Defeating Time Travel

[Eulogy]

While reading through old threads, one theme I keep stumbling across is that Time Travel = Win. If a combatant can travel through time (hi Daleks!) and his opponent can't, then said combatant effectively has free reign to assrape his opponent whichever way he likes.

Naturally, possible victims (should they even get the chance) will want counters to this. So I ask you all: is there a way to stop Time Travel, or at least make it ineffective?

[chitoryu12]

Make a shitload of backups for every situation and hide them in areas not known to the travelers. Shoot them before they can travel back in time. I don't know!

[Stark]

Depends. If time travellers aren't immune to causality, they can create paradoxes instead of helping themselves. The whole 'go back to before they found you and kill them' thing is a classic case of a giant paradox, for instance. In many settings this doesn't matter, due to many-worlds or Time Lord intervention or whatever.

In Star Trek I bet you can set up 'temporal jamming fields' like transporter jammers that prevents the use of time travel (and perhaps even the entry of time travelling things). They already have 'temporal shields' to protect them from causality.

However, most groups with time travel are *also* powerful conventionally, like the Daleks. Defusing their time travel isn't going to save you. Others base their power on their time technology, like the Time Lords, and thus don't even WANT to fight you because you've got nothing they want.

[Patrick Degan]

Basically, if your enemy has space/time capability and you don't even understand the first principles of such mechanics, you're fucked. It's not that they can do anything paradoxical such as erasing your world/species from existence as much as they can essentially strike without warning any place you have forces and perform simultaneous multiple strikes. It's the same disparity that you'd see if a bunch of Fiji islanders tried attacking an American battleship in their war canoes and using spears and clubs.

[General Zod]

Depends. If time travellers aren't immune to causality, they can create paradoxes instead of helping themselves. The whole 'go back to before they found you and kill them' thing is a classic case of a giant paradox, for instance. In many settings this doesn't matter, due to many-worlds or Time Lord intervention or whatever.

In Star Trek I bet you can set up 'temporal jamming fields' like transporter jammers that prevents the use of time travel (and perhaps even the entry of time travelling things). They already have 'temporal shields' to protect them from causality.

However, most groups with time travel are *also* powerful conventionally, like the Daleks. Defusing their time travel isn't going to save you. Others base their power on their time technology, like the Time Lords, and thus don't even WANT to fight you because you've got nothing they want.

Even Timelords have certain guidelines that they can't interfere with. Like how it's a bad idea for them to go back into a series of events that they've interacted with at least once, which sort of helps keep down the "keep going back til you've got it right" problem and other nonsense to a minimum.

[Stark]

Even Timelords have certain guidelines that they can't interfere with. Like how it's a bad idea for them to go back into a series of events that they've interacted with at least once, which sort of helps keep down the "keep going back til you've got it right" problem and other nonsense to a minimum.

Yeah, they *can* do stuff like that, but they have limits on how much power they can be using at once. Even in low-power situations like Three Doctors they can contain the problems caused by crossing the Doctor's timeline, and they apparently keep their eye out for such problems and clean them up. Probably one of the reasons they tried to maintain a temporal monopoly for so long: it's a pain in the ass cleaning up after the Marty McFly's of the universe.

[Ford Prefect]

I remember from The Two Doctors that the Sixth Doctor was questioned as to how the TARDIS could be in the same place at the same time, to which he replied that it wasn't.

As Patrick says, defeating foes with travel through time becomes almost impossible if they have something resembling profiency in it. While you could presumably try and outfight the forces they send, but you'd need to have one hell of an advantage in order to make that work.

[Lord of the Abyss]

To me, it seems that the most likely method to succeed is some method of subversion or assimilation. Something like the Thing or Professor X could take the time traveller(s) over before they knew there was even a danger, and then they'd have time travel too. A super-manipulator as seen in some fiction could induce their society to tear itself apart.

Another method that might work, under some circumstances are the better precogs in some universes. "A time traveller is going to appear right on that big red "X" I marked. Fire in three, two, one, . . . FIRE !" < traveller appears, goes splat >

And someone like the Culture given the slightest chance could just steal the technology, without the traveller even realizing it, possibly; they couldn't do anything about a strike at their own past from someone they never encountered in their present, but most time travellers are screwed if they interact with them much at all before deciding to attack. They have every chance of traveling back in time and finding a ROU with pirated time travel equipment waiting for them.

[Darth Wong]

Doesn't it depend on the limits of the time-travel capability in question? Even a time machine must require some sort of fuel, and have some sort of range, and have some sort of cargo limit.

[Parallax]

Doesn't it depend on the limits of the time-travel capability in question? Even a time machine must require some sort of fuel, and have some sort of range, and have some sort of cargo limit.

Depends on the time machine in question. In the classic series, a TARDIS had essentially unlimited power - it certainly didn't need refuelling like in the current series. It's range was incredible, from the start of the universe right to the end and even outside of it (Logopolis, the Doctor sent the TARDIS and his companions outside of Space/Time so they'd be away from the destructing Universe).
Similarly, TARDIS interiors are truly massive. While it does theoretically have a limit, who knows what it may be.

[Ford Prefect]

Similarly, TARDIS interiors are truly massive. While it does theoretically have a limit, who knows what it may be.

Doesn't Romana give a mass value for the TARDIS in The Invasion of Time?

Also, the Time Lords are a rather high-end example. There are lesser examples of time travel capable groups such as ... Doc Brown?

[SirNitram]

'When the Time Lords were at the height of their power and keeping things running properly, the TARDIS never needed refueling, so it had no limits!' That's bloody stupid. That simply tells us the TARDIS' fuel requirements could be satisfied easily and off-camera when the infrastructure was in place. When the infrastructure was destroyed in the War, no more easy refueling.

[Stark]

Nah, they were linked directly to the Eye of Harmony, the crazy star-power source Omega created. I'm not hugely sure how, but using a Gallifrey-based timescoop to transfer energy should work.

The point about limits is a good one - many universes have time travel good for ONE GUY. Sometimes it's a huge facility that can send a guy somewhere in time - but only one at a time. What about that 7-days show where the whole place was a time machine, with enough fuel for one shot, and they kept going back so that they never had to go back and always had that one shot of fuel?

[NecronLord]

'When the Time Lords were at the height of their power and keeping things running properly, the TARDIS never needed refueling, so it had no limits!' That's bloody stupid. That simply tells us the TARDIS' fuel requirements could be satisfied easily and off-camera when the infrastructure was in place. When the infrastructure was destroyed in the War, no more easy refueling.

Correct. They had a direct link to a source of power called the Eye of Harmony on the homeworld, as well as a smaller Eye of Harmony in the ships themselves. For the most part, they didn't even know where that was or quite what it did, presumably excepting time-ship designers and the Lord President (who had unrestricted access to the Matrix, a store of all his predecessor's memories, including Rassilon, who built and positioned the thing in the first place) Other than that, the antiquated piece of junk the protagonist flies around in recently demonstrated, having filled its tanks, the ability to travel one hundred trillion years forwards, and then back again as a minimum.

While the infrastructure's up and running, there appears to be essentially no requirement to refuel (though the ships do require regular maintainance, not that the Doctor's gets that, with it being stolen) in that the Time Lords are providing direct energy. This energy/time they can produce is certainly finite, though, as Omega was in control of "a source of power equal to and opposite to our own." In the new series, it appears to require recharge about every two seasons, and, as noted above, has some fairly impressive fuel capacity.

[Baal]

One can defeat a time-travelling foe. One merely has to beat them completely and utterly the very first time you encounter them and they become your foe. Basically you destroy them before the time travel comes into the equation.

If I get in a fight with an evil Doc Brown and shoot him 5 minutes after we meet then I win. If though we exchange words and let him walk away I am screwed. He can now hit me whenever he wants to and odds are he will pick a time before I ever met him so I wont know to be on the lookout for him.

Of course this plays all kinds of havoc with time so it depends on how time works in the particular Universe.

[Patrick Degan]

One can defeat a time-travelling foe. One merely has to beat them completely and utterly the very first time you encounter them and they become your foe. Basically you destroy them before the time travel comes into the equation.

If I get in a fight with an evil Doc Brown and shoot him 5 minutes after we meet then I win. If though we exchange words and let him walk away I am screwed. He can now hit me whenever he wants to and odds are he will pick a time before I ever met him so I wont know to be on the lookout for him.

Of course this plays all kinds of havoc with time so it depends on how time works in the particular Universe.

And you know that you're facing a space/time capable enemy for the very first time... how, exactly? And what guarantee is there that they haven't anticipated your attempt at a paradox-strike and haven't already prepared for it?

[Enigma]

Why not a Bill and Ted method of a time fight?

[Plekhanov]

And you know that you're facing a space/time capable enemy for the very first time... how, exactly? And what guarantee is there that they haven't anticipated your attempt at a paradox-strike and haven't already prepared for it?

The OP was asking for ways to defeat time travel which would suggest that you know you're up against a time capable enemy.

And Baal's right if you can completely defeat an enemy in a surprise first strike in a way which prevents them from utilising any time travel capability they have then time travel won't help them. That might not be too difficult against an individual or small group of people but would obviously be extraordinarily difficult in any conflict on a large scale.

[NeoGoomba]

Why not a Bill and Ted method of a time fight?

You can't out time-fight Bill and Ted, its like trying to out scan Michael Ironside!

[Battlehymn Republic]

Outside of comic books, I'd say that Skynet makes for the most easily defeatable time traveling force.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Outside of comic books, I'd say that Skynet makes for the most easily defeatable time traveling force.

Except that its facing a foe that also uses time travel.
Unless you think that the TW Daleks or Time lords or the fucking Xeelee are easily defeatable due to them facing a temporal cold war stalemate?

[Stark]

Skynet (from the movies) has huge facilities that can send small numbers (individuals) a few decades. That is pretty poor time travel - as I said earlier, different forms, ranges and capacities are factors.

[Lord of the Abyss]

One can defeat a time-travelling foe. One merely has to beat them completely and utterly the very first time you encounter them and they become your foe. Basically you destroy them before the time travel comes into the equation.

If I get in a fight with an evil Doc Brown and shoot him 5 minutes after we meet then I win. If though we exchange words and let him walk away I am screwed. He can now hit me whenever he wants to and odds are he will pick a time before I ever met him so I wont know to be on the lookout for him.

Of course this plays all kinds of havoc with time so it depends on how time works in the particular Universe.

And you know that you're facing a space/time capable enemy for the very first time... how, exactly?

Telepathy ? Precognition ? Or pehaps the race in question is so hostile that it attacks on sight. A time traveller who appeared on a world that had been assimilated by the Thing would get gobbled up ( along with his knowledge of time travel ) right on the spot.

[Enigma]

Why not a Bill and Ted method of a time fight?

You can't out time-fight Bill and Ted, its like trying to out scan Michael Ironside!

I am not saying to fight them but to copy their methods of defeating the opponents time travel.

[Patrick Degan]

And you know that you're facing a space/time capable enemy for the very first time... how, exactly? And what guarantee is there that they haven't anticipated your attempt at a paradox-strike and haven't already prepared for it?

The OP was asking for ways to defeat time travel which would suggest that you know you're up against a time capable enemy.

Not quite. The OP also mentions non-TT capable races being attacked and implies a question as to how such races might be able to defend themselves against such an enemy as well.

And Baal's right if you can completely defeat an enemy in a surprise first strike in a way which prevents them from utilising any time travel capability they have then time travel won't help them. That might not be too difficult against an individual or small group of people but would obviously be extraordinarily difficult in any conflict on a large scale.

That's rather the problem, though. If we're talking about two races with space/time capabilities, pulling off that overwhelming first strike will be extremely difficult if not impossible as whatever methods of attack the one side will have devised, the other will also have done. As well as methods of early warning and counteraction.