Editing 1617: Time Capsule
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | [[Cueball]] is watching [[Ponytail]] who | + | {{incomplete|Created by a BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page.}} |
+ | [[Cueball]] is watching [[Ponytail]] who have unearthed a {{w|time capsule}}, that must have been buried in the ground many years ago. | ||
− | + | A time capsule is a historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists or historians. | |
− | Beret Guy | + | However, when she manages to open the capsule [[Beret Guy]] turns out to have been hiding inside while the capsule has been buried. It turns out that he has mixed up the purpose of a {{w|Time travel|time machine}} and a time capsule; when Ponytail asks him where he came from he tells her: ''The past! I traveled here in this time machine.'' |
− | + | He cannot explain how he got there, but he claims that he could not have prevented this. This is a reference to the fact that you cannot avoid being pushed forward through time, see [[1524: Dimensions]]. Beret Guy has also previously traveled to the future in a similar manner, see [[209: Kayak]]. | |
− | + | Beret Guy claims he has been eating newspapers to survive; newspaper clippings are a stereotype of time capsules. He also managed to live underground in the time capsule, which would typically be an airtight sealed box, for what must be assumed to be a at least several years. Although some time capsules are meant to be opened after just a few years (10 or 25 years for instance) the plan should be that is is not opened for at least several years after it is created. So this comic is one more example of the [[:Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy|strange powers of Beret Guy]] - i.e. living by eating paper and without breathing oxygen. But he has before displayed patience enough to sit still for five years in [[1088: Five Years]]. | |
− | + | Beret Guy mentions he got inside his "time machine" to attempt an assassination of {{w|Adolf Hitler}}. This is a common trope in speculative fiction, a way to try to prevent the {{w|second world war}}. | |
− | + | Since he actually did not travel anywhere, but just let time pass, he did not get back to a time before Hitler died, and thus Ponytail can tell him that Hitler has been dead for a long time; at the time of this comics release for 70 years. So in the comic it is presumably at least this long ago, if the capsule was opened on the day of the release, maybe longer if this comic is set in the future. This fact does not bother Beret Guy, as he just realizes his job has already been done. What he thus fails to realize, is that he was supposed to kill Hitler before he got the second world war started. This was the same type of failure made by [[Black Hat]] in [[1063: Kill Hitler]]. Black Hat did actually travel 67 years back in time and killed Hitler, sadly it was in the last days of the war in 1945 just before Hitler would have died anyway, so it had no effect on history either (and the time machine was a one shot thing...) | |
− | Time machines | + | When he finds out that his job is done he asks Ponytail if they should not get some sandwiches. It is a known feature of Beret Guys that he likes bakers and bread. Though not specifically sandwiches. Realizing he is in the future he suddenly becomes aware that this concept may have been forgotten, and he asks if they still exist in this future. This is a reference to another comic where Megan has traveled through time in the same way as Beret Guy (by traveling 1s ahead for every 1s passing...) See [[630: Time Travel]]. |
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+ | In the title text Beret Guy becomes afraid that he will now disappear because he has changed the future in a way so he would no longer exist. This fear comes into him because he losses his sight, but it turns out it was just his beret that fell into his eyes. The fear is of course baseless since he traveled forward not backwards in time, and you can only change the future (or the present) by going back in time, and then experience the difference by going back to your starting point later in time. | ||
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+ | A typical example would be to go back and kill you parents before you were born (or just prevent them from falling in love as in the movie {{w|Back to the future}}). This creates a paradox, where you will never be born, and thus seize to exist. Of course the paradox is that you could thus not have prevented your birth in the first place, if you did not already exist. | ||
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+ | Time machines has been referenced in many xkcd comics, see the [[:Category:Time travel|Time travel category]]. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[Cueball | + | :[Cueball and Ponytail have just dug out a time capsule. A shovel is stuck in the ground next to a heap of dirt on the right side of the hole they dug in the ground. Cueball is standing on the other side and Ponytail is in the hole, proceeding to lift up the lid of the box that makes up the time capsule.] |
:Ponytail: All right, let's open the time capsule. | :Ponytail: All right, let's open the time capsule. | ||
− | :[Slight zoom in on Ponytail and the box, | + | :[Slight zoom in on Ponytail and the box, of which Beret Guy comes out, revealing that he was inside all along.] |
:Beret Guy: Hi! | :Beret Guy: Hi! | ||
:Ponytail: Where did you come from?! | :Ponytail: Where did you come from?! | ||
:Beret Guy: The past! I traveled here in this time machine. | :Beret Guy: The past! I traveled here in this time machine. | ||
− | :[Frame widens to include Cueball, in the same position as in the first frame | + | :[Frame widens to include Cueball, in the same position as in the first frame.] |
:Cueball: How did you... '''''get''''' here from the past? | :Cueball: How did you... '''''get''''' here from the past? | ||
:Beret Guy: I dunno. I couldn't '''''not'''''. | :Beret Guy: I dunno. I couldn't '''''not'''''. | ||
− | :Cueball: But... what did you | + | :Cueball: But... what did you eat? |
:Beret Guy: Newspapers, mostly. | :Beret Guy: Newspapers, mostly. | ||
− | :[Zoom in again | + | :[Zoom in again on Ponytail and the box, Beret Guy still in it and now holding a hammer.] |
:Beret Guy: Anyway, I'm here to kill Hitler. | :Beret Guy: Anyway, I'm here to kill Hitler. | ||
:Ponytail: But he died long ago! | :Ponytail: But he died long ago! | ||
:Beret Guy: Oh, good! That was easy. | :Beret Guy: Oh, good! That was easy. | ||
:Beret Guy: Want to get sandwiches? | :Beret Guy: Want to get sandwiches? | ||
− | :Beret Guy: | + | :Beret Guy: Do you still have sandwiches? |
{{comic discussion}} | {{comic discussion}} | ||
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[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] | ||
[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]] | ||
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[[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]] | [[Category:Strange powers of Beret Guy]] | ||
[[Category:Time travel]] | [[Category:Time travel]] | ||
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