>----------
>> From: Daniel Newhouse <newhouse@phys.ufl.edu>
>> To: tenchi@ML.usagi.org
>> Subject: Re: TMiL and old news
>> Date: Monday, June 01, 1998 9:57 AM
>>
>> On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Mike "Nelson" wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > Andy Sze wrote:
>> >
>> > > An old quesiton, but just why does Tenchi begin to disappear.  If
>Kain
>> > > had wiped out Achika or would ahve changed the events in the past,
>> > > Tenchi would just disappear instandly disappear.  Perhaps this is
>common
>> > > element in movies which I shouldn't question, like disappearing of
>> > > Marty's siblings in his picture in Back to the Future.
>> >
>> Answer: It's Tenchi TV and the plot is supposed to be stupid.
>>
>Dude, do you like anything in the Tenchi universe, it seems to me all you
>do it criticize.
>But anyways, the reason that Tenchi didn't disapear totally was because
>Washu was able to identify a sub space anomoly, an anomoly is this case is
>the past, present, and future rearranging itself to reflect the new
>outcome, Atchika being killed. Washu, being the greatest scientific mind in
>the universe, was able to construct a devise to keep Tenchi and co. from
>being affected by the anomoly.
>Gem
>"I hate temporal dynamics!"
>
>
>------- Message
>
 MHO on time travel is that it is science fiction. Emphasis on the "fiction"
part. They go back in time because it would make a good story. People slowly
disappear before their own eyes or in photographs because it heightens the
dramatic tension. It describes their crisis. It makes for a better story.
    The technobabble (flux capacitators, ect)  only serves to make the
fiction of time travel easier to swallow. But it isn't science, only science
fiction. It is an idea so popularized that most audiences accept it as
readily as "warp drives" and UFOs.
As far as explaining the effects and who's affected? Well, that's up to the
writers.
If it sounded dumb, then they did a poor job. If it didn't need explaining,
better still. If I was to write one? I'd swipe "Mike Nelson's" (?) "Pond
Ripple" allegory.

Irwin
nug