Okay, let’s for a second just ignore all the problems with time travel: the reasons it couldn’t happen, all the paradox stuff. Let’s assume it’s totally possible and you can go there without affecting any timelines or screwing with history. Where would you go? What would you see? What historical events would you want to witness?
Man, it’s such a big question. Personally I have two distinct things I’d like to do. To begin with, I’d want to go back in time. All the way back to the dinosaurs. I know — this is about as cliche as it gets, but gosh darnit I want to see dinosaurs. I have no idea what specific period, but I think I would just jump around all the different times and see as many dinosaurs as possible.
Then I would like to go into the distant future, like 1000 years into the future. What does the world look like? What does technology look like? What do we as a human race look like? Man. I want to time travel so bad.
Anyway, the question is this: time travel. Where do you go and when?
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49 responses to “Off Topic: Travelling Through Time”
If Doctor Who has taught me nothing else, and it hasn’t, no matter where or when I’d like to go, I’ll probably end up in a quarry in Wales.
Or a nondescript corridor…
And end up running a lot.
I’d love to go to two time eras:
La Belle Epoque in Paris in the late 1800s. When an era of whimsy and pagentry was in the air which was destroyed once WWI started.
And Post WWII USA. 1946 to 1955 When the Beat Generation was in the beginnings
I’d go back to Daft Punk’s Alive concert.
I’d also tell myself not to study art and do cooking instead, future living out of home vonsack will thank you for it.
Judas Priest’s 1979 Hell Bent For Leather concert in Tokyo for me 😛
Then I’d skip my way back picking up various Nintendo gear I’ve been unable to track down. I can’t really think of much else I’d specifically want to do, it’d probably just meander about and pick random other times to check out and just see what’s there.
Ooh good choice, I also wouldnt mind seeing the live recording of Led Zeppelin’s How The West Was Won.
Two artists that I’d want to see live would be The Chilli Peppers and Michael Jackson.
You could probably still see Chilli Peppers. Michael Jackson would have been great in his prime.
It’d be Dio for me. Or Dimebag.
It goes on, and on, and on, it’s
HEAVEN AND HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
I honestly don’t understand how so much metal could fit into that goblin man. Ronnie James Dio would have been fantastic to see live.
Go watch a Youtube clip of a live performance. Even with crackly audio, no concert atmosphere and from the comfort of your computer chair, the man still sends shivers down your spine. From all accounts, he was the coolest, nicest dude as well.
I’d like to be able to witness the Trinity nuclear test and the launch of Apollo 8
Back to the time of Jesus to see if the miracles actually happened (and take video footage either way)
Forward 100 years from now, over multiple jumps, to see the world each century after I die.
I’d like to witness the Pyramids being built. Then I’d like to go forward 1 week and get lottery results, before returning to the present (let’s pretend there is no butterfly effect.)
Few things I would like to do.
Prevent the sale of Rareware to Microsoft
Give past me the heads up on a few shitty decisions that I make that affect the direction of my life.
And the big one would have to be to go back even further than Mark and witness the big bang occur (or the less likely “creation”, what have you, I won’t judge)
Ohhhh yesss. That is a time travel essential.
Oh man. You could totally go back and save Gunpei Yokoi’s life!
Last night so I could eat dinner again…even though I just had leftovers…
I would go back to early 80s buy a load of rare atari games. Nick back to mid 60s save all the missing Doctor Who episodes and buy scotch – put it in storage. Nip forward buy wine – put it in storage. Grab 10 neo geos and pile of games. I would then celebrate by slapping a young Tony Abbott in the head with a cricket bat signed by the Don.
What he said!!!
I’d love to head back and be in the crowd for the opening night of the original Star Wars.
I’d be to tempted to shout out spoilers.
I’d go to Athens and chill with Socrates.
Then probably go and check on Nietzsche, stroke his mustache and give him a pat on the back for being a smart dude.
Then I’d go chill with Camus, Sartre and De Beauvoir. Mostly chill with Camus though. Eat some baguettes or something.
Have a good long chat with Marx about the people who are going to read Das Kapital.
Or punch Nostradamus in the face and ask him if he saw it coing
Go back to the time of Neanderthals and throw a few extra bones in with their remains just to screw with archaeologists of the future.
I like knowing things. I’d want to revisit mysteries of the past just to know once and for all what really happened. What was really behind the Tunguska event? What really happened at Roswell in 1947? Who was Jack the Ripper? (Maybe I could stop a few prostitutes being murdered as well).
One cool thing would be to take recording of spoken Ancient Egyptian. Dead languages FTW!
There’s not a lot that shits me off more than people who struggle to suspend disbelief any time the notion of time travel comes up.
Already have, went back to 1936 and killed Hitler.
Who?
I’d go back in time and prevent my father from dying, to ensure I’m actually born, and can exist here in the present day.
… oh hey… it worked.
Back to the time of T-rex, with a camera, to create a sort of ‘Oh and here’s me in front of a freaking t-rex’ for the travel album to go with the Eiffel Tower, Leaning tower of Pisa shots..
Clive, is that you?
Kennedy Assassination with a modern camera rig. Just so we can sort it out, once and for all. (First-century Palestine would be interesting as well – what was that dude like?) Historical crimes, too – Zodiac, Jack the Ripper.
Other than that, maybe a hundred, 150 years in the future? Long enough that I’m dead – I don’t want to know how it all ends for me – but soon enough that I can meet, like, great-grandkids who don’t remember me.
I’d like to see a bunch of history stuff…
The Mongol Horde, The 3 Popes, The Colossus of Rhodes… stuff like that.
Then I’d go forwards and either steal some patents, or get the lotto numbers… or buy a copy of Gray’s Sports Almanac.
I’ve just travelled back form 2021 to warn Mark not to become CEO of Activision.
I must be quick but I’ve just returned from even further in the future to warn you to not warn Mark! Things went real bad when super duper scottish pitfall wasn’t released. The humanity! He must release it despite the war!!!
Fractripro it’s fractripro from YOUR future. Don’t tell Stevorooni to not tell Mark. He must not release the game. Whatever happens he must not release it. The robots rose up and 0111010000111100001110000101001….
First of all, I’m going back to 1988 to shake Mel Blanc’s hand/
Then back to 1940 to meet Nikola Tesla.
Then to october 10th 2013 to play GTA Online and not have to worry about launch bugs
Ooh you could take Tesla for a ride in a Tesla Roadster
I would travel 100 years in to the future just to see how many Pokemon they have.
Going to travel to every day in the future to get all of the HaiTaku answers.
If it was just the capability to travel through time then it wouldn’t get you very far. The Earth is always moving, so if you travel in time, any period, then you best hope you also have a teleporter as well. Which wasn’t covered by the scope of the article, so you’re all dead.
Thinking about it, I tend to go places more for the people than for anything that’s there.
It’d be pretty cool to go back to the 40s or so and meet my grandfather as a mischievous young man.
After rescuing the early series of good BBC shows that they burned because no one would ever want to watch black and white stuff again, I’d go back to the early 80s & buy lots of salt & vinegar chips and see if they actually had real kick to them as I remember or if it’s just a nostalgic thing where I think they’re not as strong as they used to be.
I’d go back to the 20s and then the 60s to get a couple of good fountain pens. It’s a pain in the arse to find a decent vintage pen these days… Then skip forward a few hundred years and find a history book to look up dates, then go back again to watch the test flight of the first warp drive (or whatever form of potential interstellar space travel we end up creating – personally, I hope it’s foldspace tech, but it’d make for a rather uninteresting, if quick, journey).
PREVENT PHIL HARTMAN FROM DYING
Some people would kill Hitler, some would stop 9/11
but for me
it’s all about the legend himself
Even if that would vastly change Futurama, too