#time master

I grew up in a rural area with a small government installation nearby these many years ago. There was just enough population to support one combination elementary and high school, and barely enough money for teachers, so the teachers they did have tended to have a lot of job security.

The high school history teacher was generally a good teacher and a reasonable person, but apparently had a bug up his ass about one particular topic. At the beginning of each quarter, he'd explain to the classes he was teaching that time travel was not real, we were not to mention time travel in response to any question, and referring to time travel in any way in homework or a test would be an automatic "F."

In 10th grade, a new kid, I'll call him Steve, transferred into the school because his dad was working at the government installation, in the middle of the quarter. Everything was fine for a couple of weeks, new kids were excitement in our tiny school.

Then one day our history class was learning about an event in Ancient Greek history. And Steve raises his hand. Turned out that when he was a kid, his family had lived down the road from Rip Hunter and his crew, and Steve had gotten to hang out with Mr. Hunter's teenage assistant Corky a few times with other small boys, and Corky had told them about going to that particular event, and what really happened was--

The history teacher, of course, was rapidly building up fury. I could see his cheeks turning red and almost could see steam comiing out of his ears. Just as Steve was getting to the good part of the story, something about disguised aliens, the teacher erupted. He told Steve in no uncertain terms that there was no such thing as time travel, never had been and never would be, and that Rip Hunter in particular was a fraud and con artist who bilked investors by making up wacky stories and forging artifacts.

Steve, as any sixteen year old with a bit of worldly assurance might, pushed back, trying to defend Rip Hunter's honor. This became a shouting match and Steve got sent to the principle's office.

From what I heard later, Steve's father was called, and he allowed that while, yes, his family had lived down the road from Rip Hunter's land, he himself had never met the man and certainly never saw any proof of time travel, and Corky might have been telling tall tales to impress the younger boys. Still, he disagreed with the history teacher's getting angry about it.

Steve was silent and fuming in history class from then on, and his family got reassigned during the summer.

So, question, how does your field of history handle claims of time travel?

This sort of gets onto a larger question as to how my field is seen by more "established" historical fields. In short: Not well.

To fully lay out my credentials. I have a Bachelor's in Superhero Studies with a Minor in Political Geography. My focus in both is respectively the Golden Age from 1938-1950 and Ethnic Demographics within Modern Nation States.

I am a Historian. My job is to examine historical facts through primary and secondary sources and provide the best possible window from the present to the past through the lens of truth. Whether more "academic" historians feel that my specialization is valid or not is neither my problem nor my concern.

The idea that the champions and defenders who have utterly altered our view of the world aren't "relevant" enough to be taken into the curve of history as a force in and of themselves strikes me as a DEEPLY reactionary and incurious one. So let us get one thing deeply, UNMISTAKABLY clear. Time Travel is real. Anyone who insists it isn't would have to explain a LOT of otherwise totally inexplicable things.

(Rip Hunter and his Time Masters, showing off their Time Sphere at the Cave Carson Scientific Expo. Corky is the young redhead in the middle)

Rip Hunter and his crew are time travelers. They travel through time, into the past and the future with the help of a miraculous machine. Like something out of a Jules Verne novel.

How does my field "handle" these claims? The first tool on any good scientist's rack. Occam's Razor.

Which is more likely. That these four are able to, on dozens of different occasions, all over the world, perfectly replicate lost artifacts to the point that even lifelong archeologists are unable to falsify them. Provide directions to seemingly lost ruins that no one could have possibly known about ahead of time, those ruins themselves HOLDING evidence of their presence sometimes millennia in the past, and consult on paleontological and historical discoveries that were unknown or even untheorized but just so happen to line up EXACTLY to their observations once studied? Or that they can time travel.

Once is suspicious. Perhaps they stumbled upon the ruin and are defacing it to cash in before unveiling it to the world. Maybe they DID find the artifact but not where they said they did. Maybe they happened upon a fossil that explains dinosaur anatomy to them in a totally new way. Once. Twice. Three times. Do you know how many papers have their names on them? Go ahead, if you still have access to your college library, go check. Only count the ones that are unique discoveries, I had to for a paper.

4527. As of when I graduated in 2018. Nearly 5000 historical, archeological or evolutionary discoveries that began because they showed up, submitted a report about what they saw and then led experts directly to the evidence.

There is not enough luck in the WORLD, to luck upon discipline redefining dinosaur skeletons 5000 times.

And they're the easiest example but there are more. How did the Seven Soldiers show up, out of the blue, 40+ years after their disappearance without any of these very hard living men having physically aged more than 5.

The Vigilante has no secret ID anymore. We know its the same guy, so I would like your history teacher to tell me, to my face, how world famous country western artist Greg Saunders vanished in 1947 and showed up decades later looking identical to the cover of his last album. The pictures are not hard to compare, he was selling out Madison Square Garden. Any other skeptics in the crowd are free to answer either of these questions, I am always in the running to be proven wrong.

"Booster...I... I'm sorry... I was trying to teach you. I was only trying to make you understand-- The Joker is always going to win... We can't change it. We never could. Rex and Supernova had nothing to do with what happened to Barbara Gordon. There was no abnormal wormhole around that event in her life. It's solified time, Booster. Just like the dead of Ted Kord. That's a moment in solified time too. Anything from the present on back cannot be changed... Barbara Gordon was always destined to be paralyzed and become the cyber-crimefighter called Oracle. That's the way it was supposed to be. The Joker will always shoot Barbara Gordon. No matter how many times you go back, you won't be able to win. We're only risking your life."

Thank you! I'm really sorry it took sooo long. Here you go now, though.

This is self-made. Date: 16.11.2024

OFC = Original Female Character

I assume no guarantee or liability for the completeness, correctness and accuracy of this chart despite my best efforts.

Includes fanfictions in all languages available on Ao3, NOT English only.

Percentages were rounded up or rounded down to natural numbers for easier comprehension.

Poly ships were included.

More charts will follow. :)