Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: silly
  • Music: Glee, "Like a Virgin."

Taking the time machine for a spin.

Pop quiz time! Aliens (or mad scientists, or whatever) appear before you with a time machine, and tell you that you get to make two trips backward: one for your own personal gain, and one for the good of all mankind. Each trip can consist of several "hops" (so you can start by traveling back ten years, and then move forward two years, etc.), but can only include one backward hop, and can last for no more than twenty-four hours.

The rules:

1) You can bring anything you want to the past, but you can't leave anything behind. So you can't bring back the polio vaccine and start treating people. It wouldn't work.

2) You can't take anything forward with you, either, except for information. So you could, say, travel back with a copy of a book and a pen, and have the book signed with that pen. Or you could bring a camera and take pictures. But all things must be somehow made from materials you carried with you.

3) You can't get sick in the past, but you could be eaten by a T-Rex. No one native to the time periods you're visiting will notice anything odd about you.

For my personal use, I would pack a bunch of digital cameras, Flip video recorders, and a gene sequencer, and hop back to Messina in 1347. I would then document the Black Death in ten year jumps, with lots of photographs and recordings of people trying to breathe as they fully expressed the virus. And then, when I got back to the present, I would drive the CDC insane...but I would finally know for sure.

For the good of all mankind, I would hop back to the pre-tape losses BBC archives with a tape-to-DVD portable recording rig (and a technician), and get copies of all the missing Doctor Who serials. Upon returning to the present day, I would probably also get knighted.

So what's your personal use? And what's your use for the good of all mankind?
Tags: party games, silliness
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slothman

April 22 2010, 05:29:04 UTC 7 years ago

Are we allowed to change the past? If so, I go back about 10 years and tell myself a few simple things I need to do in order to (a) spare obsessivewoman a lot of suffering and (b) spare my cats some trips to the emergency vet while minimizing disruption to history. (It’s a good metric for your level of contentment with your life: what would you change about your own history, knowing the amazing amount of uncertainty that could be created by your intervention?) If “leaving anything behind” includes information or any other ways to change history, then I take some good covert recording gear back to Philadelphia in 1787 and get the Founders on record answering some clarifying questions about their intent in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, just so I can mess with the heads of people making absurd claims. For all mankind, I would grab some appropriately-trained archaeologists and pay a late-night visit to the Library of Alexandria with some high-quality recording gear.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:27:11 UTC 7 years ago

It's best if you don't, but I love your choices.

ladyfox7oaks

April 22 2010, 05:51:07 UTC 7 years ago

"For the good of all mankind, I would hop back to the pre-tape losses BBC archives with a tape-to-DVD portable recording rig (and a technician), and get copies of all the missing Doctor Who serials. Upon returning to the present day, I would probably also get knighted."

YES!!! Oh Goddess, YES, THIS!!! You would also be showered with gold, and gifts, and the undying adoration of millions!

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:27:39 UTC 7 years ago

I would so show up at a Who convention with the DVDs and be like, "Wanna rock the world?"

dornbeast

April 22 2010, 06:12:48 UTC 7 years ago

For myself, I'd take digital cameras, and record every design that Nikola Tesla ever created, just so I could know what the heck Wardenclyffe really was - an actual workable idea, a delusion, or something in between?

Based on what you're describing, I think your intent in this thought experiment is to prevent changes in history, which leaves me at a bit of a loss for the second part.

Aha! I'll document Easter Island.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:27:51 UTC 7 years ago

Hee!

tintiger

April 22 2010, 07:49:19 UTC 7 years ago

Awesome idea, Seanan :)

For myself, I'd like to make four hops.

Travel back to 21st October 1805 and take a certain British Admiral to one side at the critical moment so that he didn't get shot. Capable, charismatic leaders are few and far between, so it would have been worth sidetracking Vice Admiral Viscount Nelson to have his personal influence on the Royal Navy(and not the influence of his legend).

Hop forward to 15th January 1812, La Coruna, Spain and help General Sir John Moore onto the transports waiting take his troops from under the nose of the French armies. We'd lose a very evocative poem, and gain a man who could have improved life for servicemen, as well as dealing effectively with Napoleon.

Hop forward to to October 1915 to spirit nurse Edith Cavell out of German captivity in Belgium, if I couldn't get her death sentence permanently rescinded. I appreciate that her death in particular made her legendary, and affected the entry of the USA into WW1, but I'd still prefer her to have remained alive. Alive, she could be legendary, but tell her own story ...

Finally, hop forward to 1916 in Cairo, Egypt with massive amounts of recording media to dog the footsteps of T. E. Lawrence (closer than his own shadow) for the rest of WW1. Just how much of a chimaera IS the legend?

For all mankind? Yes to the the Doctor Who programmes! And to the Library of Alexandria.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:28:09 UTC 7 years ago

Excellent!

lysythe

April 22 2010, 09:56:28 UTC 7 years ago

Personal: Hop back to Shakespeare's time and find out whether or not he did write his plays or if it was someone else, with digital and video cameras for evidence. Would take place from the time he/whoever it was first published those plays.

Good of mankind: Hop back as far as the first written word (wherever and whenever that may have been) with a photocopier and lots of paper and photocopy as many lost works as I can.

lysythe

April 22 2010, 09:57:13 UTC 7 years ago

For the second, I would keep hopping forward from that point.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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vincentursus

April 22 2010, 10:09:11 UTC 7 years ago

Umm, perhaps I'm greedy but I was thinking thoughts of insider trading.

Mind you, I do like the Doctor Who serials saving idea.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:28:55 UTC 7 years ago

We all figured "I will become epically wealthy" was like, the first twenty minutes for everyone.

tintiger

7 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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the_s_guy

April 22 2010, 10:19:19 UTC 7 years ago

For me, easy. Jump back to 1982-ish, give my younger self my time-travelling password (what, you never had one as a child?), and get him to copy down a huge list of what events to bet on and what companies/industries to invest in over the next 30 years. He'd do it, too.

For mankind... tricky. 24 hours is not a lot of time to really convince most of history's movers and shakers to alter their policies/paths or accept either entire new bodies of knowledge or predictions about their own future. Photographing everything in the Alexandria Library, as per upthread, might be a good option. And candidly, I would very likely be using part of the investment/betting billions for humanitarian purposes when I returned to 2010, so that could be at least partly a two-fer.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:29:12 UTC 7 years ago

Interesting.

the_s_guy

7 years ago

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a_r_williams

April 22 2010, 11:41:57 UTC 7 years ago

( Personal ) I would go back and tell myself to get started on my writing career and not to put it off. "Start publishing novels now and become at least a mid-list writer. This will help once e-books begin to take over and revolutionize the publishing industry."

( World ) Go back and tell the world "There are no WMD in Iraq! Oh, and here's what the war looks like seven years later!"

admnaismith

April 22 2010, 17:33:56 UTC 7 years ago


Oh, so YOU were that person they all laughed at in 2003, who mysteriously disappeared right after speaking out!

At least it's good to know now that it was the machine, and not the Cheneys, who disappeared you.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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andpuff

April 22 2010, 14:01:41 UTC 7 years ago

For me - I'd go back to 1956 and have lunch with my mother.

For the world - I'd stop Kit Marlowe from being knifed.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:30:15 UTC 7 years ago

Excellent.

("I would have lunch with my mother" was also the response of one of the first people I played this with. Which is part of why you need a personal trip and a good of all mankind trip.)

kyrielle

April 22 2010, 14:27:44 UTC 7 years ago

Personal is easy. I'd take TONS of data recording devices, batteries, rechargers, UPS, etc. - more than I could possibly use up in 24 hours, thank you. Video, voice-only, high-quality photography (the best I could reasonably use). I'd take several paper journals, pens, and pencils. I'd hop back to when my mother was a very young child (about three) and meet/interview her mother, who died when she was four. From there I'd hop forward to my sister's birth and death and see if I could learn anything without intruding on my parents, then forward again to my childhood, observing and recording the little details I've since forgotten. If I thought I could get away with it without the paradox being too ugly, I'd try to warn my mother off smoking (which would probably fail, but I'd have to try) in time to save her, and I'd try to tell my post-college self that I'd love having children. I'd hop forward to the year my mother was dying, and if she still was, I'd try to meet with her in the times I know she was home alone for a bit, and talk with her. Just sit and talk.

I probably would run out of time and get yanked back, honestly.

For the good of all mankind...I really am not sure. I'd have to hit the library and research. Saving knowledge seems safer than changing history - playing God by changing history has too many risks of ending even worse than the original.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:30:50 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, lovely.

kyburg

April 22 2010, 16:51:42 UTC 7 years ago

*laughs* Oh man, the party is already in full swing. Lemme think....

For me? I'd bake the very best apple pie I could make, hop in and find Jesus Christ (wherever and however) and make sure we ate that pie together just to completely mess up the whole magic cookie traditions. Maybe a pumpkin one too. And a black cherry mocha to share. Have a long talk. Vent. No, I'm not going to eat that - you want it?

For the good of all mankind, get back in time to figure out how to preserve the library at Alexandria. Maybe with pies to the face or something. And just keep hopping forward doing much the same with as many archives like it as possible until I get to now and see what happens when that much more information is preserved intact and unedited.

And somewhere in there, seduce Bill Bixby. Yeah. *blushes*

admnaismith

April 22 2010, 17:35:38 UTC 7 years ago


Hey, if you're going to go hang with Jesus, please bring a small tank of helium with you, so you can take turns doing "The Sermon on the Mount" together while breathing it.

kyburg

7 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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kyburg

7 years ago

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quettalinde

April 22 2010, 19:39:22 UTC 7 years ago

Little late to the party but…

For me: Morning in Victorian London, afternoon in Elizabethan London with venture into the theatre district, evening in a medieval festival.

For humanity: I'd take an audio-visual recording device to performances by the Beatles, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel. (If possible, I'd wrestle a holographic recorder out of the aliens for this purpose.) If I had time afterwards, I'd go to Crete to get Linear A translated or at least read aloud.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:31:36 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, lovely.

jongibbs

April 22 2010, 20:05:51 UTC 7 years ago

I'd kill two birds with one stone and go back to stop them cancelling Firefly - that would be for me and the good of all mankind :)

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:32:23 UTC 7 years ago

But...but...but then we would lose Castle! (Also Joss would be left alone with Firefly, and having been burnt by Buffy, I don't actually trust him past a concept and a season or two.)

jongibbs

7 years ago

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the_s_guy

7 years ago

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dulcinbradbury

April 22 2010, 22:16:22 UTC 7 years ago

For myself: I'd travel to early Medieval Ireland with audio and video recording devices to document the spoken language, written language, culture and technology of the period.

For mankind: I'd make copies of & stash everything from the Library of Alexandria.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:32:39 UTC 7 years ago

Very nice.

miintikwa

April 22 2010, 22:32:15 UTC 7 years ago

For my personal use: sports almanac, jump back to the first Kentucky Derby with lots of hops forward, staying at Churchill Downs. I'd watch EVERY DERBY EVAR, betting on the winners of the ones with pari-mutual betting. (And, incidentally, making HUGE BANK on some, like Giacomo. D00D. Yes, I am a shameless hussy in search of money. I also want desperately to see some of the great race horses in action before the Derby dies a long-overdue death.)

For the good of mankind, 1970s with a few hops forward and a digital recorder, and I'd listen to the Nixon tapes and find out what was actually said, among other things.

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:33:00 UTC 7 years ago

Excellent.

emberleo

April 23 2010, 07:31:31 UTC 7 years ago

Suitable to my major, I think I'd want to go back (in the requisite order) to meet and/or see what actually DID happen with such figures as Jesus and Buddha and such. I'm not awake enough to make a great list right this instant. At that rate, stopping by and saving certain records, like the Library of Alexandria as many have mentioned, and perhaps other early documents that would make it SO much easier to understand, say, Reconstructing Paganism, or Historicizing Christianity. Shiny?

Is that for humanity or just for me?

For me, I suppose I'd... well, I'd arrange for myself to win so much money in the lottery that I would be able to more than pay back all the people who have been so supportive of me these last years and still continue forward, but that's kind of a given, yeah?

Hmm, if I could go back instead of forward, I'd take a series of hops tracing my family line on my Mom's Dad's side but I don't know where to go back for the sake of following forward, so that doesn't help...

Hmm...

--Ember--

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 14:39:32 UTC 7 years ago

No back, unfortunately. But awesome start!

amber_n_teal

April 23 2010, 12:40:28 UTC 7 years ago

My husband says:

For Humanity:
Go back and slit the Apostle Paul's throat. He says that Christianity would be so much better off without that woman-hating misogynistic jerk changing Christs Church (and note that he's actually a Norseman). He figured that this would change the world yes, but not as much as say killing Jesus as a child and throwing Christianity out the window. Christianity as it's meant to be - weird/awesome?

For Himself:
Back in time, find Excalibur and put himself on the throne of England. LOL!! I soooo wouldn't help him with this...

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 14:39:44 UTC 7 years ago

Hee!
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