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| Lee Dong Wooj in Tail of the Nine-Tailed Is the past repeating itself again? |
Time Travel as a Weapon
You might think of time travel more as a mode of transportation, at least in film and literature, and you would be right. It certainly offers a way of moving characters into precarious and plot-twisting situations.
But it is also a weapon.
If you don't believe me, read on to discover how deadly time travel can be.
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| In the 2016 series Travelers, future surviving humans send their consciousness back through time into people of the 21st century to change the path of humanity. Of course, they kill their hosts to do it... |
Time Travel Defined
Think of time travel as a way to transport a) information (precognition as in The Minority Report) and/or b) characters forward, backward and sideways (into parallel universes). And note, even though Einstein's Relativity says time, travel or otherwise, is an illusion, quantum physics begs to differ.
Brief Sidestep into Science
In quantum physics, we have the idea of time symmetry in that it flows both ways, forward from past to present to future, AND backward, from future, to present to past. The latter is the most common because an observer is essential to 'see' a thing for it to exist.
As John Wheeler puts it, "...what the observer will do in the future defines what happens in the past—even in a past so remote that life did not then exist, and shows even more, that 'observership' is a prerequisite for any useful version of 'reality'."
Don't you love how 'reality' is in quotes?
Time becomes both complex and illusory, but that doesn't stop us from using fiction to get a handle on it.
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| Wheel of Time depicts time with a seven-spoked wheel marking the seven Ages. The turning of this wheel and the events of each Age generate the Great Pattern, a predefined plan which defines the past, present and future - not unlike Hindu and Buddhist representations of time. |
The Sub Genres of Time Travel in Fiction
Writing time travel in fiction offers a way to weaponize a character as well as play with the time/space continuum. And the best part of this, to me, is you can cross genres like crazy to do it. TT includes multiple classes of Speculative Fiction from SF, Fantasy and alternate history to even more obscure niches.
We have books and films ranging from Fantasy, like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Dragonriders of Pern, to Fairytale like Rip Van Winkle to the War subclass like The Edge of Tomorrow (adapted from Hiroshi Sakurazaka's All You Need is Kill), Alt History like Outlander, comedy as in Groundhog Day and of course SF from H. G. Wells' 1895 classic The Time Machine to comedy/SF Back to the Future.
I played with the symmetry of time in deadly ways in the Quantum Enchantment series, specifically Arrows of Time.
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| Time can change the course of history. Right, Mr. Queen? |
Conclusions
The point is, that time travel isn't always a glitch in The Matrix. It can be used to correct the devastating collapse of humanity (Terminator), to win the battle and save the day, for example...
"By making use of time displacement equipment, agents from both sides (pro Skynet and anti Skynet) are deployed on missions designed to either ensure, alter, or eradicate the status quo as perceived by the participants at the time." - Terminator Universe
Now that is some weapon!
On a more subtle level, there is the temporal fugue portrayed in Creatures of Light and Darkness by Roger Zelazny where our hero moves through time, adding himself to a causality loop so his 'copies' can join the fight. The possibilities here are endless!
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Choose Your Weapon Series
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About Kim Falconer
Kim Falconer, currently writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series. Currently, she is working on the third book, out in 2024.
Kim can be found on AKWilder Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site
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