Poll: Time Travel or FTL Travel?

[Olas]

If you had the choice between either a fully functional time machine, or a warp drive enabled spaceship that could go anywhere in the galaxy almost instantly, which would you prefer? Keep in mind that there are many ramifications of both, and many unknowns as well. Since the technology will belong to you, it's your decision if you want to share it with the world or not afterwards.

And before anyone else gets any ideas, assume that whichever one you don't choose becomes impossible to invent. No choosing time travel and then going into the future to when warp drives exist. If you choose time travel then warp drives will never be invented and vice versa.

 

[TheIronRuler]

If you had the choice between either a fully functional time machine, or a warp drive enabled spaceship that could go anywhere in the galaxy almost instantly, which would you prefer? Keep in mind that there are many ramifications of both, and many unknowns as well. Since the technology will belong to you, it's your decision if you want to share it with the world or not afterwards.

And before anyone else gets any ideas, assume that whichever one you don't choose becomes impossible to invent. No choosing time travel and then going into the future to when warp drives exist. If you choose time travel then warp drives will never be invented and vice versa.

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Time Travel is too darn dangerous. I'll stick with a warp drive and hope for some sapient life forms to come by.

 

[Erja_Perttu]

Time Travel, always time travel. There's so much I want to do and see, past and future, and there's so many more options with time travel.

Ramifications regardless, it's always the one I'd choose.

 

[Esotera]

I'd go with the warp ship, as anything that can travel faster than the speed of light is by definition a time machine. I'm assuming that the time machine in this scenario can't move across the universe.

 

[Asita]

FTL. Time Travel...gets way too messy too quickly. And ultimately I figure that the ability to see and study new worlds is ultimately more interesting in the long run.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Time Travel is too darn dangerous. I'll stick with a warp drive and hope for some sapient life forms to come by.

Time Travel is too dangerous, but the possibilities of Warp-ing into an asteroid field, or too close to black hole or a sun, or into the space of a race of highly territorial and agressive alien species isn't?

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This is much much better than ripping apart time itself and finding yourself in new time where there is no time machine, where you can't come back from.
You can't repair the damage you've done when you time travel, it's too vague to know what exactly you changed cause A or B.

 

[ReadyAmyFire]

Time travel implies teleportation anyway.

Unless you can instantly teleport yourself as well as jump through time, the earth will be in a different place and you'll suffocate.

 

[Cabisco]

Warp drive.

While I'm fascinated by history and the great feats man has accomplished I never find myself wishing I was there in those moments, it's the stars I find myself drawn towards and imagining all the countless possibilities that could await us, and wanting to be part of that.

Warp drive every single time.

 

[Lionsfan]

Spaceship.

A time travel machine is cool, and I would love to explore different eras of humanity, but.....space bitches, space

 

[RJ 17]

Yeah, I'd have to say Warp Drive. The only way I'd take time travel is only if it was on a very, very small scale. That is to say I could undo mistakes as soon as I made them. Say the wrong thing? Let's step back 15 seconds real quick. Took a wrong turn? No worries. Think of a REALLY good point to make in that argument 5 minutes ago? Go back and make it!

The problem with BIG time travel is that there's wwwaaayyy too many theories regarding it, some even tying in with parallel universes. If time is just one solid line, then the second you step back through it, wouldn't an infinite number of you "spawn" in the exact same spot as the infinite number of future "yous" reach the moment where you traveled back in time? Does traveling back in time create off-shooting timelines? Too chaotic even for my tastes.

So yeah, I'll take a warp drive and go on a Reaper hunt.

 

[GTwander]

Time travel is impossible, as time itself is an abstract concept of measuring intervals between events. Time doesn't exist, we are in a never-ending sea of "now". Never gonna happen.

FTL travel may be possible, but likely won't support organic life surviving the trip without liquification.

I'd prefer FTL, personally, though. Who cares about meeting Jesus when you could meet alien Jesus.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Where's the option for both because they're both awesome?

Besides, a Tardis can do both, and if you're going to travel in time and space, you should do it in style.

Edit: If I have to choose, time travel. There are some very fun periods in history I'd love to visit.

 

[Callate]

I'd love for humanity to be able to travel FTL, but there's too much good that could be done with properly applied time travel to let it go.

 

[Azriel637]

TARDIS

 

[Kaytastrophe]

If I could time travel (without disturbing the space time continuum, or whatever) I would. That is mostly though because I'm a historian and would love to relive and experiences the history I've studied and meet the people I've read about. FTL travel would be really cool to, it would be a tough choice but time travel wins only slightly and that's if I wouldn't mess up with the time line.

Plus: Time travel I could run around assassinating people in renaissance Italy just like assassins creed.

 

[Innegativeion]

Time Travel is too darn dangerous. I'll stick with a warp drive and hope for some sapient life forms to come by.

Time Travel is too dangerous, but the possibilities of Warp-ing into an asteroid field, or too close to black hole or a sun, or into the space of a race of highly territorial and agressive alien species isn't?

FTL travel, in theory, would only endanger the one's actually doing it, until it is perfected. Presumably, it would eventually advance to the point of being safe via new kinds of FTL sensors or whatever.

Time, being an abstraction, will likely never be quantifiable insofar as allowing time travelers to know exactly how their actions will affect the time stream.

Time travel could potentially endanger an infinite number of people by creating an infinite number of unfavorable outcomes in an infinite number of alternate timelines that would have otherwise remained inaccessible, due to probabilities. A time traveler's presence can force random people into unfavorable timelines via the butterfly affect.

When we're talking time travel we're talking 4th and 5th dimensional wanking. It's by nature far more unpredictable, chaotic, and dangerous than FTL travel.

 

[Squilookle]

Had we, by this stage- discovered proof of life on other worlds, then maybe I'd be tempted to choose a warp drive. However, as of now, space is just a big sea of pretty orbs surrounded by nothingness. Time travel FTW- we've got so much more interesting stuff going on -and having gone on- here on our planet.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Time travel implies teleportation anyway.

Unless you can instantly teleport yourself as well as jump through time, the earth will be in a different place and you'll suffocate.

This is an important point, one that doesn't get mentioned nearly enough, but there's no reason for it to be true. There's no fixed point of reference, everything is positioned relative to everything else, and everything is in movement.

...

As for FTL, the odds of hitting a star or an asteroid is extremely low, the density is very low. Stars you can sorta see coming anyway.

 

[ecoho]

TARDIS

quite right now weres my bowtie.....bowties are cool.