Time Traveling in Sci-Fi and Fantasy

I like it when time travel is handled in a more "quantum" manner. In the James P. Hogan novel "The Proteus Operation" you have an alternate universe where the Nazis acquired the atomic bomb in 1941 (by inventing time travel and using it to go to the future and steal it) then used it to bomb Russia into submission, forcing England to surrender without firing a shot. This left a mid-70's world where the only free nations left were the US, Canada, and Austrialia (however, Austrialia was about to capitulate to the Third Reich). Revolutionary element in Britian then steal the Nazi time travel technology and use it to go back to WWII-era Nazi Germany and destroy their time machine so the Nazis can't use it to steal their nuclear technology. They acomplish this mission only to learn that they didn't really travel through time, but rather, between alternate universes that exist at different points in time, so they never changed anything in their own "time" and to live in a free world, they'll have to stay where they are some 40 years prior to the time they lived in before. They do that, and pass the nuclear secrets the Nazis stole (from a very futuristic Earth, IIRC) to the United States, essentially creating the "real" world we live in. This method of "time travel" solved the problem of changing the future, but retained the weirdness of meeting the alternate universe version of yourself.

The Michael Chricton novel (and movie) Timeline used a quantum model as well, but it was still traditional time travel with changing the future and stuff. Time travel was achieved by shrinking one down small enough to travel through wormholes in quantum foam. Plotwise, the story was kinda stupid, but the science was very cool.

 

Back to the Future's real good however the second one made my brain hurt fairly bad.

 

I liked Timecop. I liked that you could die if you touched a younger or older version of yourself.

Also I saw someone mention The Proteus Operation, that is a very good book. Poul Anderson has several time travel books out too.

 

Time traveling is never used in media now. Why do you think this is?

 

What do you mean it's never used anymore? I don't think it's used any less than before...

 

Realistically, George would probably wonder if Marty is in fact the result of an affair between Lorraine and "Calvin Klein".

 

I can't believe that this thread has gone this far without a mention of the movie "Time Bandits"! It even had Kenny Baker in it! I must say that I don't remember much about the film as I haven't seen it since I was pretty young.

A novel about changing history through time travel that I would love to see would be Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. For those who don't know this book, the premise is that white supremacists from the future steal a time machine and travel back to the Civil War and supply the Southern army with AK-47s and other advanced weaponry. If I remember correctly, the quantum question really doesn't come into play as all those that came from the future seem content to remain in the past.

Star Trek seems to want things both ways by there being alternate realities where things happened differently, as well as having things change in the past not causing dramatic changes in the future.

I am very glad that time travel has been kept out of the Star Wars universe as too much of what makes the storyline of the SW Saga is individual decisions/events that are too pivotal and would allow no flexibility to allow for things to still happen the same way if even just slightly changed. Now, it was a little interesting to read the SW Infinities comics that had changes in each of the OT movies and seeing what might have happened, but that is so outside the continuity that there is no concern.

 

Yeah, and she probably sees Calvin Klein promoting some new underwear and thinks to herself, "He certainly didn't age very well."