Looking back at our years,

[nadinbrzezinski]

from the vantage point of the far future. Like 3345. Events such as the election of George Bush are minor, when compared to the first colony on Mars (and the date I chose for the first manned mission is within NASA's projections).

It is always exciting to try to figure out what would matter to a regular Joe looking at us the same way we look at the Middle Ages. I do not think the 2000 theft will matter that much (well except maybe to one of the factions).

[Tsiyu]

1. People are always interested in socio-economic strata

"If I were a regular Josie in 2013, what would my life have been like?"

I guess if that's your question, you would be interested in the main industries of the time, in the levels of income among classes, in the minimum wage, in the sorts of jobs people did and the fashions they wore. What were their budgets like? How did they decorate? What were their forms of energy and transportation and medicine?

How did they court, mate, deliver kids, raise kids and educate kids? What rites of passage did they carry out?

So many things people like to know about when in museums have very little to do with key people or events, but concern those mundane daily activities.

I think ACA will be remembered as an historic change in the US health care system, and I think Obama's historic election and re-election will be defining events when we are viewed from the future.


Interesting to ponder, nadin

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I don't think the US of the ACA will be more important

Than Eleanor of Aquitaine is to us.

One of the factions I am creating might a tad more. But that would be for the extremely well educated in ancient Terran history.

[Tsiyu]

3. Well, when we look back at FDR both during depression,

and post depression, we think "Social Security begins." We do remember social programs.

Although everything depends on the history being taught to your characters in a fictional scenario. So, yeah, think the way they would think. Question what they would question.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. My time line properly starts on January 1, 3345

Things like the development of the first space drive, I can see among the well educated elite. I mean, you do need those to get between solar systems. The ACA, not really. In fact, the only reason why one faction sort of remembers the US, the way we remember Greece, is that they consider themselves a democracy. Are they? That be up for debate. Pericles, we sort of remember, Thucydides, not so much, for example.

By the way, what is Eleanor of Aquitaine known for? Social security, the ACA, the Battle of Gettysburg... the last one will survive. We are far better at preserving military history than other types of history.

[Tsiyu]

5. A lot can happen in 1331 years!

There could be changes we can't even fathom, like the difference between 683 AD and now.


They'd freak if they saw iPads and smartphones way back when.

And Prius' and HumVees.

And Kevlar and Automatic weapons

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. All that would be magic to them

and that is my point. What matters to us is truly not going to be relevant that far into the future, assuming the species survives that is. Science fiction is truly a parable of the present, since none of us can truly predict the future, So we are making comments on the present.

But when creating a credible time line I need to look at what we consider important from yes, Ancient Greece and Rome and the dark ages, and extrapolate as to what might be historic markers for our friends in the future.

So while I will use familiar technology (yes Tablets and memory sticks, and even cash), in reality what would be common tech that far in the future is not something I can predict. What I can is the kind of social unrest that led to the need to leave the nest faster than we can say that, so yes, global climate change is a critical historic event, and I believe it will be a critical event as well. So I am pepering the early timeline, our present, with things like the UN climate report just released by the UN.

[SheilaT]

7. Sometimes, when someone says that the obvious

proof that time travel is never invented is that if it had been, we'd have lots of time travellers amongst us. I say, What if time travel isn't invented for a thousand, or five thousand, or even thirty thousand years? Time travellers might not be at all interested in visiting our particular time, or if they did they'd be paying attention to things that interest the from that distant future, and in a way that means we'd never notice they were here from the future.

I also have a hypothesis that Our Lady of Fatima was really a time traveller from the future with a time machine that didn't work very well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. That is an interesting take

my view, assuming my future time line had time travel (it is theoretically possible given the physics I am using) I suspect they would be interested in what led to the brane drive, not our daily tribulations.

Now I will have to read her warnings with that in mind, thanks.