I’m feeling atypically benevolent today. My not-exactly-niece cooked everyone breakfast this morning to say thanks for giving her a place to flop; my wife was even more beautiful than normal this morning; and,so far as I can tell, the Doom Patrol is still dead. Thus I’ve decided to take a break from full-bore evil this weekend and allow the Dopers access to my Burroughs-Libby continua device, which, among others, can be used to travel through time. Specifically, you can go back in time and to any date they name and retrieve artifacts which will otherwise be lost.
There are only two restrictions here. The major one is that whatever you choose must be able to fit in this, so forget about the Colossus at Rhodes. The other is that I’m setting the Novikov self-consistency filter to Hell Yes!, lest anyone get any bright ideas about offing me in my infancy for the good of humanity.
I shall be heading to back to 24 February 1852, Russia. My backpack will be stuffed with Piers Anthony manuscripts, and I shall swipe the manuscriptsNikolai Gogol burned just before his death and let him burn the Piers stuff instead. On my way I may stop to punch Matvey Konstantinovsky in the nose, but I won’t put any effort into that part.
But that’s just me. Where and when would you like to go to, and what would you like to retrieve? Remember: It must fit in a backpack, and you cannot otherwise change history.
I don’t think that’s going in a backpack.. Also, temporal logic won’t let you take it unless you know when it was lost or disappeared–unless I turn the Novikov filter to “allow paradoxes”, of course, which I won’t, as only I am allowed to screw with the time-stream for yuks.
Edited to add:
You edited while I was replying. Anyway, all my pointless hypotheticals have unfair restrictions to make things harder. It’s all part of the evil service.
Hmm…well, since youu can get that that information simply by checking the Encyclopledia Britannica, I’ll leave the attendent instructions to let you borrow a laptop and check it out before requesting your destination (and likewise anyone else) But beyond that, you have to provide a date & destination; no minions will be tasked to do your research for you, and certainly not to muck around through the time stream looking for a given date. I mean, anti-matter costs money, dude, and you don’t want to KNOW what I spend every week on dilithium crystals.
I don’t see why I’d care if the backpack closes, and if you want to risk getting stuck in the ass by the sword in question, more power to you. I’m just not wasting wasting dilithium crystals on enormous statues & whatnot.
Beria died in '53, and Stalin the same year. As it is logically impossible for you to kill them under the circumstances of the OP, I think it’s fairly likely that your trip ends with your bullet-ridden body being teleported back to Evil Inc. and then fed to the Coulters guarding the moat.
A stack of music from Ireland, from just before the British came through in the middle ages and burned it all. I’d like to know what these songs sounded like in period, rather than our best guess.
Probably not historical enough for most, but I’m a musician in the SCA, and we’re kind of funny that way.
Or, a sack full of the money that D.B. Cooper jumped out of a plane with.
From November 1957 I’m coming back with Laika, the first dog in space. I’ll replace her with a dummy about five hours into the flight when Russia lost life signs from her. Stupid Russians.
See, this is why you’ll never make the cut to be an A-list supervillain and will spend the balance of your days being foiled by the likes of the Elongated Man and Aqualad.
The real Stalin and Beria were/will be killed by me in 1917. The replicants with which I replaced them died in 1953.
Try not to let Uncle Marvel fuck up your plans for today.
The rest of the churchwardens’ accounts from Norfolk and Suffolk parishes during the period 1525-1560. It would have made writing my dissertation a bit easier to have had more than 10 of them (and most of those missing years, to boot).
Well, those were my first two thoughts.
I’ll go with the head of Socrates after he commits suicide. Remove the flesh and have his skull sit on my coffee table. That will shut him up and I’ll win all the arguments.
I’m just not wasting wasting dilithium crystals on enormous statues & whatnot.