If you had a time machine--your top five eras to vist

[GulDukat]

Say that you had a time machine, what would be your top five eras to visit? For me, in no order:

1. The Old West, circa the 1880's--saloons, whiskey and cowboys.
2. The roaring 1920's--speakeasys and flappers, yes and yes.
3. The Victorian-era- Either in Boston or England.
4. The 1950's-oppressive, but an era that I would like to visit.
5. San Francisco, circa 1967.

[Baphomette]

1. 70s glam era specifically so I could see T-Rex and DB&SFM live.
2. 30-40s era Cuba.
3. 40s era El Salvador.
4. Whatever era in which the humongous Pterodactyls existed (from the safety of the time machine because fuck that getting out bullshit).
5. Stonehenge era so I could see what all the fuss was about.

[tony.parente]

Back when Moses was surfing with the giraffes.

[aggroculture]

Rome Republic, when Catullus lived, right before Octavian took power and the empire began.
Go back and kill Hitler - a classic.
Elizabethan England - to hang out with Shakespeare.
Paris 1920s: Joyce, Hemingway, etc.
And right at the beginning, when time began, if it began.

#6: back to when I was 12, but with the knowledge I have today.

[Ryan]

The birth of tony.parente's anus

[orestes]

1920s Paris
1930s Shanghai or Berlin- so scandalous
70s glam era too- so much eyeliner and feather boas
17th century France- just to see a young Louis XIV dance ballet

[Substance242]

So, also future is possible, right? Then I would try to figure out when it ends, for example:

3000
if OK, 4000
if not OK, 3500
if not OK, 3250
...you get the point. :-)

[Dra508]

I'd only go back if I could be in certain historic figures shoes. Then get out.

1. Be Cleopatra. Anything less than that would suck at that time.
2. Jesus' time. Again, as a woman, would probably suck to be anything less than the Virgin Mary. Verify all the hoopla ya know.
3. Be Elizabeth I- same reason
4. Be Katherine Hepburn 1930's . I'm pretty sure she owned every room she walked into and not in a entirely sexual way.
5. Clearly I want to time machine to powerful woman- blanking on another.

[Fixer808]

Dallas, Texas. November 22nd, 1963, just so I can show up late and ask if someone can give me a heads up on what's going on.

[Baphomette]

Dallas, Texas. November 22nd, 1963, just so I can show up late and ask if someone can give me a heads up on what's going on.Why wouldn't you just warp directly onto the grassy knoll?

[Fixer808]

What, and spoil the surprise? Let's not get ahead of ourselves...

[marodi]

Hmm... so many choices.

I would start not with eras but with events:

1.What really killed the dinosaurs
2.What really became of the Princes in the Tower and who was responsible
3.Where did the Roanoke colonists go?
4.What the heck happened on the Mary Celeste?
5.What caused the Tunguska event?

[elevenism]

Why wouldn't you just warp directly onto the grassy knoll?

i don't know if it still does, but for a couple of years it said ELEVEN on the fence of the grassy knoll :)
One letter on each fence post.

If i had a time machine, i would use it to go to points in my life to keep myself from making mistakes. You know, so i could know back then...what i know right now.

If i have to pick particular times and places, I would go to

1. The Galilee, AD 27-35 or so, so i could see what Jesus was REALLY about.
the rest would be similar.
i would
2. Go try to find Moses, even though i'm not so sure he existed.
3. 609-632, Mecca, Arabia, Medina, so as to vibe out with Mohammed

I'm a sucker for Abrahamic Monotheism. It has shaped our world more than anything, yet we know very little about the reality of the events that led to the founding of those 3 religions.
I'm fairly certain that Jesus was deified long after his death. I would LOVE to know what he REALLY said and what REALLY happened.

4.Then i would go to east india, 6-400 b.c. and follow Siddhartha Gautama around.

5.Kurukshetra war, iron age, Vedic India, to see if Krisna really spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna

[GulDukat]

Why wouldn't you just warp directly onto the grassy knoll?
I've come to believe that there was no one on the grassy knoll, that it was just Oswald and he acted alone. NOVA recently did a program on the Kennedy Assassination, using the latest computer simulation and forensics and they showed, convincingly, how Oswald could have been the lone shooter.

I'd be tempted to warn Kennedy, Lincoln, etc. and maybe help Hitler get into art school instead of forming National Socialism, but if you've ever watched ANY science fiction movie, fucking with the past is not a good idea. You step on an ant in 1952 that should have lived and all the sudden you wind up with Jennifer Aniston as president in 2012.

[allegro]

It's funny, but I really don't want to go backward at all. I'd rather go forward. I think I've watched too many ST:TNG episodes (meaning ALL OF THEM).

[

[GulDukat]

Having a time machine would be awesome. First stop for me would be Market Basket, circa 1993, to load up on Crystal Clear Pepsi.

[GulDukat]

It's funny, but I really don't want to go backward at all. I'd rather go forward. I think I've watched too many ST:TNG episodes (meaning ALL OF THEM).

[
Are you a fan of DS9? That's my favorite Trek series.

[allegro]

Are you a fan of DS9? That's my favorite Trek series.

I liked DS9, but not as much as TNG; I didn't like that DS9 stayed in one place, where TNG traveled. I *hated* Voyager.

[GulDukat]

I liked DS9, but not as much as TNG; I didn't like that DS9 stayed in one place, where TNG traveled. I *hated* Voyager.
Voyager gets a lot of shit and I know that a lot of people don't like it. I personally loved it and feel that it was the true successor to TOS/TNG, more so than DS9. The one Trek series that I didn't really like was Enterprise. That was a huge letdown, despite a strong core cast and some very good episodes.

[allegro]

Voyager gets a lot of shit and I know that a lot of people don't like it. I personally loved it and feel that it was the true successor to TOS/TNG, more so than DS9. The one Trek series that I didn't really like was Enterprise. That was a huge letdown, despite a strong core cast and some very good episodes.
I agree that Voyager was much more of a successor to TNG than DS9. My biggest problem with Voyager (the same with DS9) was the cast. I just couldn't connect with Kate Mulgrew's captain at all (too wooden), but I liked her captain better than Avery Brooks on DS9. I just adore Patrick Stewart's captain, natch. And I was a kid when the original ST was on TV, so I'll always love William Shatner's captain. I just couldn't stand a lot of characters on DS9, the only one I really liked was Odo. I think I only saw 2 episodes of Enterprise, LOL.

crap, we're drifting your thread ... :p

[GulDukat]

I agree that Voyager was much more of a successor to TNG than DS9. My biggest problem with Voyager (the same with DS9) was the cast. I just couldn't connect with Kate Mulgrew's captain at all (too wooden), but I liked her captain better than Avery Brooks on DS9. I just adore Patrick Stewart's captain, natch. And I was a kid when the original ST was on TV, so I'll always love William Shatner's captain. I just couldn't stand a lot of characters on DS9, the only one I really liked was Odo. I think I only saw 2 episodes of Enterprise, LOL.

crap, we're drifting your thread ... :p
You know who auditioned for the role of Captain Sisko?
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RockyAPOLLO.jpg
That would have been cool, imo.

[allegro]

You know who auditioned for the role of Captain Sisko?
http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RockyAPOLLO.jpg
That would have been cool, imo.
Oh HELL YEAH!!

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

Enterprise was the only series I gave up on. By that time, the various Trek series were the only things that kept me watching TV. Enterprise just didn't seem worth the effort, and my TV went into the basement.

FWIW, Sisko is my favorite captain.


I'd be tempted to warn Kennedy, Lincoln, etc. and maybe help Hitler get into art school instead of forming National Socialism, but if you've ever watched ANY science fiction movie, fucking with the past is not a good idea. You step on an ant in 1952 that should have lived and all the sudden you wind up with Jennifer Aniston as president in 2012.
Still wouldn't keep me from trying to right old wrongs. But I think I'd have to start with 9/11, just because I can't see anything good ever coming out of it. :(

[thevoid99]

1960s Paris to experience the French New Wave.
1970s Britain to experience glam and the early stages of punk rock.
1970s Hollywood to experience the New Hollywood movement.
1980s Chicago to experience the industrial movement.
1980s Manchester to see the bands like the Smiths, Joy Division/New Order, and go to the Hacienda.

[elevenism]

but don't you all realize that you could go back to very specific points in YOUR life and alter things?

[allegro]

yeah, but I don't think I'd want to do that, either. I may have done some stupid shit but the stupid shit somehow got me to where I am today. And I don't think we can fuck with the outcome, because we'd fuck up other people's outcomes, too. You can't mess with things like that. "Go back and visit" doesn't mean "go back and do shit for ego purposes."

[Exocet]

British Empire..Mid 1800s..would love to know how life was during its superpower phase, also in the colonies like India .
German Empire..1910..was such a dynamic efficient country excelled in everything had cool progressive underground art scene.
Moscow 1913...Hang out with Rasputin.
London 1967..hang out with Beatles, Stanley Kubrick, David Hockney, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Cream, The Who, Stones.
New York 1949...hang out with my favourite poets and alcoholic abstract painters.

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

but don't you all realize that you could go back to very specific points in YOUR life and alter things?


yeah, but I don't think I'd want to do that, either. I may have done some stupid shit but the stupid shit somehow got me to where I am today. And I don't think we can fuck with the outcome, because we'd fuck up other people's outcomes, too. You can't mess with things like that. "Go back and visit" doesn't mean "go back and do shit for ego purposes."
I guess rubbing myself out would be an ego thing, eh?

[icecream]

1920s Paris
1890ish Paris
The 1970s in New York
1960s London
Aaaaaaand, 1990s anywhere so most people here feel old.

[allegro]

I guess rubbing myself out would be an ego thing, eh?
heh, yeah, and it would fuck a lot of people up

[Dra508]

The 1970s in New York
.

Just go watch an episode of Kojak. Trust me.

[allegro]

Just go watch an episode of Kojak. Trust me.
Ugh, man, I remember being at the Port Authority at around midnight in 1979 with some friends, one said "wow, I've never seen anybody shoot up, before!" Hookers and junkies everywhere. We saw Frank Zappa's "Baby Snakes" at the Victoria Theater, Times Square was a fucking cesspool in the 70s, I was in Times Square for New Year's Eve in the 70s. I'm glad I got to go to Max's Kansas City in the 70s, though. But, ugh, yuck, Tony Bourdain writes some pretty funny (true) stuff about the 70s in NYC.

[Baphomette]

I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.

[elevenism]

yeah, but I don't think I'd want to do that, either. I may have done some stupid shit but the stupid shit somehow got me to where I am today. And I don't think we can fuck with the outcome, because we'd fuck up other people's outcomes, too. You can't mess with things like that. "Go back and visit" doesn't mean "go back and do shit for ego purposes."
now, if i go down this road with you, we're going to wind up arguing about the very nature of reality. ;)


hey now that you mention it, did you ever read 11/22/63? the dude figures out how to go back in time and stops the jfk hit. he finally does it, but the entire rest of the world is utterly fucked up when he gets back here. so i can see what you mean.

now i, on the other hand, think that once you "visited" a time, it would out of necessity create another dimension/time stream, because it's now different because YOU'RE IN IT....

i don't think this was meant to be a thread about the practical reality of time travel though.

[marodi]

Eras:

1-1170's Eleanor of Aquitaine's Court of Love in Poitiers
2-1660's France: young Louis XIV's court.
3-1920's Hollywood
4-1930's Cotton Club, Harlem.
5-Late 1960's: Woodstock, fucking hippies, Vietnam war protests, Moon landing, civil right protests etc.

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

My kind of time machine would actually be a camera that stays in the present but captures photos/videos from any point in time. That eliminates the whole screw-up-the-timeline thing, as long as the camera isn't visible to anyone. You see and hear the past (and maybe future), but don't do any actual time traveling yourself.

So my wish list has overlapping "eras" that can be billions of years long:

The entire dinosaur period, including the asteroid thing
Evolution of the universe
Formation of the solar system
Motion of the continents
Human history over time

Think documentary films with sweeping overviews and time lapses.

[Vertigo]

1. Go 126 million years into the past, to tell a passing Baryonyx that I have its tooth in the incomprehensibly distant future (I suspect it won't be impressed).
2. Go 126 million years into the future, and see if anyone has one of my teeth.

[allegro]

My kind of time machine would actually be a camera that stays in the present but captures photos/videos from any point in time. That eliminates the whole screw-up-the-timeline thing, as long as the camera isn't visible to anyone. You see and hear the past (and maybe future), but don't do any actual time traveling yourself.
That's a GREAT idea!!! Awesome! The voyeur time traveler! I can dig that! It's safer, no getting stuck in another time with no way back, no getting accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, no messing with the space time continuum, no getting killed by some random quirky thing, etc. Awesome fix!

Another way I'd consider is invisible time travel. Then I'd go. Otherwise, nuh-uh.

[Baphomette]

as long as the camera isn't visible to anyone.See Star Trek: Insurrection re: what happens now that you jinxed it.

[Findus]

I highly recommend this book. Each page displays the same point of view, but spans through the ages, both past and present. It's a really neat book.
http://www.amazon.com/Here-Richard-McGuire/dp/0375406506/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

no getting accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake
Yeah, getting burned at the stake isn't so appealing. Though I'd still wish I could grab unsuspecting people from, like, the 14th century and plug them into an iPod. "See? You can listen your church music anytime you want."

And then play them some death metal. :p


See Star Trek: Insurrection re: what happens now that you jinxed it.
Oops.

So, now that I've blown that one, how about a time machine that doesn't move back and forth, but laterally from one timeline to another? I'd totally use that to find a universe where the dinosaurs didn't get wiped out, just to see what another 65 million years of big scary dinosaurs would bring.

But yeah, only if I'm invisible.

[Findus]

I'd totally use that to find a universe where the dinosaurs didn't get wiped out, just to see what another 65 million years of big scary dinosaurs would bring.


Have you seen the trailer for Pixar's The Good Dinosaur?

https://youtu.be/0QlRSVKwFA0

[allegro]

But yeah, only if I'm invisible.
I think I'll just experience time travel via the holodeck, thank you very much.

[ambergris]

Well, ruling out the future, I'd like to see (not live through) the period of the Black Death, the period of the discovery of America (it must have changed perceptions), the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, classical Greece, and maybe some time during ancient Egypt, but I don't exactly know when.

[elevenism]

As long as the time machine has some kind of reset, or creates different time streams when you change things, well hell, THEN you could try all kinds of insanity!

[Joy Prevention Hotline]

I think I'll just experience time travel via the holodeck, thank you very much.
You do realize the holodeck was constantly malfunctioning and trying to take over the outside world? I think I'd be happy with this Microsoft Hololens thing if it works. And if it has dinosaurs.


As long as the time machine has some kind of reset, or creates different time streams when you change things, well hell, THEN you could try all kinds of insanity!
I think allegro has a good point here — an immersive simulation is even better than messing around with time travel. Well, unless you're trying to prove something historical.

[ManBurning]

Pretty Hate Machine Era
Self Destruct tour/ear
Fragility tour/era
Visit the Dinosaurs at 1,000,000 BC
Last Friday

[fillow]

I would time travel to 1991 and prevent James Cameron from selling the rights of Terminator to anyone ever. I would also kill the directors of T3, 4 and 5 while they are still in college.

[Dra508]

Last FridayOK, I'll bite. What's special about last Friday that you want to go back to it?

[ManBurning]

OK, I'll bite. What's special about last Friday that you want to go back to it?

I was going to end it on the first 4, but the topic was to pick your top 5. I didn't actually have a 5th. I thought about putting [With_Teeth] era as one of the 5, but I decided against it. Not that it was a bad era, it's just I never got to witness any of the live shows from the previous 3. 2001 was when I started travelling for concerts (the city I lived growing up never got shows, you needed to travel for them). So I literally JUST missed the Fragility tour by a year or so. Really, really regretting missing that one.

Anyway, that doesn't really answer your question. So I had a top 4, and I needed to round it off with something, and I wasn't sure what to round it off with. Figured last Friday was the kick off for my vacation (from a job I really hate, so getting any time off is a HUGE PLUS) and I had people over to celebrate my birthday (which was yesterday) so it was an overall decent day. I know I had way better days in my time, but that was the most recent day in my memory that I found worthwhile. It was also the last day of really decent summer weather, before this cool front came in on Saturday. Love me some extreme heat! (people think i'm nuts for saying that, but i'd rather be too hot than too cold. Being cold sucks).

[Dra508]

I thought about putting [With_Teeth] era as one of the 5, but I decided against it. Not that it was a bad era, it's just I never got to witness any of the live shows from the previous 3.


Ooh the live show was really good. I'd jump back in a time machine for that one maybe. Except for QOTSA and Death From Above opening. Josh Homme was hammered and DFA were fighting and mailing it in. I saw them again a couple of years ago, reluctantly and they were much better. Anywho, Happy Birthday!

[allegro]

Ooh the live show was really good. I'd jump back in a time machine for that one maybe. Except for QOTSA and Death From Above opening. Josh Homme was hammered and DFA were fighting and mailing it in.
I *liked* QOTSA opening, Homme didn't seem hammered the times I saw them. At the Bell Centre in Montreal, Homme did that a cappella section of "No One Knows," HOLY CRAP, it echoed throughout the arena and it was one of the best things I've ever heard. (My favorite warm-up band from that era, though, was Autolux.)

[GulDukat]

I would like to go back to the late 1990's and give George Lucas some pointers on his Star Wars prequels.