If you had a time machine would you use it to solve unsolved crimes?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Could our legal system as it is currently handle time travel? I stop a mass shooting before it happens, have tons of news stories and clippings of this event that no longer exists, can anything be done to prosecute the shooter? Or what if I kill the shooter before it happens, will those new stories and clippings help my case any?

You'd create a whole new universe wouldn't you if you kill the shooter before the event? Things back home would change wouldn't they?

I was thinking more along the lines of going backwards in time seeing the crime, documenting it, then returning to the present without having altered anything to present your findings. But mainly for cases that have largely been unsolved.

 

[publiusr]

Going back in time to arrest a criminal might make your best friend wink out of existence—for that friend might be a descendant of said criminal who had a family due to not having been locked up.

The best thing is to somehow grab the soul of any murder victim and give them a fresh start in the future.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Going back in time to arrest a criminal might make your best friend wink out of existence—for that friend might be a descendant of said criminal who had a family due to not having been locked up.

The best thing is to somehow grab the soul of any murder victim and give them a fresh start in the future.

Neat so we become soul hunters too. lol

 

[publiusr]

And multiverse travelers too…take the soul of the murdered person to the alternate universe where they are the murderer and vice versa. Neither timeline changes…but

-Only the guilty bleed.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Could our legal system as it is currently handle time travel?

I doubt it. We'd have to come up with almost an entirely new way of speaking.

It's like in VOY's "Relativity" when Lt. Ducane arrests Capt. Braxton for crimes Braxton, technically, has yet to commit. We, the viewers, must instinctively think this is some sort of terrible miscarriage of justice, but that's because our legal system can't even conceive of time travel. In the 29th century, where time travel is as natural as breathing, a whole new way of looking at the law would have to arise.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I doubt it. We'd have to come up with almost an entirely new way of speaking.

It's like in VOY's "Relativity" when Lt. Ducane arrests Capt. Braxton for crimes Braxton, technically, has yet to commit. We, the viewers, must instinctively think this is some sort of terrible miscarriage of justice, but that's because our legal system can't even conceive of time travel. In the 29th century, where time travel is as natural as breathing, a whole new way of looking at the law would have to arise.

I have a problem with that. Sure in the context of the show he is fated to do those crimes but in reality is that set in stone?

 

[Silvercrest]

Neat so we become soul hunters too. lol

That'd make more sense than the Soul Hunters on B5.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have a problem with that. Sure in the context of the show he is fated to do those crimes but in reality is that set in stone?

It would appear that, as far as 29th-century law goes, the concept of "set in stone" is irrelevant.

Basically, it's like this: Events can't "un-happen". If an offense happened in one timeline (even one that's prevented from actually occurring, like Braxton's sabotage of Voyager), it's prosecutable in all timelines. That's standard 29th-century law.

Sure, it's incomprehensible to US, the viewers, but it's acceptable and normal in the future thus depicted. That's because we haven't been raised in that future. We don't have the understanding they do.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

That'd make more sense than the Soul Hunters on B5.

What? They didn't make sense? how so? I thought B5 explained them ok

 

[Silvercrest]

The Soul Hunters believe in the existence of a soul (scientifically proven), but don't believe in an afterlife. Excuse me??

I won't say those two things must automatically go together. But to believe in one and not the other requires a ... unique ... perspective.

 

[Kor]

The idea of arresting someone for something they 'were going to do' kind of reminds me of precrime in The Minority Report.

Kor

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The idea of arresting someone for something they 'were going to do' kind of reminds me of precrime in The Minority Report.

Kor

That also is full of problems, people may think they want to kill someone say those words in frustration but they won't actually ever do it, well the majority of people anyway.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Precrime wasn't just about arresting people who said they were going to kill somebody. The precogs could actually see into the future and know what was going to happen.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Precrime wasn't just about arresting people who said they were going to kill somebody. The precogs could actually see into the future and know what was going to happen.

Yes but even in the world of that movie I don't buy that. Nothing is ever purely written in stone and futures can change.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In Star Trek, precrime I felt like it's "You are such an asshole, with the potential to same bad shit other versions of you did, it's just a certainty that you might do something similar as well eventually, so we cannot trust you, and you're in jail buddy."

With a Clerk in a flower shop, who gives a shit that some sideways universe version of that person killed a few people, but if you are the Captain of a Star Ship, that is not a risk worth taking.

Kirk should have gone to jail forever after he got those whales.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

In Star Trek, precrime I felt like it's "You are such an asshole, with the potential to same bad shit other versions of you did, it's just a certainty that you might do something similar as well eventually, so we cannot trust you, and you're in jail buddy."

With a Clerk in a flower shop, who gives a shit that some sideways universe version of that person killed a few people, but if you are the Captain of a Star Ship, that is not a risk worth taking.

Kirk should have gone to jail forever after he got those whales.

But then Spock and the gang would bust him out, hey movie idea ding ding ding

 

[Aragorn]

I use time travel to stop someone from committing a heinous crime. He goes to prison, doesn't meet his future wife and his kids are never born. I'm the only one who will ever know. What's my crime in all of this?

 

[Markonian]

How about making two trips:
One to collect the evidence and get the murderer convicted.
Then a second trip to prevent the crime.

 

[Velocity]

You'd create a whole new universe wouldn't you if you kill the shooter before the event? Things back home would change wouldn't they?

I was thinking more along the lines of going backwards in time seeing the crime, documenting it, then returning to the present without having altered anything to present your findings. But mainly for cases that have largely been unsolved.

In physics the observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In physics the observer effect is the fact that observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes it.

O'BRIEN: The confinement beam subsystems check out. So do the phase transition coils.
LAFORGE: The pattern buffer is fine.
O'BRIEN: Emitter pads, targeting scanners, they're all working fine. This system's clean. So is the science vessel's.
LAFORGE: Reg, there's a lot of energy floating around in the beam. Maybe you saw a surge in the matter stream.
BARCLAY: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: I'll run a scan on the Heisenberg compensators.
BARCLAY: No, Chief, you've done enough already.
O'BRIEN: It's no problem. Why don't you give me a hand?
BARCLAY: You know, maybe ignorance really is bliss.
O'BRIEN: Sir?