Jump to content

I’ve got a magic time machine

tokamak

By tokamak
in Lulz

 Share

Recommended Posts

tokamak

tokamak 6,353

Posted
Posted

It can send exactly one person to any time and place in the entire lifespan of our universe. The person will stay at that time and place for exactly one hour and then return home. The machine works one time.

A few more rules:

  • Anything you can carry can be taken with you. Camera? Pen and paper? Firearm? Sure.
  • Likewise anything you can pick up and carry can be brought back with you if you like.
  • You are fully physically present on the other end of the trip. You can see, touch, and interact with your surroundings and vice versa while you are there. You speak whatever languages you speak when you enter the time machine. 
  • Nevertheless, the time machine will protect you from death or serious physical harm. Conversely, you cannot permanently affect your destination. All physical effects you have and the memory of you will disappear the moment you return home. This isn’t a “kill baby Hitler” thing.
  • Finally, the time machine is omniscient. It has the ability to send you to a specific time and place (e.g. Pasadena, CA January 4, 2006), or to a specific event you describe (e.g. the first time a human being ever made fire, or the first time a human being sets foot an celestial body other than the earth or the moon). 
     

Where you going Surly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tokamak

tokamak 6,353

Posted
  • Author
Posted
37 minutes ago, CoTex said:

So with no effect, we’re just a spectator?

Pretty much.

Personally I think my answer would be the future, but not the far future. Say year 4000 or so. Manhattan island. Just out of pure curiosity. A shitload is gonna change in 2000 years. Will humans even be around. Could also grab whatever technology you could see and bring it back to try to reverse engineer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
UT_OB1

UT_OB1 2,202

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, tokamak said:

Pretty much.

Personally I think my answer would be the future, but not the far future. Say year 4000 or so. Manhattan island. Just out of pure curiosity. A shitload is gonna change in 2000 years. Will humans even be around. Could also grab whatever technology you could see and bring it back to try to reverse engineer. 

1) what if you ask for “moment first human steps on celestial body that isn’t earth or moon” but it doesn’t exist?  So i blip in to nothingness?  Do I get my choice back?

2) if you can’t impact the future but you bring high tech stuff back with you and reverse engineer it, haven’t you impacted the future?  So it doesn’t happen. And them your past self can’t go get it, and you get stuck in a time loop or a vergence

3) do I have to fight the TVA?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CoTex

CoTex 1,160

Posted
Posted

Your comments have convinced me that my original instinct was correct.

Im going to 1988 Mexia Texas Dairy Queen.

Im gonna order a dude sandwich and a heath bar blizzard, and shoot my shot at Vicki Lynn.

  • Hook 'Em 5
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
  • Drool 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
burntorangebongos

burntorangebongos 10,681

Posted
Posted

I'd go to June 18th, 1966 to see the only time Van Morrison played with Jim Morrison at Whisky-A-Go-Go. I'd try to fuck JIm.... but I only have an hour? Shiiiiiit. I guess I'd watch them sing "In the midnight hour" and "Gloria" together first. Then try to fuck Jim. Wait.....do you travel back as you are now or as you were at 21? Because it would be a lot easier to accomplish my goal that way. 21 year old me could totally have fucked that slut, Jim Morrison. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Drool 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 20,999

Posted
Posted

Cheap "loophole" answer that misses the point of all this? Go get the Hope Diamond, bring it back to the present, profit. 

My answer in the spirit of the thread? Assuming that the machine's omniscience extends to cover all things that are yet to happen, I would probably come up with a list of the most unlikely events and make requests in ascending order of likelihood. Start off with something like "when aliens openly announce their presence on Earth" and then maybe "1 year after the singularity" and maybe some other cool future shit, and if none of that "takes" then the birth of my first grandchild and if that one strikes out, I would probably go hang out with my parents for an hour one more time. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
FartingMonk

FartingMonk 3,606

Posted
Posted

I'm gonna go to when they buried Jimmy Hoffa's body.  Take pictures.  And then the characters who were there make up deathbed confessions.  Have them dig up his body in the year of our Lord 2024.  Write and publish the photos I took of said event.  And sell 100 million copies

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45,512

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, tokamak said:

It can send exactly one person to any time and place in the entire lifespan of our universe. The person will stay at that time and place for exactly one hour and then return home. The machine works one time.

A few more rules:

  • Anything you can carry can be taken with you. Camera? Pen and paper? Firearm? Sure.
  • Likewise anything you can pick up and carry can be brought back with you if you like.
  • You are fully physically present on the other end of the trip. You can see, touch, and interact with your surroundings and vice versa while you are there. You speak whatever languages you speak when you enter the time machine. 
  • Nevertheless, the time machine will protect you from death or serious physical harm. Conversely, you cannot permanently affect your destination. All physical effects you have and the memory of you will disappear the moment you return home. This isn’t a “kill baby Hitler” thing.
  • Finally, the time machine is omniscient. It has the ability to send you to a specific time and place (e.g. Pasadena, CA January 4, 2006), or to a specific event you describe (e.g. the first time a human being ever made fire, or the first time a human being sets foot an celestial body other than the earth or the moon). 
     

Where you going Surly?

3 hours ago to your house to stop you from posting this twaddle.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
  • Drool 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
tokamak

tokamak 6,353

Posted
  • Author
Posted
2 hours ago, UT_OB1 said:

1) what if you ask for “moment first human steps on celestial body that isn’t earth or moon” but it doesn’t exist?  So i blip in to nothingness?  Do I get my choice back?

2) if you can’t impact the future but you bring high tech stuff back with you and reverse engineer it, haven’t you impacted the future?  So it doesn’t happen. And them your past self can’t go get it, and you get stuck in a time loop or a vergence

3) do I have to fight the TVA?

1) Sure. Invalid requests get a PC LOAD LETTER error and you can try again. But that opens up a loophole that @Prepuce of Doom covers below.

2) I dunno, I guess. I wrote this sitting on my couch, it's not a doctoral thesis. New rule - everyone can bring something back except UT_OB1. He can only look.

3) Tennessee Valley Authority?

1 hour ago, Mo Horn said:

First thought is the day after a powerball drawing to see what the numbers are, then come back and buy a ticket... or does that violate your rules?

I don't see a rule violation there.

1 hour ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Cheap "loophole" answer that misses the point of all this? Go get the Hope Diamond, bring it back to the present, profit. 

My answer in the spirit of the thread? Assuming that the machine's omniscience extends to cover all things that are yet to happen, I would probably come up with a list of the most unlikely events and make requests in ascending order of likelihood. Start off with something like "when aliens openly announce their presence on Earth" and then maybe "1 year after the singularity" and maybe some other cool future shit, and if none of that "takes" then the birth of my first grandchild and if that one strikes out, I would probably go hang out with my parents for an hour one more time. 

Yep, you could gain a lot of information before you ever go anywhere. Start with crazy hyperspecific stuff and work your way backwards.

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

3 hours ago to your house to stop you from posting this twaddle.

Out of bounds and uncalled for. I'm going to program your machine to send you to the location of the single stinkiest fart in the history of the human species and you'll just have to bask in it for an hour.

59 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

OK if I lay some pipe?

Always

17 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So if I went back to UT in the fall semester of 65 and stalked Farrah Fawcett and grabbed her, picked her up, and brought her back with me the sentient Time Machine would create a duplicate of her so that I didn’t permanently affect 1965?

Yeah I think so. I'm not going to try to contemplate the implications of dual Farrah Fawcetts.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Surly Bevo

Surly Bevo 24,717

Posted
Posted

I go back to Monday September 17, 1789. Independence Hall Philadelphia, PA with a few phones chalk full of information stored on thenfor educational purposes (or maybe I just save the whole Cloak Room) A couple others for cameras and a shitload of fully charged portable chargers in a backpack. I take Madison, Washington, Hamilton and Franklin aside and after they are done freaking out about me being from the future and the AR-15 I used to kill Franklin (since it all goes back to normal when I am gone) I start  them reading while I ask a lot of questions and record it all. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
NWBuck

NWBuck 8,548

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Surly Bevo said:

I go back to Monday September 17, 1789. Independence Hall Philadelphia, PA with a few phones chalk full of information stored on thenfor educational purposes (or maybe I just save the whole Cloak Room) A couple others for cameras and a shitload of fully charged portable chargers in a backpack. I take Madison, Washington, Hamilton and Franklin aside and after they are done freaking out about me being from the future and the AR-15 I used to kill Franklin (since it all goes back to normal when I am gone) I start  them reading while I ask a lot of questions and record it all. 

While you're at it, can you please have them straighten out some of the bullshit that the 'originalists' get hung up on? (no cry) 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
NotActuallyALonghorn

NotActuallyALonghorn 4,968

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Cheap "loophole" answer that misses the point of all this? Go get the Hope Diamond, bring it back to the present, profit. 

My answer in the spirit of the thread? Assuming that the machine's omniscience extends to cover all things that are yet to happen, I would probably come up with a list of the most unlikely events and make requests in ascending order of likelihood. Start off with something like "when aliens openly announce their presence on Earth" and then maybe "1 year after the singularity" and maybe some other cool future shit, and if none of that "takes" then the birth of my first grandchild and if that one strikes out, I would probably go hang out with my parents for an hour one more time. 

What if it takes you back to ancient Egypt. Then you come back and start a TV show about it, but no one believes you and you just become a meme?

Edited by NotActuallyALonghorn
  • Haha 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ojo Rojo

Ojo Rojo 1,909

Posted
Posted

1. Go see some fucking dinosaurs.

2. Nov. 22, 1963.  Grassy knoll, Dallas, TX.

3.  Go back about 30,000 years before there were people in N. America and have an epic fishing session on the TX coast.

4. Go back and ask Jesus how he feels about women terminating pregnancies and ask him to write it down for posterity.

Going to the future would be interesting, but possibly terrifying.  It would be pretty sad if you went a couple thousand years in the future and Earth is nothing but ash.

  • Hook 'Em 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Don Johnson

Don Johnson 4,745

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

 

4. Go back and ask Jesus how he feels about women terminating pregnancies and ask him to write it down for posterity.

 

Honest answer, I would think all believers and non-believers would want to go back to "on the third day he rose..." with cameras rolling.  Then, if he's there, ask a shitload of questions.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
tokamak

tokamak 6,353

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Dinosaurs would be cool. A camera at a busy water hole about 70 million years ago would really clear up a lot for paleontologists.

11 hours ago, Surly Bevo said:

I go back to Monday September 17, 1789. Independence Hall Philadelphia, PA with a few phones chalk full of information stored on thenfor educational purposes (or maybe I just save the whole Cloak Room) A couple others for cameras and a shitload of fully charged portable chargers in a backpack. I take Madison, Washington, Hamilton and Franklin aside and after they are done freaking out about me being from the future and the AR-15 I used to kill Franklin (since it all goes back to normal when I am gone) I start  them reading while I ask a lot of questions and record it all. 

I've always thought it'd be really interesting to show someone like Thomas Jefferson a working smart phone. No internet of course, but just showing him Angry Birds or whatever would blow his mind. Only downside is he'd start asking you how it works and you'd have to just be like "fuck if I know, Tommy".

The inspiration for this thread was reading an article about Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Thought to be one of the earliest human settlements, but with tons of unknowns. What were the structures used for? Did people make settlements then start farming, or did they start farming and then coalesce into settlements? So, so much that we'll probably never know definitively.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
ajax

ajax 2,591

Posted
Posted

I would go back to when my kids were little so I could pick them up, play with them and do all the parenting things again. 

Everything else is a distant second.

I love that they're grown but I miss the early kid days.

  • Hook 'Em 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites
High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 10,984

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, UT_OB1 said:

 

2) if you can’t impact the future but you bring high tech stuff back with you and reverse engineer it, haven’t you impacted the future?  So it doesn’t happen. And them your past self can’t go get it, and you get stuck in a time loop or a vergence

 

 

Do you even multi-verse bro?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
nnm

nnm 36,162

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, tokamak said:

Dinosaurs would be cool. A camera at a busy water hole about 70 million years ago would really clear up a lot for paleontologists.

I've always thought it'd be really interesting to show someone like Thomas Jefferson a working smart phone. No internet of course, but just showing him Angry Birds or whatever would blow his mind. Only downside is he'd start asking you how it works and you'd have to just be like "fuck if I know, Tommy".

The inspiration for this thread was reading an article about Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Thought to be one of the earliest human settlements, but with tons of unknowns. What were the structures used for? Did people make settlements then start farming, or did they start farming and then coalesce into settlements? So, so much that we'll probably never know definitively.

You need to read this. Very well done. And very good discussion of Gobekli Tepe. 

https://a.co/d/hYlvf7u

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Not a cat

Not a cat 5,622

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, tokamak said:

 

I've always thought it'd be really interesting to show someone like Thomas Jefferson a working smart phone. No internet of course, but just showing him Angry Birds or whatever would blow his mind. Only downside is he'd start asking you how it works and you'd have to just be like "fuck if I know, Tommy".

 

Angry birds?  Know your audience.  This would grab TJ's attention.

tumblr_nhyoivi9lq1qf5do9o1_400.gif.28fcaf16c13936e400e22be3af88dc04.gif

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Drool 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Scheiss Meister

Scheiss Meister 8,399

Posted
Posted (edited)

I'd go back to the mid 80s and spend a day with my mom before her cancer diagnosis, just hanging out.  And I'd tell my dad that "one of these days" never comes, so he'd better take her to the mountains and those other trips they had planned right damn then.

Edited by Scheiss Meister
  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Surly Bevo

Surly Bevo 24,717

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, Don Johnson said:

Honest answer, I would think all believers and non-believers would want to go back to "on the third day he rose..." with cameras rolling.  Then, if he's there, ask a shitload of questions.

What a waste of a trip.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...