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Future Times Three

114 statements
21 feature instances
6 referencing feature instances

Future Times Three	type	TVTItem
Future Times Three	label	Future Times Three
Future Times Three	page	FutureTimesThree
Future Times Three	comment	Future Times Three (original title Le Voyageur imprudent, i.e. "The Careless Traveller"), by René Barjavel, is a seminal novel about Time Travel and a cornerstone of French Science Fiction, first published between 1943 and 1944.In the middle of World War II, young mathematician Pierre Saint-Menoux meets wheelchair-bound scientist Noël Essaillon (as well as his beautiful daughter Annette), inventor of the substance that allows time travel — Noëlite. Thankful to Pierre, whose mathematical work allowed the Noëlite breakthrough, Essaillon enlists him in the exploration of time, using Noëlite pills at first, then a special "time suit".Written when Time Travel Tropes were not yet codified, Future Times Three has too many ideas to explore to remain confined to a single plot point. Consequently, the novel is organized as a series of Story Arcs: the introduction and testing of time travel; the exploration of the future, especially the collapse of society in 2052 and the unrecognizable world of the year 100.000; Pierre's attempt, after Essaillon's death, to escape wartime hardship by turning time travel to more practical (though dangerous and morally dubious) applications. What gets Pierre in the end, however, is his existential curiosity: he sets out to kill Napoleon to see if history can be changed, only to kill his own great-grandfather by accident and vanishing.Concentrating more on the philosophical and existential consequences of Time Travel rather than the technical aspects, the book explores — and sometimes invents — many Time Travel concepts, such as the extent to which history can be changed, the ethics of saving someone who was supposed to die and whether people from the past count as "real" or not since they're already dead from your point of view. The novel is often credited with inventing the Grandfather Paradox, although this particular claim is debatable.* The earliest edition features no paradox — someone who kills their ancestor simply vanishes. The paradoxical nature of the event — if they were never born, they cannot have killed their ancestor — is acknowledged in an appendix of the 1958 reprint, when the Grandfather Paradox had already appeared elsewhere.
Future Times Three	fetched	2023-09-03T05:29:40Z
Future Times Three	parsed	2023-09-03T05:29:40Z
Future Times Three	processingComment	Dropped link to TeleFrag: Not a Feature - ITEM
Future Times Three	isPartOf	DBTropes
Future Times Three / int_18aff462	type	Artistic License â€“ Biology
Future Times Three / int_18aff462	comment	Artistic License – Biology: The world of the year 100,000 contains some impossibilities, such as humans with no anus because "they use 100% of the food they eat".
Future Times Three / int_18aff462	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_18aff462
Future Times Three / int_1ae52ae9	type	Exty Years from Publication
Future Times Three / int_1ae52ae9	comment	Exty Years from Publication: The end of civilization takes place in 2052, 110 years after the novel's setting in 1942. In fact, Pierre at first wanted to visit the future in 100 years; Essaillon convinces him to make it 110 to check a Nostradamus prophecy that's supposed to take place in that year.
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Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_1ae52ae9
Future Times Three / int_334e48a1	type	After the End
Future Times Three / int_334e48a1	comment	After the End: Pierre spends some time visiting the year 100,000, and gets to see how the human race evolved after the disappearance of electricity caused the society to collapse in the 21st century.
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Future Times Three / int_3fff5717	type	Genius Cripple
Future Times Three / int_3fff5717	comment	Genius Cripple: Essaillon, the inventor of Time Travel, is chair-bound because he lost his feet.
Future Times Three / int_3fff5717	featureApplicability	1.0
Future Times Three / int_3fff5717	featureConfidence	1.0
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_3fff5717
Future Times Three / int_54d6f53f	type	Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory
Future Times Three / int_54d6f53f	comment	Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Downplayed. Pierre is able to remember for some time that the past used to be different after he accidentally changes it, but the knowledge soon fades from his mind.
Future Times Three / int_54d6f53f	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_54d6f53f
Future Times Three / int_74a6d3c	type	Our Time Machine Is Different
Future Times Three / int_74a6d3c	comment	Our Time Machine Is Different: The novel starts with pills that allow Mental Time Travel; a substance that allows to stop time and a suit that allows for "proper" Time Travel are invented later.
Future Times Three / int_74a6d3c	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_7cc7ff15	type	Mental Time Travel
Future Times Three / int_7cc7ff15	comment	Mental Time Travel: Essaillon's prototype, the Noëlite pills, work like this: when you take them, you will "rewind" or "fast forward" to your body as it was (or will be) a set amount of time in the past (or future).
Future Times Three / int_7cc7ff15	featureApplicability	1.0
Future Times Three / int_7cc7ff15	featureConfidence	1.0
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_7cc7ff15
Future Times Three / int_7fd142ef	type	Shared Universe
Future Times Three / int_7fd142ef	comment	Shared Universe: The future Pierre visits in 2052 takes place some time after the events described in one of Barjavel's previous novels, Ashes, ashes. A footnote invites the reader to check it to know what happened.
Future Times Three / int_7fd142ef	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_8cfa86d7	type	Just One Second Out of Sync
Future Times Three / int_8cfa86d7	comment	Just One Second Out of Sync: Essaillon's time machine includes a setting where the user quickly alternates between shifting one second into the future and into the past, making them invisible and intangible but still able to perceive the world around them.
Future Times Three / int_8cfa86d7	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_8cfa86d7
Future Times Three / int_8d23f3a7	type	Timey-Wimey Ball
Future Times Three / int_8d23f3a7	comment	Timey-Wimey Ball: The novel handles inconsistently how people remember alterations to the past. Pierre remembers not meeting Essaillon's maid on his first visit because she was dead at the time before they resurrected her via time travel (and the maid herself somehow seems to know that she should be dead), and the main characters remember Essaillon's death before they change it via time travel (including Essaillon himself). On the other hand, characters that are Ret-Gone due to Pierre's changes to the past are forgotten, including eventually by Pierre himself. Then there is how the characters use Mental Time Travel to go back in time before the war to buy any supply they run out of in the present, which should mean that at one point in the past their cupboards must have been bursting with supplies.
Future Times Three / int_8d23f3a7	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_90f2fd8a	type	Grandfather Paradox
Future Times Three / int_90f2fd8a	comment	Grandfather Paradox: This happens literally when Pierre tries to assassinate Napoleon Bonaparte before his rise to power: at the last moment, a soldier jumps to take the bullet and save Bonaparte. This soldier is of course the time-traveler ancestor. The time-traveler is then wiped out from existence. There is even an appendix explaining the paradox at length (including the fact that, for the time-traveler, there is no real ending — he is constantly oscillating between existing and non-existing. The ending of the novel however makes it clear he does not exist anymore — his fiancée is celibate, and the man he helped build the time machine in the first place is fruitlessly trying to make it work).
Future Times Three / int_90f2fd8a	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_91e894b4	type	Apocalypse How
Future Times Three / int_91e894b4	comment	Apocalypse How: When he visits 2052, the protagonist witnesses a planet-wide societal collapse to pre-industrial levels, due to the mysterious "disappearance" of electricity.
Future Times Three / int_91e894b4	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_92cca75b	type	Ret-Gone
Future Times Three / int_92cca75b	comment	Ret-Gone: Pierre accidentally appears at his neighbour's parents wedding during one of his travels. The shock drives the bride mad and the wedding is cancelled, and Pierre discovers when he comes back to the present that his neighbour was never born. This is Pierre's eventual fate after he accidentally kills his grandfather.
Future Times Three / int_92cca75b	featureApplicability	1.0
Future Times Three / int_92cca75b	featureConfidence	1.0
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Future Times Three / int_92cca75b
Future Times Three / int_ca5938c0	type	Hive Caste System
Future Times Three / int_ca5938c0	comment	Hive Caste System: Humans of the year 100,000 are split into different subspecies with different mansions: sexless workers who tend to farm animals, "eaters" who are little more than a stomach and a mouth, muscular Super Soldiers with Absurdly Sharp Claws, and so on.
Future Times Three / int_ca5938c0	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_d0b81ec4	type	Pineal Weirdness
Future Times Three / int_d0b81ec4	comment	Pineal Weirdness: Treated slightly more realistically than most examples. In the far future, a subspecies of humanity that specializes in improved eyesight has three eyes on stalks. One of them is the pineal gland, which has (re)gained full functionality as a visual organ.
Future Times Three / int_d0b81ec4	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_d243518d	type	In Spite of a Nail
Future Times Three / int_d243518d	comment	In Spite of a Nail: Despite Pierre accidentally erasing his neighbour, an eccentric architect, from history, a building the architect had designed still exists in the present day, have been designed by a different architect. This causes Pierre to wonder what would happen if he tried to cause a more important change to history.
Future Times Three / int_d243518d	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_d732b623	type	Time and Relative Dimensions in Space
Future Times Three / int_d732b623	comment	Time and Relative Dimensions in Space: The time machine allows to program the destination time, but only the time traveller's thoughts can decide where they will land, so Pierre needs to focus on a specific place as he switches the time machine. This requires some training as his first attempts cause him to appear either in the privy, the pantry, or Annette's bed. Later on, this has dramatic consequences when he lets his mind wander during a time trip and he ends up disrupting his neighbour's parents' wedding, erasing the poor guy from history.
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Future Times Three / int_ef60bed2	type	To the Future, and Beyond
Future Times Three / int_ef60bed2	comment	To the Future, and Beyond: Pierre visits both the year 2052 — where he witnesses the collapse of civilization — and later the year 100,000, where what's left of mankind has evolved into something nearly unrecognizable. Some reconnaissance trips between the two ages help him understand how this evolution took place.
Future Times Three / int_ef60bed2	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_f68664dc	type	Science Is Bad
Future Times Three / int_f68664dc	comment	Science Is Bad: One of the underlying themes of the novel, like in most of Barjavel's works. Essaillon eventually comes to conclude that preventing his own death via time travel is sacrilegious, and accepts to die, along with his maid who they had similarly saved before. The future civilisation does not rely on technology anymore (although it can be debated on whether it can be considered a utopia or a Bad Future). Finally, Pierre's misuse of the time machine causes him to erase himself from history.
Future Times Three / int_f68664dc	featureApplicability	1.0
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Future Times Three / int_fc225bec	type	Artistic License â€“ Physics
Future Times Three / int_fc225bec	comment	Artistic License – Physics: Electricity disappears in the year 2052 without explanation. Any electrical device used after that time simply ceases to function.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Future Times Three	hasFeature	Grandfather Paradox / int_1093b828
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Just One Second Out of Sync / int_1093b828
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Pineal Weirdness / int_1093b828
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Time and Relative Dimensions in Space / int_1093b828
Future Times Three	hasFeature	Time Travel Tales / int_1093b828
Future Times Three	hasFeature	To the Future, and Beyond / int_1093b828

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