Time Travel – How Science Fiction Failed Us

May 11, 2010 - By Phineas Delgado

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Back to the Future. This kid down the street actually modified a plastic model of a Delorian to look like the time machine. I watched it again recently and it got me thinking. If you could travel through time, where would you go? What would you do when you got there? Would you travel back and prevent Hitler’s rise to power? Would you witness the birth of Christ? Would you find out what REALLY happened to the Dinosaurs? Would it even be possible? Everyone, everywhere, has something in their past they wish they could change. Or perhaps the historians out there would like to witness or change some seminal event in our history and view the results. In this installment of “How Science Fiction Failed Us”, we’ll look at one of the most popular plot devices in all of Sci-Fi: Time Travel.

H.G. Wells, one of the fathers of modern Science Fiction, wrote his first novella, The Time Machine, in 1895. It’s the tale of a man, known simply as “The Time Traveller” (probably representing Wells himself) and the marvelous device he created. In that book, the Traveller doesn’t go BACK in time, but rather forward, to the year AD 802701. This book made me into the Sci-Fi fan I am, really (along with War of the Worlds and Journey to the Center of the Earth). If it had a short-falling, it was that it didn’t address what we all know to be the primary “rules” of Time Travel: If you go forward you can’t go back, and if you go back, you can’t change anything.

The first rule represents the current theories about time travel, as it relates to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Because as you travel faster, time moves more slowly for you than it would for those on Earth, a round trip that takes only a few years for you, may actually represent decades on Earth. In effect, you’ve traveled forward in time, with the obvious drawback that you can’t return. Some time travel scheme that turns out to be. Moving on…

The second rule is one of the most popular motifs of Sci-Fi. If anyone saw the last remake of The Time Machine (from 2002… and based on the box office, not many of you did), then you’ll remember the Übermorlock’s speech to the Traveller about why he couldn’t save his doomed fiancée. If he made the machine to go back to save her, and succeeded, he would have removed his motivation for completing the machine in the first place, and thusly, never save her. This is a demonstration of the “Grandfather Paradox”. Another problem is presented with the “Predestination Paradox” which states that the very act of going into the past predicates the need to do so, creating a loop. The textbook example of this is the Terminator series. In it, John Connor sends Kyle Reese into the past to protect his mother from being killed by a Terminator (which would prevent John Connor from being born). Kyle Reese, though, has relations with Sarah Connor, and is, in fact, John’s father. If John didn’t send him back, he wouldn’t have been born, so the act predicates the need. Your mind is blown right now. Isn’t it? Mine is. It’s leaking out my left ear.

Now what about Star Trek, you ask? Haven’t they gone into the past (and accidentally the future) dozens of times without inciting the wrath of the paradoxes? Of course they have, and honestly, I attribute this to the existence of both Scotty and Spock. Why? Because I can. The real reason, though, is another plot device that Star Trek (and comic books) uses to excess: Alternate Timelines and Realities. In that universe (and according to some theorists), for every decision that could have multiple outcomes, there exists a reality that represents each choice. Because of this, when you travel through time, you separate yourself from that timeline, thus negating any effects a change would have on you. For example, with the “Grandfather Paradox”, killing your own grandfather would create an alternate timeline in which you did not exist. Here’s the catch: moving forward along that timeline would take you into a different place. (I know I’m blowing your mind again, right?). Here’s the thing, though; Star Trek has actually been pretty consistent with its time travel, to the point that there is a “temporal Prime Directive”. It should be noted, for example, that while Star Trek was “rebooted” and the latest movie took place in an Alternate Quantum Reality, the original universe is still chugging along, intact (as evidenced by the game play in Star Trek Online, which takes place immediately following the events that led to Star Trek). The only time they didn’t obey their own rules was in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. We’ll forgive them though, because we got to hear Spock curse.

Of course, arguably the most recognizable effort to explain the trials and tribulations of Time Travel is Back to the Future. In it, Doc Brown steals some Uranium to make his Delorian time machine (way cooler than the H.G. Wells version… sorry George, it’s true), which Marty has to use to escape the angry Libyans (proving that terrorism isn’t a new thing). Once in the past, Marty is faced with the dilemma of his parents never meeting, and ultimately his own demise. Marty’s influence in the past also had the unintended effect of improving his father’s confidence and the McFly family’s fortunes. Who said Time Travel was dangerous?

Now that we’ve taken a look at the possibilities, you wonder how I think Science Fiction failed us this time. It hasn’t really, but would you read an article titled “How Science Fiction Didn’t Really Fail Us, But I Like This Cool Topic”? I think Sci-Fi does a pretty good job showing the pluses and minuses associated with screwing with the Space/Time continuum. Will I go into the future and find that humans are little more than sheep? Or perhaps, I’ll travel into the past in an attempt to save Abraham Lincoln only to see him die a thousand different ways. I know, maybe I’ll be like Philip J. Fry and go back and become my own grandfather. My money’s on the TimeCop version. You know the one that says if you ever come into contact with your past or future self, you melt into primordial ooze. Either that or Doc Brown shows up and knocks you both senseless with the Flux Capacitor. Oh man… that’s heavy.