Time Travel Solves Fewer Issues Than One Would Think
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)
Much like other cases of technological hubris, few practical applications exist for time travel. Specifically, few applications exist for physical transport in a timestream, as scrying windows, nanobubble viewers, and Bell theoretical jars pass necessary information without worries of temporal shriving, corporeal or mental losses in quantum pockets, or active past or future sabotage. As with those aforementioned cases of other technological hubris, these revelations had absolutely no effect on those wishing for cheap and effective time travel, but the use cases used to justify its invention and development became more and more rationalized and justified the longer the technology was available.
By way of example, a regular supposition was that time travel would make traditional archeology and paleontology obsolete: why dig for arguments on troop movements at the Battle of Marathon or the coloration of non-avian dinosaur feathers when one could hop into a time capsule and observe firsthand? True, this allowed superficial observation, but this also allowed accidental and deliberate paradoxes, including detailed and ostentatious efforts to prank those observers. One population of the Cretaceous toothed bird Ichthyornis is scientifically invalid due to a gene therapy gag involving jellyfish genes, leaving the whole population colored brilliant pink. The gag was conceived in the early Thirtieth Century Gregorian to fool 21st Century researchers, leading to a millennium of wildly inaccurate reconstructions until the pranksters were caught moments after they returned. This continued with (inoperable) laser weapons in Mayan tombs and dinosaur tracks intersecting hominin trackways in Kenya, but the most telling was with the completely fabricated Krum Battlegrounds, a site in North Texas north of Denton that was allegedly a site of a major battle in 1864 between US Civil War soldiers that was “suppressed for unknown reasons.” When a group of historians dated the Krum site and then traveled to the site at the time of the battle’s start, they arrived to approximately 500 soldiers on a side who, upon a starting whistle, turned away from the historians, dropped their pants, and mooned the supposed experts before running off. More confusingly, the soldiers and their gear were completely authentic, having been hired specifically for this prank with time-authentic gold for the soldiers and their commanding officers. The pranksters are still unknown, but rumors point to the Zoetropes being involved.
Because of this sort of temporal chicanery, not only were archeological and paleontological sites excavated by St. Remedius researchers extensively checked for interference before, during, and after digs, but those researchers were forced to develop new detection techniques specifically to catch pranksters in the act. These techniques were often ineffective in the long run, as the pranksters often had plenty of time and opportunity to peruse what was to them ancient documentation, but some were remarkably effective at foiling the pranks. This was most noticeable in 2002, where St. Remedius involvement prevented the first calculation task of the Science Museum’s Difference Engine number 2, surrounded by dignitaries and tech leaders of the time, from giving an output of “71077345.”
And while you’re at it, the request lines are now open, complete with playlist.
Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.
Discover more from The Annals of St. Remedius Medical College
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.