If you could change one thing in history....

[steveda19]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

My god. Have you learned nothing from Star Trek, NOTHING?!

 

[Amaris]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

I'd prevent the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. So many stories, so much culture was lost when the library was ransacked and burned to the ground. I'd like to save it.

 

[Green Shirt]

My god. Have you learned nothing from Star Trek, NOTHING?!

Learning is overrated.

 

[HIjol]

Greenlighting "3's Company"

No, well, yes, but no...

Preventing the Holocaust and the WW's and Korea and 'Nam, multiple things, but all of a kind.

 

[Green Shirt]

I would be more in favor of changing the outcomes of any number of things in my personal life, rather than mess with the entire universe.

 

[Trekker4747]

I would be more in favor of changing the outcomes of any number of things in my personal life, rather than mess with the entire universe.

Well, I really doubt anything Earth has done has had a meaningful impact on the universe.

 

[Amaris]

I would be more in favor of changing the outcomes of any number of things in my personal life, rather than mess with the entire universe.

I don't know how well that would work out, were it possible. So many end results in life become that way due to thousands of tiny decisions that slowly altered your course, rather than one or two major decisions that radically changed things.

Then again, I think we all have one or two decisions in life that put us on a different path, so maybe it would work out after all.

 

[Melakon]

I'd go back and change my birth date to be 10 years earlier. The result wouldn't be me of course, but wouldn't have lost both my parents while still in my teens.

 

[DimesDan]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

So are you suggesting that we could do one thing isolated from anything else?

Having watched the film Bobby the other day and reading up on him a bit, I would prevent the death of Robert Kennedy as with him as President in the 60s and 70s, the here and now and the state of international relations would be hopefully massively different.

Or I would try and make the victors of the Great War not be such bastards to the German people in the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles and hopefully preventing the rise of fascism and the resulting second world war.

 

[MacLeod]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

So are you suggesting that we could do one thing isolated from anything else?

Having watched the film Booby the other day and reading up on him a bit, I would prevent the death of Robert Kennedy as with him as President in the 60s and 70s, the here and now and the state of international relations would be hopefully massively different.

Or I would try and make the victors of the Great War not be such bastards to the German people in the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles and hopefully preventing the rise of fascism and the resulting second world war.

Why not go back one step further and prevent the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinad of Austria which was one of the catalysts for WWI, which might mean WWI never took place so no need for the Treaty of Versailles.

 

[thestrangequark]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

I'd prevent the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. So many stories, so much culture was lost when the library was ransacked and burned to the ground. I'd like to save it.

That was what came instantly to my mind too. Stop the murder of Hypatia and the burning of Alexandria.

 

[Mary Ann]

I'd prevent the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. So many stories, so much culture was lost when the library was ransacked and burned to the ground. I'd like to save it.

That was what came instantly to my mind too. Stop the murder of Hypatia and the burning of Alexandria.

I didn't think of this myself but definitely agree with it.

 

[publiusr]

I'd prevent the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. So many stories, so much culture was lost when the library was ransacked and burned to the ground. I'd like to save it.

I daydream about Hueys and A-10s strafing the hell out of the nuts with firebrands there.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Honestly? I'd move the dinosaur asteroid a little to the left.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

My god. Have you learned nothing from Star Trek, NOTHING?!

This totally breaks the temporal prime directive.

 

[steveda19]

Im talking about how could we make life better today if we changed something in the past.Who know what the light bulb would been replaced today if we done it earlier. Like did you know lightbuilbs didn't excist in star trek? Something replaced them. Some kind of lighting device on the enterprise.

 

[BillJ]

Stop humanity from ever existing.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

I'd prevent the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. So many stories, so much culture was lost when the library was ransacked and burned to the ground. I'd like to save it.

My thoughts were something similar. Although, to be honest, it wasn't the ransacking and burning that destroyed the library. That allegedly happened on at least two occasions. In the end, it was the fact that the state stopped supporting it that caused it to eventually decline and disappear.

What I'd really say (but it's a bit of a stretch to call it "one thing") is to say that I would create a greater desire to preserve all writings regardless of their origin. Most of the writings we have aren't preserved because they were on ancient scrolls we found and dug up. They're preserved because they were copied over and over since the Middle Ages. That means some medieval monk read it, found it interesting, and preserved it. Sometimes, he added some elements to make it more palatable to a Christian audience (for example, making Beowulf a pro-Christian story) But the bottom line was, unless he found it worth his time to copy it, it probably doesn't exist today. That meant a lot of works just don't exist. For example, we don't fully understand the Etruscan language today. It would certainly help if the 20 volume treatise and dictionary compiled by Emperor Claudius survived.

So much knowledge is lost just because of time. If the question were "if I had a time machine," I'd xerox ancient manuscripts.

 

[DimesDan]

To improve something today what would it be?

I go back after a week Ben Franklin discovered electricity. I give him an plan to build the first power plant made from coal. And give him a plan to build the first lightbulb. Imagine lights were stored in cities in 1780. Just imagine lights advanced today.Plus it would create jobs back then too.

So are you suggesting that we could do one thing isolated from anything else?

Having watched the film Booby the other day and reading up on him a bit, I would prevent the death of Robert Kennedy as with him as President in the 60s and 70s, the here and now and the state of international relations would be hopefully massively different.

Or I would try and make the victors of the Great War not be such bastards to the German people in the negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles and hopefully preventing the rise of fascism and the resulting second world war.

Why not go back one step further and prevent the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinad of Austria which was one of the catalysts for WWI, which might mean WWI never took place so no need for the Treaty of Versailles.

You answered your own question.