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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  • 120 comments

aineotter

April 22 2010, 03:19:02 UTC 7 years ago

I'm amused that finding the agent of the black death is for you, but the Dr. Who tapes are for humanity. I wholly approve, either way.

I would visit what would become the Burgess shale, with scuba gear and a good camera and video recorder and piles of memory. And...can I bring a laboratory capable of genome sequencing? Eh, that can't really be done in 24 hours. But it would still be worth it to get video.
I'm not sure whether that's for me, or for humanity. For me, most likely

Since the Dr. Who tapes have already been saved, I think I'd look up a good stock, or lottery ticket, or something for about 100 years ago in Australia, and identify someone who will use that to set up a breeding sanctary for thylacines. Because they should be here, now. Or possibly try to arrange something similar for the sea mink, but the timing of their exctiction at shortly after colonization makes that trickier to manage. Maybe ivory billed woodpeckers? Argh, there are too many I'd want to go back and try to save... :(

seanan_mcguire

April 23 2010, 06:08:09 UTC 7 years ago

Greenpeace + time machine = PEAK BIODIVERSITY NOW, BITCHES.