Time Travel Disaster Tourism! - Ep. 18 of Intentionally Blank
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- Brandon and Dan talk about really bad story ideas including alternate dimension time travel disaster tourism and workshop them out of terribleness(?) that leads to a discussion about where they would go in time, if they could. This, unsurprisingly, leads to a tangent about general travel, tourism, and food.
You can join the discussion and vote for your favorite podcast title at r/sanderson: / sanderson
Can be listened to almost everywhere podcasts can be found.
Produced by Adam Horne
Sound engineering and editing by Daniel Thompson
Am I a terrible writer for thinking Brandon’s original terrible idea sounded like a great premise for a story? I would be excited for that idea
I think it would be better as a roleplaying game, computer or tabletop
@@TerrificRallyMaestro yeah, this really does sound like a really fun RPG.
There was also a 1999 TV movie called Thrill Seekers where evidence of disaster tourists is found via an itinerary lost by one of them. The modern day characters then try to prevent a disaster from the itinerary.
It sounds like a bad anime made by a new studio with very limited budget
Yeah I would too and I'm a wannabe writer.
This Brandon guy sure has some good ideas, he should write a book or two
I don't think he'd make it tbh
Gotta support your starving artists
You think? I don't know if I would read it
He will probably write very slow
Ha, a writer? You mean unemployed, amirght?
At this point I’ve become convinced that Brandon has been cursed to sign his name in books for all eternity. #SaveSanderson
It’s like Sisyphus, except instead of the boulder rolling back down the hill when he reaches the top, he finishes signing all the books just in time for his next book to get published.
@@bryceallen And it might come to a point a NON-signed book might be worth more! 😅
I am realizing that every episode, Brandon is doing something and Dan is not. Give the man a Lego set or something so he has something to do! (Ha, ha, ha!)
And have a "Dan's showcase" at the end with the episode's masterpiece
I fully support this comment.
Miniature painting might be a good fit for Dan.
Actually, it's a conversation, so, speaking is what you're supposed to do.
If it wasn't Brandon signing his books with Dan's aknowledgement/ authorization, it's highly impolite to double task in these conditions.
@@ChristmasLore how to say youve never been around someone with attention issues without saying youve never been around someone with attention issues
Brandon said in one of his lectures that there’s no bad ideas, just ideas executed badly, so I think this is a great idea
Before Brandon mentioned that the time travel takes you to an alternate timeline, my thought was that the protagonist was being sent to the titanic in order to stop someone from preventing the titanic’s sinking, because that would lose the time travel tourist company money.
Love that idea. Is the guy trying to save the titanic working for anyone? Does he profit somehow off of saving the titanic?
@@zcbmadgjlqetuoable Maybe by using some sort of Psychohistory process he was able to predict that if the titanic survived it would set off a string of interconnecting endless dominos that in the future would culminate with him like becoming the supreme leader of the world.
Or it could be something simple like the titanic savior being from a rival company, maybe in the future companies can own historical events (like someone may own the rights to the Russian Revolution so you can only travel back to the Russian Revolution with the owners position), and the titanic sinking is a big money maker so the titanic savior is trying to ruin this rival companies revenue stream.
A suggestion for the time travel idea: Instead of preventing/causing/observing a historical disaster, the team is hunting down unknown historical serial killers. If they manage to unmask Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac Killer they get fabulous cash prizes while the other team is trying to stop them. Maybe someone on the other team likes Jack the Ripper a little too much...
Could be a good Dan Wells story!
Every week I get excited when I see the name of the podcast hasn't changed
“They can earn cool things when they do things the audience loves”
That’s just hunger games lol
Didn’t they do this in Running Man too?
we're encroaching on hunger games irl
@@michaelgilson7959 I think it's mostly just guessing which hero will make a kill and the audience wins prizes. Kinda like The Kill is Right.
A big twist would be :"The new gameshow with the best VR and AI available, now live on your TV!", but the mid season twist is, that it is actually a parallel dimension and all the people are real. People on the outside realize this and try to inform the teams. But even with the info out, the players are so paranoid...
There was a moment in the podcast where Brandon said "What if we just play it straight?" while Dan was going on about his plans for a story, that so perfectly captured the dynamic at certain moments between me and my friends when we're talking about our ideas. It was great to see it reflected in Brandon and Dan.
I watched all of your previous episodes this week, in reverse order. Definitely recommended.
Seeing you open the paper airplanes without context first, then episodes later seeing the offhanded comment about sending them via airplanes. This and seeing several other inside jokes evolve in reverse order, very entertaining.
I do really love the idea of thief traveling back into time to steal items of great value, but only doing so in areas before disasters like Pompeii or the Titanic and leaving them in the past where he can dig them up in his own time. I guess the twist would be that someone was able to track where he was and steal his entire stash after all of the work or something along those lines
Maybe an alternate twist in this case could be that he brought something terrible from the past with his treasures, like a horrible disease, or when he comes back he realises his actions caused his treasures to not have any value anymore... Like his own actions caused his defeat in some way
@@melkerahtagadatsoin-tsoin6016 THATS WAAAY BETTER
This pod is becoming a fixture of my work week. Love it!
The time travel idea would work amazingly as a faux reality gameshow limited series. So we're literally introduced to all of the 'contestants' and follow their journey, and then there are also actors for the actual people in the past.
As someone else said, you could then do other disasters 🤩
I’m so excited for Book 2!
1:35 "There arent enough boats for everyone! Its like there are more passengers than we booked!"
So Mr. Sanderson, had you already written A Frugal Wizards Guide at this point?
Scanned the comments for something like this. I think this is the genesis of some of the ideas for it. Alternate dimension time travel? Cutting to advertisements?! I'm only halfway through the video so far. :D
The initial premise absolutely matches "Thrill Seekers", a 1999 movie with Casper Van Dien and Catherine Bell. Once they start throwing out ideas that quickly changes of course.
Also, Dan, as a resident of Berlin:
I have a burning desire to time travel tour the Hindenburg disaster.
I feel like you wouldn't appreciate the gravity of the situation
I feel like he kind of wrote the idea in the beginning in Wizard's handbook
I've never actually heard anybody give a religious answer when asked where they would go if they went back in time, except for one time when my atheist friend jokingly said the crucifixion
The most common one I hear is the creation of Adam and eve or the resurrection of Jesus.
My answer was to go back during Biblical times to document it and find out that it is very different from the Bible. Working title is "Sola Time Travel".
@@chiokjarse There's the J. J. Benítez's
"Trojan Horse" Saga (Caballo de Troya, since he's Spanish) There's even aliens involved, or something like that. I never finished the books but my father kinda loved the saga due to the writing style.
I would 100% read this book.
16 minutes in and I'm thinking 'there's a time traveler from this dimension who has travelled back in time to do something and it's messing up the game, but also he's not exactly a bad guy because it's HIS universe he's trying to change the timeline of'. So you have the two teams of the game, the shadowmen who enforce the game, and this other time traveler who's indigenous to this universe all on the ship.
"Since... The THING that happened..."
What an awesome way to remember that people can't say certain words in here, just like a dystopian novel haha
Like the time travel “game show” aspect. Audience participation could allow each team to either receive pre-chosen awards/tools or punishments. So, you’re team maybe gets only part of the tools they need to complete the job…?
Could also use the “doing it for the views” angle of individual streamers on UA-cam. A UA-camr devises this “We’re in an alternate universe where I’ve secretly placed cameras all over the Titanic - will I be able to save it?” And a competing channel tries to sabotage it!
Should also check out the Netflix series on Dark Tourism - it’s a trip!
Rather than make it a Hunger Games style game show, my twist would be that the time travel tourists don't know who else is on their team, and they accidentally recruit one of the regular people from the alternate timeline to help the prevent the disaster. One or two time travelers are unable to connect with the group and decide to solve it all on their own. Both groups set things up that accidentally get in each other's way, and hijinks ensue.
I love that idea of recruiting one of the normal people. And they just go along with it because they are bored and want to enable this crazy person's time travel delusion. Could even be a fun idea in reverse, where the main character is enabling some crazy person, then ends up getting zapped back to this different timeline where they now must win this game show in order to return to their original timeline.
I have to admit that I have a really difficult time suspending disbelief for dystopias that are laughably implausible, unless that’s the point.
I love these podcasts:D They are great entertainment while I relax and play FFXIV, always inspire me to write/work on my own story, and I'm now interested in reading Unwind as well. I love hearing you both tell your stories about experiences abroad. The Amsterdam story was heartwarming and I'm glad I googled the Bolivian chola buildings! Thank you for taking the time to include us all in your conversations:)
Guys the time travel disaster tourism movie already exists. It came out in the early 90s starring Jeff Daniels. It’s called Grand Tour: Disaster in Time. It’s actually a really good film.
The book was under our noses the entire time!!!!
No kidding
You guys are so much fun to listen to. Good clean entertainment, and thought provoking conversation!
Brandon, you should visit Aruba-- lots of windsurfing and activities like that, Dutch-influenced food, warm water that's calm on the leeward side of the island and more rough on the windward side.
12:20 Only the team trying to save the Titanic knows the return portal is broken
I had a mega connection with Brandon with that Amsterdam joke, as the same joke came to me from Dan's phrasing. I even thought "Is Amsterdam even the capital?" afterwards.
It is 👍 (I’m Dutch)
Brandon Sanderson would love Toronto for the food options and the culture. 100%
There’s a great Czech movie called “Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Burn Myself With Tea” that features a company that does time travel event/disaster tourism. It’s great and funny. Think might even be on UA-cam.
I believe a game show host would sell the concept. Imagine a very enigmatic character with a permanent smile. He works primarily as comedic relief, so that his voice doesn’t get tiresome or seem like it interrupts anything. Eventually as the story progresses, the jovial aspect of him gets creepier as the reader starts to learn that the audience takes entertainment in darker ways than originally expected. At the very end of the first book, you discover this was all being watched by the true main character. He comes from one of the abused alternate universes. It’s a story about consequences and our curious tendency to allow entertainment to make us calloused.
The second book would then be the story of that character taking revenge upon the network by exposing just how real all the blood that was spilt was and still is. The world reacts in multiple ways, many at first unwilling to let go of its antiquity. This could end with an arena fight between a terrifying representative of the company who ran the game show, and the main character in gladiatorial combat in order to cement the theme.
I can see the title now: Sink the Titanic Any% Run Tactical Nuke Glitch!
Just letting you both know that there are 2 episodes listed as number 17. Love the podcast, keep up the good work!
For some reason, this talk about time travel and altering events made me think of the game "Remember Me". It's not quite the same, since there is no actual time travel, but you can manipulate people's memories of certain events to your favour or search them for important hints. It's a great game, but unfortunately it also suffers from wasted potential.
I've answered the where would you go question before. If I only had a short time and I couldn't mess with anything without changing the timeline, I think it would be fun to get in the first showing of Star Wars and just watch everybody's brains collectively explode. :D
I'm a big video game fan, and its interesting to see that sort of "imagine a video game" conversation, but in the context of a narrative. The mechanics of a story and how to workshop it into a balanced piece of fiction is probably disturbingly similar to the arguments I've gotten into about how to tweak my favorite games. Its definitely fun, and cathartic but I feel that in the same way you drifted off to talking about travel...that unless you're willing to get in the trenches and really make it work, its just a fun activity until your energy is spent and your time spending is up.
I also recommend Puerto Vallarta. I've spent a couple of months there, and it's by far the best place I've visited to relax and be left alone with good food, good weather, and where a most of the people working there speak fluent English.
It's just hot as hell. Brandon has a bit of insulation so he might not enjoy it that much. Casa Anita on Airbnb has the best view I've seen in the entire city, it's right off the malecón, which is a strip right off the beach, it has good AC, two bedrooms, and the host is really cool. It's also far enough from the three big clubs in a row that you aren't slammed with music, and you can see the pirate boat's fireworks show almost every night around 9 PM. It's also a house with two levels of gated security.
For somebody not used to Mexico, you want to be near the malecón, zona romántica can be a little bit too much.
I wouldn't mind meeting up with Dan over there, but probably not with Brandon. I've traveled with a couple of celebrities, private jets, and the way those guys manage their time, and constantly have to meet with people is just too stressful.
You are describing a variation of Stuart Turton's debut novel The Seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
It's got an element of groundhog day but as a different character every day
Just have to say Adam's description is the best.
Soo... in relation to the Time Travel Tourism thing - there has already been a TV series that is sorta exactly about this. Not lone people. And not limited to 3 items.
It was called Timeless which ran from 2016-2018. 3 people go back in time to stop 1 bad guy who is going back in time to prevent famous events from happening and/or kill someone important. The team of 3 included: A History Professor, an Army captain, and an IT guy (who is able to use the timetable machine which was made by some Tech mogul billionaire).
Also, if you were to come to New Zealand, I would totally take you around my home city Dunedin. It would only take like an hour (sort of an exaggeration but it's a small city), but there are some amazing sights around here.
I'd flip the game show premise just a bit- this goes against the "normal people" thing, but Brandon mentioning counter strike made me think of a professional league. The teams are still random and the names are hidden from the other players, but players are able to "draft" items to bring similar to a MOBA pick/ban phase. Since specialists in using specific items would become prominent, players would have to guess which player is on what team based on the item they pick, which of course means potential for a fake-out as well.
Traveling is so much about the atmosphere of a place to me, so like Brandon, in the end I don't wanna go out and explore every day. Sure, these days I rather read than write myself, but the backdrop of the newly won familiarity with a previously unknown place makes it just the more fun to go exploring inward for me.
So naturally, going on time travel vacation, I would chose a place with some special atmosphere that is not too unfamiliar yet also not too boring. Maybe some major Western city 120 years ago at the turn of the century? Paris springs to mind immediately, or maybe New York? Just something to soak in and feed on for some time
Dans outfit is always wild. What even is this pattern mix? I love it.
haha i was just listening until i saw this comment. lol his shirt is definitely wild lol. good call
Wait. Is it supposed to be a knight‘s armor?
@@MagnetonJjungle Fantasy knight's armor, I would think.
never clicked on an episode so fast! Doomslug!
You could say that time lines splinter off the main time line all the time, but splinters always collapse if they're not different enough from the primary time line. The game show takes place in the splinters because the splinters are going to collapse anyway.
So rule 1 is to never stay in the splinter when it starts to collapse.
Rule 2 is to never actually make any significant changes, so can make sure the splinter will collapse.
One team might actually save the Titanic and win the game show, but the Titanic is rigged to explode in that eventuality to ensure the splinter collapses.
Your titanic/tragedy gameshow idea sounds like a good video game idea more than a book I think. Players can choose which side they want. Start with Titanic Later they can unlock levels like Hindenburg or other disasters... like the concept!
I saw an orchestra in Paris a couple years ago. That’s the trip that I learned I don’t like big cities
Maybe you could solve the problem of having a bad and good team on the gameshow is to give the bad team a decent recent for what they do as well. This could tie into some lore about how it all started:
Maybe it all started when the human who made time travel first tried to do the same thing: save people from disasters. But they found that no matter what they did, they couldn't stop the disasters. This would lead to them making a very well accepted theory that certain things, like disasters, are immutable points in history for unknown reasons.
The general public holds to this theory, so a gameshow started where people could be sent back in time to try to change things for a fabulous prize. This was a great business as altruistic people would gladly volunteer for the chance to try changing things and help people, but they would always fail in fantastic ways, making good TV while ensuring the gameshow company doesn't have to pay out the prize. It's considered a rigged show, but the good people want to try anyway.
But we could say that the "bad" team comes into play later as they are people who believe firmly that these disasters are key points that cannot or should not be changed. That, yes, the altruistic people have failed so far, but that this whole game is dangerous business and time should not be meddled with, for fear of unraveling the universe. So they go back to simply ensure things go as "history intended."
The public enjoys the conflict and mostly just holds to the altruistic being doomed to fail, but secretly roots for them to succeed while curious to see what would happen if they succeeded.
So then the story could delve into why disasters aren't changed.
Maybe it could have something to do with death being immutable in general. People's souls rejoining the universe/space-time fabric is something you can't change and you must learn to accept death. That could be a neat message about accepting death.
Or maybe there is some other creative reason, and the altruistic people finally figure it out in the end and every problem can now be solved.
Or maybe the altruistic people win in the beginning, subverting everyone's expectations, and now the universe has to deal with the consequences of that. What consequences?
Maybe going back in time is a Schroedinger cat situation. If you go back, two timeliness are made where the altruistic failed or didn't fail. When they succeed, they get stuck in that timeline and can't come back, so only the ones who fail ever return, hence the reason that everyone things the failures always occur.
Just some ideas.
The pitch of time travel "where to live with technology" for me has the issue of "Immortality via Nanites"^^ So, Roman/Greek times. Trying to uplift our kind earlier and most importantly cleaner than it happened naturally...
I was going to suggest Homer Alaska, if you love beach and forest and mountains, watching boats come and go,etc. But, when you started talking about wanting a variety of food (hating salmon) and not loving the too long drives and wanting to sit in a chair on the beach. Maybe just look at pictures. 😆 It is one of the prettiest places you can drive to in the US for sure, but not the most convenient or warm.
I really enjoy when it's not just talking about movies.
32:47 - dad joke incoming. wait for it =))
I really want to see this show, it is brilliant.
Hijinks Ensue is a great podcast name if you're still looking for one.
The twist is that the Shadow enforcers are the Time Travel Department of the Federal Reserve who can't let the heroes accidentally save all those people who opposed the leaving the gold standard and happened to accidentally die on the Titanic in a crazy coincidence
The Goat of podcasts
Brandon ‘it’s Ocean’s 11 except…’ Sanderson. Love the content but man do you have a thing for heists
Now I'm interested in hearing the story about what the people of the alternate timeline are going to do about these nutjobs coming in to their universe and messing with them
Unwind is a fantastic book, I basically just read everything B Sanderson . . . . plus unwind . . . I don't read a lot.
I for one welcome our new time traveling overlords 👍
Amsterdam is beautiful and one of the cleanest cities in Europe! I really enjoyed visiting there and I got to visit the Keukenhof gardens during Tulip season it was incredible!
40:50 my favourite part
5:10 "Stone Baked" (as in Stone baked pizza)
Look, I agree that it's not a good idea for a book, but I would LOVE a video game made out of it, a "Assassin's Creed" type of thing, but you play a regular person instead of a highly trained assassin, and in the end you discover the company that created it is founded by someone who came from the alternate dimensions and is using this" game" to change something that happened in that dimension, or something along those lines. It would be a great game.
The part about picking what to bring reminded me of Heinlein's Tunnel In The Sky. That suggests another variation where they do not know where or when they are going.
The idea sounds a lot like "Vintage Season," by Lawrence O'Donnell (CL Moore and Henry Kuttner).
The Big Island of Hawaii has amazing beaches! I went to school there and got to explore. And most are very accessible and less crowded than beaches on Oahu or Maui. There is a black sand beach that you can pretty much count on seeing huge sea turtles out on it every time you go. And they have the best snorkeling spots too, there is one place we kayaked out to go snorkeling and spinner dolphins were swimming/ jumping up all around us.
I could see the formula shake up be an Allstars version
Funny, when I saw this title my first thought was, "oh, kinda like Loki." My next thought was, "oh, kinda like Douglas Adams' 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe'"
You have to try Roatan Honduras, the airport is right there and the beaches are paradise
lol Brandon actually went and wrote this book
Throwing Outlander out there for your consideration. Trying to stop a full on Battle of Culloden and still failing with multiple time-travellers involved
great episode!
The first thing I thought of when the time travel wss stated to be part of a game show is that there would almost have to be a gambling aspect (either actual gamblers betting on what would happen or as a game show element with prizes), and that would explain any amount of corruption or outside interference.
"Intentionally Sank" name for the Titanic time travel game show
It’s a great premise.
Oh!!! Have y'all heard of The Hollow??? Basically it's your idea except everyone has amnesia and they're in a video game. I think. I watched it a while ago over my sister's shoulder lol, so I don't remember it very well.
Does anyone remember the time travel short stories that would appear in 3-2-1 Contact Magazine in the early 90s? The Time Team by Curtis Slepian.
When I read the title, the first thing I thought of was the Bradbury? story “A Sound of Thunder” which has time travel tourism (specifically hunting, iirc).
Awesome idea for a board game tbh.
NGL I really like the idea of this book as a televised sport similar to esports where people do this game multiple times per year and rise up the ranks for a large tournament
Can you do a video on how you write villains pleaseeeee? I'm dreadfully interested
He has several lectures online, and I'm pretty sure he's talking about villains too. I highly recommend these lectures, even if you aren't interested in writing.
@@andrasbiro3007 Yes, but I meant a video on specifically them
i would see more an angle of one time traveler spilling the beans about the titanic sinking and this person trying to stop the titanic from crashing while we explore the time travel lack of morality about people dying just for having a thrill and the futile effort of a man screaming "the sky is falling" while meeting the inevitable destiny and realizing the real life boat is that time travelling family
This episode is really fun!
Sorry Brad, already been done. Timescape (1992) film. Then there is Timeless, which also has bad guys attempting to alter history and the good guys trying to stop them.
In relation to time travel used for more mundane purposes. There’s a comic I remember really enjoying growing up from 2000AD called Flesh which was about people from a future where food is incredibly scarce get sent back in time to be ranchers for dinosaurs to send their meat to the future.
Harry Turtledove has a book series similar to this except it’s parallel universes.
Occidental resort on the island Cozumel. Gives you the solitude and you can explore the town with a short taxi ride.
Perfect ending:
The pov character realize he is a character in another simulation because the the original gameshow ended up in a huge disaster, so now tourist go to see the show acting out
The time travel bit is sounding more and more like a good business idea rather than a bad story for when time travel is invented
I have insomnia too and what helps me the most is physical activity. Weight lifting mostly but running too, but I'm sure Brandon has heard this before
I'm only halfway through and now I know I need to listen to all of these. I was skeptical at first
This might be a good idea. Not for a story, but for a game.
What if it's not a time travel story but an online dating app?
The app is a virtual reality that pairs potential lovers by creating a scenario where they would have to work together and see how strong they are as a team.
The particular scenario they got was the titanic sinking. But part of the Vr was that they have amnesia? And all these characters on the titanic are actually real people playing vr in order to see who they would pair with in case of a disaster. Which isn't revealed till the end?