Time Travel discussion
General Time Travel Discussion
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Different Types of TT
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A subject that is of personal interest to me as an author, since I write a lot of scifi based on TT. One of my heroines, who is in five of my books, is the adopted daughter of a time traveler (now dead). She lives in an alternate timeline created indirectly by her adoptive mother, who was killed by enemies from the future, an action that created her timeline. My young heroine, who benefits from the knowledge and wisdom brought from the future by her mother, but does not travel through time herself, then becomes a powerful factor in drastically shaping the events in her new timeline. She thus creates an alternate history, but without TT by herself, so is it strictly alternate history, or does it qualify as TT? I would like your opinion on that, Justanotherbiblophile and all other amateurs of TT.
Keep in mind that these fine subdivisions of genre mean very little outside of this venue. The readers could care less. If it is a cracking good book it does not matter what you call it.
Brenda's TT Taxonomy
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2013/03/...
Matt's TT Categories
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Time-slip vs. TT
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
And, I have some questions about things that you may or may not call time-travel (TT):
Do you consider Alternate History with TT causes, as TT?
Some examples are one-way/one-use (heh,I was going to say 'time') time-slips which change history, like _1632_ - allegedly caused by super-science from an alien race. Or, _A Rebel in Time_ - using a machine.
Which specifically change past events irreconcilably, and thus couldn't lead into the futures from which their changes came from.
Foreign Time: TT to distant pasts or futures, which cause changes which make them diverge - and allow people to come and go from those locales/times back to their original era/source. "Chronoplane Wars" for example. So, people go back in the past, change things - and commute to and from the 'future' which will no longer exist once those 'past's age far enough along / or they just created alternate dimensions and are traveling to and from them. In any case, those changes are so far away that the wash-up effects are never directly encountered. ie: It's not like changing something last year, giving you a one-year grace period before you find out your personal past is wiped out.
One-way TT, that may or may not create a different past. "Saga of Pliocene Exile", for example. You could only travel back in time, but you could send messages forward through the time-hole (in amber).
Relativistic TT / Skip-Along TT: Time travel only works going into the future, ie: you skip portions of time, and don't age - but you can never go home again. Possible example, "Planet of the Apes" (first movie, before they add in more stuff). Often encountered in SF where spaceships nudge up near lightspeed, and thus you can never go "home". _Forever War_.
Time-travel that only works going backwards, ie: you can never go into the future, since the future is nothing but change.
A lot of TT, as per Matt's definitions, involve a very personal aspect (does something change *for you*), versus some wider-scope actions.