Copper Zen said:
I would say it's the equivalent of killing someone.
We should consult an expert on time travel.
TimeLord said:
What would the Lords of Gallifrey think, good sir?
Technically I would say yes. Removing someone from time is taking their life to a point where it never existed in the first place. I personally would say it's no different from killing a baby in it's crib right after it was born.
It's actually worse as you are giving the person no means of defending themselves from you taking their life. Unlike if they were older then they could fight back or run!
However if you are going back further to a point where you stop their prospective mothers and fathers from ever meeting then that becomes grey as the person you are erasing never existed at that point and that persons parents might then meet other people and create new people who would never have existed in the first place. Or if that persons parents still met but later on, they would give birth to a completely different son or daughter than when they were going to when you stopped them.
You are essentially replacing the person you are attempting to erase with a new person who never got a chance at life. Very Red Dwarf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inquisitor_(Red_Dwarf)].
Also you would have to think of the ramifications of either stopping the persons parents from meeting or having them have a different child or children. What if one of those children grows up to be worse than the person you erased in the first place? Or grows up to be the next Hitler?
On the flip side they could grow up to be the next Einstein but you have no way of knowing until you return to the future and by then it's too late to return (depending on what laws of time are in play [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.231707-A-Discussion-about-Time-The-Laws-of-Time]).
You then have to consider if travel is even going to change the past in the first place:
"Every point in time has its alternatives...The future can be shaped - the actions of the present change the future. To a small extent a man can change the course of history. It takes a being of ... almost unlimited power to destroy the future."
When travelling to areas in your personal past, the question most often asked is, "has time travelled already happened?". This is another way of asking whether or not the past in immutable. For example, has it already happened in history that a time-time traveller from the future has travelled back, or does travelling back change history? The two alternatives are usually summed up thus:
1] Time travel has already happened -- the past destination is really an extension of your present. Nothing you do will change history, and everything you do will fullfill history, barring abnormal interference. This is also described as a soft time-loop.
2] Time travel has not already happened. In this case the traveller risks the possibility of creating an alternative universe.
The distinction is far from academic. Let's consider an example:
Is there one version of this event? Do they agree on the details? Does Andy see Borak from the future? Certainly Borak should see Andy. Whilst travelling in time you will find that a meeting such as the one described above simply cannot happen. Basically Andy would come and go, and Borak would not be there. Borak then would not be able to set his coordinate to day 100 12:10. In fact, the nearest coordinate would be day 101 12:00. This prevents the potential paradox mentioned above. The enforcement of time-streams creates urgency, as one cannot wait around and then act on an emergency distress call, as it may well preclude the ability to answer.
Without a Time Machine enforcing travel to within time-streams, the following may of happen:
If Borak were to attempt to contact Andy, he would find himself up against the Blinovitch limitation effect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.201912-A-Discussion-about-Time-The-Blinovitch-Limitation-Effect]. As Andy has arrived "first" his version of the events are immutable. And since he didn't see Borak, Andy cannot do anything to change that.
To summarise, the past is ordinarily immutable. What has happened has happened. Everything someone does in the present is recorded in the past. So what happens when someone tries to change history? Various phenomena occur as you battle with time. If someone attempts to change the past of their own time-stream, the Blinovitch limitation effect comes into play. If someone attempts to change the past of someone else's time-stream, they will find this immutable. It is possible, as the quote above suggests, for a being or machine of extraordinary power to distort space-time so much as to force the creation of an alternative reality which becomes the default reality for all time-travellers. Basically creating a parallel universe. (ala Back to the Future 2)
[Source:] My own article
[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.204135-A-Discussion-about-Time-Travel-to-the-Past]
