Damage assessment, lost or stolen: time machine.

Time travelling terrorism?
Early vein mining?
Fort knox?

~Imagine~you've just struck it rich with a wealthy silver vein, and have subsequently purchased all the surrounding lands. But! You arrive on monday morning to huge cavernous holes--all the silver is gone.

~Imagine~factions within a third world country want to destroy your country-all the dams, bridges, tressels, and buildings implode/explode at once from devices buried deep within the concrete in the wee hours of thier origional build dates.

*any others?

What are the possibilities so we can plan for the cure?

Assuming that time is linear then all we really could do is (form in secret) a temporal corp of time police and hope that they can make things right. Also we would have to trust them since once things got changed we wouldn't know any different.

The answer is extremely simple and boring.

You just travel into the future, and destroy them before they traveled back in time. If you cannot travel into the future, but you can identify them. You kill off their bloodline. Just cap grandpa and they never exist.

Originally posted by Deson
Assuming that time is linear then all we really could do is (form in secret) a temporal corp of time police and hope that they can make things right. Also we would have to trust them since once things got changed we wouldn't know any different.

Thankyou, I appreciate your responses. A corporation of time police is an excellent idea. How would it be modelled and or funded?

Coincidentally...where would one report to?
"911 what are you reporting?"

Originally posted by Cyberbian
The answer is extremely simple and boring.

Cyberian, thanks for the feedback.
Boring and simple is good. :-)

Just cap his ..., part of me really likes that idea!
Current genetics would allow for that. Gather evidence, travel to the past, gently take out the family--
I really want it to be that simple.
Make it simple again, please .

But....
Oh my gosh! it just dawned on me...
What if the head operative of the organization of the time police IS the terrorist mole? Who planted the evidence implicating another. Over and over again. It looks like he's doing a stellar job. Lots of hits and ended bloodlines. Hundreds of twarted attacks. So many that he can't quite get them all and will need to bring in *friends* of the highest caliber (because he says so).
Who would know-to cap him/her? Who would know the difference before it's too late. Calling all the shots. Controlling all the information.

This thread might greatly isolate the glitches of a supposed, hypothetical time police corporation enforcement system in advance of a worst case scenario.

So just how much damage can a team of BAD people with time machines, do? Would we even know it?

Osama with a time machine. What would he think to do?
Hitler with a time machine. What would he think to do?
CIA double agent with a time machine, funnelling back trade secrets.

I'm going to make a list of who I want on my time police.



[edit on 30-10-2008 by HugmyRek]

Here is how I would setup a Time Police arrangement:

1) Setup a headquarters that would be located in a "Bubble" or "Pocket Universe" separate from the time stream. Thus insulating it from any effects.

2) Equip the headquarters with a staff that is very knowledgeable concerning history. Lots of data available. The only staff that would have access to changing the data would be the historians themselves. No one else. The historians would monitor the time stream and in a consensus report any anomaly.

3) Equip the individual members with high tech equipment.

4) Each Time cop would have their own time machine. belt mounted? Therefore if one were to go "Rogue" the others could correct the situation.

5) Each Time cop would be trained in how to blend in with time periods.

6) Assuming that tech required for time travel, I can envision such things as Instant Language instruction devices being available for preparing the agents.

7) Weaponry available for the Time cops would be if possible disguised to fit the period. For example if sent to the middle ages in Europe sending him with a suit of armor made of Titanium if it was required for a certain person to lose a certain joust.

8) Time cops would not be dispatched by themselves. A minimum of 2 (preferably more) would be sent. Strength in numbers. However not so many as to be conspicuous.

One of the advantages of the historians being the only ones able to change the data in the computers is that it would negate the boss being a mole. For example the Boss decides to change history. The historians notice the changes. The Boss can't change the data and hid his tracks. The historians (upon majority) sent the time cops (after convincing them) WITHOUT the boss's approval to correct the situation. Since the Time cops would have their own time machines the boss couldn't stop them from correcting his changes.

What are the possibilities

To even be aware that any interferece was taking place you would need to be in a position "outside" of time in order to observe that changes were being made.

To put it another way: let's say that in the "original" timeline of earth, humans never existed and the planet was instead populated by hermaphrodictic squirrels. Your entire existence is the result of countless millions of interventions performed by several dozen different species who each developed time travel and inadvertently destroyed their race through their own time alterations, which ultimately led to the human race becoming the dominant form of life instead of squirrels.

That could very well be true.

How would you know?