The Time Tourists

Sean’s in Carthage this week!

Present Day Sean reports:

“Hey everyone, I just got off the phone with my future self, and the good news is that he knows where he is this week… sort of. He’s in what we would refer to today as Tunisia, near the ancient city of Carthage. That’s all good and well, but the problem is that Carthage existed for over 1000 years in different incarnations, and Sean’s trying to figure out when he’s actually there.

“So, what we need you all to do is to do a little bit of research on ancient Carthage, and start thinking of some questions that we can ask him to help him narrow things down. There’s a lot of history to look through, so anything you can think of will be helpful!”

Got questions for Future Sean?

Here’s your chance to ask Future Sean some questions about his time machine, time travel, his experiences, and more! Just reply in the “comments” section. If we like your question, we’ll discuss it in an upcoming show!

(Please remember that Future Sean is not a fortune teller and can’t answer questions about the future itself. Yeah, we know, it’s a gyp. Sorry about that.)

Time Tourists Episode 1 Now Live!

We’re excited to announce that the first episode of The Time Tourists is up and ready to be listened to!

We’re in the process of registering this show on iTunes, but you can go ahead and give the first episode a listen now via this button:

 

 The Time Tourists Episode 1 - January 6th, 2008 [36:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Enjoy! Please post your comments and let us know what you thought!.

Episode 1 Show Notes

Along with every show, we’ll be including a separate article with show notes, for those who are interested.

SEGMENT 1 - Predictions about the future.

• The websites mentioned in the first segment were http://www.newsoffuture.com and http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl10.htm.
• The Weekend Magazine article from 1961 can be found at http://www.pixelmatic.com.au/2000/. The title of the article is “Will Live Be Worth Living in 2000 AD?”, and it doesn’t have a writer credited. Oddly enough, we have not been able to find another source from this article aside from this website, which means that the magazine is either terribly obscure (it appears to be British in origin, and we have seen issues from other dates available on Ebay) or the article’s a hoax. But either way, it’s funny.

SEGMENT 2 - Time Traveling

• These three rules were established by Sean to minimize his impact on history while he’s traveling.
  • Sean cannot reveal the future because he doesn’t want to mess with the past.
  • Sean cannot bring things from the past into the future or vice versa with his time machine.
  • Sean believes that the past has already happened, so there is no point in trying to change it since he believes it cannot be changed.

• Traveling Sean got ahold of Present Day Sean via a phone-like device. He was actually trying to call his wife, but the numbers were similar.
• Sean said that the time machine’s computers use a language other than English, but did not elaborate on what it was like. He likened this to an English speaker and reader using a computer set in the Sri Lankan tongue, Sinhala.
• Sean has a universal translator that allows him to understand what other people are saying, but he can still hear their original language. It seems to work the other way as well.
  • The device is extremely literal, and Sean doesn’t trust its accuracy.
  • Sean suspects a lot of the people he’s running into are afraid of him and perhaps think he’s a demon.

SEGMENT 3 -Where is Sean this week?

• Sean revealed that he is in Russia near some Cossacks wearing Green uniforms. They say they’re fighting with a Czar named Peter.
  • These are probably the Orenburg Cossacks.
  • The “Czar” in question is probably not an actual Czar, but rather, a pretender named Emelian Pugachev who led a rebellion against Catherine the Great from 1773-1774.
  • Sean appears to be just north of Kazakhstan.

SEGMENT 4 - Movie Review

• Sean and Sean discussed their theories of time travel.
  • Present day Sean believes in the “alternate timeline” theory, which states that the past can be changed since there an infinite number of possible timelines.
  • Future Sean believes in the “static history” theory, that the past reflects the interference of time travelers already and can’t be changed.
• This week’s review is for The Terminator (1984)
• Both Seans like the film, and it seems to go right along with future Sean’s theory of time travel: that the future can’t be changed, despite the interference of time travelers. The idea of the film is that a robot from the future is attempting to kill the mother of the resistance leader, John Connor. But though the machine fails, the future seems to be unavoidable. In fact, it’s because of a time traveling soldier that John Connor is even conceived.
• Sean & Sean forgot to give the film a rating, so they’ll address that next week.
• They’ll also be reviewing a different time travel film each week.

MUSIC CREDITS:

Intro/Outro: Roykksop, “So Easy”,
[Melody A.M.]

Bumpers: The Thievery Corporation, “The Cosmic Gate” and “Holographic Universe”, [The Cosmic Game]

Commercial music - Kevin MacLeod, www.Incompetech.com

All music used under fair use guidelines.

Welcome to the Time Tourists FAQ

Hi there, and welcome to the official website of the Time Tourists. Here’s a little introductory FAQ about the show:

1. What is this show about? Believe it or not, it’s about a time traveler! Sean Jordan was minding his own business one day when the phone rang. He picked it up, and was surprised to find out that his future self was on the other end. Apparently, in the year 2018, Sean had observed a time machine crash into his backyard, and the owner went running off for reasons that are yet to be explained (though Sean has an idea, as you’ll read below). Sean got into the ship and started pressing buttons, and before he knew it, he was traveling through time and space!Unfortunately, the time machine seems to be from the distant future, and none of the controls are in English. So Sean called up the most reliable person with a degree in history he could think of — his wife — but dialed his own number by mistake. For some reason, this resulted in him calling himself ten years in his past. It’s just as well; Sean’s wife thinks the whole thing’s ridiculous anyway.After present-day Sean helped his future self figure out where (and when!) he was, they realized that it might be a good idea to start asking other people for help when things get dicey. And that’s why this show was born — every week, Sean and Sean try to figure out where the time machine has landed… and they need your help!
2. If Future Sean is the real deal, he’s been through all of this before, right? Wouldn’t he remember some of the details? Good question! The answer to the question is that Future Sean does remember being on the other end, but he’s forgotten a lot of the particulars. As he puts it, it’s a lot like watching a movie when you’re a kid and seeing it again when you’re an adult. You have a vague idea of what happens, but you forget a lot of the details.
3. Why didn’t he keep a notebook with all the details? He did. But he forgot to grab it when he got into the time machine. Sean can be a little absent-minded like that.
4. How come Sean can’t figure out how to control the ship, but he’s mastered the phone? Fortunately for Sean, the phone was a lot easier to figure out how to use. The time machine itself is a little trickier since it requires coordinates for time AND space. That’s why Sean needs to pinpoint his coordinates every week; it helps him figure out how to crack the code and make the machine do what he wants.
5. How does Sean communicate with people when 99.9% of the people in history don’t speak English?Fortunately, the time machine contained a universal translator device that took care of this problem… sort of. It enables Sean to understand what people are saying, and to be understood, but both parties can still hear the other person speaking in an unusual language. Oh, and the device is veryliteral, which means that cultural idioms and slang can be lost in translation. For example, when Sean met up with some Cossacks, they kept calling themselves “free men,” which is the literal meaning of the word “Cossack.” But that wasn’t very helpful to Sean, since he had no idea what point in history the “free men” were from.As such, Sean doesn’t trust the device, nor does he make any claims about its accuracy.
6. Sean’s description of [some point in history or place in the world] is way off, and I should know. I listened to him, and then when I tried to use what he said in history class, I got an F! That’s exactly why this show is called the “Time Tourists.” Future Sean makes no claims that the information he’s providing is 100% accurate, because it’s all from his point of view as a traveler, not a native. He’s just trying to describe enough of what he’s seeing so that he can figure out where he is and make his way home.And if you were dumb enough to take the word of some time traveler over your teacher’s iron-clad understanding of history, that’s your own problem. Everyone knows history class isn’t about what really happened — it’s about what your teacher tells you happened. Sean learned this when he tried to apply the lessons he’d learned from Lies My Teacher Told Me and didn’t get the stellar grade he felt he deserved.
7. I’ve noticed some commercials in your show for some books you’re publishing later this year. Is this some sort of viral marketing ploy? Not at all! But if you enjoy the show, you’ll probably enjoy Sean’s books, too. One of them is even about four time traveling Baptists who go back in time to search for the historical Jesus Christ! (They find six of them. But you’ll have to read the story to find out which one, if any, is the real deal…)
8. When will new shows be made available? We plan to post a new show every Sunday in 2008. If we start attracting a lot of listeners, we’ll probably set an official regular release time, but right now, shows will go up roughly “when Sean feels like updating the site.”
9. So why DID that time traveler run away? Future Sean says it’s because when this adventure is over and he figures out how to program the machine, he’s going to set it for about 2 minutes before he left, slip inside and get his baseball bat, and beat the crap out of the guy who crashed the ship in the first place. That would explain the running.
10. Isn’t that sort of a time paradox? Well, that depends on your theory of how time travel works. Present-day Sean tends to adhere to the idea that history can be changed and that there are an infinite number of timelines (some might call them “parallel universes”) that contain every conceivable outcome of any given action. So, if you leave 2008 in a time machine and prevent George Washington from crossing the Delaware and fighting the British, the strange new world you return to where King George XVIII presides over the United British Colonies is, in fact, another timeline you’ve slipped into.

    Future Sean adheres to the other idea of time travel, that history has already happened and that there’s nothing that can be done to change it. So, if a time traveler were to try to prevent the Lincoln assassination, for example, he or she might attempt to do so only to discover that by his or her accidentally leaving the door open, John Wilkes Booth was able to get into the theatre and get the job done. This theory seems more consistent with what Sean has seen thus far.

11. Wait! You didn’t answer my question! We love questions! Post them here in the comments section, and we may even answer them on the show!