Thread: Your time machine awaits Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
21 October 2015 is the date that Marty McFly and Dr Emmett Brown travel to in the future in Back to the Future 2 which, as I write this, is either tomorrow or yesterday, depending on which way through time you are travelling.

If you had a time machine, when and where would you go? Would you want to discuss foreign policy with Attila the Hun, or swap recipes with the Borgias? Perhaps shout, 'Duck' to King Harold, or say something amusing to Queen Victoria.

A couple of 'features' of this time machine:


When would you go, if you could go anywhen?

[ 20. October 2015, 18:01: Message edited by: Chapelhead ]
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
You need one more feature: the machine needs to supply you with perfect camouflage for your environment. Otherwise, the first thing you need to address before picking up those tickets for the opening night of HAMLET in 1603 is a ruff, hose, and a doublet. And there would be no point in bringing your cell hoping for a selfie; you'd be at the stake as a wizard in a twinkling. And how tedious it would be, being the only white man at the court of Kublai Khan. Even your perfect Manchu dialect would not save you from comment about the sweat pants, tee shirt, and eyeglasses.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
Part of me just wants to move forward in, say, 10 year steps, to see what will happen.
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
I know this is Heaven, but for a serious point I'd go back to late 18th century America, find those responsible for the 2nd amendment to the US constitution and bring them forward to show them Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech and several others, just to show them the consequences of what an enshrined "right to bear arms" brings about.
[/rant]

Then I'd probably go and listen in on this conversation between Paul Dirac and Richard Feynman.
 
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
I haven't seen the movie(s) so I don't know if this is a one-time thing (do I have to live in the era I choose) or do I get to move from one to another? I'd love to meet Shakespeare and see one of his plays, but that would have been a horrible time to live. There are many composers I'd love to meet and attend concerts of them conducting their own works, e.g., Wagner conducting the Ring!

I agree with Sipech -- not to leave out the 2nd amendment necessarily, but I wish they had been a little more specific about that whole militia thing not meaning any yahoo can have an assault weapon.
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I have a long-held ambition to write a biography of a minor Victorian poet. Unfortunately for me, she had a love affair lasting two-ish years round about 1889, and I don't know who she had the love affair with. This pretty much scuppers the biography.

I would travel back to 1889 to meet her with her lover.

Actually, the thought of meeting her at all is a splendid one.
 
Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
I'd like to see just how fast Harold Larwood really was.

Just not from the other end...

AG
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
North East Quine: I have a long-held ambition to write a biography of a minor Victorian poet. Unfortunately for me, she had a love affair lasting two-ish years round about 1889, and I don't know who she had the love affair with. This pretty much scuppers the biography.

I would travel back to 1889 to meet her with her lover.
Most time travel stories that start out like this end on the paradox where you become the lover you wanted to write about [Smile]

[ 20. October 2015, 18:44: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
A couple of 'features' of this time machine:

It has a range of 1,900 years, so asking itinerant preachers of the first century about cheesemakers is out.
Ha. I can still explore Roman London. And then stop off in medieval Oxford to see what it's like, on route to the first performance of "The Tempest" in November 1611.

And then going shopping in turn-of-the-century London in, say, the summer of 1900.

Actually I do also want to see the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition in 1851 - I've wanted those for years.

I feel I ought to be more adventurous and nominate a few places abroad, but these are all things I've had for a while on my wish list. If ever I meet The Doctor, I'll at least have some ideas for suggested trips.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There are many composers I'd love to meet and attend concerts of them conducting their own works, e.g., Wagner conducting the Ring!
I hate to say this, but I'm not sure he ever did! The conductor at the Bayreuth premiere in 1876 was Hans Richter. But yes, I'd love to see a lot of music performed in the era it was written - Mahler, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart - and then go back and hear Palestrina, Tallis, and Josquin as they were originally performed. (And see just how right - or wrong - modern "historically informed performances" are!)
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Like all good time/space machines, this one magically allows you to converse with whoever you meet, so language won't be a problem.
Do I get to learn / keep my knowledge of the languages? Because I rather have a list of old languages that would be fun to converse in.

I've a list of famous people I'd like to meet, too, although I'm not sure that modern sensibilities would stand up to meeting one's heroes and discovering that they were very much people of their time.

But if I'm to pick one destination, I'll go with dropping in on King Alfred from time to time, and finding out how much of the King Alfred mythos is myth.
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
You need one more feature: the machine needs to supply you with perfect camouflage for your environment. Otherwise, the first thing you need to address before picking up those tickets for the opening night of HAMLET in 1603 is a ruff, hose, and a doublet.
Fairy nuff. The time machine also provides you with camouflage (and a few doubloons, groats, or whatever you need to buy a ticket).
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
North East Quine: I have a long-held ambition to write a biography of a minor Victorian poet. Unfortunately for me, she had a love affair lasting two-ish years round about 1889, and I don't know who she had the love affair with. This pretty much scuppers the biography.

I would travel back to 1889 to meet her with her lover.
Most time travel stories that start out like this end on the paradox where you become the lover you wanted to write about [Smile]
[Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
Explore L space. Specifically, get the stuff that was just about to burn at Alexandria (obviously too late for the Caesar episode, but the other ones). Get the druid wooden records burned by Patrick, the documents lost in Mesoamerica, the Thomasine texts in India - I suppose the time span doesn't allow for the books the first Chinese Emperor got rid of. Offer the book hoarders of Timbuktu a safe place from the biblioclasts.

[ 20. October 2015, 20:40: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There are many composers I'd love to meet and attend concerts of them conducting their own works, e.g., Wagner conducting the Ring!
I hate to say this, but I'm not sure he ever did! The conductor at the Bayreuth premiere in 1876 was Hans Richter. But yes, I'd love to see a lot of music performed in the era it was written - Mahler, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart - and then go back and hear Palestrina, Tallis, and Josquin as they were originally performed. (And see just how right - or wrong - modern "historically informed performances" are!)
Thanks -- I did wonder about that after I typed it.

[Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
There are many composers I'd love to meet and attend concerts of them conducting their own works, e.g., Wagner conducting the Ring!
I hate to say this, but I'm not sure he ever did! The conductor at the Bayreuth premiere in 1876 was Hans Richter. But yes, I'd love to see a lot of music performed in the era it was written - Mahler, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart - and then go back and hear Palestrina, Tallis, and Josquin as they were originally performed. (And see just how right - or wrong - modern "historically informed performances" are!)
Thanks -- I did wonder about that after I typed it.

[Hot and Hormonal]
I was surprised, given that (a) he was a noted conductor and (b) he was such a control freak. So now we use the time machine to persuade him! (He did conduct some of his own earlier stuff - apparently he was brisk.)
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
If you are popping into the Library of Alexandria just before it is burned, what would be the harm in hauling a few of the lost works of Aeschylus back?
And from here we slide over to those stories where the adventures are funded by Nazi gold, ripped of from Adolf's stash an hour before the fall of the Third Reich.
And then! What about rescuing human beings? The people who were just about to fry at Pompeii, who were in steerage on the Titanic? Nobody would notice if you popped them out, yes?
From there we can detour into the "gun for a dinosaur" effect, in which a minor tinker with the past, removing just one reptile or butterfly, may, or may not, have nasty effects further down the time stream. Many SF stories on this subject.
And, if you have come this far and are nodding your head, then! I have a story for you.
 
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :
 
I'd like to be at the northern edge of the Canadian prairies in the summer, watching the buffalo, pronghorn etc migrate about 1650 AD. This means we'll have horses. Hanging out with the locals after a buffalo kill. Fishing too.

Then to the west coast, near Prince Rupert for the eulachon run (fish). About the same year.
 
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
I'd like to hear the music of Byrd, Gibbons, Tallis, Praetorius and Susato as they would have heard it and (assuming that this time-machine can disguise me as a bloke, as their choirs wouldn't have had ladies in them) sing in some of their performances.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
That would be fascinating if slightly unsettling, as I presume the tuning and pitch would sound quite alien to our ears (despite us having heard "authentic" performances". What a lovely idea.
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
Seeing 'original' performances certainly would be intriguing. On a rather more gruesome note, I would find it fascinating to see the preparation for a major Napoleonic battle (perhaps Leipzig, the 'Battle of the Nations') - although as soon as the first shot was fired I would be out of there as fast as my time machine could take me. It's hard to imagine how 600,000 men could be manoeuvred into position simply by voice, drum, bugle or written order. What does 600,000 men on a battlefield even look like?
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
It's curious,isn't it, that none of us seems to want to have a quick recce round the future - not even to see who wins next year's Grand National so that they can come back and place a stonking bet on it.

As a bit of a train nerd, I'd like to see the railways as they were in about 1910. One or two of the big London stations, St Pancras or Euston say, Birmingham New Street, York, Carlisle, Glasgow Central to find out what shade of blue they really used. To go back to 1890 would also be good to see the broad gauge before it was converted.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
As a bit of a train nerd, I'd like to see the railways as they were in about 1910. One or two of the big London stations, St Pancras or Euston say, Birmingham New Street, York, Carlisle, Glasgow Central to find out what shade of blue they really used. To go back to 1890 would also be good to see the broad gauge before it was converted.
That would certainly give you a degree of one-upmanship with the Historical Model Railway Society. But how would you record the colours accurately, for their satisfaction?

(Note to non-nerds: there is a lot of debate about railway colours, even to the suggestion that engines of the same company were painted in slightly different shades by different depots or over time. This especially applies to the Caledonian and Highland Railways in Scotland, and the Midland and London Brighton & South Coast Railways in England). At least the North Western company just used black!)).
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
I think it would be quite good to stick around Wittenberg near the start of the 16th century. I could hang around the castle church on the 31st of October 1517 with a spare bag of nails and a hammer to see if Martin Luther turned up or whether the story really is just legend.

Then I'd nip forward to Christmas Day 1521 to join in with the first reformed communion service, presided over by Andreas von Karlstadt.

For the future, I wouldn't want to go too far forward. I might visit my nieces and nephews in their autumn years (if they live that long) and see how they turned out in life.

Yet the prospect that maybe things didn't go well for them might prevent me. The prospect for heartbreak by going to the future is one that I think might make a lot of people hesitate.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
I think it would be quite good to stick around Wittenberg near the start of the 16th century. I could hang around the castle church on the 31st of October 1517 with a spare bag of nails and a hammer to see if Martin Luther turned up or whether the story really is just legend.
What if you had a pair of pliers to wrench the nails out of the door, so his notice was never seen? [Devil]
 
Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
It's curious,isn't it, that none of us seems to want to have a quick recce round the future - not even to see who wins next year's Grand National so that they can come back and place a stonking bet on it.
Very early in this thread, LeRoc mentioned going into the future! [Smile]

I would be a bit afraid to go into the future and maybe learning sekrit information. Not because I can't keep a secret, but because I'm terrible at lying. But then, it might be nice to go forward about...oh...a little less than two months to see a certain movie coming to a theater near me. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Rosa Winkel (# 11424) on :
 
I'd go and see Iron Maiden in each of the tours they did in the 80s. A few gigs from their early days in the 70s as well, including in the Ruskin Arms.

A bit of 1970-1975 Black Sabbath would be nice as well.

Seeing Liverpool win our first European Cup, or the second, or the third, or the fourth.
 
Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :
 
Ooh, so many to choose from! I'd also like to see Shakespeare at the Globe (carefully avoiding the Beargarden next door [Frown] ), and of other theatrical things I would go to see Nijinsky in the Ballets Russes in 1911 or so, to see how good he was - I'd so love to see Scheherezade, the Faune, Spectre de la Rose [Smile]

The other thing I would definitely do is have a l-o-n-g chat with Richard III and attend his coronation. Don't know about witnessing Bosworth, though, it would be too painful to watch...
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:


(Note to non-nerds: there is a lot of debate about railway colours, even to the suggestion that engines of the same company were painted in slightly different shades by different depots or over time. This especially applies to the Caledonian and Highland Railways in Scotland, and the Midland and London Brighton & South Coast Railways in England). At least the North Western company just used black!)).
This is a very nerdy note but there is real debate about how black LNWR black really was! Maybe it was an effect of the carefully applied and toned red and white lining but it was referred to as "Blackberry black" and more than one observer said that it had a bit of red or purple in it. Railway colours did vary in any event, as batches were made using different pigments from time to time.

The Brighton Line's "Improved Engine Green" was a shade of ochre, but most sources reckon that was because William Stroudley, who was Chief Mechanical Engineer and therefore God on that railway, was almost totally colour blind.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
A very large issue is not only language or appearance, but race and gender. Would Richard III talk to an Asian woman? What about Winston Churchill? I bet not. Would your American/Liverpudlian/Australian accent instantly and permanently put them off? People in the past did not have our vast exposure to recorded sound and image; if you don't sound like a person of that place/time/status then you might get instantly snubbed. A case can be made that we have as a species become less tribal over the centuries. Go back, and you are an alien in many more ways than you are counting on.
It might be easier to pop into the =head= of someone there. This gets you out of the problem of fitting in/having money/talking weird. You are just riding along, in the head of one of the peasants at Golgotha on the crucial day, seeing what he sees, hearing what he hears. You don't get to speak or act, but this is possibly to the good. Do we want to meddle with the past? Hand Jesus the Uzi that some advocate?
 
Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Do we want to meddle with the past? Hand Jesus the Uzi that some advocate?
Ooh yes - and watch him turn it into a ploughshare! [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
The time machine also provides you with camouflage (and a few doubloons, groats, or whatever you need to buy a ticket).
That's handy. I was planning to circumvent that by going to the spice aisle of the supermarket, get some black peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, saffron, etc. and then I could be rather rich in the days before modern globalisation.
 
Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :
 
Is one allowed to participate in/interfere with the historic action? If so, one can imagine I'll stop now, but the list could go on and on and on and ...
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
Is one allowed to participate in/interfere with the historic action? If so, one can imagine
Allowable, possibly, though it does make you think about consequences. Oddly, I think only Red Dwarf addressed this is anything approaching a reasonable way, where they had JFK assassinating himself because of the consequences of what would have happened had he lived.

It makes you wonder. What if history has already been altered, but far from engineering a utopia, future humanity found that seemingly positive changes had much bigger, negative consequences down the line. Subsequently, the history we have ended up with is simply the least bad, a living out of utilitarian expediency. In this world, the worst atrocities of history have had to happen, in order to avoid worse, unimaginable, horrors that would have unfolded if we'd prevented the rise of Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, etc.

The thought that makes me go a bit [Ultra confused] [Help]
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
I think I would go back in history just a little way - get to a Led Zep concert, or maybe see Jimi at the IoW. And hear the "I had a dream" speech.

There are lots of things I would like to change, but I am not sure I could justify any of them, not knowing what the implications would be. I might encourage Nick Clegg to have sided with Labour in the coalition though. Or acquired pictures of Camerons Pig incident, and distributed them BEFORE the election.

But then I would go forward. I would take it slowly, to see how long until I died, to see the good stuff coming up. The problem is, I hold out very little hope for the future at the moment, so it would be a risky move - I expect that I would actually see more pain, more suffering, anguish that I couldn't cope with.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If you are popping into the Library of Alexandria just before it is burned, what would be the harm in hauling a few of the lost works of Aeschylus back?
Absolutely. The whole purpose being to get the lost stuff. And Sappho. And all the rest.. all the winning plays that we don't have.

And I forgot Malmesbury Abbey for the science writings from before the Conquest. The reast of the monasteries as well, I suppose, but consulting the Cotton catalogue to ensure no glitches. And the house where some of those saved books burned.

We'd never be able to convince anyone they were real though, as the carbon dates would all be wrong. Though the absence of radioactive elements might help.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
No, they'd be deplored as frauds at the outset. Consider how very difficult it is to get the high foreheads to accept a new Shakespeare play, or a new painting by Titian. You'd have to go public with it (see Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy") and have a gang of witnesses watching you pop into the Time Bubble and reappear with an armload of curiously new-looking scrolls.
I have tinkered with this material.
 
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
The thing is, with a hypothetical time machine, it is not clear what effect the travelling would have. Maybe reality would change to accept the new items.
 
Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :
 
That's when the reason the Operetta was lost turns out to be that someone stole it from a locked room (to take back to the future).

Back in the alternative universe model, now wondering how fast changes 'spread'. And if you should plan a series of cheats, that minimised interference.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The paradoxes of TT are legion. If you change the past and the future changes, will you then be able to invent TT?
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Would your American/Liverpudlian/Australian accent instantly and permanently put them off? People in the past did not have our vast exposure to recorded sound and image; if you don't sound like a person of that place/time/status then you might get instantly snubbed.
I believe that without mass media accents were even less homogenised in Europe than they are now and foreigners with barely comprehensible accents started three days walk away.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
I am acutely conscious that nearly everyone I would be interested in meeting would be horrified at the sight of me. I am sitting here in a red checked shirt and a pair of khaki overalls; I am nearly six feet tall, female and Asian. There is no slot where I can be allocated, throughout time and space, except within my lifetime and on into the future.
 
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A very large issue is not only language or appearance, but race and gender ...
Very fair point, BC - that's why I wanted the machine to disguise me as a bloke.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
What if history has already been altered, but far from engineering a utopia, future humanity found that seemingly positive changes had much bigger, negative consequences down the line. Subsequently, the history we have ended up with is simply the least bad, a living out of utilitarian expediency.
Asimov, "The End of Eternity"?
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A very large issue is not only language or appearance, but race and gender ...
Very fair point, BC - that's why I wanted the machine to disguise me as a bloke.
Women can be "invisible" though. If I went back to Victorian times, I'd dress in widow's black and be veiled; the perfect all-concealing disguise.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
But then I would go forward. I would take it slowly, to see how long until I died, to see the good stuff coming up.
This is one thing I wouldn't do - go forward in the immediate future. Supposing you found out you or a loved one were going to suddenly die in a traffic accident well before old age, or develop cancer and be dead by Christmas?

I think if I did go forward it would have to be at least 50 years after I could reasonably be presumed dead. I wouldn't want to know how it would happen or when.

[ 22. October 2015, 11:35: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 
Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
... Supposing you found out you or a loved one were going to suddenly die in a traffic accident well before old age, or develop cancer and be dead by Christmas?
Those scenarios would make it far too tempting to do something that would change the future (rather like Marty McFly's parents being prevented from meeting in BTTF).

**shudder**
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Oh, NEQ. You'd probably still stand out like a sore thumb. I know I would. Women, even men, my height are surpassingly rare in the past. Even now, for the mere cost of a plane ticket, I can fly to Hong Kong and walk down the street, towering head and shoulders above 90% of the pedestrians. Observe the people in a street scene on TV sometime. They walk, they move, like 21st century people, people with trainers, who had good nutrition, who had their hips replaced or their chiropractors adjusting their necks. Plato and Socrates did not walk like that.

And there is an entire separate issue revolving around moving and manipulating in clothing. It takes skill and training to manage a floor-length skirt with train, a veil, a hat, and the attendant gloves and fan. It is near the end of October, so this is easy to demonstrate -- find a costume and wear it. Try to climb the stairs, or step outdoors in that hat. Or, for the gentlemen: mooch a pair of stiletto heels. Try and walk across the room. (Support yourself on the wall, or you'll break your ankle.)

Do you wear glasses? Can you get them on, under the veil and hat? To merely sit down in a hoop skirt is a dicey thing, and let us not even discuss going to the bathroom in it. (Google on this; there are some keen tips that will thrill you.) If you are not careful a stray breeze will flip the crinoline up and flash your drawers (crotchless!) to the hilarity of the masses.

No, there is much more to moving unobtrusively in a culture than merely looking the part. Watching it on TV or movies deceives us. (It would be worth fishing up Sir Richard Burton's accounts of traveling in disguise to Mecca. He did it, so it can be done.)
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I am 5ft 5in so not too tall to fit into a Victorian street scene. I would not be a wealthy woman, with trail and fan, but a respectable lower middle widow. The sort of lady in reduced circumstances who lets out a room to a respectable gentleman. No extravagant hoops for me! The corsetry would be tedious, but I think I could do it. My hat would probably bristle with hatpins, but my hat and veil would stay on.

There might be a pang or two if keen observation leads me to conclude that my entire PhD thesis is in fact a steaming pile of horse manure, but I think it would be worth it just to walk down Union Street, Aberdeen, in the 1880s.
 
Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
It probably sounds a little ordinary but I'd love to go back to about a year before my father died so that I could have one conversation with him as an adult (No further than that though as I wouldn't want to accidentally let him know of his impending demise before he knew of it himself).
 
Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
As a bit of a train nerd, I'd like to see the railways as they were in about 1910. One or two of the big London stations, St Pancras or Euston say, Birmingham New Street, York, Carlisle, Glasgow Central to find out what shade of blue they really used. To go back to 1890 would also be good to see the broad gauge before it was converted.
That would certainly give you a degree of one-upmanship with the Historical Model Railway Society. But how would you record the colours accurately, for their satisfaction?

(Note to non-nerds: there is a lot of debate about railway colours, even to the suggestion that engines of the same company were painted in slightly different shades by different depots or over time. This especially applies to the Caledonian and Highland Railways in Scotland, and the Midland and London Brighton & South Coast Railways in England). At least the North Western company just used black!)).
But just how black was the L&NWR black? People with nothing better to do still debate it. For me, the burning question is of the Highland Railway's yellow engines that can get quite sober old geezers near apoplectic still - I'd like to be there to see for myself. This beats out theological source research for some of us. Also, I'd like to go back a bit farther and meet St Columba. I like all I read about him, and I think he might have some useful advice that I can't get from my own minister.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The judging of color by eye is difficult, and the remembering of it even dicier. If you go, bring a Pantone deck with you so that you can fix upon the exact color and have a record of it.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
Easy. Constantinople, 920AD. Easter Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sophia. The Church is intact, fully decked out with icons, with the Church Undivided at the height of its glory in Byzantium.
 
Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
I think that perhaps I'd like to go back and see myself as a teen and into my twenties and see whether I really did some of the stuff I remember [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Easy. Constantinople, 920AD. Easter Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sophia. The Church is intact, fully decked out with icons, with the Church Undivided at the height of its glory in Byzantium.
May I join you? That would be magnificent!
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
A great many of the merely-viewing TT trips could be more safely and cheaply accomplished via drone. Then you could evade all the dress/culture/being exposed to bubonic plague issues, and not only enjoy the sights, but share them with others.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
North East Quine: I have a long-held ambition to write a biography of a minor Victorian poet. Unfortunately for me, she had a love affair lasting two-ish years round about 1889, and I don't know who she had the love affair with. This pretty much scuppers the biography.

I would travel back to 1889 to meet her with her lover.
Most time travel stories that start out like this end on the paradox where you become the lover you wanted to write about [Smile]
[Hot and Hormonal]
Hehe, you probably know this but the story normally goes like this.

You are writing a biography about a Victorian poet, and you read about this mysterious lover this poet had. We hardly know anything about this lover, almost no information exists about him (her?)

So you go back in time. But the fact of you going back in time causes the lover to never meet the poet. Maybe the lover was on his/her way to meet the poet, and the shock of seeing you materialise caused him/her to run.

You go back to 2015 and everything has changed. The lover not meeting the poet set a series of events in motion (the butterfly wing effect) and the Earth is now under the heel of a cruel dictatorship.

Something needs to be done. The time line must be repared. *Someone* has to go back to become this poet's lover ...


(These stories pretty much write themselves [Smile] )
 
Posted by Ferijen (# 4719) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
I think that perhaps I'd like to go back and see myself as a teen and into my twenties and see whether I really did some of the stuff I remember [Hot and Hormonal]
But you might have the unfortunate side effect of seeing the things you didn't remember too...
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
It would be interesting to go back and solve mysteries. The four local to me, which have occurred in my lifetime, would be the disappearance of Renee MacRae, the disappearance of Arlene Fraser, the question as to whether Willie MacRae committed suicide or was murdered, and the shooting of Alistair Wilson.

On the other hand, the presence of a lurking watcher would presumably prevent whatever happened from happening and there would be no mystery to solve. And if there was no mystery, there would be no reason to travel back to that road on that date. Which would mean that I wouldn't be a lurking observer, and whatever happened would still happen, unobserved. Which would then be an unsolved mystery.
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
Originally posted by LeRoc:

quote:
Hehe, you probably know this but the story normally goes like this.

You are writing a biography about a Victorian poet, and you read about this mysterious lover this poet had. We hardly know anything about this lover, almost no information exists about him (her?)

So you go back in time. But the fact of you going back in time causes the lover to never meet the poet. Maybe the lover was on his/her way to meet the poet, and the shock of seeing you materialise caused him/her to run.

You go back to 2015 and everything has changed. The lover not meeting the poet set a series of events in motion (the butterfly wing effect) and the Earth is now under the heel of a cruel dictatorship.

Something needs to be done. The time line must be repared. *Someone* has to go back to become this poet's lover ...


(These stories pretty much write themselves [Smile] )
She - female poet (Elizabeth) with a female lover. Elizabeth appeared to have friends and family who assumed that sooner or later she would meet a man, and they didn't take her lesbianism seriously. As a result, the female poet protested in her writing that both her love affairs were the real thing.

The story, very roughly is that Elizabeth fell in love with a woman (Margaret) who wanted a platonic friendship. Despite the sexual mismatch, the two women planned to set up home together. But Margaret fell in love with a man, and Elizabeth's heart was broken. Margaret then caught a fever and died, and Elizabeth had a complete physical and nervous breakdown. As she recovered she started a new, apparently fully reciprocated, relationship with another woman. It's this second woman I can't identify. However, Elizabeth's devotion to Margaret's memory cast a shadow over the second relationship, and may have been the reason it ended.

You can see why
a) I want to write the story but
b) I don't want to be the lover!
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
The mention of the London Brighton & South Coast Railways livery had me thinking, just for a moment, "I must ask Dad" as his father was a guard on that line. And then I remembered that that line of communication was closed forever.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
quote:
North East Quine: You can see why
a) I want to write the story but
b) I don't want to be the lover!
That's an interesting story.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
You should just write it. Why bother with what really happened. You can make it better. Stronger. Faster. (cue up sound track for The Six Million Dollar Man )
 
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :
 
I've done a lot of research into "what really happened" The identity of the second woman is the only gap. If I had a time machine and could go back, just long enough to get a name....
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
If you can set aside who it really might have been, then you could select the coolest possible person for the role. Or create same, out of whole cloth...
 
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :
 
If we are allowed to interfere, then antibiotics for Schubert and Keats.

If just observing: check out Shakespeare, would the lost plays be worth preserving (and are there any more), and confirm that the plays were the work (with a few collaborations) of a man from Stratford.
 
Posted by Sarasa (# 12271) on :
 
I'm off to see Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall tonight, but would love to go back and be in the audience for the 1965 concert that features in the film' Dont Look Back'.
 
Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Easy. Constantinople, 920AD. Easter Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sophia. The Church is intact, fully decked out with icons, with the Church Undivided at the height of its glory in Byzantium.
On a similar line, how about the early the fourth century - Christianity has been made licit, but there is no compulsion, little or no 'public' benefit in declaring for a faith one doesn't really adhere to, no hint of erastianism, but freedom at last for followers of the Way. A great time to be a Christian?
 


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