Reporting Back via a Time Capsules or Other Prearranged Systems

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Feature Film

12 Monkeys

In the year 2035, with the world devastated by an artificially engineered plague, convict James Cole is sent back in time to gather information about the plague’s origin so the scientists can figure out how to fight it. —Michael Main
If you can’t change anything because it’s already happened, you may as well smell the flowers.
The faces of Bruce Willis (as old James with one red eye), Brat Pitt (as young James), and Madeline Stowe (as Kathryn) stare out of the shadows.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Historicity

In the moments before a jump, a traveler muses over the realities of time travel. —Michael Main
That's a much nicer narrative device than having to find the right kind of black hole orbiting the right kind of star and then build a machine around both of them.
A star emerging from behind a blue planet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Amazing Stories (v2s01e01)

The Cellar

Sam Taylor, a carpenter remodeling houses with his brother, feels ungrounded in 2019 until he uncovers a century-old photograph of a young bride along with a matchbook from a 1919 speakeasy. Like everyone else, we wondered at the end who Evelyn’s child is. Sam might be the father if a pregnant Evelyn traveled forward a second time, but that seems unlikely. I enjoyed that the writers left things open for us to wonder, and I also enjoyed the carefully constructed single static timeline. —Michael Main
You were right—the photograph, it was me, it . . . It will be. I don’t know how, but it will.
Dylan O
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel