You've just killed your past self (RAR)

[Bernkastel]

Right, I'm not sure where to post this, so I went with off-topic. I hope it's okay.

You emerge from a haze and finds yourself faced with something very odd. To be precise, it's you from 10 years ago. That version of yourself is dead. You are holding a bloody bat. They look like they've been beaten to death with that bat.

You are naturally shocked by that, especially when a random voice from nowhere yells "You can't do that, you'll create a Time Paradox!". While you are wondering why that happened, a crunched up ball of paper hits you on the head. It was written by Q and tells you some facts.

. Despite the random reference, there will be no paradox. But you've definitely killed yourself. You are located in a place remote enough to dispose of yourself. As for how this happens, Q admits he might have had something to do with it. You are also now 10 years in the past.

. Q will give help in regards to setting up fake background, such as providing ID and altering records/memories. This excludes anything involving your past self. That cannot be altered. You also can't use it to create a memory of you being at a different place while past you was being killed, this giving yourself an alibi.

. Q will grant you a notebook containing information available from the present time of the point of your post. It has 60 A4 pages. The amount of past knowledge you can ask for is limited to what can be written in that space.

. You cannot commit suicide. Any course of action taken with the intent of getting yourself killed will have you be resurrected by Q and returned to the start point of the scenario.

So, what are you going to do?

[Raw Shark]

Hide the body and continue business as usual, other than getting insanely rich on the stock market. I look pretty much the same as I did 10 years ago.

[General Zod]

Invest in bitcoin.

[Iroscato]

Hide the body and continue business as usual, other than getting insanely rich on the stock market. I look pretty much the same as I did 10 years ago.

Pretty much this. Also taking bets on every major event from 2006-2016 and cleaning up at the bookies. I was...12 in 2006 so as long as I keep the beard nobody will even raise an eyebrow

[Simon_Jester]

I sense that the basic point of this RAR is "can you take your past self's place." Assuming that this is actually made possible... I'm old enough that I think present me can pass for past me (I was twenty), without being so obviously older that people will wonder what the hell happened for me.

I suspect I'd do my entire life rather differently, if only because money is unlikely to be a problem for a variety of reasons. I'd look up certain people rather sooner.

I'd also hire a good physical trainer, because I've just in effect lost ten years of my life expectancy and will start sliding into middle age some time in the 2010s. Losing a lot of weight and so on might at least partly compensate.

[aerius]

First step, make that body disappear. Next I need that 60 page briefing from Q so that I have an idea of how different this past is from the past that I lived in my own time. I'll start with major events like whether WW2 happened, if Iraq got invaded, 9/11, then work my way down to where the hell I am and if my family & friends are more or less the same. What I do next depends on how different this timeline is from the one I actually lived.

If everything is pretty much the same then I just go back and take my earlier self's place, other than my wife and a couple other folks I doubt anyone will notice any difference and if I age anything like my dad (so far I'm aging better than he did) no one will ever notice that I'm older than I should be even when I'm 50.

If it's a totally different timeline, like 9/11 didn't happen, I'm living on the other side of the country, and I'm drawing a blank on the people that Q says are my friends & co-workers in the briefing notes, then it's time for some new ID and a brand new set of records & memory alterations to go along with my new life. Step 1 will be a bunch of record & memory changes to set me up with employment & housing in a larger city. I need time to get settled in and hit up the internet big time to figure out what's been going on for the last few hundred years and catch up on more recent major events. Once I have things sorted I can make a plan and go from there.

[Simon_Jester]

Realistically, if people notice you suddenly aging by ten years there might be questions that would be hard to address. But if they don't figure it out for years, then you're an oddity in the medical textbooks, not a murder suspect.

"Older version of Bob who secretly killed and replaced his younger self" is simply not a likely explanation that others will think of. And if your younger self's body ever turns up, you can make a very convincing argument that you're not dead. And you can prove you're you, because of Qish help with ID, because you have the same DNA and so on, and because you share your past self's life experiences including unique and unlikely ones you've never told anyone else about ("remember that thing I did on my fourth birthday?" would be the one I'd use on my parents, for instance).

All of this will throw a murder investigation off quite effectively. It'd be damned hard to even try to prove in court that a person has murdered himself, and if I were a defense attorney I'd volunteer to take the defendant's case for free just for the amusement of watching the prosecutor fail to keep the case from being thrown out of court.

[J]

1) Ask Q where my husband is.
2) Kill him and bury him next to the dead body of my younger self
3) Pickup info booklet from Q
4) ????
5) Profit!

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Right, I'm not sure where to post this, so I went with off-topic. I hope it's okay.

You emerge from a haze and finds yourself faced with something very odd. To be precise, it's you from 10 years ago. That version of yourself is dead. You are holding a bloody bat. They look like they've been beaten to death with that bat.

You are naturally shocked by that, especially when a random voice from nowhere yells "You can't do that, you'll create a Time Paradox!". While you are wondering why that happened, a crunched up ball of paper hits you on the head. It was written by Q and tells you some facts.

. Despite the random reference, there will be no paradox. But you've definitely killed yourself. You are located in a place remote enough to dispose of yourself. As for how this happens, Q admits he might have had something to do with it. You are also now 10 years in the past.

. Q will give help in regards to setting up fake background, such as providing ID and altering records/memories. This excludes anything involving your past self. That cannot be altered. You also can't use it to create a memory of you being at a different place while past you was being killed, this giving yourself an alibi.

. Q will grant you a notebook containing information available from the present time of the point of your post. It has 60 A4 pages. The amount of past knowledge you can ask for is limited to what can be written in that space.

. You cannot commit suicide. Any course of action taken with the intent of getting yourself killed will have you be resurrected by Q and returned to the start point of the scenario.

So, what are you going to do?

Tell Q-Tip to undo the damage and then to fuck off back to the Continuum and never bother me again.

[Bernkastel]

Did you really just quote my entire post for the sake of a non-response?

[Solauren]

Can Q make me 10 years younger as part of this?
Can he bring me a few things from my original timeline? I hate wasted effort.

Beyond that, I need to sit down and do some reading before anything else. However, if I can use my foreknowledge to make money, DUH

[Patrick Ogaard]

Okay, I'll take the OP at face value, especially as it thankfully does not involve parrots.

I am pretty sure that I could find a suitable stash spot in my back yard, though I would undoubtedly have to invest in lots and lots of sawdust, or at least fine wood chips. Perfectly feasible.

Aside from a modest bit of hairline creep, I look exactly the same as I did ten years ago. It also doesn't hurt the scenario that my hairstyle hasn't changed since the Reagan administration. I could slot into my life of ten years ago with little effort. The only problem would be trying to restrain myself from simply punching my father in the face, but I suppose I could just never give him the chance to grift me into holding the bag for a quarter million Euros of his personal debt.

So what do I do with those ten years of added experience and knowledge? Selfish things, I suppose.

First thing: I mount a campaign to get my mother to stop ignoring her problems with eating fatty foods, and get a colonoscopy. With three extra years to work with, she might survive the cancer.

Second thing: Family dog number two of a pack of three gets a bladder exam as soon as she has corresponding problems, so no monster collection of bladder stones, plus a splenectomy well before that tumor becomes a problem and kills her. She deserved several more years of life, and fewer years of aggravation from the bladder stones.

Third thing: Family dog number one of the aforementioned pack of three gets a thorough intestinal exam as soon as she starts looking a bit wan and weak, and thus has a chance of surviving her bifocal intestinal infarction. An extended and comfortable old age would have been nice.

Fourth thing: I accidentally punch my father in the face anyway, just for the halibut. He does deserve it, and I should be able to do the punching under the guise of simple clumsiness.

Fifth thing: My old car gets an engine rebuild instead of being junked at the urging of my father.

Sixth thing: If possible, I pick out a few sets of German lottery numbers, selecting dates close to the date of the initial persona switch. The obvious choices would be winnings that were high and had single winners. That way, the original winners would still be rich, just not quite as extremely. I would make sure to split the winnings with my brother, and a total of about 2 million Euros would be plenty for both of us. Enough to provide at least three decades of lower middle class income as a comfortable base, but not enough to suffer from trust fund-related initiative paralysis.

Seventh thing: The third family dog gets a diet years earlier, regardless of my mother's protests, and gets regular checkups for issues with her pancreas and lungs, so maybe she would not be currently in a cremation queue.

Eighth thing: All the usual self-improvement felgercarb.

Ninth thing: I finally get that writing career in gear.

Tenth and final thing: I punch my father in the face again.

[PREDATOR490]

Right, I'm not sure where to post this, so I went with off-topic. I hope it's okay.

You emerge from a haze and finds yourself faced with something very odd. To be precise, it's you from 10 years ago. That version of yourself is dead. You are holding a bloody bat. They look like they've been beaten to death with that bat.

You are naturally shocked by that, especially when a random voice from nowhere yells "You can't do that, you'll create a Time Paradox!". While you are wondering why that happened, a crunched up ball of paper hits you on the head. It was written by Q and tells you some facts.

. Despite the random reference, there will be no paradox. But you've definitely killed yourself. You are located in a place remote enough to dispose of yourself. As for how this happens, Q admits he might have had something to do with it. You are also now 10 years in the past.

. Q will give help in regards to setting up fake background, such as providing ID and altering records/memories. This excludes anything involving your past self. That cannot be altered. You also can't use it to create a memory of you being at a different place while past you was being killed, this giving yourself an alibi.

. Q will grant you a notebook containing information available from the present time of the point of your post. It has 60 A4 pages. The amount of past knowledge you can ask for is limited to what can be written in that space.

. You cannot commit suicide. Any course of action taken with the intent of getting yourself killed will have you be resurrected by Q and returned to the start point of the scenario.

So, what are you going to do?

So this scenario assumes 10 Years Ago as of this post thus October 2016 becomes October 2006 ?

On the one hand, the location and situation is effectively the same
On the other hand, I got into the trend of taking a photo of myself every year and I know for a fact I am not the same. I bummed out on the youthful stasis from 19 - 29.

From a pure practical standpoint: What Q is willing to back me up on would determine what happens. I do not look the same and I doubt anyone is going to believe I am 19 when they see me. If Q is willing to fuzz the situation so that memories and documentation can sell me as myself then I can assume my life easily enough.

Hypothetically, I could go to the Doctors and get diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome earlier than I did but that would not really achieve anything from a developmental perspective. Assuming the framework for that kind of support even existed, I am not sure it did for my area.

Other than the ability to abuse a get-rich scheme I cannot see much that would be changed or worth changing in the past 10 years.

Although, I must admit I might be tempted to exploit the OTHER broken mechanic that Q has introduced. I go back 10 years and do wacky shit then get myself killed for a reset.

I think the first thing I would do for a mind fuck - Is not dispose of my body at all. Go off, clean myself up and get rid of the murder weapon. When someone calls in the body, the murder investigation is going to come to a hilarious stop when the person that has been murdered answers the door when they come to report it.

How would anyone be able to prove you are not the same person let alone get evidence that convicts you of murdering yourself ?

[Bernkastel]

Right, here's some info.

. Q will not de-age you. You will start this scenario with the body you have at the time you respond to this RAR.

. I honestly did not consider that so many of you would be able to jump into the role of your past selves. In any case, this does give you an advantage in that the dead past version of yourself should not be a problem. If the police do get to the point of "An apparent copy of a person died while they also perfectly alive", then some conspiracy theorists might latch on to the story in the future. That's it and, as noted, the police are definitely not going to seriously entertain that idea. But you would have to keep what you should and should not know in mind at all times. Too many incidents of saying stuff you should not know or that make no sense without your future knowledge will likely have people worried about you, such as in regards to your mental health.

. As noted in the OP, Q is willing to change records/memories to help you, but he will not change anything in regards to your past self. You can't have memories of past you changed to explain why you now have your 2016 appearance or anything like that. This does include details such as how many siblings you have/had, so no inserting yourself into your family that way.

. Q will be willing to give you some things from the present to take with you, depending on what they are. He might also do that for things you don't own, though it depends on what you want and what you intend to do with them. He isn't going to make things too easy for you.

[Simon_Jester]

Right, here's some info.

. Q will not de-age you. You will start this scenario with the body you have at the time you respond to this RAR.

. I honestly did not consider that so many of you would be able to jump into the role of your past selves. In any case, this does give you an advantage in that the dead past version of yourself should not be a problem. If the police do get to the point of "An apparent copy of a person died while they also perfectly alive", then some conspiracy theorists might latch on to the story in the future.

If you're famous, it might become a conspiracy. Otherwise it's a Fortean footnote, like Judge Crater.

That's it and, as noted, the police are definitely not going to seriously entertain that idea. But you would have to keep what you should and should not know in mind at all times. Too many incidents of saying stuff you should not know or that make no sense without your future knowledge will likely have people worried about you, such as in regards to your mental health.

Eh, I make predictions about the future all the time, and always have, and no one would be TOO surprised if I turned out to be right a lot.

As noted in the OP, Q is willing to change records/memories to help you, but he will not change anything in regards to your past self. You can't have memories of past you changed to explain why you now have your 2016 appearance or anything like that. This does include details such as how many siblings you have/had, so no inserting yourself into your family that way.

The practical upshot of this is that you give us no choice BUT to try and step into our old self's shoes, even if the resemblance isn't perfect (in my case, I have to go to a department store, buy scissors and a razor, and shave/cut off my beard before anyone recognizes me in it).

Because if we can't get ourselves retconned in as someone else who is somehow related to our past self, then our only other option is starting over as a perfect stranger with no identity other than what Q cooked up for us, and leaving all the people we love to mourn (and question) our mysterious disappearance (resulting in hilarity if a missing persons report goes out and we're found and people think we're the disappeared person).

. Q will be willing to give you some things from the present to take with you, depending on what they are. He might also do that for things you don't own, though it depends on what you want and what you intend to do with them. He isn't going to make things too easy for you.

Well, at the very least I hope he'll give me fresh copies of my student ID and residential pass for my college dorm, because it might be a bit awkward explaining how those things came to have ten years' wear and tear, even if they're still in my wallet which I think they might be.

[aerius]

Right, here's some info.

. Q will not de-age you. You will start this scenario with the body you have at the time you respond to this RAR.

. I honestly did not consider that so many of you would be able to jump into the role of your past selves. In any case, this does give you an advantage in that the dead past version of yourself should not be a problem. If the police do get to the point of "An apparent copy of a person died while they also perfectly alive", then some conspiracy theorists might latch on to the story in the future. That's it and, as noted, the police are definitely not going to seriously entertain that idea. But you would have to keep what you should and should not know in mind at all times. Too many incidents of saying stuff you should not know or that make no sense without your future knowledge will likely have people worried about you, such as in regards to your mental health.

How about we flip the scenario a bit to make use of that notebook. Almost everyone except me has assumed that Q is simply dropping you 10 years into your own past in the exact same timeline. But what if he hasn't? What if he's dropped you into a past where 9/11 didn't happen and George W isn't the president in 2006? Things would be different enough that you might just end up in the loony bin if you simply tried to continue your past life, everyone would know that you are not the normal you, and you wouldn't even begin to know where to memory wipe them.

[Simon_Jester]

That's a pretty ferocious handicap. I mean, I can get the idea of Q preventing me from having knowledge of how the next ten years will unfold, in order to make sure I don't wind up corrupt and powerful and married to your mother. But preventing me from having knowledge of the past is a crippling disadvantage, and one that will make it borderline impossible to survive and function in the new society. Especially if the details of what's changed are anything other than purely insignificant- who's in the White House isn't a problem if you play cagey, but knowing what constitutes "public decency" and what is normative in a workplace are important.

[aerius]

That's a pretty ferocious handicap.

Sure, and that's what makes it more interesting. Dropping you 10 years in your own past where everything is the same except you makes everything too damn easy. Half of us could waltz into our past lives and the rest could easily start a new life with the free ID and memory alterations, you'd just end up using the notebook to load up with info for getting filthy rich.

If you don't know what timeline you're getting dropped into then that notebook becomes gold, you'll have to think really carefully about what info you want in there. Which could be a whole RAR! unto itself, what info do you need in the notebook so that you don't end up dead or in the loony bin?

[Simon_Jester]

1) Anything that is punishable by death, social ostracism, loss of job opportunities, etc. that is not a reasonably common cause of same in my home timeline.
2) Instructions for how to non-conspicuously access existing reference materials (e.g. libraries or Wikipedia or its equivalent. Wikipedia is probably NOT called Wikipedia even if it exists).
3) A very broad outline of the earliest point of divergence from the history of my home timeline (I assume that this is a world where the English language exists, so it can't be that different; the entire history of world civilization being different back to the Stone Age would make English unlikely to emerge at all).
4) A list of the names of the dominant religions and political philosophies of my new timeline, so that I can research them independently.
5) A list of key technologies known in this timeline and not known in the home timeline, and vice versa.

And I'd probably want to try the "become an unknown random person with a very simple job" in the new timeline because it would just plain be impossible to work with anyone who already had expectations of how "I" behave, if the old "me" is actually entirely different from me in all respects save physical appearance..

[General Zod]

Right, here's some info.

. Q will not de-age you. You will start this scenario with the body you have at the time you respond to this RAR.

. I honestly did not consider that so many of you would be able to jump into the role of your past selves. In any case, this does give you an advantage in that the dead past version of yourself should not be a problem. If the police do get to the point of "An apparent copy of a person died while they also perfectly alive", then some conspiracy theorists might latch on to the story in the future. That's it and, as noted, the police are definitely not going to seriously entertain that idea. But you would have to keep what you should and should not know in mind at all times. Too many incidents of saying stuff you should not know or that make no sense without your future knowledge will likely have people worried about you, such as in regards to your mental health.

How about we flip the scenario a bit to make use of that notebook. Almost everyone except me has assumed that Q is simply dropping you 10 years into your own past in the exact same timeline. But what if he hasn't? What if he's dropped you into a past where 9/11 didn't happen and George W isn't the president in 2006? Things would be different enough that you might just end up in the loony bin if you simply tried to continue your past life, everyone would know that you are not the normal you, and you wouldn't even begin to know where to memory wipe them.

I'm not the most social person in the world, and being a shut-in will actually work in my favor.

[Elheru Aran]

If I'm dealing with OTL: 12 years ago is... October 2004? That would put me into college, sophmore year. I'd clean up my act and try to be more serious about my studies. My family would be pretty weirded out, though, by the sudden change in me. I didn't ditch college until finishing spring 2007, so I have plenty of time to turn my fucked-up school records around and get back on the straight and narrow, and maybe actually graduate like I'm supposed to with a decent degree that'll give me reasonable expectations of getting a decent job.

I'll probably actually try to get a decent job outside of school, and commit to moving out of my parents' place. I lived on campus during the school year, but my parents and I had issues that ratcheted up regularly until they came to a head in 2007 (part of the reason why I dropped out of school).

If it's OTL... I might tell one of my teachers to watch out for cancer. She died way too young. As far as my personal life goes, there is one thing... do we remain married? Because my wife, 12 years ago, was... 17 and dating another guy. I had just gone through a nasty breakup the past semester, but now-me isn't going to be mooning over that, I guess. I'll probably be rather conflicted over what the rules if the book doesn't specify that I'm married or not. And I'm going to miss my daughter something awful.

New timeline: I have no idea. Probably something along what Simon is talking about.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well. This fucks me up but good because ten years has aged me. I'll be 40 before I even get to begin having a career if I go through the honest way. So here is what I am going to do. First, I hide the god damn body. In fact, I destroy the body utterly by cutting it into small pieces and feeding the flesh to dermestid beetles, crushing the bones with rocks and scattering them in the desert. That will be bloody, so Q is going to bring me some of my clothes from the future and a bleach solution so I can change and clean myself. I burn the bloody clothes.

I am keeping my Ph.D. Q is going to fabricate a set of records:

I am an an Orphan with no surviving relatives named... Kevin Ziegler. I graduated with a Ph.D. in Entomology from Texas Tech specializing in the predator-prey ecology of aquatic insects and biological control of disease vectors. It is close enough to my own specialty that this wont be a problem. Undergrad was at the University of Arizona and I grew up in Scottsdale and Anchorage. This is close enough to the truth that I dont need to lie too badly. Identity is of course a given, as is a decent credit history and a god damn bank account with start-up funds (about 30k should be sufficient, I lived frugally and saved for the post-Ph.D dry period). I will of course write down the necessary records so I can keep track of my faux rental history etc.

Q is going to go into the future and retrieve my god damned data and paper drafts so I can publish them. I will scoop myself, it will be grand.

Now, my entire support structure is just gone... I can never see any of my friends or family again unless I want to show up and explain things to them which...actually given my friends and family that is viable. I have aged but am still very recognizable, and pretty much everyone I am close to would buy that with sufficient evidence. I will do that. But after that I pretty much have to walk away from my life because I cannot take over my old self. I can call or email sometimes I suppose.

So instead, with the background I have created, I will probably join the Navy as a medical entomologist and try to start a new life for myself. It is either that, or I go for a post doc in Germany now that friends and family dont tie me down.

[Korto]

See baseball bat.
See Q.
See the picture?

Ten years of hard grind, and he's just pissed it all up the wall.

[Raw Shark]

Yeah, the base scenario is way too easy for me. I've been friends with the guy I would trust the most to help me hide a body and who has the most experience with doing it for about 12 years, now, and I started losing my hair and weight 19 years ago. And he's a Trekkie, so the explanation would pretty much go like, "Q did it." "No shit?" "For real, yo." "Right. Let's get some shovels."

[Simon_Jester]

Now, my entire support structure is just gone... I can never see any of my friends or family again unless I want to show up and explain things to them which... actually given my friends and family that is viable.

Well, I'd listen, except I didn't know you back then. Some of our mutual friends would, though I don't know how much useful support any of them would have been able to provide.