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You have a two way trip in a time machine backwards only. When do you choose to visit and return to the current time? (for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zhelana)
There'd be a lot of factors playing into my decision-- How many people could go with me? Do other people get to make trips of their own or is this the only time ever for anybody? Do I have time before hand to learn a new language? What are the risks that I'll introduce a disease or some such to that time or otherwise catastrophically alter the timeline? Can I make deliberate changes? How long could I stay? What resources would I have for local money/trade goods? Do I have a way to defend myself if things go wrong?
For a short trip, one without a lot of preparation time, I think I might go back and see a Shakespeare play in the first run. That seems like something manageable. I'd probably experience extreme culture shock over being in a different time, but I think I could get by long enough to see a play. I'd do whatever I could, though, to avoid having to search out a privy in that time. I'm a little worried that I'd get mugged.
For a longer trip with more preparation (and more precautions), I think I'd be interested in going somewhere in Pre-Columbian North America. I haven't narrowed it down further than that, yet. That's where I'd be really worried about introducing some sort of disease to the population and where I'd want carefully selected trade goods.
Then again, if I could sneak in some modern technology in order to do some (a lot of) scanning of texts, a trip to the Library at Alexandria would be really tempting. Extremely tempting. I'd just have to learn a couple of languages first.
Of course, I'm mostly likely to want other people to go to all sorts of different times and places and to come back and write about what they experienced. There are all sorts of questions that time travel could answer.
zhelana)There'd be a lot of factors playing into my decision-- How many people could go with me? Do other people get to make trips of their own or is this the only time ever for anybody? Do I have time before hand to learn a new language? What are the risks that I'll introduce a disease or some such to that time or otherwise catastrophically alter the timeline? Can I make deliberate changes? How long could I stay? What resources would I have for local money/trade goods? Do I have a way to defend myself if things go wrong?
For a short trip, one without a lot of preparation time, I think I might go back and see a Shakespeare play in the first run. That seems like something manageable. I'd probably experience extreme culture shock over being in a different time, but I think I could get by long enough to see a play. I'd do whatever I could, though, to avoid having to search out a privy in that time. I'm a little worried that I'd get mugged.
For a longer trip with more preparation (and more precautions), I think I'd be interested in going somewhere in Pre-Columbian North America. I haven't narrowed it down further than that, yet. That's where I'd be really worried about introducing some sort of disease to the population and where I'd want carefully selected trade goods.
Then again, if I could sneak in some modern technology in order to do some (a lot of) scanning of texts, a trip to the Library at Alexandria would be really tempting. Extremely tempting. I'd just have to learn a couple of languages first.
Of course, I'm mostly likely to want other people to go to all sorts of different times and places and to come back and write about what they experienced. There are all sorts of questions that time travel could answer.