h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On occasion I am exceptionally deep. I know I know, its a huge surprise, I never give the impression of being deep at all

I can't change time. No one I'm aware of can change time. But that's not to say that we may never be able to change time - and by proxy does that mean that people from the future already can? I don't know.

But who here hasn't thought of things that have happened in their past that they could change or direct differently? I would imagine there few honest people who wouldn't change anything. Of course the thing with time is that circumstances lead us down different roads. One left turn here or right turn there have radical effects ten years down the line!

Facebook scares me. Mostly because I see lots of people I knew in school on there now. And some of them have families. Some of them are married. Some of them I so wish I had spoken to more about what I thought of them, whether I liked them or otherwise. Some people I probably said too much.

But one struck a chord. For obiouos reasons I don't want to reveal who this is, but I seriously liked this girl, but did nothing about it... out of sheer terror. And she never knew, and its probably better than she doesn't know - because she's now married with two kids. For some reason that terrifies me.

Because it makes me think that if I could bend time to my will, if I had that power, I would want to take a chance to be with her. Maybe it wouldn't have worked out, but maybe it would have. But if I had changed time like that, two young children wouldn't exist. I would have caused them to cease to exist. I mean of course I can't change time, so why bother thinking about it? Because for me, thinking about these things is me. If I stopped thinking about things, I fear I would no longer be me.

But I ask a larger question really. And its one of power... perhaps something that is more tangible and closer to what is currently real. And that is what if you were given the power to change time to your will. To cause people to cease to exist (and perhaps replace them with other who didn't have the chance to exist) - even if you believed things would ultimately be better - would you for your own happiness change things?

I guess its like the genie in the bottle (or the monkeys paw if you're familiar with that story), in that you are perhaps putting your own happiness above others.

Okay change tack. I once saw an epusode of Star Trek : Voyager called "Year of Hell" and frankly it was one of the most fascinating pieces of sci-fi I've seen on TV. Essentially it was about this alien scientist with a family who dabbled with Time Travel and lost them... he even lost the people he knew - except those aboard his time ship. His eternal mission then became to set things back as they were - but how ever hard he tried he couldn't get his wife and family back. And he would kill whole civilisations (or rather erase them from history) to try and change things.

See so often these things wont even brush the surface of peoples minds... well to be brutally frank because they're currently not possible. But it does go back to that old chestnut, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely... or maybe even a bit of Lord of the Rings - to paraphrase Gandalf "I would use the ring to do good, but through me it would weild a terrible power for evil"...

And that's what it comes down to. When I think back to what could have been am I wiping out those children that now exist (who may have existed anyway) because I couldn't bring myself to ask? And does that mean that if God, or a genie or whoever came to me and said "here you are shape this situation to make you the most happy", would that mean I was putting my happiness above everyone elses?

That is one of my favourite bit's of TV too

when changing time you have to pose the question
"do i have the right?"

Gheeeesssseeeh!

I'ed just use it to hold on to that early Sunday morning, (usualy in early summer) when your in bed and the sun is streaming in through the windo and you and your's is dozing, the tea and toast breakfast has gone down a treat and for the next hour it's just sublime


RJR

I do worry about myself sometimes I think in the rational light of day theres no way you could rationalise changing things which would effect people. But as someone who is fascinated by Genealogy, and how many people have had to exist and how many coincidences needed to happen to create me, I find the thought of changing that interesting.

Imagine you were thrown back a thousand years, and had to live out your days in the past, undoubtably your actions would have a huge effect on who existed today. But of course that wouldn't be a deliberate attempt to change things, which was the original point of the post. I like RJR's thought of stretching the perfect day... I guess you could have a kind of groundhog day on your favourite day...

But of course "Do I have the right?" said by many (including Tom Baker as Doctor Who)... And that's whats interesting, is that if that power was shown to you, would you know if you had the right or not? Or would the lines blur...?