What the heck do I do with this idea?

[Mirannan]

OK. Another bit of weirdness that came to me in a dream; fortunately, it was just before I woke up and I managed to get the gist of it down before it evaporated altogether.

A fairly common fictional theme, particularly in televised fiction, is that of two people in some sort of relationship having a fight and one of them leaving - to go to work or whatever - and suddenly dying. Surviving one then has guilt about the last words between them being unpleasant.

The idea was to correct this situation using time travel. This does not require the ability to actually prevent the death or change the past in any other material way - merely to correct the bit about the last words being harsh ones, thus removing some of the guilt and presumably helping the survivor.

??????

 

[Writersblock]

I seem to recall an episode of Fringe being about just that subject. After years of trial and error research the researcher finally manages to travel back in time to the date of his wife's death. He jumps into her car, starts to apologize and the car is hit by a truck, instantly killing them both.

 

[Moonbat]

It has potential. Written properly it could be a very emotional story. It seems to me that the guilt felt by the survivor is probably unjustified, most couple who argue before work do really love each other and would both apologise and forgive that evening. If one dies (I don't believe in life after death) they might at the moment of death feel bad about the argument, but if you had the chance to actually speak to them as they died they would almost certainly say they love you (if they don't and they hold onto the grudge then something deeper was wrong in the relationship or they are a sadist).
So the time travel would be almost pointless because most people would forgive and express love, and it is only a sort of counselling that is required to make that person feel better. Of course there are so many aspects to the idea, when do they talk, because if it is before the argument then they'll just have the argument again, if it is afterwards then why can't it be used to stop the death happening. Time travel opens a whole can of worms with causality, so it would have to be dealt with properly, but as I said it has potential to be a good drama with Sci-fi leanings. IMHO

 

[jastius]

why not have the whole thing in a prophetic dream.. or have her in her dream or him go through the events and realize that this is happening.. and they are trying to fix it..
that would eliminate the time travel causalities of paradox... you could have the end shot of all these dreamers upon a star ship or something in cryo sleep and when they argue then they lose the connection to the artificial consciousness that the dreamers inhabit in order to keep them from going mad at the time they are in cryo..

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Timescape. I haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie. MC is haunted by his cowardice, he panicked and left his wife to die. When he gets his hands on a time machine belonging to one of the future-tourists staying at his hotel...


Spoiler alert: The time tourists are touring historical disasters. And they haven't left yet...Uh oh!

 

[Ursa major]

Or, for an ambiguous twist, you could have the protagonist debate whether their guilt comes from the way his/her partner has made them (always?) feel guilty about something or other.

S/he enters the timeline just before s/he's about to leave (storm out) and says: "Sorry, love." And with a smile, s/he adds, "Have a nice day."

 

[Bowler1]

Sounds like great potentail for a short story. The person goes back to correct what they said, only to say something even more harsh a second time around, after/before (it's hard to be sure with time travel) the dead person does the same/similiar silly thing. So from above, but instead of "have a nice day", it's "drop dead you xyz".

 

[Ursa major]

That was what I was originally going to post, Bowler, but I thought ambiguity was better.

(The story would have to explain that warning the person - assuming a warning might be useful - would 'not be allowed', otherwise saying, "Have a nice day!" would be a far from friendly thing to do.)

 

[Mirannan]

Well, I was going to put in stuff about the Hawking Chronology Protection Conjecture (which does actually exist) and possibly technobabble about Higgs field manipulation or some such. Making it clear that the actual physical events were not going to be affected no matter what happened would also be necessary. (Insert obligatory confusion about tenses!)

On the subject of tenses, I think the easiest way to get around such confusion is to assume that any time traveller has a personal timeline (only accessible to himself) that includes the sequence of events as he experienced them, irrespective of travelling backwards, forwards and across time. (Across? Sure. This would involve moving to a different worldline.) Asimov, in his under-appreciated novel "End of Eternity", called it physiotime IIRC.

 

[Bowler1]

I thought ambiguity was better.

I can just about spell a-m-b-I-g-u-I-t-y, so there's no chance of me noticing subtle hints - brick + head, then you might have a chance!

We could add RAY GUNS to time travel, I'd buy it!