History Headscratchers / Timeless

** 2.) A time traveler cannot travel to a time in which he already exists, which is why Mason Industries cannot send someone back to the moment when Flynn stole the time machine and stop him. Likewise, they can only travel back to a particular point in history once, so there are no "do-overs" if they mess it up. Note: The exact parameters of this rule are not known, since in the the episode "Space race" one of the older characters traveled back to a time in which he almost certainly existed as a child somewhere. It has not been explained how he was able to do this, so it may just be a goof on the part of the writers (in which case, please recite the MST3KMantra ).

1.) SanDimasTime applies. For example, if a time traveler spends two hours in the past, he will return to the present two hours after the time he departed.
2.) A time traveler cannot travel to a time in which he already exists, which is why Mason Industries cannot send someone back to the moment when Flynn stole the time machine and stop him. Likewise, they can only travel back to a particular point in history once, so there are no "do-overs" if they mess it up. Note: The exact parameters of this rule are not known, since in the the episode "Space race" one of the older characters traveled back to a time in which he almost certainly existed as a child somewhere. It has not been explained how he was able to do this, so it may just be a goof on the part of the writers (in which case, please recite the MST3KMantra ).
3.) All people and objects inside a time machine are shielded from the effects of changes made to the timeline. Documents and photographs inside the vehicle will remained unchanged, and the occupants will still remember the original version of events, and will not gain an altered set of memories after exiting. Everybody and everything outside the vehicle is subject to change, however, and a time traveler may find that his or her life circumstances have changed considerably (or not) from what they remember. This suggests the show uses the multiverse interpretation of time travel.
4.) Related to the above rule, the Butterfly Effect is treated as a serious threat in the show, but thus far it has been somewhat muted, with a few notable exceptions. It is unclear if this is more because of the actions of the protagonists, or if there is some sort of chronological inertia at work.
5.) There are two known time machines.

2.)

** Given how Flynn has been shown as altering history already, it's possible the "butterfly effect" could have shifted things so Johnson was there on that day after all.

** Flynn is probably so obsessed with "fixing" time so his family lives that he ignores this possibility. Also, we don't know yet the full relationship of himself and Future!Lucy who may have her own reasons for letting Flynn go on this trip.

* In the 1970s, Flynn, Wyatt and Rufus stumble upon someone who could be critical to finding out how deep Rittenhouse's hooks are sunk into the governmental apparatus in the USA. [[spoiler:Yet they don't make any effort to get any names - even just the upper echelons, if nothing else.]]

*** But the team didn't remove Deep Throat from the timeline- Lucy and Rufus explicitly told him to keep talking to Woodward and Bernstein. Unless he Felt was too spooked by Lucy and Rufus's knowledge of his identity to continue to provide information to the press, but that isn't stated.

* Isnt't it weird that Flynn never questions the diary? He has been following it since beginning but not a single one of his plans succeeded. If Future!Lucy (or whoever wrote it) wanted him to achieve his goal, the diary would contain some sort of warning how to counter the teams actions. It's blatantly obvious the author of the diary needs everyone to carry on for some reason and Flynn doesn't seem to care he might have been getting sabotaged all along. But the fact that anything in the diary may be made up is obviously lost on everyone involved.

*** But the team didn't remove Deep Throat from the timeline- Lucy and Rufus explicitly told him to keep talking to Woodward and Bernstein. Unless he Felt was too spooked by Lucy and Rufus's knowledge of his identity to continue to provide information to the press, but that isn't stated.

** So far the team has been successful in keeping most of the events that were altered "close enough" to what really happened to keep the butterfly effect to a minimum as far as later events being affected are concerned. For example, the nation's reaction to the Lincoln assassination is presumably no different in the altered timeline than it was in ours, because in the altered timeline Booth didn't kill Lincoln but still was charged as the one behind the plot. i.e., in both versions Lincoln dies at the same time and place, and in both version Booth and his fellow conspirators are held responsible for it. The biggest change so far is probably the Hindenberg disaster, but even then terrorist bombings by anarchist groups were not uncommon in the news at that time. The altered version might actually be less newsworthy, since fewer people died, and the biggest problem is the continued existence of the people who died in the original timeline, which we've seen some of the results of.

** Mark Felt was already taking a ''huge'' risk by talking to Woodward and Berenstein. Alienating not only Nixon but also Nixon's [[BiggerBad even more powerful enemies]] would have been fatal. And removing Deep Throat from the timeline also removes not only Watergate but an entire generation of activist media--making it easier for Rittenhouse to do whatever it is they're doing without interference.

* In the 1970s, Flynn, Wyatt and Rufus stumble upon someone who could be critical to finding out how deep Rittenhouse's hooks are sunk into the governmental apparatus in the USA. [[spoiler:Yet they don't make any effort to get any names - even just the upper echelons, if nothing else.]]

** The first thing the team do when they return to the present is to check the Internet to see what has changed. Given that she's basically "on sabbatical" to work with the team full time, Lucy doesn't have to worry too much about her job as it is. She's more concerned with stopping Flynn and preventing more damage to figure out the effects on her career.

* How is Lucy going to return to her job? The more trips they take the more history changes. She's going to become less and less updated on history unless she's constantly studying what's changed, because we've been shown that the simple changes they make have big consequences. (Loss of Lucy's sister, a new Bond movie, the Alamo being even ''more'' of a massacre.) Now take that back to the originating events - how much does Von Braun change the effects of WWII now that he's with the Allies earlier? What happened when terrorists crashed the Hindenberg? Was it a reaction like 9/11? She spent an ''entire'' career becoming a premiere historian and professor and she is literally unraveling history. All these things spiral out and connect to history (like, for instance, small things like JFK's mistress being hooked up with the mob, that most people literally had no idea about) and those connections are Lucy's sole purpose and the more she works with these people, the more she's destroying her own livelihood. Realistically, how going to adjust to ''keeping up'' with all of the ramifications of what they are doing because they go far and wider that most people realize, ''especially'' in history and politics?

* How is Lucy even performing her job right now? The more trips they take the more history changes. She's going to become less and less updated on history unless she's constantly studying what's changed, because we've been shown that the simple changes they make have big consequences. (Loss of Lucy's sister, a new Bond movie, the Alamo being even ''more'' of a massacre.) Now take that back to the originating events - how much does Von Braun change the effects of WWII now that he's with the Allies earlier? What happened when terrorists crashed the Hindenberg? Was it a reaction like 9/11? She spent an ''entire'' career becoming a premiere historian and professor and she is literally unraveling history. All these things spiral out and connect to history (like, for instance, small things like JFK's mistress being hooked up with the mob, that most people literally had no idea about) and those connections are Lucy's sole purpose and the more she works with these people, the more she's destroying her own livelihood. Realistically, how is she ''keeping up'' with all of the ramifications of what they are doing because they go far and wider that most people realize, ''especially'' in history and politics?

** Indeed, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge Battle of the Bulge]] would take place less than a week after the events of the episode. It was Germany's last major offensive, and cost them as many as 125,000 casualties. Given that the 101st Airborne Division (including Wyatt's grandfateher) was less than 200 miles away from Castle Varlar, it's likely that all of the German soldiers at the castle would have been thrown into the battle and very likely most of them would have been killed anyway.

** Given the chaos of the war, a good chance most (if not all) of those soldiers would have ended up killed in action anyway so the effects on history would be minimal.

** Likely, any investigation would have exposed the mistress so JFK would have wanted it kept quiet fast. As only a few people knew at all, it would have been easy to keep silent on national security reasons and let it die down.

* Why did Flynn stealing a nuclear bomb core cause virtually no change in history? With anti-Communist paranoia as it was in the fifties and sixties, and the "new driver" of Judith's being coincidentally present at nearly the same time as the keys go missing from the general's office, along with JFK being nearby, it could easily have set off a chain of dominoes among the FBI and CIA as they go all out to find out if the President himself was being led astray by a Communist Mata Hari.