ElectricSpectre

Some people will drone on and on about time machines, and how we might build them, what they would look like and whether they would travel through time and space or merely through time. That is not what we will be discussing today. Today we’re talking about time-travel’s effect on history. It’s going to be fascinating, you’re all going to thank me, so let’s just get started.

Now, this is all very complicated and it’s possible to get waaaay too deep into this stuff, so we’re going to breeze lightly over the three main competing theories like a dandelion seed caught in an updraft. We’ll highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each theory, with examples from movies and TV all the way to help you out. By the end of this instructive series of tutorials you’ll be able to watch a film about time-travel and exclaim, “Hogwash and Poppycock! This film appears to subscribe to a flexible-history theory of time-travel and yet this paradox is one typically seen in a fixed-timeline scenario! I shall write to Ofcom, and they will understand and subscribe to my e-newsletter.”

Not yet, though, because today we’re only covering the flexible-history theory.**

Right! Strap in kids, I’m taking you on a journey through knowledge!

Flexible-history theory:

This theory is very popular, and allows for time-travellers to alter the course of history by their actions. History is flexible, and if I go back in time and kill Hitler, well then Hitler is just bally-well going to stay dead and we’re just going to have to bally-well deal with the consequences. Dr Who and Back to the Future (for the most part) subscribe to this popular theory, because it allows for all sorts of fun in terms of avoiding one’s distant relatives and being very careful not to disturb anything in the past. Normally this translates into costume changes, which is always a laugh. It also raises the stakes — one error and you’ll forever alter history, dooming humanity or preventing the invention of time-travel and thereby trapping yourself in the horrible, icky past.

The downside of this theory is that when you think about it, it’s a bit weird. For instance, Marty McFly experiences the dangers of messing with the past first-hand when he screws up his parents’ falling in love. When it looks like his parents will never hook up, he is physically pained and starts to visibly disappear. We know why — if his parents never meet up, then he’ll never be born, let alone travel through time. He shouldn’t be there, in this new timeline he’s not supposed to exist, hence he is erased from history.

The problem is, why does that happen? This whole theory presupposes some intelligent, all-present nanny-force in the universe that’s forever going around tidying up after messy time-travelling tykes. Presumably time-travellers are just as constrained to the laws of physics as anything else — they can’t just vanish just because they’ve ruined their parents’ falling in love! If I were Marty McFly (and by God, I wish that were the case) I’d want to find the mystical force that says the continuum must be preserved and that I have to fade into non-existence, and ask him why he’s being such a douche.

Similarly, consider the memory-shifts of those for whom the past is altered. When Marty gets back home at the end of the first film, his parents of course have no memory of living in poverty, under the thumb of mean ol’ Biff — for them it never happened, because George stood up to Biff way back when and became a confident, wealthy sci-fi writer. I think most of us would agree that our experiences, memories and personality shape who we are, in which case congratulations Marty, you killed your parents. These aren’t the same people you grew up with. Those two were erased by the mystic forces of timeline-housekeeping.

Which means, of course, that when anyone travels back in time, everything that ever occurred past the point in time that you arrive at ceases to exist. All those objects, people, hell — the whole universe, gone! That’s some serious destructive power. I would like to know who destroyed it, and what happened to all the energy that was expended in its destruction.

Sometimes we’re asked to believe that major events in history are unchangeable. This is a theme popular in The Twilight Zone — for example, I go back in time with a sniper rifle to kill Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but hilariously slip on a banana peel and fall into the big torch thing at the top of the stadium. Or my gun jams. Or Hitler is wearing his ‘lucky kevlar’ that day and is unharmed by the bullet. The idea is that some events in history are more important than others, and cannot be changed.

These kinds of stories really grind my gears. Who the hell gets to decide which historical events are the important ones?! It’s that all-powerful cosmic nanny again, always thwarting my efforts and keeping the course of human history nice and neat. Well, I for one don’t like the idea of a cosmic nanny, or the continuum regulating itself, or anything else that implies that time is some kind of conscious, careful entity.

Unfortunately flexible-history theory inevitably calls for such weird measures, and that’s it’s major downfall. Next week we’ll look at fixed-timelines, and see if they make a bit more sense.* (SPOILER: They don’t.)

*Unless I get distracted by something awesome and less clever, like: ‘who would win in a fight between me and myself travelling back from the future to kill me and take my place.’

**Consider this a prime example of the timeline being altered, as I started out intending to write out all three major theories, then realised I’d expended about a billion words on just one, and retrospectively changed the article to only promise one theory. As proof of this time-squirreling madness, notice that this footnote features two asterisks, despite appearing earlier in the text!

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