Future Wars

Tag Area: Fictional Setting
Novelette

Monsters of Moyen

When the U.S. is attacked with monsterous submarine/aeroplanes by the demagogue Moyen, it's up to Professor Mariel to find a way to save the country, possibly even through the manipulation of time itself! —Michael Main
In this, I have even been compelled to manipulate in the matter of time! I must not only defeat and annihilate the minions of Moyen, but must work from a mathematical absurdity, so that at the moment of impact that moment itself must become part of the past, sufficiently remote to remove the monsters at such distance from the earth that not even the mighty genius of Moyen can return them!
Black-and-white drawing of serious old men in suits and ties watching a video screen in horror.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

The Fall of Mercury

Mort Forrest and his fellow explorer Bruce are headed for supposedly uninhabited Mercury when they are captured by Mercurians intent on taking over the solar system, but fortunately, a friendly Saturnian named Chen-Chak (with a small globe that can momentarily transfer bad guys into the future) rescues them, tells them of the history of species from all the planets, and saves the solar system. —based on Frank J. Bleiler
“They are not dead,” he averred; “within half an hour of your time they will be returned, unaware of what has taken place. They must wait for Time to catch up with them!”
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  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Sands of Time 2

Coils of Time

You’ll need some patience with “Coils of Time," seeing as how it takes the hero, Rutherford Bohr Adams, twenty-some pages before you’ll realize that the story is a sequel to “The Sands of Time,” and it’s going to fall to space pilot Adams to travel through the 60-million-year coils of times into the future and the past, saving Earth from the evil Martians and their zombies, while also saving his own boss’s beautiful daughter from a fate worth than death. —Michael Main
It’s another form of the space-time field that I use in the Egg to bridge the gap between the coils of time.
A worried man in a futuristic jumpsuit climbs up shelves of inanimate bodies.
  • Science Fiction
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Hindsight

Years ago, engineer Bill Webster abandoned Earth for the employ of the piratical Astrarch far beyond the orbit of Mars; now the Astrarch is aiming the final blow at a defeated Earth, and Bill wonders whether the gun sights he invented can spot—and change!—events in the past. —Michael Main
The tracer fields are following all the world lines that intersected at the battle, back across the months and years. The analyzers will isolate the smallest—hence most easily altered—essential factor.
Pen-and-ink drawing of a man standing at a futuristic control panel, looking at a wall-sized hatched screen displaying a flying ship.
  • Science Fiction
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
Novelette

Jon’s World

  • by Philip K. Dick
  • in Time to Come: Science-Fiction Stories of Tomorrow, edited by August Derleth; Farrar (Strass and Young, April 1954)
First the Soviets and the Westerners fought. Then the Westerners brought Schonerman’s killer robots into the mix. Then the robots fought both human sides. You know all that from Dick’s earlier story, “Second Variety.” But now it’s long after the desolation, long enough that Caleb Ryan and his financial backer Kastner are willing to bring back the secret of Schonerman’s robots from the past to make their world a better place for surviving mankind, including Ryan’s visionary son Jon. —Michael Main
And then the terminator’s claws began to manufacture their own varieties and attack Soviets and Westerners alike. The only humans that survived were those at the UN base on Luna.
The title Time to Come--along with other text--appears in a white letters on a red blob in front of a mottled black-and-white background.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Time Machine

The Traveller now has a name—H. George Wells (played by Rod Taylor)—and Weena has the beautiful face and talent of Yvette Mimieux. —Michael Main
When I speak of time, I’m speaking of the fourth dimension.
A torch-wielding Rod Taylor pushes Yvette Mimieux back as he holds off a hairy Morlock.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

La jetée

  • The pier
  • La Jetée
  • written and directed by Chris Marker
  • (at movie theaters, France, 16 February 1962) [Accessed at Youtube on 28 February 2022.]
In a world made uninhabitable by the Third World War, a prisoner is chosen as being the only person with vivid enough memories of the past to travel through time and return with salvation.

This 28-minute photo montage with about 1,200 words of narration has a nice seed of an idea, but I find it insulting to other talented filmmakers that Time magazine ranked this sketch of a film as #1 in their 2010 list of best time travel movies. —Michael Main
Tel était le but des expériences : projeter dans le Temps des émissaires, appeler le passé et l’avenit au secours du présent.
translate Such was the purpose of the experiments: to project emissaries into Time, to summon the Past and the Future to the aid of the Present.
A grid of 16 photos from Chris Marker
  • Science Fiction
  • Experimental
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Farnham’s Freehold

  • by Robert A. Heinlein
  • (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, October 1964) [We chose October 1964 as the publication date based on a 1 November 1964 review in the Anniston Star and the probability that it appeared after the July to October serialization in If.]
Hugh Farnam makes good preparations for his family to survive a nuclear holocaust, but are the preparations good enough to survive a trip to the future?

In his blog, Fred Pohl wrote about how Heinlein’s agent gave permission for Pohl publish the novel in If and to cut “five or ten thousand words in the beginning that were argumentative, extraneous and kind of boring” (and Pohl agreed to pay full rate for the cut words). But apparently, Heinlein “went ballistic” when he saw the first installment, so much so that when the book appeared as a separate publication, Heinlein made sure people knew who was responsible for the previous cuts by adding a note* that “A short version of this novel, as cut and revised by Frederik Pohl, appeared in Worlds of If Magazine.”

* The version of Heinlein’s note that Pohl recalled was much funnier than Heinlein’s actual note in our timeline, but sadly, we have lost track of where we saw Pohl’s version.
—Michael Main
Because the communists are realists. They never risk a war that would hurt them, even if they could win. So they won’t risk one they can’t win.
Sketch of a clean-cut, older man’s face.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Time Travelers

  • written and directed by Ib Melchior
  • (at movie theaters, USA, 29 October 1964)
Using their time viewer, three scientists see a desolate landscape 107 years in the future, at which point the electrician realizes that the viewer has unexpectedly become a portal. All four jump through, only to have the portal collapse behind them, whereupon they are chased on the surface by Morlockish creatures who are afraid of thrown rocks, and they meet an advanced, post-apocalyptic, underground society that employs androids and is planning a generation-long trip to Alpha Centauri.

The film draws in at least four important additional time travel tropes: suspended animation, a single nonbranching, static timeline (with the corresponding inability to go back and change it), experiencing the passage of time at different rates, and a trip to the far future. And according to the SF Encyclopedia, the film was originally conceived as a sequel to the 1960 film of The Time Machine. —Michael Main
Isn’t it obvious? The war did happen. You never did go back with your warning.
A monster chases people across a rocket field--along with three other scenes from the future before it happens!
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Journey to the Center of Time

  • written and directed by David L. Hewitt
  • (at movie theaters, USA, a forgettable day in 1967)
The writer, David L. Hewitt, took chunks of plot and script from The Time Travelers (1964), swapped the blonde for a brunette, swapped the accidental time gate for an accidental time rift that drags the whole lab through time as if it were a time ship, added a anachronistic dinosaur, and ended up with an unwatchable movie.

Like the 1964 version, this version has a brief mention that it’s impossible to change events that have already happened, but unlike the original, the montage at the end of the film is mere chaos that no longer reinforces the idea of a single deterministic, nonbranching timeline. Despite that, I enjoyed the consequences of the villainous character running into himself, but at the same time, I dismayed at the discussion of how meeting yourself could instantly cause a disastrous explosion or implosion or maybe something-or-other (the audio was unintelligible at 1:12) would cease to exist. (I pray that the space-time continuum wasn’t in peril). —Michael Main
Well, isn’t it obvious, Manning? The war did happen. We didn’t get back with our warning.
Alien death rays, a T-rex, and multiple copies of Scott Brady and Gigi Perreau () hugging.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Terminator 1

The Terminator

Artificially intelligent machines from 2029 send a killer cyborg back to 1984 to kill Sara Connor because, in 2029, her son John will lead the resistance against the machines’ rule.

The story has a classic self-defeating act: The Terminator goes back in time to kill Sara Connor, causing Kyle Reese to follow and become romantic with Sara Connor, causing John Connor to be born and eventually lead the revolution, causing the Terminator to go back in time to kill Sara Connor, . . . —Michael Main
Kyle: [to Sarah at the Tech-Noir Club] Come with me if you want to live.
Gun-toting Arnold Schwarzenegger in his trademarked Terminator sunglasses and fingerless gloves.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Time Guardian

When terminatoresque cyborgs attack a future Australian city (headed by Quantum Leap’s favorite scoundrel, Dean Stockwell, and defended by everyone’s favorite princess, Carrie Fisher), the scientists take them all back to 1988—a fine plan until the evil cyborgs follow. —Michael Main
One city attempted to escape their onslaught by unraveling the secrets of time and travelling back in a desperate search for a safer age . . . they succeeded and time was their friend until the arrival yet again of their relentless enemy.
Tom Burlinson (as Ballard) shows off his sunglasses, blaster, and biceps.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Terminator 2

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Once more, the machines from 2029 send back a killer cyborg, this time a T-1000 to kill young John Connor in 1995, but Resistance-leader Connor of the future counters by sending a reprogrammed original T-800 to save himself. —Michael Main
The T-800: [to Sarah at the Pescadero State Hospital] Come with me if you want to live.
Shotgun-toting Arnold Schwarzenegger in his trademarked Terminator sunglasses sits stoically on his stolen motorcycle.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • 1992 Hugo
  • 1991 Nebula
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Film

50 Year Calendar

A teenage boy opens a Christmas present that takes him from 2017 to 2047 where he meets two antisocial teens, learns of a future war, and has a confused end to his trip. —Michael Main
I’m from 2017. Can you fix it? I need to get back.
A handheld, brass device with rotating dials to determine the day of the week over a fifty year period.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Terminator 6

Terminator: Dark Fate

After the excitement of T2, you’d have thought that Sarah Connor and her son John could have settled down for a well-deserved, peaceful life. But, no: First a leftover T-800 Model 101 Terminator kills young John, and then 20 years later, Sarah meets two new characters—young Dani Ramos and an enhanced woman from the future—who are running from a new kind of terminator built by a new kind of Skynet. Certainly a fun T-romp, cast in the mold of T2, but really?!, if those johnny-come-lately millennial writers wanna live, they can’t be messing with the come-with-me line. —Michael Main
Grace: [to Dani and Diego at the car assembly plant] Come with me or you’re dead in the next 30 seconds.
Linda Hamilton (as Sarah Connor), Arnold Schwarzenegger (as the Terminator), and two new characters stand defiantly as a Rev-9 terminator walks single-mindedly toward us all.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Miniseries

16 episodes

시지프스: The Myth

  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • Sisyphus: The myth
  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • by 전찬호 and 이제인, directed by 진혁
  • 16 untitled episodes (JTBC-TV, Korea, 17 February to 8 April 2021)
Young genius Han Tae-sul is the focus of dangerous people and a mysterious woman—Gang Seo-hae—from a war-torn near future.

Sadly, the story comes close to being a slick static timeline, but alas, the writers could not follow through. —Michael Main
The Downloader is a real piece of work. There’s only a ten percent chance of success, eh? And even if they make it, half of them get caught by the Control Bureau.
A static-y head shot of Park Shin-Hye (as Gang Seo Hae) with long black hair and a worried look.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Tomorrow War

Forty-year-old high school biology teacher Dan Forester is drafted for a seven-day tour of the future where he must fight what seems to be a losing cause in the war against bug/T-rex aliens. —Michael Main
We need you to fight beside us if we stand a chance at winning this war. You are our last hope.
As a purple wormhole opens in the sky, Chris Pratt (as Dan Forester) holds his machine gun high, standing defiantly at the lead position of three others.
  • Science Fiction
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel