I've built a time machine...where do you want to go?

[BruceVC]

Sup All

 

I was wondering if you could travel anywhere in the past what would you want to experience and what would you want to see. We obviously need some important rules to manage this experience

 

• You can't kill anyone that has had an obvious impact in history, for example you can't kill Hitler when he was boy because we don't know all the permutations in the future this would cause
• You can automatically speak the language of any era you travel to and the local dress code would be made available to you
• If you die for some reason you will be automatically be pulled back to our current time
• You can choose to come back to our modern time instantly. This is important because you don't want to be imprisoned in some ancient jail and die of old age
• Every 3 days you will automatically be pulled back to our time stream unless you choose not to. This is important as what happens if you end up being incapacitated and can't consciously think you want to return to our era

So where would you go, there are so many things I would want to experience. Lets see

 

• I would want to see ancient Babylon and the Hanging Gardens. I want to experience the apparent hedonism and culture
• I want to meet Jesus, I am not religious but I do believe he was a man who lived and inspired people
• I would want to experience life in the First World War trenches and see what the first day of the Somme offensive was like
• I would go on several historical gastronomic tours. I want to partake in a Medieval feast and eat the first Pizza in Naples in the 1600's for example
• I want to see how pre-historic man lived
• I want to see how dinosaurs lived and looked like in there natural environment

Thats all for now

[Humanoid]

I want to see the Big Bang.

[BruceVC]

I want to see the Big Bang.

 

Yeah I was thinking about that, I wonder if the experience wouldn't be too much for our puny minds to grasp?

[mr insomniac]

Only one way to find out

[Darkpriest]

To be honest, the only way to be in the past, etc. would be to be completely invisible and ethereal, so you could not affect anything, touch anything, move anything etc. Even something seemingly insignificant, like eating an apple from a stand, could have serious implications for the future (because someone else would normally pick that apple, and instead he got something worse, which made him act differently, pulling a whole chain of events that would be different.

 

it would be cool to watch things in such a state though. And I agree with the idea of witnessing the cradle of universe expanding.

[BruceVC]

To be honest, the only way to be in the past, etc. would be to be completely invisible and ethereal, so you could not affect anything, touch anything, move anything etc. Even something seemingly insignificant, like eating an apple from a stand, could have serious implications for the future (because someone else would normally pick that apple, and instead he got something worse, which made him act differently, pulling a whole chain of events that would be different.

 

it would be cool to watch things in such a state though. And I agree with the idea of witnessing the cradle of universe expanding.

 

Yes you right about the possible consequences for any change you make, but lets not over-analyze it. Lets say you can visit the past but you just can't kill significant people we know about from history

[LadyCrimson]

Were you intending to put this in WoT, or were you wondering what might make good game settings or something?

 

Time travel ... hm. On the one hand getting to witness some famous war battles would be intellectually interesting, but in reality I probably wouldn't have the stomach for such. It'd be like rubber-necking. I'll stick to history books.

 

So in that case ...

 

--the last ice age

--Woodstock

 

...I know there's more but I can never think of them offhand.

[BruceVC]

Were you intending to put this in WoT, or were you wondering what might make good game settings or something?

 

Time travel ... hm. On the one hand getting to witness some famous war battles would be intellectually interesting, but in reality I probably wouldn't have the stomach for such. It'd be like rubber-necking. I'll stick to history books.

 

So in that case ...

 

--the last ice age

--Woodstock

 

...I know there's more but I can never think of them offhand.

 

The Ice Age? I think I know what you really want to do ...you want to find a saber-tooth tiger kitten and bring it back to raise it as your own...I'm right aren't I Lady C

 

 

Also I believe created this in the wrong section, can you possibly move this to Way Off Topic?

[Fighter]

I want to go back a year so I can bet on some sports or the lottery.

[BruceVC]

I want to go back a year so I can bet on some sports or the lottery.

 

Yeah I suppose you could abuse the principle of time travelling like this

[Humanoid]

Depends on how your past self would react to the unexpected windfall though. They might even report your current self to the police for suspicious activity on your betting account.

 

 

Anyway, if the goal of the exercise is limited to enlightenment rather than riches, it'd be interesting to use the opportunity to solve various mysteries and conspiracy theories, such as by walking around certain grassy knolls.

[BruceVC]

Depends on how your past self would react to the unexpected windfall though. They might even report your current self to the police for suspicious activity on your betting account.

 

 

Anyway, if the goal of the exercise is limited to enlightenment rather than riches, it'd be interesting to use the opportunity to solve various mysteries and conspiracy theories, such as by walking around certain grassy knolls.

 

Depends on how your past self would react to the unexpected windfall though. They might even report your current self to the police for suspicious activity on your betting account.

 

 

Anyway, if the goal of the exercise is limited to enlightenment rather than riches, it'd be interesting to use the opportunity to solve various mysteries and conspiracy theories, such as by walking around certain grassy knolls.

 

Now thats a good idea, being able to finally put the rest many conspiracy theories. Like who built Stonehenge and the Pyramids and who was Jack the Ripper. Good thinking

[LadyCrimson]

The Ice Age? I think I know what you really want to do ...you want to find a saber-tooth tiger kitten and bring it back to raise it as your own...I'm right aren't I Lady C

When I read one of the Clan of the Cave Bear sequels, I really wanted a giant male cave lion so I could ride on its back.

[Gorth]

Sup All

 

I was wondering if you could travel anywhere in the past what would you want to experience and what would you want to see. We obviously need some important rules to manage this experience

 

• You can't kill anyone that has had an obvious impact in history, for example you can't kill Hitler when he was boy because we don't know all the permutations in the future this would cause
• You can automatically speak the language of any era you travel to and the local dress code would be made available to you
• If you die for some reason you will be automatically be pulled back to our current time
• You can choose to come back to our modern time instantly. This is important because you don't want to be imprisoned in some ancient jail and die of old age
• Every 3 days you will automatically be pulled back to our time stream unless you choose not to. This is important as what happens if you end up being incapacitated and can't consciously think you want to return to our era

So where would you go, there are so many things I would want to experience. Lets see

 

• I would want to see ancient Babylon and the Hanging Gardens. I want to experience the apparent hedonism and culture
• I want to meet Jesus, I am not religious but I do believe he was a man who lived and inspired people
• I would want to experience life in the First World War trenches and see what the first day of the Somme offensive was like
• I would go on several historical gastronomic tours. I want to partake in a Medieval feast and eat the first Pizza in Naples in the 1600's for example
• I want to see how pre-historic man lived
• I want to see how dinosaurs lived and looked like in there natural environment

Thats all for now

 

Expand the restrictions a bit in some pseudo scientific way and say "you can't change the past because the result has already been observed" (faux quantum mechanics).

 

I would satisfy my curiosity regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper. Stand next to Lee Harvey Osvald on that day in 1963 and see if he really was a lone, loose cannon, watch the battle of Hastings where European history was changed forever, watch the construction of the Cheops Pyramid, watch the final days of the Inca's and try to understand how a great civilisation could just collapse, steal a couple of ideas from Bruce and watch Jesus at work, see Buddha at work, watch how Julius Caesar pulled off the victory at Alesia... so much to do, so little time (pun not intended).

[Darkpriest]

 

The Ice Age? I think I know what you really want to do ...you want to find a saber-tooth tiger kitten and bring it back to raise it as your own...I'm right aren't I Lady C

When I read one of the Clan of the Cave Bear sequels, I really wanted a giant male cave lion so I could ride on its back.

 

 

Just borrow a sword and a cat from the He-Man

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Y-JiRUIoI

[Monte Carlo]

 

 

I would satisfy my curiosity regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper.

 

That's been settled for quite a while now.

[BruceVC]

 

I would satisfy my curiosity regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper.

 

That's been settled for quite a while now.

 

 

Do tell? Share with us your insight

[Guard Dog]

Dinosaurs please!

[Malcador]

It'd be fun to go back and answer questions like who shot JFK, what happened to Roanoake, etc.

[Gfted1]

We can only go back in time? I want to see the technology available 1000's of years from now.

 

Oh well, I guess it would be cool to see the event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

[Humanoid]

Well if the universe runs cyclically, you could go back far enough to cause an integer underflow and see thus the end of days.

[kirottu]

I would go back in time to the Back to the Future movie set and steal the delorean and take the delorean with me to all the places in time in Back to the Future movies. I would make a scene. People would take pictures. Then the movies would come out and minds would be blown everywhere: "Is this a scifi, comedy or this a documentary?!?"

[ManifestedISO]

Does it have to be a point in time ... how about a length of time compressed into hours. Like I mean, from an aerial perspective, I want to see the Grand Canyon become a canyon. Five million years, or so, compressed into maybe a few months. I could eat sandwiches I packed from the future, maybe some pizza, and watch geologic deep time happen right in front of me.

 

Or say, continental drift ... watch India plow into Asia, or see hot spot islands in the middle of the Pacific pop up like paint drips. Human time is too short, I want to go back and see how this planet became a planet. Although, yeah, for sure hominids from a million years ago would be fascinating, too.  

[JFSOCC]

must I choose? can't I say "everything"?

 

I'd like so see Persia during the Sassanid and Ghazvanid periods. I want to get my Arabian nights on.

 

I'd like to see India during their golden age of the Gupta Empire, and I'd like to see it again during the Mughal Empire.

 

I'd love to explore pre-Inca South America, visit the sun and moon temples in what is now Chile, see Machu Picchu during it's heyday

 

I'd like to visit China during the Tang and Ming dynasties

 

I'd love to see Pre-Christian Britain, Likewise I'd live to see the Viking river empire in eastern Europe which is memory serves was around the same time.

 

I'd be remiss if I didn't want to see the seven wonders of the ancient world being built, including the hanging gardens and the pyramids.

 

I'd like to see the ancient African empires, including the one in what is now Ethiopia with a stone city allegedly rivalling Rome.

 

Visit Easter Island and the Hendersons before their societies collapsed.

 

South Spain during the rule of the Muslims, visit Granada, Cordoba, and Valencia. Likewise I'd want to go across the Byzantine Empire around 600, right before most of it was lost. Italy during the renaissance.

 

I'd like to learn the stretches of the Greek Empire before writing, there's some evidence suggesting it was vast. (So not ancient Greece, but Minoan and pre Minoan society.)

 

I'd love to meet the Buddha (if he existed), Leonardo Da Vinci, my grandfather, my father when he was my age, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell Charles Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle... oh man

 

the list just goes on.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Agreed. I wanna see it all!

 

But the future is especially alluring. I'd love to sample it, 100 years ahead from now, 200, 500, 1,000, 10,000, 50,000...