History Headscratchers / Travelers

Why would Philip already have condoms stashed besides his bed in the beginning of season 2, when he took the ManicPixieDreamGirl fellow Traveler the writers threw at him back "home" and had sex with her for the first time? He clearly stated that he wasn't interested in dating in the first season (and he was too busy / depressed / doped-up to have much of a libido in any case), and this happened almost immediately after the end of the first season. And even if he did get laid off-screen, which he doesn't seem the type for (he doesn't even understand the purpose of online porn), he would never take a one-night-stand back into Ops instead of just paying for a hotel room. The only people he ever let into Ops were the team, occasionally other Travelers, and Ray, whom Philip doesn't even like much. And all the other team members were in budding romantic relationships in the first season. Well, except Trevor, who thankfully had too much scruples to have sex with his host's teenage girlfriend. But since the sex with ManicPixieDreamGirl was quite blatantly thrown in to destroy the possible asexual reading of the character that resulted from his statements in season 1 and because the writers weren't comfortable with the fact that most of the fan-made stuff about their new show was slash (just like with their [[Series/StargateAtlantis old show]]), I very much doubt that the condoms were meant to imply that Philip and Trevor took their new bodies for a test drive when Trevor crashed on Philip's couch for a little while in season 1. (Not that this kept the writers from queer-baiting and throwing in hints about an especially attached relationship between these characters in season 2. Again, like in their last major show.)

Why would Philip already have condoms stashed besides his bed in the beginning of season 2, when he took the ManicPixieDreamGirl fellow Traveler the writers threw at him back "home" and had sex with her for the first time? He clearly stated that he wasn't interested in dating in the first season (and he was too busy / depressed / doped-up to have much of a libido in any case), and this happened almost immediately after the end of the first season. And even if he did get laid off-screen, which he doesn't seem the type for (he doesn't even understand the purpose of online porn), he would never take a one-night-stand back into Ops instead of just paying for a hotel room. The only people he ever let into Ops were the team, occasionally other Travelers, and Ray, whom Philip doesn't even like much. And all the other team members were in budding romantic relationships in the first season. Well, except Trevor, who thankfully had too much scruples to have sex with his host's teenage girlfriend. But since the sex with ManicPixieDreamGirl was quite blatantly thrown in to [[AManIsNotAVirgin destroy the possible asexual reading]] of the character that resulted from his statements in season 1 and because the writers weren't comfortable with the fact that most of the fan-made stuff about their new show was slash (just like with their [[Series/StargateAtlantis old show]]), I very much doubt that the condoms were meant to imply that Philip and Trevor took their new bodies for a test drive when Trevor crashed on Philip's couch for a little while in season 1. (Not that this kept the writers from queer-baiting and throwing in hints about an especially attached relationship between these characters in season 2. Again, like in their last major show.)

Why would Philip already have condoms stashed besides his bed in the beginning of season 2, when he took the ManicPixieDreamGirl fellow Traveler the writers threw at him back "home" and had sex with her for the first time? He clearly stated that he wasn't interested in dating in the first season (and he was too busy / depressed / doped-up to have much of a libido in any case), and this happened almost immediately after the end of the first season. And even if he did get laid off-screen, which he doesn't seem the type for (he doesn't even understand the purpose of online porn), he would never take a one-night-stand back into Ops instead of just paying for a hotel room. The only people he ever let into Ops were the team, occasionally other Travelers, and Ray, whom Philip doesn't even like much. And all the other team members were in budding romantic relationships in the first season. Well, except Trevor, who thankfully had too much scruples to have sex with his host's teenage girlfriend.

* The Marcy situation helps explain this to some extent. Marcy's "upload" was repackaged to avoid the damaged areas of the brain, and basically fit an entire mind in part of a brain. There's nothing to suggest that historians' uploads couldn't be packaged to make more efficient use of the brain, particularly if their base personality undergoes a similar pruning process.

** The bulk of the characters possessed also had close friends and relatives that would have reported them missing - Marcy's case worker, , Trevor's parents and schoolmates, etc. [=MacLaren=] in particular - you'd have to believe the FBI would dedicate a decent amount of resources to an agent that suddenly went missing. The Travelers can't do what they need to do if there is constant danger of somebody calling the police or FBI to report they've seen the missing people. Ideally they'd possess people like Philip that had nobody who would really care if they went missing, but since they identify their targets lives through official records and social media, its presumably rather rare to find somebody that can just drop their lives and disappear without SOMEBODY noticing, so they have to maintain their host life to raise a minimum of suspicion.

** The bulk of the characters possessed also had close friends and relatives that would have reported them missing - Marcy's case worker, , Trevor's parents and schoolmates, etc. [=MacLaren=] in particular - you'd have to believe the FBI would dedicate a decent amount of resources to an agent that suddenly went missing. The Travelers can't do what they need to do if there is constant danger of somebody calling the police or FBI to report they've seen the missing people. Ideally they'd possess people that had nobody who would care if they went missing, but it seems like their choice of hosts is extremely limited for some reason, so they have to make as little disturbance as possible.

*** The first episode has MacLaren specifically state that 'Jonas Walker hasn't left his house in a week' as a reason he would look into the chatroom messages. The FBI clearly had him under some level of surveillance at the time, and if the chatroom hadn't popped up presumably MacLaren would have continued the surveillance and followed Walker to the building instead of the chatroom messages.

** The bulk of the characters possessed also had close friends and relatives that would have reported them missing - Marcy's case worker, , Trevor's parents and schoolmates, etc. MacLaren in particular - you'd have to believe the FBI would dedicate a decent amount of resources to an agent that suddenly went missing. The Travelers can't do what they need to do if there is constant danger of somebody calling the police or FBI to report they've seen the missing people.

* Travelers posses BEFORE the events leading to their deaths unfold. Phillip is possesed BEFORE he injects himself, Marcy hits her head but that wasn't how she was gonna die, [[FridgeHorror she was going to be raped and murdered]], Carly was going to die when she struggles with Jeff's gun and it goes off, but she gets possesed and doesn't struggle, just kicks ass. The Engineer, as well as the reinforcements, were basically a suicide mission. If they succeed, temporal paradox and never been born. If they fail, they die trying. Note that this is a major plot point a couple of times. I.E: [[spoiler: a suicide bomber and his victims are scheduled to be possesed, yet the traveler!bomber fails to disarm it in time]].

What exactly are the changes that have been done to Philip and other historians? It's implied that they've been changed somehow in order to store the amount of information for historical records, but at the end of S2E2, Philip gets a communication from a messenger to 'access memory chain 71985VX', and then is given a load of information. So it sounds like their minds are changed to handle memory like a computer now. But, my understanding of the time travel is that it's the consciousness only, which would imply that something's done to the mind rather than the brain. Or, can only certain potential hosts receive a historian's consciousness? The mind being software, the physical brain being hardware. Could tie in with Marcy's situation also.

** There is time to escape the situation (the main Travellers do so), it's a possibility that the gun-wielding Travellers were trying to deter anyone who wouldn't listen to people in uniform and have them back off with the threat of being shot in order to protect them.

* It appears the majority of Travelers seem to be reluctant to use lethal force unless need be. Perhaps a result of coming from a future where humanity is nearing extinction has bred in them a reluctance to cause grevious harm. Only in the revamped timeline did they get more murderous Travelers. Also, Travelers who have been trapped in the past for extended period of time have developed a more cynical and brutal outlook as seen with Hall and his group. New Travelers seem to look at the world with a certain innocence and wonder. It's the Travelers who spend more time on mission and in the past who gain a more ruthless edge. The ones who came back from the Helios mission where New Travelers who marveled at a bear, showing their more humane nature.

* It appears the majority of Travelers seem to be reluctant to use lethal force unless need be. Perhaps a result of coming from a future where humanity is nearing extinction has bred in them a reluctance to cause grevious harm. Only in the revamped timeline did they get more murderous Travelers. Also, Travelers who have been trapped in the past for extended period of time have developed a more cynical and brutal outlook as seen with Hall and his group. New Travelers seem to look at the world with a certain innocence and wonder. It's the Travelers who spend more time on mission and in the past who gain a more ruthless edge. The ones who came back from the Helios mission where New Travelers who marveled at a bear, howing their more humane nature.

* It appears the majority of Travellers seem to be reluctant to use lethel force unless need be. Perhaps a result of coming from a future where humanity is nearing extinction has bred in them a reluctance to cause grevious harm. Only in the revamped timeline did they get more murderious Travellers. Also Travellers who have been trapped in the past for extended period of time have developed a more cynical and brutal outlook as seen with Hall and his group. New Travellers seem to look at the World with a certain innocence and wonder. Its the Travellers who spend more time on mission and in the past who gain a more ruthless edge. The ones who came back from the Hellios mission where New Travellers who marveled at a bear. Showing their more humane nature.

* It appears the majority of Travellers seem to be reluctant to use lethel force unless need be. Perhaps a result of coming from a future where humanity is nearing extinction has bred in them a reluctance to cause grevious harm. Only in the revamped timeline did they get more murderious Travellers. Also Travellers who have been trapped in the past for extended period of time have developed a more cynical and brutal outlook as seen with Hall and his group. New Travellers seem to look at the World with a certain innocence and wonder. Its the Travellers who spend more time on mission and in the past who gain a more ruthless age. The ones who came back from the Hellios mission where New Travellers who marveled at a bear. Showing their more humane nature.

* It appears the majority of Travellers seem to be reluctant to use lethel force unless need be. Perhaps a result of coming from a future where humanity is nearing extinction has bred in them a reluctance to cause grevious harm. Only in the revamped timeline did they get more murderious Travellers. Also Travellers who have been trapped in the past for exteneded period of times may have developed a more cynical and brutal outlook as seen with Hall and his group. New Travellers seem to look at the World with a certain innocence and wonder. Its the Travellers who spend more time on mission and in the past who gain a more ruthless age. The ones who came back from the Hellios mission where New Travellers who marveled at a bear. Showing their more humane nature.

Why didn't the reinforcements for The Engineer shoot to kill? They say they can't just kill people as that would interfere with the timeline, but they were just gonna blow the place up and kill them all anyway.

* The show's time travel rules are a combination of "minimize impact to the timeline" AND "maintain cover." Remember, Protocol 1 is "The Mission Comes First." Presumably that overrides the others. Yes, maintaining the hosts life causes changes, but that apparently has been deemed an acceptable risk in the fact of preventing multiple extinction level events.

Protocol Five doesn't make any sense. It says "Maintain your host's life" but the host was ''supposed to die''. Picking up where the host left off necessarily causes changes to the timeline that would be avoided if they simply pretended to be dead.

** But that only makes sense if [[spoiler:[=MacLaren=]]] would have been there in the first place to fall down the elevator shaft. It can't be that you die at the specified time regardless of what happens because the whole point is to save lives.

* The death that was prevented in the Engineer's case was the host's assisted suicide. While the host was already dying, without the euthanasia it wasn't happening quickly enough to affect her mission.

* Travelers posses BEFORE the events leading to their deaths unfold. Phillip is possesed BEFORE he injects himself, Marcy hits her head but that wasn't how she was gonna die, [[FridgeHorror she was going to be raped and murdered]], Carly was going to die when she struggles with Jeff's gun and it goes off, but she gets possesed and doesn't struggle, just kicks ass. The Engineer, as well as the reinforcements, were basically a suicide mission. If they succeed, temporal paradox and never been born. If they fail, they die trying. Note that this is a major plot point a couple of times. I.E: [[spoiler: a suicide bomber and his victims are scheduled to be possesed, yet the traveler!bomber fails to disarm it in time]].

How do they actually save the people they jump into? People who are killed by misadventure make sense since the Traveler just has to avoid that event. But the Engineer is dying of lung cancer, Marcy hit her head, and Phillip had just injected himself with a fatal dose of heroin.

How do they actually save the people the jump into? People who are killed by misadventure make sense since the Traveler just has to avoid that event. But the Engineer is dying of lung cancer, Marcy hit her head, and Phillip had just injected himself with a fatal dose of heroin.

* Historians know the time, place and manner of death; that information would've remained the same whether they were there or not. [=MacLaren=]'s case [[spoiler:capturing Jonah Walker]] and the team's first mission [[spoiler:assassinating Jonah]] was engineered to overlap.

Why did Philip, the only one who could remember exact departure times, know [[spoiler:{{MacLaren}} would die in the bulding pursuing the team]] if in the original timeline they would already be dead?
* Historians know the time, place and manner of death, that information would've remained the same whether they were there or not. {{MacLaren}}'s case [[spoiler:capturing Jonah Walker]] and the team's first mission [[spoiler:assassinating Jonah]] was engineered to overlap.

Why traveler-Philip did know original-MacLaren would die in the bulding prusing the team if in the original timeline (the only one what him could remember at the departure time) all the team members was dead?