To Infinity... and Stuff...

I just finished watching the last 10 minutes of an ST Voyager ep. The show normally doesn't interest me, but I caught the tail end where an Admiral Janeway from the future goes back in time and space to help the Voyager trapped in the Delta Quad to get back to the Alpha Quad. I dunno what happened after that, as it's a two-parter, and I doubt I'll watch the second half.

As it was, this ep raised the question of, what if, after helping the past Voyager to the Alpha Quad, past Janeway does something that changes the future from how it originally played out, thus altering future Janeway's course of action. A paradox situation is put into motion. So the question remains, is this the only course of action for Janeway's life, or can she change what she does, knowing how her later life is going to play out, possibly risking the chance of paradox?

See, this is a core idea behind any time travel fiction. Just how malleable is the time/space continuum?

The more fun way of looking at it, from a writer's perspective, is that the future is quite changeable. Actions you have when you travel to the past will alter the present and future. Back to the Future showed this in Part 2, with the alternate 1985, where a single action in the past caused a multitude of changes. A good writer can take the fuel of any single action, and plot out all sorts of ideas and possible outcomes.

This way of looking at time though leads one directly to paradox. What stops someone from killing someone important in the past, or their own relative. Nothing, basically, but then, the reaction could be catastrophic. If you kill your own grandfather before he has any kids, that would effectively kill you, and unless you take the stance that time will allow travelers to move about once partially disconnected from the flow of time/space, you're basically toast. And then, how, if you never existed, could you possibly kill your grandfather?

Time/space collapses, and oops, my bad, we all cease to exist.

A less used perspective, although one rife for possibilities if really explored. You go back to kill your grandfather... but you can't... something compels you not to. Or, even better, you do, only to go back to learn that who you thought was your grandfather isn't anymore... maybe never was. Now what? You really wanted to wipe out all of existence. So you go back, and kill your grandmother, just to be sure this time... and time/space makes someone else your grandmother. Hey, you go back, and nuke the entire town you grew up in... only to have it be some other town

I like this approach better. It makes time/space seem like an adversary, one that always at least five step ahead of you, smug in the fact it'll always win, so go ahead, try. Lets see how much destruction you can lay down.

And, I'm out of steam again... I will write more on this when I think about it. I mean, heck, at least I wrote a second rant on time travel. I didn't even think that'd happen.