History Headscratchers / Timeless

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[[folder: Ripple Proof Memories]]

* 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?

[[folder: Rittenhouse]]

* Why Lucy, an high level historian, didn't know the existence of the real David Rittenhouse? Nobody of the team simply trirf to Google the name "Rittenhouse"?

** 1) Wyatt is now implicated in three crimes in 1983: manslaughter, aggravated assault, and assault on a police officer. His fingerprints are all over the bar. When this incident is investigated, a set of unknown fingerprints is going to be implicated. What happens to Wyatt when (for example) he gets his driver's license or a passport or joins the Army in the new timeline and his fingerprints are run against a national database? Unlike their previous trips to the past, 1983 is close enough to the modern day that modern forensic techniques begin to apply.

1) Wyatt is now implicated in three crimes in 1983: manslaughter, aggravated assault, and assault on a police officer. His fingerprints are all over the bar. When this incident is investigated, a set of unknown fingerprints is going to be implicated. What happens to Wyatt when (for example) he gets his driver's license or a passport or joins the Army in the new timeline and his fingerprints are run against a national database? Unlike their previous trips to the past, 1983 is close enough to the modern day that modern forensic techniques begin to apply.
2) Was Flynn telling Wyatt the truth, or running a BatmanGambit to get Wyatt to do some dirty work he couldn't do himself? Were the killer's parents connected to Rittenhouse, and Flynn couldn't return to 1983 because he was already running another mission there? A personal agenda? Did the killer also kill someone close to Flynn?

2) Was Flynn telling Wyatt the truth, or running a BatmanGambit to get Wyatt to do some dirty work he couldn't do himself? Were the killer's parents connected to Rittenhouse, and Flynn couldn't return to 1983 because he was already running another mission there? A personal agenda? Did the killer also kill someone close to Flynn?

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** 5.) There are two known time machines. Flynn and his gang stole the more advanced version, which is larger and can carry more passengers and cargo than the prototype version used by Rufus, Wyatt, and Lucy. It is also later modified with a power source that makes it harder to track. There are only a few characters able to pilot the machines, Rufus and Anthony being the most noteworthy.

** 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. The events of the episode "Karma Chameleon" seem to support the idea that there is at least some degree of inertia at work, but not enough to prevent the past from changing entirely.

** 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. Flynn and his gang stole the more advanced version, which is larger and can carry more passengers and cargo than the prototype version used by Rufus, Wyatt, and Lucy. It is also later modified with a power source that makes it harder to track. Rufus and Anthony are the only two people capable of piloting the machines.

** 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.

*** 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 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.
** 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

* If Rittenhouse's goal is to stop and silence Garcia Flynn, why don't they send someone to Flynn's personal past before he discovered Rittenhouse and arrange an unfortunate accident? Since NeverTheSelvesShallMeet, he couldn't save himself.

** 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 up their mission. 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 ).