Ok, so it may sound far-fetched to some, but time travel is a real possibility. Seriously. Right now, at this very moment, there are scientists working on it, and eventually one of them is going to figure it out. It’s really just a matter of time. What’s more important, however, is how we use this ability once it’s actually invented. Along with time travel comes a whole host of moral complications, meaning that it really only should be used for emergencies. So grab your flux capacitor, and let’s take a look at some of the reasons to travel back (or forward) in time. Go!

To save your own life - Time travel makes for the perfect assassination. I mean, just think about it. How much easier would it be to send someone back in time to kill your enemy when they are still young, then to actually kill them now, in the present. So how to protect yourself from past-assassinations? Send yourself back a protector, of course. It sure worked for John Connors. But you may want to wait until Terminators are invented, as they really are the best at the job.

To keep your parents together - This one also falls under the category of “saving my own skin.” If your parents never got together in the first place, where does that leave you? Non-existent, that’s where. So shape up, ship out, and make sure those two love birds stay together, at least for as long as it takes to ensure your future existence. Potential pitfall: try and make sure the younger version of your mother (or father) doesn’t fall in love with you, because that’s really no good for anybody.

To save the cheerleader and/or world - Having the ability to travel through time shouldn’t just be about you, you know. Once you’re done ensuring that your own future, you might want think about helping some others as well. Sometimes this leads to some awkward situations, like say, for instance, having to save a high school cheerleader whom you’ve never met before. But that’s a small price to pay to save the world, I think, so suck it up and be a Hiro already.

To screw up a perfectly good show - Ok, this may not be a good thing. In fact put this in the “don’t” side of proper things to use time travel for. Seriously, Desmond’s ability to randomly travel to different points in time nearly ruined Lost for me. Then I learned of the invisible man. That totally ruined it for me. /rant.

To learn to rock, baby - On a more positive note, time travel can be very useful for the acquisition of new skills. Say you’ve been on a totally excellent adventure, for instance, and you want to put on a kick-ass concert to celebrate. But uh-oh, you don’t know how to play guitar! Just zip to the future, spend a few decades becoming a rock god, the zip right back and wow the crowd. It’s as easy as pie. Whatever that means.

---

Andrew Webster is a freelance writer based in Toronto who covers comics, movies, videogames, and anything else that will rot out your brain. Check out his personal site to read more of his incoherent ramblings.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Tales From The Basement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.