You’re teleported to 44 BCE Rome in your everyday street clothes. You’re brought before Caesar and he believes you might be from the future, hoping to bring him fortune. One day he questions you, asking “How Do I Die?”
tv shows with time travel organizations/bureaus/police/agencies/whatever should have a department with instead of a tech genius eating candy, it’s a harried seamstress or fashion designer who is like
“1450 italy? does it look like I have the time to dye you wool? nO. YOU’RE GOING TO THE 1980s”
and throws shoulder pads at the hapless time agent
“I literally made three- THREE- 18th century corsets last week. You can wait until one of them gets back, or you can go sometime post-1920s, because if I have to sew one more god damn channel I will literally lose my mind.”
“Upper middle class?!?!? You told me upper class! FUCK YEAH THERE’S A DIFFERENCE!!!”
“How about kimoNO.”
“Look me in the eyes. I do not care what you want. This is the 1500s. You absolutely cannot wear trousers.”
“Another court gown?? Here’s a novel idea: go as a peasant for once in your life. Why do you do this to me? You’re fucking sadists that’s why.”
“Don’t mind me, I’ll just be up all night hand painting silk.”
“THE POLICY IS ONE MONTH’S ADVANCE NOTICE ON PRE-1900s WOMEN’S FASHION FOR A REASON, DEBRA.”
I had a dream I was able to time travel and I went like 10,20,100,1000,2000 years into the future but the instant I went to 4,000 I got stuck in a time dilation jail set up by the American government in the year 3,877 in which anyone that tried to time travel back or forth across May 23, 3877 while on Earth would end up stuck in this time dilation chamber trap to stop time travelers but like it was so crazy and mismanaged because it was legit capturing like every single time traveler ever and the place had only been open for 12 minutes and was already getting overpopulated with nonstop multiple recursive instances of this one other guy trying to break previous versions of himself out of this god damn time traveler jail
that is fucking hysterical and absolutely sounds like something the American Government would set up.
Job opening: Time traveler, must provide own temporal locomotive device.
Request: Return to the Library of Alexandria an hour before the destruction began and secure every book, scroll, and other media.
Paradox prevention: All items will be secured in forbidden and eldritch libraries to allow study but not interference with the flow of time.
Compensation: Name it.
Apply: Before this post was made and after you have completed your task.
Dearest Atticus,
Mission accomplished!
Utilizing a proprietary temporal-tunneling ritual, I and a couple of helpful interns returned to the Musaeum and associated Library circa 40 BCE. Well-glamoured disguises, scrying charms, and paradox-canceling talismans were employed to prevent discovery and subsequent damage to the established timeline.
We hit the indices first to get a proper idea of what we’d be looking for. The language was no barrier, thanks to a good deal of studying, and in a week’s time, we had a healthy checklist, prepared sets of instructions, and several archivists bribed to carry out said instructions over the course of the following five years. (Attached please find an expense slip for ten [10] amphora of wine and associated shipping costs.)
Working within existing Library policies, we successfully installed agents who will, under the auspice of cataloguing and correlating scholarly research, disseminate copies of all existing non-duplicated media to libraries and archives in other locations. The more widespread, the better.
While we cannot vouch for either the longevity of the papyrus or the safety of the duplicate documents once they reach their destinations, we feel that our efforts will at the very least preserve a portion of what the former timeline once called “lost.” The Library of Alexandria lives on…if you know where to look.
In your inbox is a listing of the documents catalogued and their associated locations. With any luck, the duplicates should still exist in the new present day. I have included some steathily-obtained photos as proof of our little venture. I think you will especially enjoy the group selfie with the head archivist.
Aside from the pittance for the wine bribe, which is calculated without accounting for inflation, we ask no compensation for this mission. As a student of history and a lifelong lover of books, I consider it a service to posterity.
Steel Phoenix Studios 