The 4 Horrors of Time Travel

(For more on the subject of time, click here)

(Philosocom's Subcategory on Time)

**************************

The notion of time travel is one that has been covered and presented for many years, to the point of being a cliché in various media, and will probably be talked about for many years to come as well.

Whether or not we will actually be able to invent a time-traveling machine is unknown, and indeed, there are those who claim time travel is in fact impossible due to the fact that "time" is not an object or material that can be experimented with using science or technology.

Should we, however, ever be able to manipulate time to the point of being able to move between different periods of this reality's history and future, there are a few horrors that this concept entails that can ruin your whole-time traveling experience and even mark your very own doom permanently. Here are 3 consequences of time travel that can put you in distress for as long as you live:

1. Pillar-men: What is a pillar man? What if you use your time travel machine to go to either the past or the future, using a location that, in an exact period of time, is already inhibited by an object, like a wall, a hill, or a pillar? It would entail the fact that your body could be merged with another object in a different period of time -- for eternity.

Should you be stuck with that object, not only will you not be able to get out of it, but you might as well also suffocate from not being able to move.

And if you are able to move, whoever finds you will probably be afraid and try to harm you, or call other people, such as guards or police, that will view you as a threat because of your obscure, half-human shape, thus condemning you to death just because you did not estimate where exactly you would "spawn".

The solution to this problem is obvious, but often hard to implement -- when time traveling you should make sure that you will enter a fairly open field, so no local object will merge with your arrival to whatever time period you chose. Thus, research about that specific time is necessary to avoid grave results.

2. Mutation: Similar with the concept of a pillar-man, but only with other people, most specifically locals who just happen to be in the exact spot you will land in.

Should such accident happen, you might find yourself becoming a part of someone else and vice versa, giving you both a lifetime of being in one body just because of a very unlucky coincidence.

Should you spawn in another period within a mob, the mutation can become even more severe, and you can become a multi-consciousness monster who just happened to be created from "thin air", so to speak.

If you spawn between both a person an object, like when a local person just lies on a wall, both of you could become a hybrid between a mutant and an inanimate object (AKA wall, in this case).

Therefore, time travel is scarier than we might think, because under many circumstances, an unlucky time traveller might spawn where we are and literary merge with either yourself or with something that belongs to you, with no hope of ever separating one another. This fear, however, can be compared to that of the road -- every ride you take could be a demise, but that doesn't mean you should avoid the road.

3. Not Being Able to Return: The greatest, easy-to-be-frequent horror is not being able to ever return to your own time period, as nothing actually guarantees your time traveling machine will always work when you'll need it. It could be broken, run out of power and even be destroyed by the locals.

Anyone who dares to ever consider time traveling that is also wise enough, should consider the possibility that every attempt at traveling would be their last one, even if they just started this whole business. Additionally, if you time-travel from a skyscraper into the past, you could spawn in the air and fall to your doom, along, of course, with your machine.

4. Unexpected Results: Finally, we need to consider the possibility that even the slightest change of the past caused by our meddling could have grave consequences on the present and/or future.

Do you expect to kill Hitler as a baby and thus end WWII? His death will not necessarily stop the Nazis from ruling Germany, and thus, WWII might happen anyway, even if it would end differently, and not necessarily for the better.

This is not to say that Hitler need not to be killed, but obviously the events of the world will clearly end differently, for the good or the bad of sides.

Not only one should consider where they will spawn, they also need to find a place to cover their machine, assuming it is as big as a wardrobe one can get inside.

Even, however, if their machine is but a watch on their wrist, the potential horrors are still present in their possibility. Anyways, these are few of the reasons why I am against the practical implementation of time-travel.

I will finish by this statement: If anyone at any given time would be able to travel, we would have no security, no privacy and no peace, as anyone with a weapon could easily spawn in our bedroom as they can within a bustling city square.

This is the same reason why I am also against practically using teleportation, humanity should ever invent it.

Time travel, after all, is simply teleportation, and even though it's in the same place, it's at a different time. Should this hypothetical technology ever be implemented, I think it should be limited to a select few who are professional and wise enough to use it -- and only use it when there's a necessity. Traveling to the past or future shouldn't be as common like driving to the supermarket.