Spoilers Timeless: Season 1 on NBC

[Photoman15]

You can't kill someone who was never born.
I have no problem with eliminating a murder before they were born. So what that things may be affected going forward. It's the new timeline. I don't understand why Barry felt compelled to tell Diggle he had a daughter instead of the current son. It's not like he lost his daughter. He never had one and he had no memory of having one. If he's happy that he has a son, why would that change?
Whoever has the time travel technology if they are altering history to prevent creating a killer is TimeTraveller Victorious.

 

[Christopher]

You can't kill someone who was never born.

Again, that's retreating behind literalism as a moral cop-out. If you choose to do something that you know will cause a living person to no longer be living, that is an act of violence whether you do it with a gun or a time machine.

I have no problem with eliminating a murder before they were born. So what that things may be affected going forward.

Would you feel the same way if it were your life that were affected?

Nobody is defined entirely by a single act. A person who commits a murder at, say, age 30 may have affected many people's lives in both positive and negative ways in the preceding three decades. After all, people kill for many reasons. Not all murderers are psychopaths or serial killers; many are just ordinary people who fell on hard times or got hooked on drugs or otherwise made bad choices. They may have done a lot of good before, and be capable of doing good later on if they're given the chance to reform. Even their past bad actions might've affected others in positive ways -- for instance, maybe as a teenager, the future murderer mugged a young couple at gunpoint, and the danger they faced inspired them to live life to the fullest, so they had a kid who's now an honors student and volunteers at an animal rescue clinic. Erase that murderer from existence, and you also erase that honors student from existence.

And again, even if you could argue that such an action is morally justified, the more fundamental question is, who has the right to decide that for everyone else? What makes the time traveler so special that they're entitled to make that choice unilaterally, without the consent of all the others who are affected? Just because they have the power, that makes it okay for them to use it? That attitude is where much of the greatest evil in history has come from. Power is not license. Anyone who thinks it is should not be entrusted with it.

 

[Tom]

This talk always reminds of this from final episode of Quantum Leap (one of my favorites)

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[Guy Gardener]

There was a Quantum leap Crossover with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 2 weeks back.

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[Mr Awe]

This is the second time you've failed to understand how an analogy was relevant. The moral principle is exactly the same, because in both cases the decision to save one or two people will have harmful effects on many other people.

No, this is at least the second time you've failed to see the point. Yes, if a time traveler were to prevent the birth of a murderer, there would be side effects. We don't know if they'll be harmful or not. However, if you choose not to prevent the birth, we KNOW there will be harmful side effects--the murders plus the suffering of the loved ones.

Given this choice, I'll err on the side of compassion with its known good effects and, granted, some unknown, but not necessarily bad, effects. You'll err on the side of inaction with the known, enormously harmful effects. That's actually evil when you think about it. You know that your inaction will kill multiple people.

That is not even remotely what I'm saying, and it is not even close to what I believe.

Yes it is, you just have not figured out the logical ramifications of inaction.

That may not be "killing" as the term is conventionally defined, but it is murder from the perspective of the time traveler's mens rea and intentions, even if no observers in the altered timeline will be aware that the person ever existed. After all, we're talking about ethics here. The question isn't about the physical or temporal mechanics of a person's existence and its ending, it's about the morality of the time traveler's choice to deliberately target a person for annihilation.

That's your opinion. But, I and others here have a different opinion. I happen to think that letting a murderer live to murder is itself murder. Preventing the birth of a murderer is not murder. It's an action of compassion because it PREVENTS murder.

Obviously we're going round and round on this. Not too unusual for an ethics debate with no clear answer. We'll have to call it a draw. I accept that you won't agree with me and you'll just have to accept that I don't agree with you.

Mr Awe

 

[Guy Gardener]

How can Wyatt create a timeline where his wife survives, but he's still a time traveller in the lifeboat? If in the new timeline "someone else" is in supposed to have been in the lifeboat, who the ground support crew is going to notice is missing: "Where's George?"

This means that there will be a new timeline Wyatt in the new Timeline.

2 Wyatts.

At the same time.

Boom.

No Wyatts.

The wife is alone, and sad and trying to tell anyone that'll listen that spontaneous combustion is real.

 

[Mr Awe]

Given what appears to be the time travel rules in Timeless, the time travelers are not affect by the changes in the timeline. When they return, their memories of their original timeline are intact despite any changes. Lucy remembers her sister, they remember how the James Bond movie didn't exist, etc. And, there's never any alternate versions of the travelers.

So, following those rules, if Wyatt created a timeline where his wife survived they should return to a present where they'll remember that she died and there's no duplicate Wyatt.

Now, the series hasn't really explored paradoxes where their actions would make it so that any of the travelers are no longer part of the team when they return and HQ were expecting a different set of travelers. Not sure how the series would explain that but so far they've avoided that sort of paradox. I get the sense that the series just wants to explore the fun and historical side of time travel and not the paradoxes, at least so far.

Mr Awe

 

[Scout101]

Bingo. It's fun dress up and history porn, they don't seem married to the concept of time travel. If Wyatt saves his wife, it SHOULD be the episode where that cast member leaves and we get a new team member (that was 'always' on the team the whole time). The other two would know the difference, but no one else. He'd have an entirely different life had his wife not died, so wouldn't have ended up in the program.

 

[Mr Awe]

Bingo. It's fun dress up and history porn, they don't seem married to the concept of time travel. If Wyatt saves his wife, it SHOULD be the episode where that cast member leaves and we get a new team member (that was 'always' on the team the whole time). The other two would know the difference, but no one else. He'd have an entirely different life had his wife not died, so wouldn't have ended up in the program.

Ah, but would he? He'd be back in time and so not affected by the change. He'd remember that she'd been murdered and his life without her, as well as being on the team. Of course, all the non-time travelers would think what you describe.

So, what happens when he returns? The people in the present are expecting a different team member? Although, because Wyatt wouldn't be on the team, and his wife would be alive anyway, there would be no need to do that mission. So, our travelers could return to the present and meet another team who didn't even go on that mission. You'd have two teams and two time ships.

However, I don't expect that the show will cover any of this. That isn't the show's style. There are also never any duplicates (which there probably should be). They go back and change history and there should be their counterparts who are native to that history.

Most likely, the wife will stay dead and the series continues on generally as it has been. Or, in the small chance the wife is saved, there won't be any paradoxes like this.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

I thought the Jesse James episode was fantastic! Visually, the episode was stunning! This is by far the best looking time travel series that I've seen. In terms of plot, it was an excellent combination of character development, action, philosophy, mystery, etc. Great episode!

It even had some of the ethical discussions we've been having here. Is it ok to erase the guy from existence in order to prevent 3 deaths (at least)?

I was surprised that Lucy killed Jesse James. Was it because she was upset about her sister? Or, her sense of keeping history intact? I don't know, but it didn't seem in character. Or, maybe it's a plot element that the writers will use in a future episode to justify why she doesn't kill someone else?

Mr Awe

 

[Guy Gardener]

The only reason I can think of that Lucy shot James is so that the Lone Ranger didn't shoot Wyatt, but that's a stretch.

 

[Romulan_spy]

I am enjoying this show more and more. It started off rather simple but the writers are adding more and more layers. I love that we got to see one of the previous pilots and learned a bit more about the program.

The only reason I can think of that Lucy shot James is so that the Lone Ranger didn't shoot Wyatt, but that's a stretch.

As a historian, Lucy knows that Jesse James was supposed to die. If he was imprisoned instead, it could change history in a big way. Jesse could escape custody and would most likely kill a lot more people. So maybe, knowing how wicked Jesse James is, Lucy could not bare the thought of letting him live. The non-existence of her sister is a big factor as well. She knows all to well what happens when history changes. I think that experience just reinforced the belief that she could not allow history to change, especially when it would mean a murderer like Jesse James probably continuing his rampage.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lucy knows that History doesn't matter anymore.

She can't be dumb enough not to have noticed that history does not matter?

They have killed a lot of people that shouldn't have died, including Rittenhouse, and nothing changes. The problem is supposed to be hundreds of millions of sperm all trying to inseminate the same egg, so if you start jiggling time, millions of wrong babies are going to be born, until a critical mass is quickly reached and only the wrong babies are born, even if the parents only knocked boots 5 minutes earlier or later than they were supposed to have.

I'd have to argue that killing H. H. Holmes prematurely before his murder spree was supposed to have ended, distorts history with dozens to hundreds of time-zombies lumbering about safe, who then had children that were never have supposed to have existed and so on, and so on.

Lucy is from 11 timelines ago.

If they were smart, Mason or Rittenhouse, they would replace their Historian at the beginning of every mission, because their mission specialist has memorized the wrong history books, that could be really, really wrong at a crux in their next mission, and therefore a liability.

 

[Christopher]

I figure Lucy felt guilty about letting her sister be erased by a change in history, so she felt the need to keep history on track as much as possible, no matter what. Which is the sort of thing that could put her at odds with Wyatt, given his intention to alter history.

Although there certainly are some changes to history resulting from the deaths Flynn and James caused. For one thing, the novel and film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford will no longer exist.

By the way, the writers didn't do their research well enough: The idea that Marshall Bass Reeves was the model for the Lone Ranger is an Internet myth that's emerged over the past few years (evidently a misunderstanding of a line in a 2008 biography saying he was the closest real-life equivalent to the Lone Ranger). Between this and Sleepy Hollow giving Benjamin Banneker credit for designing Washington, DC, I'm noticing a problematical trend I observed years before in my college history studies: A tendency to manufacture revisionist history by giving Africans or African-Americans credit for familiar European/white achievements that would be valued by a white audience, rather than acknowledging and celebrating the real achievements of Africans and African-Americans that aren't as well-known to white people. While I'm always in favor of promoting equality, falsifying history is the wrong way to do it -- not only because it's untrue, but because it's still pandering to a white audience and white norms rather than letting other cultures' histories be valued for themselves.

Aside from that, though, it was interesting to learn about Reeves, someone I'd never heard of before. Looking over the online info about him, it seems the episode portrayed him fairly accurately aside from the Lone Ranger issue.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I had never heard of Bass Reeves until the preview for this episode. The little research I did before it aired did not turn up him being a model for the Lone Ranger as an Internet myth. But I quickly came to that conclusion myself! If he was as unknown as the show admits why and how could he have inspired the white writers of a radio show in Detroit in the 1930s?

I admire this show for exposing unknown figures in historical figures. But I suspect their is a less admirable angle at work here too. It allowed them to use a famous fictional character to advertise an episode of their show. They do not own the rights to the character but can get away with it by using a historical equivalent. Or someone who has been claimed to be. Whether true or not.

Similar thing happened with the Ian Fleming episode. The preview used dialogue to suggest that it was about the "real James Bond". While in reality Fleming worked in Intelligence, he never worked in the field.

 

[Christopher]

Similar thing happened with the Ian Fleming episode. The preview used dialogue to suggest that it was about the "real James Bond". While in reality Fleming worked in Intelligence, he never worked in the field.

It's not quite the same, though. At least Fleming actually has a connection to Bond, and was the same ethnicity as Bond. It's not the same as assuming that a black historical figure needs to be defined as the equivalent of a white character in order to get audiences to care about him. I, for one, would've been just as interested in Reeves if they hadn't mentioned the Lone Ranger myth. I get that there needs to be something to contextualize him for general audiences, but I think the role of US Marshals in the West is pretty well-established as a Western-hero trope in its own right.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Rittenhouse killed Wyatt's wife.

Rittenhouse was killing Lucy's mum before time travel saved her.

Rittenhouse Sent Mason to rescue young Rufus from the projects.

These three are in play at Rittenhouse's behest.

 

[LJones41]

Bass Reeves is known for being one of several inspirations for the Lone Ranger. Another inspiration may have been Texas Ranger John R. Hughes.

If Wyatt saves his wife, it SHOULD be the episode where that cast member leaves and we get a new team member (that was 'always' on the team the whole time). The other two would know the difference, but no one else. He'd have an entirely different life had his wife not died, so wouldn't have ended up in the program.

Was it established that being a widower led Wyatt into becoming part of the program? This has not prevented Lucy from ending up engaged.

 

[Christopher]

Bass Reeves is known for being one of several inspirations for the Lone Ranger.

See the article I linked to. That's a myth. A 2008 biography said he was the closest real equivalent to the Lone Ranger; it was a misreading of that passage that led to the idea the creators of the LR were actually inspired by him, and everything after that is just people assuming that what they read on the Internet is true. There's no actual documentary evidence that the creators of the LR were inspired by Reeves in any way.

 

[Scout101]

Lucy is from 11 timelines ago.

If they were smart, Mason or Rittenhouse, they would replace their Historian at the beginning of every mission, because their mission specialist has memorized the wrong history books, that could be really, really wrong at a crux in their next mission, and therefore a liability.

this is actually a really huge point, and absolutely correct. Maybe they can handwave it as nothing 'big' has changed, but they're they only 3 that can check, and they seem pretty busy hopping from crisis to crisis. Short of lizard people ruling the earth, would they notice the historical differences?

Her knowledge is more and more useless every time they travel, as things should keep changing. They can only depend on her if they go further back in time than they've been before. if they're visiting the 1960s after screwing around with the 1790s, she's not much help anymore. Of course, what happens to one of them the first time they get left behind? Do they just get absorbed and you come back to whatever the 'native' version of that character that always would have existed in that timeline? i.e. engaged Lucy? Or does she remember everything from the original timeline, but get affected by whatever you changed this last trip? Interesting problem.

But yeah, they either need to switch her up constantly, or drop some lines about her buffing up on the New history between each trip. Or have an encyclopedia they can download to a laptop in the lifeboat after each trip, so she's always got the latest and greatest. Probably also useful to save all the iterations so they can compare them all some day at the end of the journey; see how bad they screwed up the timeline(s).