If you had a time machine would you use it to solve unsolved crimes?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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They look nice but you might as well be getting your dick wet in a coma ward.
You'll have a much more fulfilling relationship with a Morlock, if you can convince her not to snap off your face and suck out your spinal fluid.
I'm loving the talk of Odyssey 5, having just finished watching that the first time this year. It's wild to think that was 20 years ago, before Manny Coto had come to Enterprise even. Peter Wellar is deadset one of my favourite TV dads and Chuck and Paige were one of my favourite married couples.
^ Pity it never got a decent wrap-up. 
I'm pretty sure it never came to Australia. How was it received in the day? I used to read SFX, which was pretty good then, They had an irregular series called "Should we give X another chance?" Example, they said Gor (look it up) and it was a lively column where the men were saying "Yeah it's OK," and the women plotted to mug them on their way home. So one edition was "Should we give Crime Traveller another chance?" Over the page, across both pages, one letter per page: N O. For a SF mag to be so firmly against it speaks volumes.
Props to Guy for mentioning Seven Days, first show I thought of.
As a writer, I'm aware of the problems of diverging timelines, alt universes and which timeline would a traveller return to, and thought about this a lot in relation to Seven Days specifically. The travller would have to take as complete a record as possible with him, so that when he saved the day, HQ could compare the records they have (after the change) to the ones he had (before the change), and spot the differences.
Sidenote: creating alt universes vs conservation of energy, a Theory. Every action supposedly creates a universe where this happened, and another where that happened. Can you imagine the energy involved, creating a whole new universe based on everyday choices? But the universal laws tend towards the conservation of energy. Continual splitting makes no sense. So, my theory is, two random universes with enough similarities merge together, making one, and weird artefacts like cryptids and half-remembered stories and the Voynich Manuscript are 'leftovers' from the merging that don't fit any more. As I said, a theory. I'd love to write a story about this, but still not sure how. How could a traveller explore the two different timelines? One would stop existing, all the way back to year dot. What is the instigating event that causes them to merge? It could be an interesting idea.
I have heard of SFX magazine and seen it but never bothered to pick up a copy of it back in the day. I did get all the Gor books and they are trashy as hell and super misogynistic in nature with some scenes. I did find it funny how in the middle of big US cities no one ever noticed regular runs of rocket ships leaving the city to take wayward captives off to Gor.
This was basically the setup of a short story (I think... pretty sure it wasn't a full novel) I read once.
A device had been invented, just as you described, that allowed one to view any period in the past. They didn't travel or interact, just view, but they could see anywhere, inside buildings, whatever. (I think it was done with wormholes, but I only really remember the broad strokes.) The technology was very tightly controlled by the government, and they allowed academics to use it on a limited basis for historical research. It was like booking time on the observatory's telescope, but much more difficult.
The main character was trying to study a particular ancient society (Carthage, IIRC), and he had kept putting submissions in to use the time viewer, but kept getting declined or bumped or whatever, to his increased frustration. Well, through the machinations of the plot, he managed to discover that the technology behind the top secret time viewer was actually just components that were already commercially available to the general public. After being blocked by the government from using the time viewer for so long, he felt that everyone should have access to the technology, and ended up releasing the plans to the time viewer out to the general public.
The government caught up to him to late to stop him; the plans were already out there. The agent/official/whatever was horrified, and asked him if he realized what he'd just done. He pointed out that the device could be used to view any time in the past... including up to just milliseconds ago. Because of human nature, people would realize this, and start using the device to start spying on others in almost real-time, and there was no way to even know you were being watched. The dawning horror started to sink in for the main character, as he realized from that point forward, no one could ever assume to be unobserved again... privacy as a concept was effectively dead.
The main character was trying to study a particular ancient society (Carthage, IIRC), and he had kept putting submissions in to use the time viewer, but kept getting declined or bumped or whatever, to his increased frustration. Well, through the machinations of the plot, he managed to discover that the technology behind the top secret time viewer was actually just components that were already commercially available to the general public. After being blocked by the government from using the time viewer for so long, he felt that everyone should have access to the technology, and ended up releasing the plans to the time viewer out to the general public.
The government caught up to him to late to stop him; the plans were already out there. The agent/official/whatever was horrified, and asked him if he realized what he'd just done. He pointed out that the device could be used to view any time in the past... including up to just milliseconds ago. Because of human nature, people would realize this, and start using the device to start spying on others in almost real-time, and there was no way to even know you were being watched. The dawning horror started to sink in for the main character, as he realized from that point forward, no one could ever assume to be unobserved again... privacy as a concept was effectively dead.
My description probably doesn't do it justice, and obviously I forgot a lot of the details of the plot, but that ending certainly stayed with me years later.
Asimov. The dead past.
You can read it for free here...
link removed by moderator
The problem with 7 days is Adam. The homicidal Roswell Alien escaped convict.
He remembers everything, every time Frank back stepped, and he was playing Possum in a vat of formaldehyde, not jumping to parallel time lines.
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Wow, that's incredible that you were able to identify it, thank you! (I had read it *years* ago, and really had no idea.)
Unfortunately... that site you linked to looks like it's a piracy site, so I had to remove the link. If you can convince me it's not, I can restore the link if it's legit. But it certainly looks sketchy, and we can't be seen to be supporting piracy.
Not a site I use.
Just googled "read on line" and that's what happened.
Wikipedia describes what happens.
The Dead Past - Wikipedia
I have to go find this story Thanks @Guy Gardener
Read the wiki entry, one of the reviews was I think spot on. The protagonist just released the information for all, instead of keeping it "Government Only" With the government having the ability for i think it said 2 generations? so what 50 years?? The ability to spy on Anybody. Sorry, don't trust the government, or any government with that power. Better to have it freely available to everyone, then to a specific % of people that would abuse it.
I'd add the excellent Stephen Baxter novel (based on an Arthur C. Clarke outline) The Light of Other Days to this subgenre about time-viewers, along with the Denzel Washington film Deja Vu (though it's no spoiler to say that by the midpoint of that film it's revealed that what was previously thought to only be a 72-hour window into viewing the past for post-crime/terrorism investigation can actually send Denzel-sized objects back through time as well).
The Light of Other Days does a good job of exploring the social, government, religious, historical, legal, sexual, economic and other ramifications of the complete end of secrecy and privacy when the technology to mass produce an inexpensive wormhole time viewer becomes publicly available tech and people have to come to terms with the fact that they could be unknowingly observed anywhere at any time past or present by anyone.
I believe I've read that, too! I probably even conflated some of the details of the two stories in my head. The Wikipedia plot recap linked above doesn't mention wormholes, so it's possible I was getting that from the Baxter novel.
Sounds like The Men Who Murdered Mohammed.
The way time travel works in that story is, if you change history, it only applies to your own personal timeline. It doesn't affect the whole of reality.
For example, if I go back in time and kill Hitler, or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or whoever, the rest of the world would never notice it, because only MY timeline would be changed.
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