After that, assuming future-person can be reasoned with, I would argue that killing me to prevent whatever horrific future I supposedly cause would essentially remove the reason to come back in time to kill me in the first place. If nobody comes back to kill me, then I live and supposedly bring about the future where someone has to come back and kill me. Thus, paradox.

If future-person is not open to reasoning, I guess there's not much I can do except sit back and wait for the inevitable paradox to sort itself out. Unless killing me does nothing to change the future this guy came from, in which case, wow, I certainly hope he's ashamed of himself after killing me for no good reason!

[QUOTE=Rylas;3939124]No, no, no. That option is too "Crisis on Two Earths." Next thing you know, you'll be blowing up the Earth-Prime because of some misunderstanding of how the multi-verse works.

Then I would jusst have Superboy punch the wall of reality to fix things or Mephisto could fix it or maybe a soft reeboot. :]

I'd beat the crap out of my future self for not going back further and stopping my younger self from making bad decisions...