Science Fiction
The Time Traveller
To go someWHEN, one needs a Time Machine
I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in
silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled
but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger
edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before
our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been
filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but
the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some
sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it
seemed to be.
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
A Newer Model . . .
The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek)
Edith Keeler must die
Back to the Future (1985)
So what are the “laws” of Time Travel
Despite Superman (1978) Each work, series or anthology defines its own
theory of time travel
Common examples include:
A changeable (or plastic) past. Fluid timeline
Timeline is fixed. “Changes” made by time travelers are already part of the
timeline.
Alternate timelines or parallel universes
Changeable but only with the knowledge of the time traveler
Time loop
The Plastic Timeline
Key concept:
The Butterfly Effect. Ian Malcom explains Chaos Theory
It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems. The shorthand
is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in
Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine
A Sound of Thunder (1952)
Ray Bradbury
Bradbury’s Time Machine – for pleasure trips:
Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and
tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel
boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now
silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic
bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the
parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set
aflame.
Foreshadowing
"Unbelievable." Eckels breathed, the light of
the Machine on his thin face. "A real Time
Machine." He shook his head. "Makes you
think, If the election had gone badly
yesterday, I might be here now running away
from the results. Thank God Keith won. He'll
make a fine President of the United States."
A bullet dodged?
"We're lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we'd
have the worst kind of dictatorship. There's an
anti everything man for you, a militarist, antiChrist, anti human, antiintellectual. People called
us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if
Deutscher became President they wanted to go
live in 1492.
Walking On Safari in the past
It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch
so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an
antigravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from
touching this world of the past in any way. Stay
on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off.
For any reason! If you fall off, there's a penalty.
And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."
The MOUSE effect?
“like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity”
With a stamp of your foot, you
annihilate first one, then a dozen,
then a thousand, a million, a billion
possible mice!
Bradbury’s solution to Time Travel Paradox
"That'd be a paradox," said the latter. "Time
doesn't permit that sort of messa man meeting
himself. When such occasions threaten, Time
steps a
tting an
air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before
we stopped?
A fatal step
"Eckels!"
He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.
"Not that way!"
All is changed, utterly changed . . .
Embedded in the mud, glistening
green and gold and black, was a
butterfly, very beautiful and very
dead.
The worst kind of dictatorship.
"You joking? You know very well. Deutscher, of course! Who
else? Not that fool weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with
guts!“
Eckels prepares to be shot (?!). Can’t change time again due to
paradox explained earlier by Bradbury.
Fixed Timeline – 12 Monkeys
Bruce Willis’ character (James Cole) is able to convince his therapist
Madelieine Stowe (Katharyn Railly) that he is a time traveler because:
He knows a boy is only pretending to be stuck in a mine
She removes a bullet from his leg – from 1920. This bullet
connects to a photo she had used in her book.
Foreshadowing of personal connection
Can’t change destiny in a “fixed” timeline
Timeloops
Groundhog Day (1993)
Source Code (2011)
The Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Looper (2012)
Personal involvement
Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
(2003)
Kindred, Octavia Butler (1979)
Interstellar (2014)
Time Travel to experience slavery
I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen
the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard
their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn’t lain nearby and smelled their
sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their
families and themselves. I was probably less prepared for the reality
than the child crying not far from me. In fact, she and I were reacting
very much alike. My face too was wet with tears
Kindred (36)
Dana justifies helping Rufus
The boy was literally growing up as I watched—growing up because I
watched and because I helped to keep him safe. I was the worst
possible guardian for him—a black to watch over him in a society that
considered women perennial children. I would have all I could do to
look after myself. But I would help him as best I could. And I would try
to keep friendship with him, maybe plant a few ideas in his mind that
would help both me and the people who would be his slaves in the
years to come. I might even be making things easier for Alice.
Kindred (68)
Key question: Personal & Historical
Dana’s ancestor Alice has run away, and then been caught. Dana
comforts as she recovers from her beating, and offers three options:
Resist Rufus sexual advances, and be beaten and taken anyway
Accept his advances, and live as his mistress. Perhaps less painful that
way.
Runaway again and risk death