Hypothetical: Get your time travel assignment here.

[Rain Man]

Here's the situation: you show up for work on Monday morning, and as you're drinking your initial cup of coffee or Dr. Pepper, an e-mail arrives from your CEO with one of those red exclamation points on it. You open it up.

In a surprise move, your company is moving all operations to the Central African Republic. You can relocate there at a wage of 50 cents per day, plus the company will cover the cost of your first 100 rounds of self-protection ammo, or you can get laid off. You take the second option.

You start browsing through the job ads and come across this one:

Local community college seeks documenting historian. Must be open to new cultures, foods, and experiences.

You answer the ad and you get an interview immediately once they see your resume line item about proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite. You go to the interview and they ask questions about how much you need coffee and electricity and indoor plumbing. They seem satisfied with your answers.

A few days later, you get the nice e-mail that you’ve been accepted into the Twin Pines Community College Time Travel Project as a documenting historian. As it turns out, one of the dental technician students wired some machinery together oddly and created a time machine, so now Twin Pines is the world leader in time travel.

Your assignment will be to go back into the past, live for a year, and document what you see. You can pick your landing location anywhere on the earth. The only challenge is that the time machine picks a random year and no one can control it. You’ll arrive on January 1st according to the Gregorian calendar and depart on December 31st, but no one will know what year until you arrive. The machine overweights more recent years, so the odds are 50 percent that you’ll be more recent than the year 700 AD, and 80 percent that you’ll be more recent than 1,100 BC, but conceivably you could go all the way back to the earth’s beginning.

If you accept the job I’ll randomly assign you a year, and you’ll have to report back on where you would go and what you would try to document. Assume that you will be equipped with a translation device and that you will not change history if you interact with it. Any people or creatures will merely see you as an oddity and minor annoyance, kind of like Michael Strahan on TV shows.

Who wishes to enter the Twin Pines time machine? Volunteer in the thread and I’ll assign you a year.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by FlintHillsChiefs

After thinking about it, for my assignment of 691 B.C., I will travel to the heart of Mayan Civilization, which was at the height of its power. With my white skin, I will be worshipped as a God. Perhaps Kukulcan, who the Mayan's described as having white skin (check), blue eyes (check) and white hair (nope, but I could dye it I guess) in his human form.

My mission while I'm with the Mayans is to preserve as many of the Mayan Codices as I can. When the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s they burned almost all of the Mayan Codices, which represents a huge blow to our understanding of the Meso-American cultures today.

Oh, good call. We'll still lose 1,000 years of Mayan history, but we can keep the early stuff. And maybe you can meet the alien overlords who descended among the Mayans with their European features.

Or not that I think about it, maybe you'll be that alien overlord and they're just recording you already.

[IowaHawkeyeChief]

I'm in

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by IowaHawkeyeChief

I'm in

1623 AD. You have a lot of fun prospects for your location. Early American colony? Rennaissance-era Italy? Help out with that Mayan thing? This seems like a rich time for time travel.

[stumppy]

Warm up the TARDIS I'm ready to go.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by stumppy

Warm up the TARDIS I'm ready to go.

773 AD. What a time to be alive! You've got ... well, dark ages and stuff.

Do me a favor and keep an eye for this: https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv...t-f20bbd922547

[ThaVirus]

Wher-err, when am I going, Rain Man?

[Rasputin]

Reporting 1331: things aren't so bad. Sex seems abundant and no one seems concerned about trash or rats anything at all that caries disease pretty care free both a good and bad thing. The plague has yet to take hold of nations they should be warned of their immoralities but I don't think it's my place in my assignment.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

2015 AD. Your Super Bowl sucked, but that's not a mystery. Let me know where you decide to go and study in this interesting era.

I'm studying the political climate in the united states. The favorite seems like it will be Hillary Clinton, but Jeb Bush looks like a strong candidate.

[Fire Me Boy!]

In

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Wher-err, when am I going, Rain Man?

152 AD for you. I hope you spend at least some of your time buying beers for Ptolemy.

[headsnap]

in...

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

In

586 AD for you. My guess is that you'll get tired of hearing about barbarians before your year is up.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by headsnap

in...

2558 BC for you. I think you're in the heart of pyramid building if you opt to go that route.

Holy cow. I bet you're there while they're building Giza. Go look! Go look!

[Chiefs4TheWin]

Toss me out Rainman!

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Chiefs4TheWin

Toss me out Rainman!

826 AD. We're really getting good coverage on that first millennium. I bet you can get in on some good Viking action in that time period.