Changing Reality

So I was thinking about Back to the Future the other day when I realized that time travel is weird. For the sake of this entire post, we are going to ignore the “smarties” like Stephen Hawking and assume time travel is possible. If you travel to the future, you’re going to be depressed because you might find out that what you want might not be want you get. And if you go to the past, you’ll try to change a few things and end up turning the United States into a dictatorship by accident (insert current events joke here). Of course, when you really REALLY think about traveling to the past, a horrifying thought occurs.

As Doc brown explains in this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OPkqY9doGE, because old Biff went to the past, gave young Biff the almanac, and had young Biff kill George McFly, Marty is now in an alternate timeline. The point here is that something was changed in the past and it affected the present which created a parallel universe. When you think about it though, how big do the changes have to be before a parallel universe is created?  If you travel into the past, would you have to kill a historic figure or would you just have to scratch up someone’s car in order to change the timeline? My point here is that just by going into the past, you change the future. You were not there previously, and you are now. Someone saw you, a camera captured your image, or you left footprints somewhere. While you didn’t create a history making change, it is possible you changed a tiny bit of the past which influenced the present somehow.

This all brings me to my terrifying point. By going into the past, you insure that you are never returning to your original home. You can’t return to the same present you left if you accidentally (or purposely) created an alternate universe. You are effectively leaving your friends, family, pets, acquaintances, enemies, and adoring fans. That timeline is still continuing, so everyone you ever knew will most likely worry about where you’ve gone. They will never find you which will tear them apart, and it is all YOUR FAULT.

As for the new timeline that you so stupidly created, the people in it will potentially be unrecognizable from the people you used to live with. They will have memories and experiences that you might not remember. It would be like living with aliens.

The take home message here is if you’re going to time travel, make sure you hate the people you’re around first. 

Heroes and Villains Revisited

I feel it’s time to revisit our fine discussion concerning superpowers. As I mentioned before, there are a great deal of super powers one could have. You could have super strength, laser vision, meat vision, or even the power of flight (just make sure not to use capes). Furthermore, you could also choose between being evil with puppy kicking and candy snatching or being good with old lady saving and robbery foiling. Yes, I realize that just “good and evil” is not really how life works, but we are talking about super powers here. This argument cannot advance if we are talking about antiheroes and other gray areas.

Knowing that there is good and evil, a lot of people want to be a hero. But what does that truly entail? You stop crime, save the day, get the keys to the city, and win the girl. Sounds like fun, but there is way more to it than that. And it’s depressing when you think about it. Yes, you stop crime, but you also create more crime. Villains and small time criminals will rise up just to get the opportunity to fight you. If you saw some self-righteous person in weird looking pajamas stopping crime, wouldn’t you want to stop him/her? I definitely would want to punch that person. Movies like The Dark Knight and others make it a point to say that the criminals are a result of the hero (like Joker), and in other cases, the hero accidentally creates his nemesis (look at the Spiderman comics).

Also, do you really save the day if more criminals are rising up to fight you? You save the town one day only for another dumb villain to create a crazy weather harnessing scheme the next. If you are a true hero, then you would never rest because Gotham is a shithole where crime happens 24/7. You better hope that one of your powers is super no-sleep because you are going to be getting very little of it. Finally, does winning the girl (or guy) really matter if you can’t spend any time with her/him, or if he/she is dead? You aren’t going to have any time to spend with your significant other because of all the aforementioned crime you have to fight. And when you are with the one you love, you’re going to have to worry about all the villains using her/him to get to you. You could say that they won’t know about your secret identity, but that’s a silly thought. If you keep disappearing to fight crime, someone is bound to notice and tell everyone that the do-gooder protecting the city is you. After that, you are pretty much screwed for privacy. The life of a superhero sounds terrible.

On the other hand, there is the life of a super villain which is much better. As a villain, you don’t have to answer calls for help, you can take whatever you want, and you probably have a team of henchmen at your disposal. You could even argue that you have an evil league of evil on your side. There may be a Justice League and an Avengers team and other such teams, but think about how hard they are to form. Thor lives in a parallel dimension (or something, it’s not really clear). Aquaman lives under the sea. And Superman travels throughout the universe. Getting the heroes together requires a lot of work. If you want to get villains together, all you have to do is offer free pizza and say that you want to destroy Spiderman; you are guaranteed to form an alliance then.

As for taking what you want, it would be incredibly easy. If you have powers, then you could use those to steal the money, jewels, or parts for your doomsday device. If you aren’t stupid and don’t go off telling everyone about your plans, then the heroes will never find out about your plans. You can get away with almost any crime if you want. It may be your decision to destroy the heroes because they are your nemesis. That is your choice too. Of course, you don’t have to do it yourself. You could always hire henchmen/henchwomen to do your bidding. They could steal the goods for you and fight the heroes for you. If you were smart, then you would tell the henchmen about the weaknesses of the heroes. You could kill them without having to fight them. Although, it wouldn’t be a problem killing the heroes in the first place since all you have to do is wait for other criminals to attack the hero and weaken him/her. It’s only a matter of time before the hero is too weak to stop you. Then it’s just a matter of breaking into Wayne Manor and breaking the bat.