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#timetravel

29 posts27 participants4 posts today
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@VisualInspiration

- Try not to break anything, okay?

- As always.

- I still have some paradox prevention paste left, we can glue any damage

- Yet don’t break anything, Twenty-four!

- I froze the whole place with SloMo Forte, Boss.

- Good, Thirteen. But keep your cloaking devices turned on, just to be on the safe side,

- Look, what’s that?

- This should be one of…

- No!

- Can’t be!

- Sure. It must be one of our ancestors. Look at it: Two legs, two arms, one head.

- That’s not a head. It’s – disgusting! An amorphous mass of – gunk!

- Sure. But that’s wat evolution means.

- Still disgusting. I do not descend from this aqueous thing!

- I’m examining the other specimen over there while you are discussing esthetics.

- They are cute in some way.

- See its extremities. There are smaller extremities attached to them. Do you think they are fractaloids?

- These are called fingers and the fingers don’t have any extremeties themselves.

- How do you know that?

- It’s in the the reader. They were needed for gripping things. Imagine, the protozoa had no fields, no thrusters, no repulsors.

- You’re a smart one, Thirteen!

- Look, here, these finger are … oh!

- You ripped the arm off, you empty tin-box!

- Oily leak!

- Let me fix it with that paste. See here… just a moment… done! Like before.

- I’m not sure. It extends into the other direction.

- Really?

- Shouldn’t we remove it from the continuum then?

- Pah, never mind, no one will notice.

- Quiet, Boss is coming back!

- Eighty-nine, can we travel on some more centuries? This one’s boring.

#TimeTravelAuthors Apr 13: How do you keep time travel from being confusing?

Anything that puts effects before causes is *inherently* confusing to humans. (If you're not putting effects before causes, you're not writing #TimeTravel.)

So picking rules, and following them, is critical. They don't have to be clear at the start, but by the end they should be revealed and everything must have been consistent with them.

(Tiny exception for stories *about* how bizarre the idea is. 😁)