Time Traver RAR

[Purple]

Alright, here is another one of my rare but not quite sane hypothetical scenarios.

Imagine for a moment that by act of ROB you are given a functioning time machine. The machine works by plain magic and any attempts to understand how or why will fail. Furthermore you are informed that attempting to disassemble it will make the whole cosmos revert to a pre big bang state.

And just to spice things up, the machine comes with some rather strange rules:
#1 By act of ROB the machine allows you to ignore all those pesky paradoxes and flat out interact or change the past as you see fit.
#2 The machine can travel through both space and time.
#3 The machine can travel forward in time as well as backward. But it can only do this once and only to the exact moment of you first using it. In other words you can't take it into the future AND you have only one forward jump that will return you to the present. So if you say jump to 1969 your next jump can either be to 2012 or to a year before 69, not to say 1970. After the machine makes this forward jump it will vanish. What this means is that if you chose to change the past you can't go forward and check how it worked out. And you can't jump back and forth correcting your self. So any changes you make better be planed out perfectly.

Knowing these rules, would you use said machine and how?

[Batman]

No. This machine is just as useless as the standard 'we can't change the past because it already happened' time machine. Time travel is pointless if it can't change anything, and without the ability to verify it did change anything Ihave no idea wether or not it worked. As usual, the very fact that there's a past for me to want to change already heavily intimates that I failed otherwise that past wouldn't be there for me to want to change to begin with.

[Purple]

Time travel is pointless if it can't change anything, and without the ability to verify it did change anything Ihave no idea wether or not it worked.

I think you misunderstood this fundamentally. Of course you can see what immediate effect you had right there and than. What you can't do until you go back to the present is see how that will have effected the time line down stream from your alteration. To give an example, you can go and kill Hitler. And you will indeed see his dead body right there in front of you. What you won't be able to see until you get back is how history was changed by his death.

I introduced the clause for the sole purpose of removing the magical undo button that all cartoon physics time machines carry with them. As in, if you go into the past and change stuff. And later you don't like what you caused than you CAN'T fix it. That way you have to think about your actions in advance since there ain't no undoing them.

As usual, the very fact that there's a past for me to want to change already heavily intimates that I failed otherwise that past wouldn't be there for me to want to change to begin with.

Except that as per the OP causality be damned. This thing works by cartoon physics. And cartoon physics don't care about paradoxes. So deal with it.

[Grumman]

Time travel is pointless if it can't change anything, and without the ability to verify it did change anything Ihave no idea wether or not it worked.

Any idiot can go forwards in time; just wait five minutes.

Here's an example of one thing you could do: go back a year and shoot Breivik between the bombing and the shooting. He's a mass murderer who killed eight people so any temporal fallout should be minimal, but you save the other sixty-nine victims. You could even come back the long way, if you want to save the single forwards jump for a more important occasion.

[Ahriman238]

So if I understand you correctly, Purple. This is a time machine that can take us back to any point in history, but can take us home only once? Or most of the way if we want to dry and day-by-day it?

Or do you mean we could never travel further back then the first time we used it, or have to return to the present before returning to the past?

Whatever, if I get to go back, just once, I go back to the late 40s-early 50s, make a killing on investments and inventions. Maybe buy a sports almanac to. A small bit I will set aside to live out my days in reasonable luxury, a bit more to care for my family, and the rest I will dedicate to genuinely making the world a better place. I can invest in green energy long before it's practical to do so, knowing my other investments can keep me afloat. Or sink enough dough and tips into the space program to maybe keep it alive. Plus racial/gender/orientation equality. It'll be an uphill battle, but knowing who win elections, and who maybe could have won with a rich contributor, should help me find or create open minds.

I enlist my grandparents, who were were pretty cool, well-educated and traveled people, into my 'conspiracy of light' cluing them in on my future knowledge and desired changes. I'll need sounding boards for my ideas.

Retire in the early 90s to live out my days teaching college somewhere, obscenely wealthy and a titan of a dozen or so fields.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If I can only make one return trip? Go back to the week after my 20th earlier this year, find the winning Euromillions numbers, then go back to the day before my birthday (a Thursday), buy the winning ticket, spend my brithday not screwing things up with the girlfriend, then return to the present day a lot happier and richer.

[Purple]

So if I understand you correctly, Purple. This is a time machine that can take us back to any point in history, but can take us home only once?

Exactly. And after it takes you home it vanishes. That way you have to live with any changes you made.
The thing basically has 1 "forward travel" charge and infinite "reverse travel" charges. And the "forward travel" one has a fixed destination.

So say you want to make a jump to 1960. Your next jump (#2) can be either to 2012 or any year before 1960. Say your next jump is to 1945. Now that you are in 1945 your next jump (#3) can only be to a year before 1945 or forward to 2012. But you can't go to 1960 any more since that would be forward travel.

Or do you mean we could never travel further back then the first time we used it, or have to return to the present before returning to the past?

Where did this come from?

[Simon_Jester]

A one-use time machine (which this effectively is) lends itself more to "improve my personal situation" than "change history." The obvious gambit is something like lottery tickets, yes.

I'd have to set it all up in advance, mind, to avoid arousing any peculiar suspicion by having two of me appear in the same place at the same time. If I'm clever, I might be able to cheat by finding out whether my temporal manipulation worked before I go and actually do it...

[AniThyng]

A one-use time machine (which this effectively is) lends itself more to "improve my personal situation" than "change history." The obvious gambit is something like lottery tickets, yes.

I'd have to set it all up in advance, mind, to avoid arousing any peculiar suspicion by having two of me appear in the same place at the same time. If I'm clever, I might be able to cheat by finding out whether my temporal manipulation worked before I go and actually do it...

Yeah about that, what happens when I travel back in time to meet myself...?

And if I travel back to yesterday, do X, then travel back to the day before yesterday and wait, will what I did yesterday still happen?

[Purple]

A one-use time machine (which this effectively is) lends itself more to "improve my personal situation" than "change history." The obvious gambit is something like lottery tickets, yes.

I'd have to set it all up in advance, mind, to avoid arousing any peculiar suspicion by having two of me appear in the same place at the same time. If I'm clever, I might be able to cheat by finding out whether my temporal manipulation worked before I go and actually do it...

Yeah about that, what happens when I travel back in time to meet myself...?

And if I travel back to yesterday, do X, then travel back to the day before yesterday and wait, will what I did yesterday still happen?

Yes it will. You can even repeat that 10 times over and than wait things out and have a wild party with 10 of your self.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Woudl I be able to take anyone with me in this time machine? For instance, go back to my aforementioned birthday, collect my girlfriend, go back a day, wait it out and then have a great party with both of them?

[Purple]

Woudl I be able to take anyone with me in this time machine? For instance, go back to my aforementioned birthday, collect my girlfriend, go back a day, wait it out and then have a great party with both of them?

Yea sure. Basically anyone who uses this machine is while using it* completely exempt from all the silly paradox laden causality thing and operates on cartoon time travel physics.


* Defined as: You from the moment you first use it to the moment you use your one forward jump and anyone you pick up along the way from the moment you pick them up to the moment you use your one forward jump or jump away leaving them behind.

To give a silly example. You can go pick up your girlfriend from yesterday, than go 50 years in the past and kill both your parents so that you are newer born and than return to the present and party if you want. You two are exempt from causality.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Sweet. THen I amend my plan to winning the lottery and celebrating my 20th with an orgy composed entirely of me and my grilfriend who has been "copied" a few times by time travel magic.

Then return to present, marry girlfriend , build a nice house and a private school, live out my days as a wealthy philanthropic educator.

[Ahriman238]

So if I understand you correctly, Purple. This is a time machine that can take us back to any point in history, but can take us home only once?

Exactly. And after it takes you home it vanishes. That way you have to live with any changes you made.
The thing basically has 1 "forward travel" charge and infinite "reverse travel" charges. And the "forward travel" one has a fixed destination.

So say you want to make a jump to 1960. Your next jump (#2) can be either to 2012 or any year before 1960. Say your next jump is to 1945. Now that you are in 1945 your next jump (#3) can only be to a year before 1945 or forward to 2012. But you can't go to 1960 any more since that would be forward travel.

Ok. Then my original plan stands. Unless I decide I'd rather have the latest conveniences and just go back to earn $20 in 1800 and stick it in a bank...

After that, same plan. Live out my days in relative luxury, while channeling the majority of my fortune into worthy causes and crackpot theories. Maybe I'll become the nut who invests in building a space habitat even though it'll take decades or more to earn itself back.

Or do you mean we could never travel further back then the first time we used it, or have to return to the present before returning to the past?

Where did this come from?

Eh, by that point I was just spitballing.

[Carinthium]

Using cartoon time travel physic's unique ability to ignore what makes sense, could I go back to the past, give advice to myself with proof, deposit my past self back into the timeline, let history play out, and NOT face the consequnece that I've effectively erased myself as I am now?

For me the optimal scenario is that I can that, effectively "wake up" as the new me, yet somehow have not in any way erased myself from the timeline. The exploits would be way too easy...

EDIT: That is if you don't count gambling towards a cure for aging, which becomes plausible given this scenario...

[Havok]

I would disassemble it.