Time Sucks (aka Some Sort of Interest Check)

It's the future. Well, some point in relative time that's past the point this paragraph was written. I mean, not the future for me and everyone here, but for you guys, it's...Okay, y'know what, let me start over here.

From the beginning of time travel.

See, in the future (that is, the future for the both of us, just farther away from you) some genius spent the best forty-odd years of his life theorizing, prototyping, and perfecting the brilliance of time travel. And, to everyone's surprise, he was right and his methods worked. And so this scientist guy gets pestered daily about 'how time travel could affect the timeline', 'if the project would be available to the public', and 'where do you buy your pants'. So, he gets fed up with the whole thing, travels to the past, and hands all the diagrams and crap to one of his ancestors in the hopes that he could pass the blame/credit to someone different. That worked too.

But then the exact same thing happened to his ancestor, who went back further in time to escape the constant badgering himself. Then he helped their earlier ancestor to make his own version of a time machine. This cycle of pride, greed, and impatience lasts a couple more times, but you get the gist of it. So, in summary, the timeline's so unstable from all the changes and misplaced folks, and everyone in both the present, future, and future-future are able to access such a dangerous concept. Obviously, this is a huge problem.

This is the part where I hire you to fix it.

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So yeah. Time travel. I figured it's a fun thing, so why not make an RP based around it? Seems like a logical decision to me.

I don't have too much planned on this, it's just more of a way to introduce the idea of the RP, discuss how part of it should play out, and the usual brainstorming things that occur.

Any takers?

edited 29th Jan '15 5:17:28 PM by TruthHurts22

Well, first, is it real time travel or more alternate universe? If it is real time travel, how exactly do things work? Like, say, Kennedy ends up assassinated regardless of everyone trying to prevent it? Does killing one's ancestor erase them if they already time traveled? Are there Clock Roaches, some kind of higher power/authority, or things that'll mess with the time travelers?

Oh, and is there some kind of internal consistency (even if the people aren't aware of it) or is time such a mess only a God could understand it? In fact, how unstable is the timeline? "Pop goes the universe" or "Eh, just gonna need a whole lot of duct tape"? I admit I'm quite interested, but time travel is a complicated mess to explain rationally. I actually think some plot emphasis on the chaotic and dangerous nature of time travel would be nice.

Random thing, but are there more mundane uses for time travel? Like using it for mailing and delivery systems to greatly speed things up, or sending one's wife to a designated medical place nine months into the past to take a one hour trip down town to see your lovely new baby? There must also be some kind of rules and law enforcement in place for use of time travel as well.

"The Omniverse is the collection of all possibilities, and all possibilities must eventually come to pass."

Well, most of those questions I can't answer right now since I haven't thought about them yet, but here's what I can probably clear up.

I was planning on having it be real time travel for chaotic reasons, but I'm not sure how that in itself would work, really. There will not be anything natural to prevent time-alteration, which is why people are getting picked-up/volunteer to be the ones to keep everything in order.

And that is literally all I can answer, and even then I'm not sure.

TL;DR, wow this is already complicated and I already regret trying to do this gdi

I think some people just try too hard to give reason to time travel. Honestly I don't think it should make sense, what with reality slowly crumbling. Besides that, who is the person hiring us?

"The Omniverse is the collection of all possibilities, and all possibilities must eventually come to pass."

It would make sense for him to be one of the forefathers of time travel, yeah? Either the original scientist guy, or one of the ancestors. Probably the first ancestor, in relation to the creator's travel.

Boy, talking about it's gonna get confusing fast.

So would the Players be the Time Police, if not some of the first then? In addition, how easily accessed is time travel and how exactly does the timeline instability affect things?

"The Omniverse is the collection of all possibilities, and all possibilities must eventually come to pass."