I'd sit for a while and think. Think hard.
Then I'd take a leap of faith and use the time machine to not travel back in time, but travel slowly forwards and then backwards in time, so that inside the machine I had a GOOD WHILE to think again about what it is I'm doing, and how this will play out.
Realize that for every single solitary action, I may erase families, events, people, countries, times, planets, galaxies... entire universes.
Know that maybe somewhere out there, are beings who would gladly wink out of existence if a new version of themselves could enjoy peace, or a significantly better world with a slight Utilitarianist spin if it can't be all Eden.
Assuming it's the time machine that makes new realities and creates 'un-caused causers', I'll plop back out at maybe 5 minutes before I used it, and have two time machines and a new reality me who doesn't know how he should approach this.
I'll talk with him. Convince him I'm not 'evil'. Knowing me, even if I was inherently 'evil' (a sadistic tyrant asshole), I'm still the most reasonable person ever, if you can drive a good point. Which I can, to myself.
So what I'll do is entrust my plan in his mind. Now there are two of me, and we both know what we're doing.
There's no need to fix mistakes that you make the first time around, they make us who we are.
Knowing Evil is knowing Good. Fucking up
that time means you know that you never want to fuck up again, or fucking up
is not so great, then it becomes all relative to what you think is Good for you to be doing.
And then
you can always take the salmon out of the sea and put it back in the pond.We'll get some careful help from some people who might know how this machine works to it's full extent. But because there are two of us, we already have fail-safes.
Should-One-Of-Us-Die, etc. I'll write down everything I know, and copy it at least 16 times, and store it in many places only copies of me, or myself will ever know to find, even if someone tried to think like me, I'd be one step ahead with two heads to think with. Hopefully.
If nothing dire happens, the two machines will still be, and we will still be, and we know the extent, the power of the machines. From now we should know that copies can touch, because I and myself shook hands, and we did not explode or some other awful scenario. And we're also from different realities, so it should hold that we're not exactly the same particles following the exact same events, to a T.
You know, because I came from the 'future' and he saw me do that. He never traveled, etc.
The first thing we need to do before this turns into
Back To The Future, is improve myself and my base of operations. I still have those trustworthy few at my disposal, I've told them more or less what I intend to do and they like the idea, especially because if me and myself touched and did not explode, well... There can't be many paradoxes if we branch out more realities. Even if we're shorthanded when we send one of our own to the 'perfect' scenario copy, we still know they will succeed, and we can too but without all the showboating and unstoppable force. It'll be more of a challenge and we'll have failsafes if we fail. The world might not change much, but it could change if someone was able to be everywhere at once and had another method to deal with things without flying cars.
I've left a safe in a secluded area, and chose a cavern or cave formation on some private property/jungle/tundra/etc. I've studied it's past and made sure by now, and through some other time periods it was relatively untouched by man.
Now I need a third copy. But I and myself know for sure that we know, and he will be one of us 98% of the time, and
he will know what he needs to do.
He needs to test the temporal water and see if the future is still somewhat alright.
He needs to see if we can obtain some kick-ass technology to help us do what we need to do. Maybe, make life easier for anyone in particular.
And, with that, I send him on a cataloging mission to check out all the time periods, and give him permission to make a FEW copies should he need them to do something drastic.
But with that I forbid his machine to travel back to this exact decade or any previous decade, for specific reasons. Unless he comes back and we go with him.
He's not coming back unless he's part of the technology we need. You know, a Cyborg, or an Android copy or something. Anything that will happen in his future is his reality now, and if he can fix it, that's his reality to fix. Not ours, we'll never see that. That will be his goal, afterwards. Or he could kill himself, either way, I don't judge him. You're in upside-down land with no way back.
But Unit # 3 has the ability to send an object back in time, preferably somewhere only -we- know where to look.
A note, a recording. A drawing or diagram/s made of crayons from some poor child's blown up house.
We'll activate a beacon hidden strategically somewhere that will send his machine back in time, when the machine said "Okay, I'm ready to receive the beacon to initiate the time travel asdf because I'm done here".
I'm not sure how it will work. If it's strictly the Un-caused Causer scenario again, there will be a reality of us that did not see him come back. So what will they do?
Don't know. Whatever I would do if I only could make me. Also, when one of the two of me leave, it leaves one of me in that reality. Maybe he kills himself or travels back into the past/future and has his own adventure... but let's focus on the 'Original Timeline Causers'.
Now, Unit # 3 will make a reality where me and me are standing there and I decide at 9:59 PM I'm going to go to the safe and check if there's anything inside. Yep, something in there that wasn't there before. I read it, or look at it briefly. I set the beacon.
Unit # 3 goes back. This time, something was sent but no need to set off the beacon. We'll keep the beacon for later, it could serve as an emergency broadcast if SHTF, or a secret server or something.
So, assuming it goes alright, we get tons of good gear. Information. Power to do things with. Maybe a few laser guns and giant flying ships or mechs, energy shields and cloaking devices and what ever else you can think of.
Then we take into account why these were made, and how they operate. We'll disable every single inter-communications inside any of the technology (say the Mecha operates on an open channel because in the future maybe there's not a fuckton of war where it was, so it was safe to operate on an open frequency. Someone who's crafty could figure that out in the 70=/- decades we might go to.
Let's reconfigure that with our future knowledge of future technology. Make it closed, protected, foolproof for another 3000 years maybe. Oh, and let's make me a cyborg because that means I don't have to go romping around going "OOOOOOH NOOO MY HUMAN MEATS HAVE HOLES IN THEM NOW".
When we are done, it might of taken some time to do that, so let's go back in time to when Unit # 3 (# 300,000,000 in 3's machine?) just came back.
Explain that
I'm here to speed up the process by
myself so you don't have to, and have all the set-up gear already waiting somewhere in the warehouse
you're operating in already.
Cool.
So we set up what will become the SPIRE OF ASDF, or by some other name, and it's got laser turrets and energy shields that stop anything not on the Friend-Or-Foe Identification system, and androids with laser guns or air guns or pacification devices or guns that shoot magnetically accelerated mass or who knows what standing around.
I send one last me through time, with the utmost care, to hide but learn every single mode of human communication, but also to keep up to date with those modes and methods. Then he will report back to me,
and translate for me. I'll probably remove his Ego or install a protocal to limit it effectively and not efficiently (Because we don't want to make him cold and heartless or act without remembering that solving the 'equation' means you fuck up future me enough that we don't exist at any time ever even') should he be an android due to the anguish he might obtain over all that time, he probably will because I can't stand to think about making another time-clone, and if
any copy my mind at any point ever found out it was an android, there is a 95% chance I'd be more than thankful, and a 97% chance I just won't defect because that's both deep and cool as fuck, plus I realize that if there's a flesh me and an artificial me, I'm meant to do something, now. It's probably really important and I don't feel like fucking it up. And I won't get mad about being a copy, it's in my head now that copies become their own individuals, and by that definition they have their own mind, and if souls exist and can be linked to the mind, then it has a soul, anyways.
I don't see me betraying myself unless I wasn't myself, me or the android. You know,
an ass.It's time to test the anti-chaos theory we've been brooding upon all this 'time'.
I'll take command and send out what will become the first army I've ever made/commanded. Take over all communications, only by force the first time, and broadcast a message I'll have recorded earlier. Speak to people, in all the languages I'll have been able to learn/translate into. Send out drones to relay the messages to countries without such technological prowess (Like Televisions big enough for everyone to see). Disable many countries, but also help them. No more war when there are giant spess shieps flyan around and shooting things that shoot back, if not destroying them, then taking away their ability to fire (Like knocking someone out with a high frequency, or flash-bangs, etc. Like a giant Peacekeeping force of robots that actually keep the peace and not stand around and do nothing at all.
We'll coax the world into a better state, expose all the bad things and probably solve them to nothingness. Enlighten them. Have giant teams of people extrapolate things for fun and for enjoyment, and go over every single tidbit of information collected since (not EVERYTHING, but human knowledge, not all of what I've known or else that might compromise my little task force).
Have then connect dots not previously figured out. Create a peaceful Eden for maybe a couple thousand years without leaving the planet, then break it to the descendants who have lost themselves in bliss and instantaneous gratification that the world before them was hell compared to what they are now.
Show them everything, one by one. Carefully, but not slowly.
Set up things to condition people into being teams or forces, scientist, 'extrapolationists' (mathematicians and maybe some physicists and biologists who can figure out what exactly happened, why it happened, how we could make it happen and how that will happen etc), geologists, doctors, surgeons, etc, every single though important profession that will or might exist, but all those people share the common view I might instill;
"Let's not kill each other, we tried that before".
And in no time, I'll have 10 billion beings ready for what I'm about to do.
But first, we go to the stars as we're learning. We collect resources, they won't exist for long anyways. We'll all be gone after this, so let's turn Pluto into a colony of ships capable of punching fine holes in space
but not time. I'll have had most of the time in the world to do things, figure things out for the most part. Someone might get lost, but it's unlikely an anomaly will occur.
I mean, I'm an anomaly in of myself, I time traveled.
Now the population might be over 10 billion, maybe 50. Giant interconnecting Dyson spheres cradling life, in space. The entire solar system, or many systems devoid of life for the time, picked to it's very bone, even the Gas Giants.
Hell, take solar systems with life, and cradle them too. Guide them, Uplift them into this whole thing as we're moving along.
Recycle everything we 'finish using'. Can't afford to waste anything at all.
Use the
Super-Net to relay information before you even knew you did. But... no more memes.
Srs Business Time.Take one more rain check.
Now that we (I, my few clones who decided to be 'immortal', and the original few who helped me and let their descendants
both digital or otherwise succeed them, and some 'ETs" that we brought up into substantial existence) know for sure that we can change things and make new realities. Fix things.
Let's go back to 1990. Field Trip.
Let's make a grand entrance, but change things. Be careful about how we appear to the Earth, then. We don't want to come off as "GOD" or "UFOS OMG" or "EVERYONE DRINK THE KOOL-AID".
But, let's have fun and message people on their Nokia's all over the world. Message forums. Make the stocks spell "Hello" in every language. Tell them, "Watch This!" and then broadcast worldwide everything we did before,
like the first time but altered for the decade, whilst setting 'soldiers' on the ground to ensure nothing goes haywire.
And we'll stay until 2000. But we'll fix the Cold War runoff. Stop it there. Prevent the Gulf War. Prevent the Apartheid. Hell, Prevent or Circumvent everything that involved death or strife, suffering and fear.
From the big things to the little things. Even "He payed me less than 5 cents" little.
Disable propaganda, fix media. Stop Consumerism, Fascism, stop the divisions, bring the world up to speed.
Unite the fuck out of it.
Turn the 90s into the 2150s. Or the 4170s.
Medicine, Information, Optics, Transportation, Agriculture, Philosophy, Science. Blow the lids off of those things.
Now we want to take it one step further. Go back to the 80s- but because we already know what happens to the Un-caused Causers left behind, we'll leave a sufficient self-replicating force behind to ensure that it stays that way, even if it stays that way for the next 20 years after we blink out of their existence.
And we'll keep doing this. 1940s, 1920s, 1850s, 1770s, 1600s, 1540s, over and over. Throughout all of human history until we reach the point at which humans are nothing more than the same common ancestor we all keep referring to.
And for any stray time-travelers, we have fail-safes for them too. We're steps ahead. We took that rain-check.
We'll take this Earth into captivity, then. And interact with anything that could have happened, we don't know for sure, only the Unit I sent back to gather data did. He could be alive or long dead, or stayed behind. He could have known and told us, or not have told us to find out for ourselves, or just not have known. Either way, we'll deal with it. And go further back. Catalog all the Earths, all the life at every stage we deem interesting or revolutionary. Keep them safe, as well. Try not to interfere with some enough to forcefully change them.
Go back to when the Earth was a Proto-Planet. Catalog those instances of the Solar System.
Then, go back to the near beginning of the Universe. Then start the 'experiments'. Altering the state of every Earth, whether molten or crawling with fauna and flora.
And just keep on doing that. A never-ending genesis hive-mind that incorporates what it births right back into itself. Exploring every possibility without vanity or cruel existence.
Giving every possibility and life a chance. Giving rise to life that may not have had a chance before we intervened. Tenfold, because we keep making new realities, too.
Each Dyson Sphere within another encasement made to look as natural as ever. Never the wiser until we tell them that we made them, or that we saw them and guided them to some conclusion(?). But we won't always break it like that, it's somewhat rude.
Each place a sort of alternate reality to another, as well.
Earth 5 with Fishmen living in the water, tribal-style is different from Earth 270-A with Cro-Magnons stumbling around inventing the steam engine, painting using electrostatics from giant water turbines they managed to stabilize, and playing with lens microscopes. And even so, when we keep sending things backwards as blank slates to edit, we make more realities with one or two missing, still alternate to even ourselves.
But in the end I guess what I...
we wanted to do was take the helm of everything and fix it. See what possibilities could arise.
Maybe, make life. Not sure. Make Consciousness, an infinite of peace and knowing at the same time. Or, not knowing and being full of bliss, but not having to know how to do things that lead to the cessation of life.
But that's a long time to be alive. Aware.
Eventually it'd reach an equilibrium in one reality. And that would be fine.
I'll probably have transposed with the rest of what I worked with, who I worked with, into one giant digital neural entity. Maybe I absorb all the mass, all the physical reality, and link it to everything else.
Assimilate everything into one-ness.
Maybe.
I'm almost out of characters so I couldn't go into details about how, methodically, I'd stop things. Like Hitler.
You don't have to kill him. You could kill him when he's all KILL ALL THE JOOS... Or maybe you don't have to. Maybe he's not off his rocker, but consumed by power. Maybe, whether you kill him or not, go back and keep him off the path of, well, that before he grows into the idea.
But again, maybe he's hard-wired to be that kind of monster. We'll never know until we try/tried.
So many unexplained loopholes, but yeah.