The Ultimate Time Travel Fantasy

nandu · Jan 3, 2006

I have had this strange idea running around in my head about a man who travels back in time, and impregnates a woman: later he finds that it is his own mother, and that the child in her womb is himself!

Bizarre, isn't it?

Can it be made into a story?

Richard · Jan 3, 2006

The millions of times that plot has been used would suggest yes (just one off the top of my head, although it's in vitro, would be the Red Dwarf episode Ourobouros). There's whole logical arguments surrounding it - look up the Grandfather/Predestination Paradox.

Julie Worth · Jan 3, 2006

It creates a paradox, but paradoxes are so boring that I always avoid them in my own writing.

Along the same lines, there's a book where a time traveling homosexual has sex with himself.

nandu · Jan 3, 2006

I didn't know the idea was so common. I've heard about the paradox of killing your own grandfather.

I love paradoxes and really liked the story of the homosexual having sex with himself.

How's this for a mystery story-a killer makes an alibi which cannot be broken, then some time afterwards, goes back in time to commit a murder at the exact time of his alibi?

Nandu.

Julie Worth · Jan 3, 2006

Or you could just go back in time and make a stink at his parents’ wedding. That way your archenemy will never be born. And if he was never born, that’s not murder, is it? (Okay, I’ve already taken this one, but if you have a time machine, you can still beat me to it!)

IggytheDestroyer · Jan 3, 2006

I remember a movie in the 80s called "Timerider" in which a guy accidently goes back in time to the old west on his motorcycle (yeah, but it was the 80s) and the big ending was the allusion that he was his own great-grandfather or something. Very weird.

Hopefully your story won't involve Fred Ward scaring indians on a Yamaha. hehe.

Birol · Jan 3, 2006

I couldn't remember the name of that movie, but yep, I was thinking of that one, too.

Richard · Jan 3, 2006

Or you could just go back in time and make a stink at his parents’ wedding. That way your archenemy will never be born. And if he was never born, that’s not murder, is it? (Okay, I’ve already taken this one, but if you have a time machine, you can still beat me to it!)

There's an issue of The Authority, a comic book series, where an almost omnipotent villain goes back in time in the middle of a fight and sexually abuses one of the heroes, just to mess with her head while they fight some twenty odd years afterwards. That's pretty...uh...yeah...

MuseAbuse · Jan 3, 2006

They also did that in Futurama. Fry goes back to 1954, accidentally kills his own grandfather, and becomes his own grampaw. :tongue

Birol · Jan 3, 2006

And don't forget Kim Possible when Dr. Drakken tries to defeat Kim in the past and his sidekick Shego temporarily succeeds in breaking her and Ron Stoppable up. Apparently their friendship was the real secret behind her success.

Sage · Jan 3, 2006

Julie Worth said:
It creates a paradox, but paradoxes are so boring that I always avoid them in my own writing.

Along the same lines, there's a book where a time traveling homosexual has sex with himself.

Technically, the being your own descendent isn't a paradox, as long as the writer doesn't establish that it wasn't so at some "point" or doesn't break it. Then it's a destiny thing. If the character finds out about it & fights it, it will creates a small paradox (because he'll never be born to do it in the first place, but after that it wouldn't matter 'cuz he wouldn't exist at all). If the writer makes it so that there was a certain loop where the character "began" to do that, it creates a HUGE paradox, because that character wouldn't exist to travel back in time & become his own grandfather until the "first time" he did it (that's why it would have to be a "fate controls all & you can't do anything about it" type of thing).

However, this could be cool (and hugely paradoxical now that I think about it, unless you go the alternative universe for each change in the time line (a la Star Trek DS9 at some point)).... What if it's not exactly the guy going back to be "his" own grandfather. What if there's some kind of time machine that gets built at some point & a guy goes back in time & marries a woman & they have kids & grandkids... Then one of the male grandkids finds the time machine, uses it to go back in time & marries that woman. They have kids & grandkids. One of the male grandkids finds the time machine &... well, you get the idea. Actually, besides the paradox, we're running into genetic problems now too, so never mind. Ignore me. No, seriously. :e2paperba

ChaosTitan · Jan 3, 2006

Sage said:
What if there's some kind of time machine that gets built at some point & a guy goes back in time & marries a woman & they have kids & grandkids... Then one of the male grandkids finds the time machine, uses it to go back in time & .....

Right until about there, you've inverted the original storyline of "Kate and Leopold."

In one of those "Top Twenty Somethings" type shows that VH1 airs all the time, I learned that the original script for K&L had quite the incestuous storyline. (For anyone who hasn't seen it, Liev Schrieber [can't remember his character's name] finds a time machine/wormhole thingie on the Brooklyn Bridge and goes back in time. Accidentally brings Duke Leopold back to present day Manhattan. Leo falls in love with Kate, who is also Liev's ex, but has to get back to his century before the wormhole thingie closes.)

Yeah, yeah, to the point already....

Anyway, in the original script, Liev was supposed to be Leo's multi-great's-grandson. And since Kate eventually goes back in time to marry Leo...that meant in present day Liev was having a relationship with his multi-great's-grandmother.

Apparently test audiences were a little disturbed by this notion, because it's nowhere to be seen in the version I've seen.

I have a feeling that readers of a science fiction novel will more readily accept something like that, than will the audience of a romantic comedy. But that's just me.

-Kelly

nandu · Jan 4, 2006

Wow! I never knew was this story was so common!

I'm just freewheeling here, but what if somebody goes back in time and kills himself? Then he wouldn't exist to go back, so he wouldn't be killed: then he'd exist, so he'd go back in time...seems that he'll end up winking in and out of existence.

Birol · Jan 4, 2006

Isn't that how they get rid of the bad guy in Timecop?

To leave television and movies and return to books, Anne McAffrey also dealt with the affects of time travel on individuals in the Pern series. Having too many individuals in a given place and time weakened all occurences of that individual. If I remember correctly, the Dragonriders referred to it as being "too close" to themselves.

There have been so many twists and takes on the different possibilities with time travel that I think it would be difficult to come up with something truly unique. The question becomes, what can you do with these ideas to make them your own?

Richard · Jan 4, 2006

No, they made him come into contact with himself. For some bizarre reason, that always seems to be a universe-ending event.

Birol · Jan 4, 2006

Ah, thanks for the correction.

You know, I don't think I've ever seen that entire movie. I can't imagine why.

Mike Coombes · Jan 4, 2006

What everyone who writes these 'going back in time' paradoxes forgets is that, if it's happened, you can't change it. The past is fixed. If you go back in time to change anything, it cannot be done, because if it can, it will already have happened before you even thought of it, which would make the need to go back and do it redundant. Is that clear?

I've got a headache.

Richard · Jan 4, 2006

No, that's been covered many times over. You go back and change something, and it creates a tangent universe that only you are aware of when you return. You exist because you exist in the first universe, effectively jumping onto a different track for when you return.

Mike Coombes · Jan 4, 2006

Birol said:
There have been so many twists and takes on the different possibilities with time travel that I think it would be difficult to come up with something truly unique. The question becomes, what can you do with these ideas to make them your own?

I have a neat idea I'm working on (the short version got published a couple of years ago, I'm expanding it somewhat now) about time tourists. Basing it on the assumption that you can't change things (see my last post) these 2 guys go around witnessing, and sometimes participating in events. One occurrence is when they appear at the last minute at a certain Dallas Book depository, one grabs Oswald while the other takes the shot at JFK.

No events are messed up, Kennedy still dies, Oswald still gets blamed, but they have a ball.

nandu · Jan 4, 2006

Yes, Birol...there was Timecop.

Anyway, my original idea was of somebody creating himself, not destroying himself.

One night I had this strange dream, where I bought a strip of tablets from a drugstore to find that they had expired. Then I somehow sensed that I was travelling backwards in time: I only had to wait for the requisite months before I travelled back over the expiry date to use the tablets.

Which brings me to the point made by Mike: that the past can't be changed. True enough if there is a fixed continuum. But if time is only perception, as Hawking says, then can we imagine somebody travelling backwards or sideways in time? (Sideways in time-Murray Leinster already did that).

Has there been any fictional work which has explored the nature of "time" itself?

Richard · Jan 4, 2006

Well, Time's Arrow is an obvious one. Or, if you want a more comedy focused version of the same basic idea, the Red Dwarf novelisation 'Backwards.'

I tend to think of time-travel stuff as being like the murder at the start of a mystery. It's unlikely you'll come up with anything that's never, ever, ever been thought before when dealing with such a staple of sci-fi, but it's what you do with it that counts. Back to the Future and The Time Machine are very different stories, and not just because Doc Brown built his as a Delorean.

My-Immortal · Jan 6, 2006

nandu said:
Has there been any fictional work which has explored the nature of "time" itself?

I haven't read it in years so I don't remember much of the specifics but Piers Anthony's Incarnation of Immortality series had the character of "Time". I remember that it was an interesting book because the Incarnate of Time had to live his time as the power of time backward. IMO, the whole series was quite an interesting mix of fantasy and sci fi with religion and politics thrown in as well. (Death, Nature, Time, Fate, War, Good and Evil are all Immortal 'offices' that human beings 'become' and the stories all interconnect for those of you unfamiliar with the series).

Take care all -

katiemac · Jan 6, 2006

Anyway, my original idea was of somebody creating himself, not destroying himself.

You could probably pull this over some readers' eyes, but the ones who know anything about genetics are probably going to have problems with it. Though, it's all depending on how you play it -- if it's "The Big Twist," you'll probably piss people off, but if it's introduced somewhat early, then you'd have a better chance of it being accepted.

IggytheDestroyer · Jan 6, 2006

You know, I was just thinking that the original Terminator movie had a slightly similar twist.

John Connor sends his buddy back in time to defend his mother from the evil, bad robot, buddy does a little hoo-hah with mom and ends up fathering the guy who sent him back in the first place. Good thing he didn't send a woman back to protect her. hehe.

My-Immortal · Jan 6, 2006

How about this....

Time Traveler learns that his grandfather did something sinister to woo grandmother away from her "true love"....and so he goes back to 'right the wrong' and gets his grandmother to stay with her 'true love' despite knowing that it could 'kill' him...

MC 'fades' out of existence....

Fade in a new time traveling "MC" that 'knows' that the man that tried to marry his grandmother went on to become some hideous monster toward society and his 'breaking point' was the loss of the grandmother. MC attempts to go back and "fix" the problem....

Hmmm...if this is good, I probably shouldn't have shared it....oh wells.

The Ultimate Time Travel Fantasy

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