"EdAugusts" <AugustsBks@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:5311202f-df98-4f58-a70e-5b796927046f@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> It seems reasonable that if we place suggestions relevant to a future
> society onto a forum where such messages will be archived for the next
> 300 to 400 years, i.e, anything which Google can get ahold of and
> index, that future potential time travelers may be inspired by such
> messages to go back in time to the places we suggest. Why? Because in
> the future, as technology for time travel is perfected, past messages
> regarding future time travel will become noteworthy, in a society
> focused on time travel, and will be diligently studied.
>
> For example. I recently wrote a story in which a person writes a
> story and posts it on a Sci-Fi forum such as this one, with the
> intention of influencing future time travelers. I should write this in
> the first person, since I'm the one who both wrote the story and
> appear in the story.
>
> I strongly urged, (and although I'm repeating myself in this Post, I
> know further urging won't be necessary), that future time travelers
> consider the wisdom of going back to a time about 260 million earth
> years ago, ten million years before the major mass extinction that
> occurred +-250 M years ago, and to bring back with them a few
> (living) Ammonites, or genetic material with which to hatch new
> Ammonites in their "future" laboratory. These creatures are probably
> well-known to you as the ancient precursors of the more modern
> Chambered Nautilus, Squid and Octopus. The Ammonites were a prolific
> feature of the ancient Devonian and Ordovician seas and coastal
> waters. In one form, in which they vaguely resembled the modern
> 'tooth' shell, they grew to a length of 6 to 8 feet. In another, a
> more snail-like shell housed a sea creature which was could be between
> 5 and 10 pounds in weight.
>
> I strongly pleaded in my message that taking a few Ammonites, which
> would, in their native habitat, shortly go extinct anyway, they would
> be im****ting a new bountiful source of protein to help feed their
> future population!
>
> That same afternoon, not more than one hour after I posted this
> message, I was walking down 16th Street toward the corner of Valencia,
> in San Francisco's Mission District, and was drawn to a restaurant I'd
> never noticed before. There was a fence that had gone up half way out
> into the sidewalk in front of a storefront, with ony a tiny entrance
> into the store, but I was confronted with a hand and fingers on a
> black-on-white sign pointing toward the door. Just as I glanced in
> that direction, a short Asian man stood at the door and beamed with
> recognition, though I don't remember ever having seen him before, and
> he smilingly gestured me inside, in such a way that I, quite bemused
> and wondering what this was all about, couldn't say no. This was a
> tiny restaurant indeed, I thought, as I was taken to a private booth
> in back by a silk-clad and very slender waitress.
>
> I received a pot of tea and a glass of ice water, and was expecting to
> look at a menu and choose my meal. But instead a Chinese blue-and-
> white patterned bowl was brought to me, and when I removed the top, a
> white, slightly luminous, hot, steaming fish presented itself. But it
> was not of the same texture as a fish, it was more like.. a giant
> scallop. But it didn't taste like a scallop, as I was forced to use a
> knife and form on it instead of chopsticks, it tasted more like
> abalone... a giant two-pound chunk of abalone... the biggest abalone
> in the world!
>
> My mind began swimming and I nearly lost consciosuness, and perhaps
> did, in fact, faint dead away, as I realized that I had bitten into
> the hot, steamy meat of what could only an Ammonite, bred from
> Ammonites retrieved from Devonian seas by time travelers from the
> future, who had doubled-back in their own ineffable way, to treat me
> to a taste of Ammonite steak, doubtless thanking me for having posted
> that item about Ammonites on a group which would be archived for
> hundreds and hundreds of years on Google and Google's successors, to
> the date, in the distant future, when time travel, in a depleted and
> care-worn world, had become an absolute necessity.
>
> When I woke up, I was standing propped up against a concrete wall in a
> little alleyway just off 16th Street, no more than 50 feet from where
> I'd been munching on the white meat of an ancient Ammonite steak..I
> felt a "buzz" of a feeling throughout my body, and warily walked
> toward the sidewalk and traffic. The fence around the store was gone,
> and I peered through the window at a Vietnamese restaurant, much
> different from the place it had been, a few moments before... I
> realized I'd been tricked, but it was a good trick. I went into the
> restaurant and sat down and glanced at their menu.
>
> "Do you have Ammonite on your menu?" I asked the dumpy little
> waitress.
> "OH! a...moan-ite?" She briefly looked puzzled and made a toothy
> face. "No, no, here, here, look on the menu. I be back!"
> I was half expecting that I'd wandered into a world that had Ammonite
> steak on its menus, but now I knew I was back in contem****ary San
> Francisco, and Ammonites hadn't gotten onto any menus, not yet, nor
> had they existed in 250,000,000 years.
>
> I was quite hungry that day in San Francisco and appreciate the fine
> meal I got, delivered to me by mischievous, delighted time travelers,
> who let me know, by their actions, that THE FUTURE WOULD BE JUST
> FINE. And, that obviously, we would survive so that the future could
> come about. With no visible evidence of actual time travel, however,
> we might sometimes doubt what the future holds. But they've assured
> me, by delivering that "Surprise" Ammonite steak dinner, that the
> future is in good hands, and that Ammonites, as well as humans, will
> persist into future millennia. Now I am in a slightly different jam,
> I would love time-traveling friends to pay me another visit, and I
> know that THEY know, what I need, since they can look back on my
> whole life from their future viewpoint, and will do a little something
> to help out!
>
> --Ed Augusts
> http://www.edaugusts.com
>
Why be a piker? Go back 4-500 million years and get all kinds of
gourmet items. And you wouldn't have to shell them.
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