Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Fniff]

You are not exactly an amazing scientist.

You basically work out of your apartment, you have no funding, no materials, no credibility and no skill in anything apart from completely stupid theories that have been proven impossible several times. All the other scientists say that time travel is impossible, and that dimensional travel is slightly less stupid if still hard to do. You know this isn't true, because you... No, you have no proof at all. As you tinker with the scrap of metal lying on your desk, you start wondering how many months have passed with this stupid bloody obsession. You remember the landlord trying to force you out with a shotgun, and several estate agents wandering in with families only to see you cooped up in the dark, pale as a dead body, still working on the shapeless pointless scrap of metal you have, and running away. You still wonder what the hell you are supposed to do when a SWAT team is sent in to get you out of this apartment and into a mental asylum.

After having a break of popcorn and some TV watching, you come back to your obsession. This idiotic scrap of metal that could change everything.

You sit down, and stare at it. Hey, what happens if you hammer this part of it...

The machine's lights turn on. It starts to whir. The touchscreen from an Iphone you found turns on, and some numbers appear on the screen.

"DATE: 22nd of May, 2011, 4:42 AM."

You fiddle around with the date with your fingers, and it changes. Hm. What date would you like to go to?

[Knave]

SAME DATE 10 YEARS IN THE FUTURE!

[Bdthemag]

Go back in time a few years ago and give the machine to your past self.

[Fniff]

Right, time to test this shit out!

First, you'll go back in time to 2005, and give your past self a time machine!

You set the time, specify the location and press go!

Right, you lived in this apartment since 2005, you should be...

Here.

Where are you? Shouldn't...Shouldn't your past self be here? It's the right date and everything! You go back to your timeline, and go 10 years into the future. Your apartment is still standing, so you search your name on the internet via a computer you find.

... 0 results.

What happened?

[Bdthemag]

Your probally using Ask as your search engine. If not then something went horribly wrong, contact best friend to see if you still exist.

[AntiAntiMatter]

Go into the far future and learn how time travel works.

[Strife26]

Check under the couch cousins for loose change, then go outside and buy a newspaper.
Check the paper's date to determine year.
Check the paper's stories to see if anything is seriously changed.
Check the paper's language, if it's German, we probably just allowed the Nazis to win WWII.

[Grek]

I wrote this up ages ago for a different game in a different time, but pretty much all of the advice in it applies to our situation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ten Tips for Time Travellers: A Guide to Temporal Safety Procedures
Published by the Sentinel Company of Temporal Anomalies

1. Always Await Confirmation.
Nine out of ten time travelling mistakes can be avoided by being certain to confer with your future selves about possible hazards or errors before embarking. If possible, copy down the instructions verbatim onto a personal computer, journal or sticky note and review it thoroughly. If this is not possible, then do your best to memorize all future-knowledge given to you by way of verbal repetition. If possible, provide yourself with a time-stamped itinerary of actions. If you do not arrive to give your self the go-ahead for the procedure, strongly consider revising the procedure until you are able to return to state that the procedure is safe.

2. Always Send Confirmation.
In corollary to the previous tip, always be sure to send all relevant future-knowledge to your past self regarding your trip that your past self is cleared to know. Failing to send this information will retroactively erase the information from your memory (assuming that you have not taken proper precautions to prevent this) and may compromise the integrity of the mission. Only allow your past self to embark if you recall yourself fully memorizing and, over the course of the mission, recalling the information required.

3. Entropic Disintegration.
It is highly inadvisable to send an object (or individual) through multiple iterations of past-wards time travel. Doing so will age the object by the duration between arrival and departure multiplied by the number of iterations that the object is sent before the entropic processes which act upon all objects degrade the object to the point of preventing it from being sent. As such, procedures should be put in place to observe all time travelling objects for possible entropic damage and to prevent their departure should it become apparent that entropic damage will take place.

4. Power Requirements
Sufficient power for each temporal procedure should be allocated for two times the expected amount in addition to twice the acceptable margin of error, to allow for the possibility of recursive iterations. If the procedure requires more power than is within acceptable margins, this should be included in the retroactive report outlined in section one of this document and revisions should be made to the procedure's protocol to correct this, either by allocating more power, finding greater efficiency, or by removing possible recursion errors from the procedure.

5. Ontological Errors.
Do not be tempted by the possibility of having information sent back to you about the results of an experiment and then declining to actually carry out the experiment in which the information is to be collected. Doing so will result in the degradation of the information in question unless there is an absolute zero statistical possibility for that information to be even slightly altered by the process of transmission. It is recommended that double blinding be used in the process of authorizing the procedure.

6. Information Storage
Data and samples relating to temporal experimentation should be recorded and/or stored with methods not effected by causality, if possible. Information regarding these methods is restricted to authorized personnel only. Authorization is subject to approval by the relevant authorities and is available retroactively to individuals for whom non-causal storage will be approved. All applications are to be submitted to the Ministry of Bureaucracy for storage until such time as the office which approves the release of information regarding these methods is created.

7. Armed Personnel Requirements
Time travelling experiments should only be undertaken in the presence of a sufficient number of armed Sentinel Company guardsmen in order to handle any possible threats that may arise during the process. Possible threats include anachronistic invasion, run-away entropy scenarios, displacement events and [DATA REDACTED] Only Sentinel Company members and individuals approved by both the research team and the Company officer should be present at the experiment.

8. Authorization
Temporal experimentation should not be carried out without due authorization from the Board of Directors. It is strongly advised that you do not submit the results of an experiment to the Board og Directors as part of the experiment's authorization process. Doing so significantly reduces the possibility of your experiment being approved and may cause ontological issues to arise if it is rejected.

9. Usage of Mission Designations.
It is advisable to assign each member of the time travelling expedition a set of mission designations which denote what part of the mission that individual is currently conducting. An example would be "Martin-0, Martin-1, Martin-2, Martin-3 and Martin-4" with each number assigned a section of the mission. This is designed to prevent confusion during conversations between yourselves.

10. Ripple Effects
Although the chaotic effects of altering the past are almost always excessively exaggerated, they do exist. As such, effort should be made to minimize changes made in distant time periods. One should attempt to blend in with the natives and to behave in a way culturally similar to them, as not to cause a disturbance. Keep in mind, however, that the sort of catastrophic nightmare scenario popularly conceived of is largely a myth.

[jetex1911]

Go back in time a few years ago and give the machine to your past self.

NO. THAT WOULD CAUSE A TIME PARADOX. ((If you gave it to your past self, why would you have to give it to your past self if you already had it?))

Go back in time into the 1950's, my favorite decade ((I don't know why, it's just my favorite decade for some reason))

[Fniff]

First, you decide to check the newspaper. Nothing seems to have changed much, then. You didn't really do anything anyway, so there wasn't a risk. You then go to your friend's house to check out if anything is up. You knock on the door. He answers.

"Hi, Phil!" You say.

"... Who are you?" Phil stares at you.

"Uh, I am your friend! My name's Steve Orion! You know me!"

"... Ah-huh. Goodbye." The door slams in your face.

Err...

I think you just became an Un-Person. Oh well, that gets rid of time-paradoxes then. You consider that you may have changed history so you never met him... Maybe you should visit a parent...

You consider going into the 1950's, but when and where?

[Bdthemag]

Go back in time to when you gave yourself the timemachine, then stop yourself from giving yourself the time machine so you can save yourself.

[Fniff]

You didn't give yourself the timemachine. You built it.

[Bdthemag]

Fine then go back in time and steal the timemachine that you created in the past so you can never use it.

[Karnewarrior]

Go make sure time goes according to plan! Make sure everything happens the way it was meant to.


EVERYTHING.

[Fniff]

After a bit of correcting, you realize how mind numbing boring making everything perfect is.