Came across this on the Art Bell website; what do you guys think?
http://artbell.com/message-from-time-traveler-david/
Below is a portion of what was posted:
http://artbell.com/message-from-time-traveler-david/
Below is a portion of what was posted:
Hello Art,My name is David and I am a time traveller. I have been listening to recordings of your old show ever since I arrived in this time period. I stumbled across them during my review of present day pop culture. I was so glad to hear that you were coming back with a new show so naturally I had to tune in.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear you last week asking for time travellers to call in and then again Monday night. I was tempted to call in but frankly I was afraid I might say the wrong thing and get myself into trouble with my employers.
I am approximately two years into a five-year posting with the Canadian government. I work for the Ministry of Temporal Affairs as a personnel director for our permanent station in the present day. My duties primarily revolve around processing persons from my home time period in and out through our station as we maintain the only set of “Doors” in the Greater Toronto Area. My secondary function is to keep track of any future tech that is brought back, is being carried and used by field officers.
You must have a million questions so I will try and cover a bunch of stuff because I probably won’t be able to communicate with you again after this. Don’t worry I’m not going to be killed or anything like that (Ha-Ha). I am breaking some rules by writing you and revealing some things but I’ll probably just get a minor reprimand from my superiors and told not to do it again.
Where and when am I from?
I am a Canadian living and working in Toronto, Ontario both now and in the future. I can’t reveal the exact year I am from because there are some very strict rules about that. I am from between 400 and 500 years in the future. Here’s a tip for you when talking to somebody claiming to be a time traveller: If they give you the exact year they are from, they probably aren’t a real time traveller. The Temporal Accords governing time travel are very clear about not revealing specific information like that and doing so would result in serious consequences for that person.
Why am I here?
When time travel was invented it wasn’t regulated in any way and some big mistakes were made. Things were changed but apparently some smart, capable people were able to fix what went wrong. To this day time travel technology is tightly controlled and classified at the highest levels. It is treated much the same way nuclear technology is treated in the present day. Everybody knows it exists but only a select few have access to it. There are no time travel tours into the past by regular civilians. All of the governments of the world agreed for mutual protection to establish rules and create agencies dedicated to keeping the timeline intact and unchanged. Because of the problems caused by the first unknown time travellers there are still ripples and anomalies and we have to try and smooth things out whenever we can. When you experience the feeling of “deja-vu” that is a minor ripple in the time stream passing through your vicinity. Each nation is responsible for it’s own particular corner of the timeline and we work in co-operation with each other to fix any problems that pop up. Sometime in the mid 20th century my government established permanent stations in the past disguised as small companies to act as cover for our activities. This was done so we could have a base of operations that could expand and have offices in other cities without arousing suspicions. The company is a real functioning business with normal employees who have absolutely no idea about what we are really doing. All of the key employees are time travellers like myself but we do need to have some “locals” to keep things running smoothly and blend in. What type of business are we running? Sorry I can’t tell you that. What I can tell you is that it is a very boring, uninteresting company that few people have ever heard of or are curious about which is the way we like it. This is a standard operating procedure for all temporal agencies and the companies established are never large ones that you would have ever heard of.
What is the future like?
Simply put, the future is paradise. I grew up in a peaceful world that hasn’t experienced war for well over a century. The last armed human conflict was off world between colonists on Mars and even that wasn’t a big one. The air and water are as clean as they have ever been in human history. The rain forests that had been decimated in your century have been replenished in mine and vast areas of desert have been reclaimed and converted into lush garden regions.
We have free healthcare, free education, and free clean energy. Most people in urban centers use public transit to get around. There are still cars but most of them are not personally owned. Instead they are communal. If you need a car you just go to a depot and pick one up and return it when you are finished with it. The only people who regularly still own personal cars are ones who live in rural areas where public transit isn’t as readily available. Bicycles are another very common mode of transportation both in rural and urban areas.
We have a digital economy so there is no cash at all. All transactions are carried out online. We still have stores but they are mainly for food, specialty items like books (yes we still have printed books in the future), antiques, recreational equipment and clothing just name a few. There are no large retail chains like Wal-Mart or other department stores because we favour small local retailers over big box stores. Daily life is very much centered on the family and our immediate community. Just about anything a person could want or need can usually be found within walking distance of their home.
We have entertainment just like the 21st century with a few differences. We have television but it is all what you would call “on demand”. You watch whatever you want, whenever and wherever you want. Live broadcasts are typically reserved for news programs or sporting events. Movies are still made but they tend to be smaller in scale and focus more on character development. When there is violence it tends to be much less graphic than it is now and it’ll be essential to the story. Live theatre is a much more popular form of entertainment in my time than it is in yours. Music is as popular in my time as it ever was. We have pop music with singing stars and teenagers scream at those concerts just like they do today. Some things will never change. You will be glad to hear that radio or rather live audio programming is still very much around in my era. It is almost exclusively talk based format and like all other information accessed in my time is via the Internet.
