So, here’s the deal: You’ve managed to acquire the data, but disaster strikes, and your time machine is destroyed by an enemy time traveler team. This is crucial historical data that you’ll have to get into the future to avert the apocalypse. Due to the constraints of the space-time continuum, all time travelers staying outside of their “home” time for longer than 1 year will die, so you have exactly 1 year to prepare. How do you make sure the future discovers the data, while preventing the enemy time traveler faction from stealing the data?
(Remember: don’t just chuck it in a hard drive and bury it in a forest somewhere, the data will degrade)
Nice try enemy time traveler!
Nice try, enemy time travel team checking the fediverse archives a hundred years from now.
This Is How You Lose The Time War
I was both happy and disappointed in reading that novella. Its long on prose, but short on story. For those that like that, its probably fantastic. Its not quite my cup of tea though.
Damn, almost fooled you. 😅
Just give up already, your team is on the wrong side of the space-time war.
Just give up the location of the archive, and we might consider letting you go. 😉
Create a torrent file named RockyHorrorPictureShow_Outtakes_TaylorSwift and release it to the internet.
Based on the past, it seems vinyl records are near indestructible. So, embedding the data in that somehow and keeping it cool might work.
Printed might also work but it’s a lot of data. Microfiche maybe?
Another option might be to use some form of nuclear battery to keep a bunch of multi TB SSDs powered up.
Another option might be to use some form of nuclear battery to keep a bunch of multi TB SSDs powered up.
That radiation is gonna flip a lot of bits in the SSDs
Separate the compartments with lead then?
Claim it’s some secret govt data, then all the conspiracy theorists will archive it. Especially after misterously dying onr year later!
Use lasers to create bubbles in large chunks of glass. Duplicate a few times on a few far flung continents, including Arctic/Antarctica.
10 encrypted mdisc addressed to the good guys buried in as many 100year time capsules as possible.
alternatively just give it to the time traveller sent to retrieve you.
alternatively the future needs this data because you failed and you need to accept this is how things always happen.
100 years ain’t that long tbh. Seal it in a glass jar and put it somewhere cool and dry, like a cave, and it’ll be fine.
Important question. Is this a 1 traveler vs multiple travelers situation or can I have teammates as well?
You only have yourself on your team.
There could be like anywhere from 1 to 20 enemy time travelers. Don’t worry tho, they all die in 1 year (just like you do) due to the constraints of the time travel.
The point is: You can’t just publically draw attention to yourself and post the location of the data to make it easier for the future to find it, because I know someone is gonna be like “Just run for elected office and store it in the government archives”. I wanna make the question more challenging.
Easy. Copy the data into several different mediums and store them as safely as I can. Bury half of them in time capsules set to be dug up in 100 years and then start a cult based around duplicating and passing the data down through the generations. Hopefully one of those two methods insures that at least one whole copy of the 100tb of data survives the 100 years.
1: most mediums will not last close to a hundred years
2: writing 100tb takes a lot of time.
Eh. I’ve moved 2/3 TB around for work a few times. Yeah it’s slow but transfer speeds have only been getting better. I figure in 100 years transferring 1tb will take about as long as it takes us to transfer 1gb these days. If not even better.
Setup a company who’s job it is to maintain the data. They make money by offering the same services to others, but their main aim is the preservation of this 100TB. Only people passing stringent security checks will know of this special mission. Enemies from the future will be scared away by a sign on the door reading “BEWARE OF THE TIGER”.
They will run massive NetApp arrays and redundant ZFS pools. They will rotate disks out periodically and migrate onto newer technologies as and when. Backups will be taken, verified and tested monthly. Basically it’s Backblaze but running for 100 years.
Enemies from the future will be scared away by a sign on the door reading “BEWARE OF THE TIGER”.
🤣
Perfection
BEWARE OF THE
TIGERLEOPARD
I guess it depends on what sort of data is in this 100 TB data set. And if I have any other tools at my disposal to transcribe the data into new mediums or any time adjacent knowledge for things that would happen in the next year.
If there was an accurate almanac or lunar calendar of events, establishing myself as some sort of prophet, messiah or divine messenger should be possible. Once I establish that I can see the future, then I need to make a far flung prediction for my home time that “will be revealed when the time is right”.
Four important rules would needed to make it work.
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Primarily a foundational tennat not to alter my prophecy. I am the one and only prophet that will ever exist. Of course schisms and reformations will likely occur but so long as the “orthodox” faithful preserve my original writings it should stand the test of time.
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Secondly, depending on how my death occurs in “exactly one year”, I can work that in to the cannon as being recalled to the higher plane. Especially if this time death is flashy! Hopefully something like my body being ripped apart by the time stream. Nice big event that will be remembered.
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Thirdly, I protect my religious with good ole fashion reliable xenophobia! Whatever tools I can use to identify competing time travelers will be the sign of heretics and evil demons.
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Finally, that my tomb is to contain both my original manuscripts that are never to be touched or altered. And importantly, exact prophecies that are supposed to be opened prior to various major world events. If I can sprinkle a good one every 20 years or so then the faith should remain strong.
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Its one hundred of 1TB MicroSD Cards, better back it up before it gets corrupted! Good luck, time traveler! 😉
deleted by creator
If this is our present, our future is unthinkable.
Bad Time Traveler 😕
Appropriate username though
Store it optically in a single fused quartz crystal that is available today, then get that crystal put into an exoplanet lander going : Venus, Mercury or perhaps large moons like Titan or the Jovian moons.
We have a the technology today to send stuff to these far off places, but no ability to bring it back. In 100 years time there likely would be the technology. So even if “the enemy” knew I sent it to Titan and knew exactly where it was, they couldn’t read it.
Does it only need to be discovered by the people 100 years in the future, or can people before that be aware of it?
Because this reminds me of the nuclear waste protection research. You found a religion that fears glowing cats…
It has to be 100 years, becuase the idea of sending a time traveler in the past is conceived in 100 years, so they wouldn’t be looking for the data before then.
Once they come up with the idea of the mission to send someone to the past, they also realize: “Hmm what if the mission has already been done?” and so they immediately send a team to search for possible clues on where the data is, if someone alredy went to the past and weren’t able to return.
If its gets found in like 99 years, the enemy forces could get their hands on it before your teams starts looking for it.
Basically, in exactly 100 years, the idea of sending someone to the past is thought of, then some time after that, say, in year 120, they finish the time machine. They would be looking for the data in year 100, 20 years before the time machine has even been built. Get it? They would never think of looking for the data before 100 years since they haven’t thought about the time machine idea.
Okay yeah that makes sense. So that rules out founding cults that use the information as their holy book. But it could allow for “keep it secret, keep it safe” cults where there’s a holy object that they know is important but don’t know contains the data. (But it can’t be SO interesting that people try to inspect and understand it and inadvertently discover the data).
I wonder if you could rely on your buddy in the future knowing what your favorite password is and encrypting the data somehow.
Does it need to be discovered ASAP in that 20 year gap or can it be later on in that period once they know that you specifically are selected for the mission?
Does it need to be discovered ASAP in that 20 year gap or can it be later on in that period once they know that you specifically are selected for the mission?
Basically, the enemy team is already looking for it sometime before year 100. But starting year 100, both teams are looking for it. So your hidden archive can reveal itself anytime after that (but not too late, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to make use of the data), and your team will almost certantly find it before the enemy does.
(lol I feel like I’m doing a lot of world building here 😅)
