Author Archives: Bjorn Schey

Not to be confused with “The Philosophy of Time Travel“.

Aboot a year ago I wrote some musings about time travel and its implications here.

I like what I wrote there, and I stand by it, as much as it is possible to stand by such nonsense. Last night during Outstanding Vessel XLIV  some friends and I had a funny thought:  The only group who have yet to harness the power of time travel is the NFL. It guards this secret closely and uses it only for the judging of too-close-to-call plays.

How I imagine this would work is thus:  Close play occurs, refs talk it over. if the play is under review, the head ref goes to his enclosed “camera booth” and pinpoints the location to have been standing to know definitively the outcome of the play. Once the location is determined, he is transported back in time to that exact spot, and carefully re-witnesses the play. Upon its conclusion he is automatically transported back to the booth in live time and emerges with the correct call. Everybody back home is happy.

However, the dimension that he just visited is immediately thrust into chaos. Millions of Americans who just witnessed a man appear and disappear on the football field are questioning their existence and calling their congressperson. In order to protect their secret, the NFL installed self destruct mechanisms on not only the time travel equipment but within everyone who knows about the system. Tiny capsules attached to the aortas of the ceos and all the referees of the league release a toxin that administers death immediately, painlessly, and in a manner that will resemble the heart attack that they were all slated to perish from anyways. The time travel equipment explodes in fiery booms of plutonium and flux capacitance.  The world, or should i say, A world is thrust into a disastrous spiral, likely ending in cannibalism and bad attitudes.

But at least we got the call right.