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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.