Tech Level Question

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by whswhs

... as a small sample.

Furthermore, Terminator, Dr Who, Star Trek IV and Back to the Future.
I may not be a fan of all of those, but they resonate with enough people to argue against them being "bad stories."

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, just because relativity works for most observations (except when dealing with quantum physics...), does not mean that it will not be eventually replaced or augmented when we leave the parochial environment of the Earth.

Yes, but if you're postulating that you're already talking about "superscience," by definition.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

...
Crosstime travel is a little better because it does not alter cause and effect. If you happen to shack up with the crosstime version of your grandmother, it is twisted, but at least it does not break physics. Of course, the children will be horribly inbred, but at least the Universe is in one piece.

That event would happen once, not infinite number of times.
I don't even see the problem theoretically. So you inherited 25% of your DNA from your grandfather who is yourself. That's not any more or less likely to cause problems. Time travel already shows that your genes are what they are, so you aren't changing them by creating yourself.

Being human means you already share DNA with every other human. The problem with incest is the increased likelihood of doubling up on faulty genes, and of course the far more important "ick" factor.
But in this scenario we already know nothing's horrible, because you existed well enough to go back in time.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

My issue with it is that no child is genetically identical to his father.

Time travel is incidentally an excellent example of superscience that I'd banish to tech level 13 in any setting that isn't primarily about time travel. As a technology belonging to vanished progenitors it could have it uses but it's not a toy to be put in the control of player characters.

It depends on what mechanics of Time Travel are in play. Plastic Time is a royal pain and should be avoided when possible or it is clear that very bad things can happen if you screw with history (the devil you know issue)

Time Loops (part of the Fixed Time mechanic) are also a royal pain as generally they result in free lunch and other paradoxes or require insane gyrations to keep people from changing history.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Furthermore, Terminator, Dr Who, Star Trek IV and Back to the Future.
I may not be a fan of all of those, but they resonate with enough people to argue against them being "bad stories."

You left out "generally" There are stories in Terminator and Dr Who that are either bad or have continuity problems the moment you try and say they could occur in our reality.

[Flyndaran]

The entire reboot of Dr. Who is about mocking the very concept of continuity and internal consistency.
And I think most of us know that none of the Terminator movies agree with each other's canon and rules.
But none of those are necessarily about problems with time travel itself as lazy writing or attempts to push hard for a specific story and damn the rules.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The entire reboot of Dr. Who is about mocking the very concept of continuity and internal consistency.
And I think most of us know that none of the Terminator movies agree with each other's canon and rules.
But none of those are necessarily about problems with time travel itself as lazy writing or attempts to push hard for a specific story and damn the rules.

Of course in the case of Doctor Who (Dr. Who is the 1960s movie version of the character who is a Earth human) it had an out going all the way back to at least the fourth (Tom Baker) Doctor - no future was set in stone because "The actions of the present fashion the future."

Heck that episode, "Pyramid of Mars", showed an alternate 1980 where Sutekh turned the Earth into a dead planet orbiting a dead star. Moreover the Doctor comments that even the Time Lords could not withstand the onslaught of death Sutekh would unleash...which logically means the Time Lords in that alternate 1980 were likely just as dead as the Earth and its sun were.

Ironically, it was the whole "fixed point in time" idea in the new series that started all the problems. It made "Turn Left" impossible for with no Doctor the Earth Nobel knew couldn't exist as Mount Vesuvius didn't explode and all the people on Earth were converted to the Pyrovile-human hybrids seen in "Fire of Pompeii" (which from the Doctor's time line was after he met Nobel) centuries ago.