Posted by Mark Withall: 2012-11-11

Have reached 20,001 words so far. About two days ahead of target.

Today I’m going to look at some of the content of my novel. This year the story involves time travel. This, inevitably, involves putting down a certain amount of rules, which dictate how time travel is allowed to work. There are two main parts to this in the story. The first part is the practical side of thing, i.e., how time travel works. And the second part is the legal aspects of it, which is one of the central parts of the story.

The Rules Of Time Travel

  • There is only one timeline (not multiple universes that are split off at each decision). Change the past; change the single present.
  • Time travel can only visit the past. The future hasn’t happened yet and therefore doesn’t exist.
  • Time travel takes a great deal of energy and hence is very expensive and can only be done by the select few.
  • Travelling back in time works like stretching a piece of elastic holding you to the present; this has two consequences:
    • The vast amount of energy taken by time travel increases in proportion to the amount of time travelled. Travelling back to the time of Jesus is not currently feasible. A few hundred years is the most travelled so far.
    • Eventually, the person travelling will be pulled back to the present. Usually, a person can only stay for a few hours in the past. No one has managed more than a couple of days.

The Law Of Time Travel

  • Minor changes to the past, and hence knock on effects to the present, are tolerated.
  • If a major change is accidentally effected, one can do whatever is necessary to correct the course to result in minimal effect on the present.
  • For trials involving temporal crime, witnesses may be sent back to observe the events. No more than one witness is allowed per event, to avoid a crowd affecting the events.
  • Any major impact on the past will involve a trial to determine if that impact was accidental and the subsequent corrections necessary.

I shall endeavour to update this list with additional details as they arise, and any corrections that are necessary for a consistent set of rules.