# Time Travellers on the Titanic **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 3, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266 "2006-01-03T19:26:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/41 "2006-01-03T23:04:33Z")
I think the computer game you’re thinking of might be Titanic: Adventure Out of Time - You start the game being blown up by a bomb attack in WWII, and are sent back in time to complete a mission you failed (which I never really understood while playing it, 'cept you were supposed to find the Rubayat, or something like that). Winning sent you back, changing time in that both WW’s didn’t happen - but if you failed (or left the boat in liferafts early, something you could do regardless of your mission) there were several different endings - Germany having already conquered Britain being the easiest one to get, which ended with the SS knocking on your door and machine-gunning you, having found your past as a spy out. The hitting of the iceberg happened about two thirds through the game, and you couldn’t change that - there wasn’t any way you could avert it, just the events afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/42 "2006-01-03T23:19:31Z")
I think probably people have nailed the game I was thinking of - wasn’t one I’d played, but had read about. Text-adventure, perhaps? There is of course Pearl Harbor, as recounted in the Final Countdown. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/43 "2006-01-04T02:12:45Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > The Kennedy Assassination is another good one, used to great effect in Quantum Leap. And “Red Dwarf”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/44 "2006-01-04T02:18:16Z")
The syndicated comic strip **Robotman** had the title character and his sidekick Monty go back to the Titanic. Their efforts to prevent the tragedy failed, and they only survived because they had brought a large rubber inflatable pool toy with them. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/45 "2006-01-04T03:10:45Z")
> [@](#): > > The short story is Vintage Season by C.L. Moore, filmed under the title Timescape. > > On preview I see that Baldwin provided a partial answer. We were both slightly incorrect; the story is credited to Laurence O’Donnell. Like Lewis Padgett, O’Donnell was a collaborative pseudonym used by Ms. Moore and her husband, Henry Kuttner. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/46 "2006-01-04T04:08:33Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Least useful to sufferers is The Knights Templeton, an order that travels to the 14th century and teaches the plague rats to imitate Paul Lynde. “A Ren Faire is a verrrrr-itable smorgasbord, orgasboard, morgasbord- oh, what a ratly feast!” ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/47 "2006-01-04T13:16:53Z")
I remember a sketch on an old Saturday-Night-Live-type comedy show in the early '80’s (I think it was called “Fridays”), in which a number of time travellers from different eras kept popping into the balcony of Ford’s Theater to try and prevent Lincoln’s assassination. Abe Lincoln was played by Paul Simon and Mrs. Lincoln by his then-wife Carrie Fisher. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/48 "2006-01-04T16:27:55Z")
I played the PC game that had you as a time traveler on the Titanic. I would think Dealy Plaza in November of '63 would be a popular destination for time travelers. Even if you couldn’t stop it you could postion yourself to record definitive evidence that rules out the wild theories. Of course if time travel was really possible I would just keep going to one certain point and keep asking out Cindy Lockwood in different ways till she said yes. Sort of like Groundhogs Day but not. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/49 "2006-01-04T17:03:57Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > How? > > I mean… OK, boom. You’re on the streets of Washington DC, and it’s January 27th, 1986. Or, to give you some time, let’s say it’s Christmas Day 1985. > > What do you do? Well, the first thing I would do is open a high-interest savings account and deposit a couple of grand in it. I then go and buy some shares in a variety of companies, such as Microsoft. Then I go find some NASA folks. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/50 "2006-01-04T17:23:30Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > Yes, that was it. Agreed, but not in the time frame that the book covered. I loved the part where somebody found the structure containing the secret location of the time portal, and it was full of things they didn’t understand. Strange round objects that glowed by themselves. Glowing screens with associated trays with letters of the alphabet only out of order, so they were dubbed “Qwertys.” That sounded so much like a story I read once in _Analog._ It has neo-neo-nazis showing up at Appamattox to give Lee automatic weapons, so the US won’t be able to defeat Germany. Lee decides that the South was meant to lose, and goes and surrenders. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/51 "2006-01-04T21:57:39Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > That sounded so much like a story I read once in _Analog._ It has neo-neo-nazis showing up at Appamattox to give Lee automatic weapons, so the US won’t be able to defeat Germany. Lee decides that the South was meant to lose, and goes and surrenders. Was this before or after Harry Turtledove’s _Guns of the South_ was written? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/52 "2006-01-04T22:41:32Z")
I’d think that just before Pearl Harbor would be another fave. What was the name of that film that came out around 1979 in which Martin Sheen and the _U.S.S. Nimitz_ are transported back to 1941, and narrowly miss preventing the Japanese attack? ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/53 "2006-01-05T00:43:19Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I’d think that just before Pearl Harbor would be another fave. What was the name of that film that came out around 1979 in which Martin Sheen and the _U.S.S. Nimitz_ are transported back to 1941, and narrowly miss preventing the Japanese attack? 1980-[The Final Countdown](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/) > [@MLS](#): > > Of course I can’t remember the title OR the author, but I read a time travel novel in which a group of racist, apartheid-loving South Africans opened a time portal to the United States during the Civil War and provided endless supplies, including AK47s, to the Confederate troops. The book was pretty good up until a very, very contrived ending in which the Confederate leadership decided that slavery really wasn’t such a good idea, after all, and the conflict ended amicably. I don’t think it ended amicably at all. I mean yes, the South abolished slavery but it was by a close margin. And besides, they had access to books from the future that shows the South in a bad light, and Robert E. Lee wanted to avoid that, so he showed all the southern congressmen the books. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/54 "2006-01-05T01:53:27Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Foggy, thirty+ year-old memory coming up. And it’s not even about time travel! 😉 > > I seem to recall an old _Twilight Zone_ or _Outer Limits_ episode (it was definitely in B&W) where the story revolved around an older man telling a couple about his last boat ride, forty years in the past, that shook him so badly that it wasn’t until his fifties that he got on another ocean-going ship again. The boat he was talking about was, of course, the _Titanic_. Anyway, the story ended with the older man joking, saying something along the lines of “What are the odds of my being in two shipwrecks in a row?” or something equally damning. The couple laughed, they all walked away to reveal a ring bouy with “ANDREA DORIA” stenciled on it. (Or another famous wrecked ship, like the _Morro Castle_ or something). There was one on _Night Gallery_ too where the guy escaped from the _Titanic_ in a lifeboat and was picked up by the _Lusitania_ on her final voyage. None of them understood how he could have been in the lifeboat so long. He kept trying to tell them what was going to happen, but they wouldn’t listen. Once again, he got away in a lifeboat (this time one of the _Lusitania_’s), only to be picked up by yet another ocean liner. The final scene shows one of the crew with _Andrea Doria_ emblazoned on his hat ribbon. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/55 "2006-01-05T15:22:44Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > What was the name of that film that came out around 1979 in which Martin Sheen and the _U.S.S. Nimitz_ are transported back to 1941, and narrowly miss preventing the Japanese attack? [“The Final Countdown”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/56 "2006-01-05T16:05:58Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I’d think that just before Pearl Harbor would be another fave. What was the name of that film that came out around 1979 in which Martin Sheen and the _U.S.S. Nimitz_ are transported back to 1941, and narrowly miss preventing the Japanese attack? I believe that was _The Final Countdown_, mentioned by **CandidGamera** in [post #42](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6958538&postcount=42). ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/57 "2006-01-05T21:39:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > How? > > I mean… OK, boom. You’re on the streets of Washington DC, and it’s January 27th, 1986. Or, to give you some time, let’s say it’s Christmas Day 1985. > > What do you do? Call NASA and tell them I’ve placed a bomb on the Solid Rocket Fuel booster? Hopefully the delay as they search for the bomb would cause them to miss the lauch window. Doesn’t really eliminate the fundamental organizational problems of NASA that caused the disaster though. Incidentally, the excellent Kurt Busiek comic book _Astro City_ features a character (Samaritan) sent back from the 32nd (?) century to save the _Challenger_. He succeeds, and returns to the future later only to find it unrecognizeable; there’s an automated taco stand where his family’s home once stood. He never finds out how saving the _Challenger_ changed the world so drastically. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/58 "2006-01-06T20:58:48Z")
Jerry Yulsman’s “Elleander Morning” is a _terrific_ time-travel book in which a young woman whose son dies on D-Day. She finds a way to travel back in time and kill Hitler while he’s still a starving artist in Vienna. Highly recommended. “The Final Countdown” ended 'waaaaaaaaaaaay too abruptly. The captain decides to intervene and stop the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and they’re launching F-14s to do just that, when the time portal opens up again and they return to the “present.” Sheesh. Whatta ripoff. The '80s “Twilight Zone” had a pretty good episode in which a historian from the future intervenes in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. But Khrushchev is deposed immediately afterwards as the timestream adjusts itself, World War III looms, and JFK realizes, in essence, that he must sacrifice himself. A lot better done than the “Red Dwarf” episode “Tikka to Ride” (and yes, I realize I’m comparing apples to oranges/drama to comedy). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/59 "2006-01-06T21:00:18Z")
Oops. Should read “a woman’s son dies on D-Day.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266/60 "2006-01-06T21:47:34Z")
> [@Elendil's Heir](#): > > The '80s “Twilight Zone” had a pretty good episode in which a historian from the future intervenes in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. But Khrushchev is deposed immediately afterwards as the timestream adjusts itself, World War III looms, and JFK realizes, in essence, that he must sacrifice himself. A lot better done than the “Red Dwarf” episode “Tikka to Ride” (and yes, I realize I’m comparing apples to oranges/drama to comedy). You’re a little mixed up. The historian from the future was a JFK descendant and it’s _him_ that sacrifices himself while JFK ends up transported to the future and taking his descendant’s place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travellers-on-the-titanic/338266.md?page=4)