It's Thursday, so it's time
for my
my weekly random question...
Here's another one I don't know how to explain other than to just ask the question. I'm assuming you've heard of the alternate history genre in fiction...
What if our timeline is the one that was altered? What if someone wanted to go back and put us back on track?
Thursday, May 29, 2014
12 comments:
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*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.
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Interesting thought; I think it would be natural for someone to go back and get us back on track. Haven't we all lived over and over again a bad decision we made and wished we could go back and undue it?
ReplyDeletebetty
Wow-that would be scary in some ways. I like my life and how many times does one go back to change something-how many different parallel universes would there be? I feel like I am on track-oh oh:)
ReplyDeleteHmm.. Could be interesting. I think there was a movie like this. It was probably a TV movie. But there was an alternate reality and somehow the main character stumbled into it. One thing I remembered about it was that nobody had their own cars. When you were ready to go somewhere, you just walked out and hopped in whatever car you wanted.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like each sci-fi show does a version of it, but they're always trying to get back to our timeline.
DeleteBut wouldn't the "true" reality be the alternate to us?
ReplyDeleteThis makes me think that any history would be right or wrong depending on who's viewing it. No matter how wrong something might seem, there would be people who didn't want to risk changing things.
ReplyDeleteAnd what if you didn't want them to alter it back?
Say someone's husband died, and she goes back in time to change it, so he stays alive... causing you to lose your fortune and become a penniless pauper -- so you go back in time to stop her from going back in time, only she's going to go... you get the picture.
I love these questions.
JE's answer is a good one. If your history was altered you'd never know it, right? Not unless you were the one who altered it. Or would we know it? If someone went back in time and shot Hitler before he rose to power, so WWII never happened, then my grandpa would never go to war and never get PTSD. Maybe he's more successful, then, so my mom doesn't need to go to work at the bakery where she met my dad, and suddenly I am 45 years old and my mom has still passed away but now my dad is no longer my dad... and yet I remember a timeline where he WAS my dad, and I don't remember the timeline where this new guy is now my dad. And how much of my life has changed, also? Did I even grow up in Wisconsin?
This is fascinating.
AND ALL GOOD IDEAS FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE IN FOR TIME TRAVEL STORIES FOR OUR ANTHOLOGY.
Which I would link to, but I can't find the link at the moment.
DeleteHave you read the book "Replay", Liz? It's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'll have to check that one out.
DeleteFringe shows an alternate timeline in an interesting way - and I think JE made a good point. The 'true' timeline would depend on who you're asking in which alternate universe...right?
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone has! We don't know it...
ReplyDeleteTrue. But what if alternate us came through to try to change things?
Delete