Poll: Time Travel

[The Event]

Another time travel question but I want to add a little twist
And because I like the answers that everyone gives.

You are about to be given a great gift - time travel.
Whenever you choose to travel to, you can either observe in complete safety and secrecy, or if you prefer, you can interact with the local population and environment - talk to the locals, watch next week's episode of your favourite TV series, sample a dodo burger

Unfortunately, there is of course a catch. A few catches in fact.

You can't change the past. If you try any of those shenanigans the time police will jump on you straight away and lock you in a cell until you evolve into a more responsible life form. So no standing on the grassy knoll and shouting "duck!" and no bribing the crowd to shout "Jesus" instead of "Barabbas"

Secondly, just like in The Terminator, nothing dead will go. Only living matter can transfer, so you can't pop to the future and bring back a big pile of tech. But you could travel to the future and take advantage of improved medical treatments such as genetic engineering or cybernetics (it worked for terminators) and you can bring back as much information as you can memorise. You also can't go back in time and bring back priceless relics, but you could bring back a breeding pair of Velociraptors.
And so on...

The final catch is that you can only travel in one direction. You can always return to your point of origin, but you must choose whether to be able to travel forward, backwards or sideways in time.

Sideways? You ask. Yes, alternate realities are now open to you. You can travel to your current date in the infinity of multiverses. Want to know what would have happened if Germany had won World War 2? You can find out. What if that asteroid impact never happened 65 million years ago and the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out? Go take a look.

So which would you choose?

Travel backwards and verify what has happened

Travel forwards and find out what will happen

Travel sideways and find out what would have happened if...

 

[Qwurty2.0]

Travel forward and find out what will happen. Assuming I can make a difference, seeing what will happens seems to be the most useful option available.

If I won't be able to change the present, then going "sideways". "What ifs" are always interesting....

 

[3aqua]

I would travel sideways so I could see how my life would of turned out if things had been different.
Maybe I could learn something about myself.

 

[Miyenne]

Initially I wanted to say I'd travel back in time and find out what happened... But then I realised I'm a woman, which would severely limit anything I could do in most time periods almost anywhere in the world, if I went somewhere when people existed, anyways. And there's no way I could try and pass myself off as a man, either.

Sideways I think would really get confusing, so I'll go with forward. Although if we do hit space travel I might want to avoid that, I get a bit uncomfortable in enclosed spaces.

Captcha: phone home. Okay, that one made me laugh.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

Well, assuming that I'm perfectly healthy, the only thing I can bring from my travels is knowledge. So, unless you are historian or detective, traveling back in time is pointless. Traveling forward will give you incredible amount of information, maybe with it you will be able to invest into something profitable, find out who will next Hitler and kill him in your time, find out more about technology and use it for your advantage. Traveling sideways is something akin to the ability Nick Cage had in "Next", so it would yield most useful in present. Looking for someone in giant building? Just travel sideways infinite times until you find right door or something.
But, it's future for me.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Can I change the future? Say that I chose to travel forward, go forward fifty years or so, can I come back to now-ish and warn everyone that we really should be nicer to Sweden, and maybe the world won't be under the oppressive heel of the Grand Swedish Imperium?

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

Well from your restrictions you could only travel to the past as a disembodied observer, as your mere presence completely changes history.
Future it is, wouldn't mind future medicine so I can live for ridiculously long and take advantage of whatever technology has come about. Of course, there's the possibility we'll all be dead in 200 years, so maybe a parallel reality would be better. Maybe one where civilization didn't keep collapsing, we never destroyed our environment and became masters of the galaxy. That'd be kinda sweet!

 

[Total LOLige]

Technically any interaction with people in the past could cause a change in the present, unless of course you subscribe to the theory that it is impossible to change anything in the past because you changing it would have already happened in your present. Too many differnt theories about backward and forward time travel, so I'll go with traveelling sideways, that way I know that definitely I'm in an alternate time line and not a parallel universe. But what if we are travelling to parallel universes instead of alternate time lines, man my brain hurts. What if we never discovered electicity? Wait, in the sideways travel is it on shuffle or can we ask a "What If?" question?

P.S. Everyone should watch the Spanish film Timecrimes, it's awesome what the fuck is Primer? I do believe Time crimes is available on LoveFilm and Neetflix for those of us in the UK.

 

[Scarim Coral]

If I read this right, while you said you cannot change the past but you can change the future? E.g. I went to the future at a demostration of a new invention in which I start to memorise how it was made. I travel back to my present and start making the said invention therefore changing the future (I robbed that person creation by making it first)? Of course this may lead to a paradox that if I had changed the past then wouldn't my memory of the said invention had been alter or vanish due to the lost future?

Anyway I would picked sideway, I always wanted to see my evil self of the more successful version of me.

 

[Evil Moo]

Travel diagonally forwards and sideways to a point where society is in a state of pure utopia and then stay there (there is bound to be an alternate reality where by sheer chance nothing bad ever happens and civilisation advances to a ridiculous degree). Seems like the sensible option.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'd travel sideways. Explore some alternate realities and see how my life could've turned out.

 

[mitchell271]

We'd have to be able to move in space too, seeing as Earth is moving in space relative to the sun and literally everything else.

Now with that little bis of assholish science out of the way, I'd go backwards. I'd love to see the reactions of people with modern technology and music. Imagine going back to the 80's and showing Iron Maiden, "The Trooper" before it was written or going back to the 1700's to show Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven contemporary orchestral music, techno, jazz or The Beatles!

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Under these circumstances the solution is clear; jump forward to next week, find out what the lottery numbers are, pop back, win big.

What, you said we couldn't change the past, didn't say anything about our own personal futures! Loopholes ftw.

 

[Souplex]

Doesn't matter, not my choice.
In my experience, time travel works under Terminator 1 rules: Your time travel is already part of the timeline so nothing will change, someone always gets knocked up from a time-voyage.
I have enough time-bastards as is.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Personally, I'd go sideways, I love "What If" scenarios...

 

[spark03]

Definitely sideways, depending on how events played out they could be any degree of archaic, modern or futuristic which would be pretty interesting and give a vastly different outcome each time the machine was used. Plus, there is always a chance that I could find a time machine in one of these alternate timelines that can travel in all three directions instead of just one. Infinite possibilities just seems more interesting to me than something on a set path, even with all of the unknowns in the past and future.

 

[The Event]

If I read this right, while you said you cannot change the past but you can change the future?

Quite correct, you can change the future, or at least try to. Get implanted with those cybernetics and try to pass them off as your own invention. If you find the future world has been invaded by giant alien killer crabs you can try to warn the world about the impending attack. Though whether anyone will believe you is another matter.
Get share tips, find winning lottery numbers, get treated with the eternal youth gene therapy, all possible. Maybe there'll be similar possibilities in the sideways worlds.

For the sideways travellers, yes, you can ask your time machine to show you worlds with certain conditions rather than merely trying them at random. It wouldn't be much fun visiting a world where everything was the same as here but some guy in another country had a blue car instead of a red one.

For anyone wanting to visit the past, the time cops aren't excessively strict. Asking some ancient Briton why they're building that big stone circle won't get you in trouble, Trying to persuade them to make it a big stone square instead will.

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

And here, is my three part answer

Part 1: Travel sideways in time.
Part 2: Go to the Lucky Star universe in a reality where Konata Izumi exists and is madly in love with me.
Part 3: Stay in this alternate reality forever and live a long, happy, fun and event filled life with the perfect girl.

...
... yes, I am the loneliest neckbeard in this thread

 

[Blaze the Dragon]

Forwards. The future is awesome. Super easy to get rich with only a week long jump. And You get to see the future of human civilization. And if something goes horribly wrong, then I'll just become the God-Emperor, and guide humanity towards the right path to survive. Shouldn't be hard to convince the President I can time travel at will apparently.