this passage

Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.

especially in the context of this bit

Instead, what words would a time traveler or poor Replay victim put in his London Times or Berliner Zeitung or New York Times on January 1, 1900, to find his fellow travelers displaced in time? Auschwitz, I was sure, and Hiroshima and Trinity Site and Holocaust and Hitler and Stalin

made me think that the three words might be 'world war three'. i reckon my guess feels right in light of the the trite nature of the story.

Baz Auckland

23:37 / 28.09.06

...that's just horribly written. I still don't understand how Eurabia comes into existence? Bombings force governments to convert? Or the giant armies of Arabia crossing into Europe? Or Iran somehow nukes all of Europe and imposes Sharia law? I don't get it....

The bit about "Canada being divided into 3 hateful nations" made me laugh though...

8===>Q: alyn

00:08 / 29.09.06

8===>Q: alyn

00:08 / 29.09.06

Am I going to be punished for that?

Tsuga

00:22 / 29.09.06

not if you put an eyepatch on it.

Dead Megatron

00:56 / 29.09.06

I just thought a good three word apocalypse:

Air Force One

Princess

02:41 / 29.09.06

I once had a friend who genuinley thought that the terminator was born in Bethlehem on December 25th.
We've never let her forget how stupid that was.

Kiltartan Cross

06:16 / 29.09.06

"August 29th, 1997"

Shucks, that's six words.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:23 / 29.09.06

"Bette Davies Eyes."

pointless & uncalled for

07:31 / 29.09.06

I'm your father

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:39 / 29.09.06

"Eat my goal."

pointless & uncalled for

Mine's a pint

Fan Dabby Dozy.

Evil Scientist Rules.

We're just sending back time travellers to screw with you.

(You should see the robot monkey-chicken hybrid Quantum sent to Ancient Rome to warn them about the Moon People).

pointless & uncalled for

08:07 / 29.09.06

A failure if only because it could only converse in Mad-Libs.

08:16 / 29.09.06

I'm no historian. Could any more informed member of the board tell me if there are any examples from history (classical or otherwise) where totally slaughtering the shit out of everyone DIDN'T seem like such a good idea, later? Any unjustified genocides? Any appallingly misjudged wastage of human life?
Also, any occasions where something other than a ruthless, murderous pre-emptive smackdown has had a positive and beneficial effect?

If not, than this guy's really on to something.

pointless & uncalled for

08:25 / 29.09.06

The Beothuks comes to mind as probably the first of the First Nations to be needlessly wiped off of the face of the planet.

OK, they weren't completely agressively killed but the damage done and the persistent western influence in Newfoundland resulted in their ultimate extinction in the early 20th century. There are other instance where complete villages of First Nations were killed in one singular act of colonialist agression and because of the tribal nature of these principlally nomadic peoples, this could be construed as an act of genocide, despite being small in numbers.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:35 / 29.09.06

Well, actually, the Melian decree itself was generally looked on as a pretty bad idea in later years, because it made it absolutely clear to anyone who wanted to rebel against Athens that there would be no point in surrendering, and in fact that if you did surrender you would die and an Athenian would have sex with your wife. That's the kind of thing that tends to lead to intransigence among the defenders of a city.

Incidentally, my earlier post on his shoddy history was for some reason largely missing when posted - I've reconstructed it in briefer terms, and once the mods pass it that should cover Syracuse.

paranoidwriter waves hello

08:36 / 29.09.06

Three words

It's your fault.

By the way, isn't this just a story about fear, belief, and responsibility? You know, both men in the story have their beliefs and fantasy's. After all, would you believe a Time Traveller just because he predicted the outcome of a sporting event?

pointless & uncalled for

08:45 / 29.09.06

it absolutely clear to anyone who wanted to rebel against Athens that there would be no point in surrendering, and in fact that if you did surrender you would die and an Athenian would have sex with your wife.

But not a bad idea based on the total destruction of the race or body of people itself then?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:45 / 29.09.06

No, Paranoidwriter. It's Islamophobic propaganda. Next question?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:47 / 29.09.06

If General Nicias or Demosthenes had survived their captivity and returned home, the people who sent them off with parades and strewn flower petals in their path would have ripped them limb from limb. They blamed their own leaders like a sun-maddened dog ripping and chewing at its own belly.

Oh, yeah, that's balls as well. I mean, they might have tried them for incompetence and sentenced them to death, as they did with the generals at the Battle of Arginusae in 406BC, but ripped limb from limb? Bollocks. If Nicias had successfully retreated with his army, he would have gotten home and probably used his family's good relationship with Sparta to broker a peace deal, which might among other things have given the Spartans a reason not to place their trust in Alcibiades, whom they generally and for historical reasons thought was a bit of a cock. So, you know, hindsight.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:50 / 29.09.06

But not a bad idea based on the total destruction of the race or body of people itself then?

I'm not sure I understand the question, Ig. I mean, Melos wasn't genocide - it was policide, to coin an unlovely hybrid. It meant that the city-state of Melos no longer existed. So, if you were a member of another city-state rebelling against Athenian hegemony, the lesson of Melos was that your city-state could not surrender and expect to continue to exist - you and your fellow citizens would be slaughtered and your wives and children sold into slavery. Is that a satisfactory answer?

paranoidwriter waves hello

08:50 / 29.09.06

No, Paranoidwriter. It's Islamophobic propanaganda. Next question?

But the narrator wanted to shoot the bastard, eh? And he hated hearing what the Time Traveller was harping on about. He had a year to think about stuff, to work out good questions to ask, and he just swallowed everything, hook - line - and - sinker.

Propaganda is in the eye of the beholder. This post is propoganda, in a very small, "see p.w isn't a total wanker" type of way. Have you never written a story that someone's taken their own way?

pointless & uncalled for

08:54 / 29.09.06

But there is no lament of the loss of Melos itself here, just the lament of the dawning realisation that the Athenians didn't recognise words like prisoner, subjugation or assimilation and that meant bad news for the observer.

Where's the cries of loss of a rich oral tradition or the absence of a nice little bath house where you could while away a weekend in idle discussion of the affairs of the day.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:56 / 29.09.06

Thinking about it, you could present just as pat an argument for the Syracusan expedition as an argument for withdrawing from Iraq. Nicias originally swelled the troops used far beyond the force Alcibiades proposed, either in an attempt to have the expedition voted down in the Assembly or to provide "shock and awe", and then called for reinforcements rather than abandoning the siege - that is, the Athenians reinforced failure. As a result of this, much of the Athenian force was committed to an unnecessary adventure in a far-off land, fighting "for" people (the Segestans, the Leontinians) who didn't give them adequate support and against people who would not normally have posed a military threat to them or the safety of their citizens. This foreign adventurism led to a cataclysmic military defeat and began the collapse of their preeminence among the Greek states.

Do. You. See?

pointless & uncalled for

09:03 / 29.09.06

But the narrator wanted to shoot the bastard, eh? And he hated hearing what the Time Traveller was harping on about.

And why did he want to do that?

He had a year to think about stuff, to work out good questions to ask, and he just swallowed everything, hook - line - and - sinker.

No he didn't.

The initial visit was so that the time traveller could demonstrate proof of concept. The poc only comes into play at the second visit which is when the narrator is given the "vision of the future". The year inbetween is largely irrelevant other than the attempted significance of the dates upon which the stories occur. No information or allusion of the subject matter covered on the second visit is given on the first. How on earth could a person ever be expected to detemine good questions when the subject matter is unknown?

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