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Hello, intrepid Interns. This is just a friendly reminder that your debate on the ethics and dilemmas of time travel is this Wednesday, so you'll want to pay extra attention to your classes on maintaining the timeline, temporal law, and paradox risks in the coming days.

Before I came to work with TEA, I spent over a decade as a Time Bandit, which gives me a unique perspective on these topics. Feel free to ask me anything on this post in the name of research and I'll do my best to answer honestly.

Vero

Do you want to play Devil's Advocate or should I? I'm happy to do it but it does feel a little on the nose.

Sébastien & Theun

Do either of you know why Teddy doesn't like Gus?

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At an alarming rate, yes. [...] People were very optimistic about it back then. Plenty of people thought we'd be colonizing space by now.

I will say, with the benefit of being from this era, that such thoughts were overly optimistic. Perhaps if the Cold War hadn't ended and the competition from Russia continued, those advancements might have been achievable, but the collapse of the Soviet Union was unpreventable. Their government structure was unstable long before Gorbachev took power.

It would be nice if we could get those sort of advancements done without an arms race, but having a fire underneath your ass is the ultimate motivator. [...] Anyway, I think we should sort our own planet out before we start setting our sights on other ones.

I would agree with your conclusion. We've enough issues to tackle without adding an additional planet to it.

Well, it's not for us to think about anyway. Our job is managing the past, not the future.

True.

May I ask another question?

Of course.

In your opinion. what is the benefit of changing the timeline? We've heard some about ripple effects — is the belief that sometimes the alternative cannot be worse?

In the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk to try, so I might not be the best person to ask. Although I suppose anyone who doesn't feel the way I do wouldn't be here talking to you, so...

I think most bandits are fundamentally self-serving. A lot of them aren't attempting to alter the timeline to any specific effect, but they don't care if their actions have consequences. They do this for personal gain or hedonistic reasons. Others are trying to accomplish something very specific in altering the timeline, and that goal is worth more to them than any potential collateral damage.

When I was planning my attempt, my hope was that I could delay something I feel is inevitable. I knew there were potentially catastrophic consequences and that to change anything major would be a gamble. I imagine someone would only need to be a little more reckless or have a little more hubris than I do to make a different decision.

Thank you for your candor, Ms Fontaine.

Oh, any time.

I look forward to the debate.

Me too. I'd be in the front row if I weren't moderating.

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