cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/12770326
Rules:
The time traveller is able to travel backward and forward through time (max forward is 2074) and they can only transport things that can fit in a small backpack.
You can choose when the 3 hours begin but it has to be in 2024 and once it has begun the timer can’t be reset or stopped.
They will answer to the best of their ability but imagine this is a random person from 2074.
This one is easy. I would simply do what they tell me to do. After all, since they came back to see me, it’s certainly because the future me sent them back in time.
If it wasn’t me that sent them back in time, then it’s probably a set up, and I would be powerless to resist it.
If they insisted on my ordering them around, I’d have them bring back a copy of their Wikipedia from 50 years in the future, and then I’d try to use the rest of the time to figure out the physics behind time travel, and see if I can’t get plans for a time machine.
“You said to tell you nothing because, and I quote, ‘spoilers’. I’m just here to see what you were like before it happened.”
I would totally send someone backwards in time just to mess with myself.
Think of it more as a summoning ritual. You accidently pull in a time traveller from that year.
Also what would you do with a time machine?
So he could time travel the way he wants to rather than being bound by an arbitrary 3 hour time limit?
It is a 3 hour time limit for you. Meaning they agree to interact with you for a total of 3 hours and then you never see them again.
Can they leave me with objects (books, files, documents)they brought back, or do I only have 3 hours with those as well?
Yes they can leave stuff.
There are few theoretically possible technologies as overwhelmingly powerful as time machines. Even an extraordinarily weak time machine, for example, one that could only move you a few minutes back and forth, would be enough to make me insanely wealthy, assuming that it wasn’t cost prohibitive to run.