Should people be punished for crimes they committed in alternate universes?

Jolene

Jolene

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    You might think this is a silly question but actually it is serious! After all we are moving closer to the age of time travel which will open up lots of alternate universes!

    Imagine this situation: In the future, an evil time traveller decides to take over the world by going back to the past and conquering it with super weapons from his own time! Of course normally this would cause a paradox but the evil dictator is wearing a Paradox Crystal as a necklace which allows him to change time however he wants without creating paradoxes. When he has taken over the world the evil leader kills anyone who disagrees with him and makes people work in sulfur mines where a lot of them die. The people of Earth live in fear under this evil dictatorship for twenty years. It is a very bad time!

    Then one day a beautiful fairy princess appears out of nowhere. She is riding through the wastelands on a silver unicorn toward the citadel of the dictator. She gains an army of followers as she rides through the towns and villages and they ride with her. Together with her army she storms the citadel and finds the evil dictator sitting on his throne in the highest room of the tallest tower. The princess takes out her bow and a silver arrow and shoots the Paradox Crystal around the dictator's neck. The crystal shatters into a million pieces. Without the Paradox Crystal to hold this alternate dimension together, time immediately reverses and it is as though the dictator never took over the world at all and nobody remembers what happened apart from the princess because her fairy magic is more powerful than time!

    The princess also has a lot of political power because she is a princess. If she wants somebody to be arrested then they will be arrested it doesn't matter if there is no evidence. Should the princess arrest the evil dictator even though his crimes have been erased from history and the dictator himself doesn't remember them because they never happened?

    What are your thoughts on this? I think he should be arrested because he still did all these bad things even though he doesn't remember them.
     
    I'm pretty sure that means we'd all end up in prison.
     
    i think a wise princess wouldn't punish the mad scientist but instead befriend the mad scientist after he lost his memory and convince him to use his intelligence and inventions for the good of the people!
     
    poopnoodle said:
    i think a wise princess wouldn't punish the mad scientist but instead befriend the mad scientist after he lost his memory and convince him to use his intelligence and inventions for the good of the people!
    Click to expand...
    ...And with this, I think Jolene has the floor.
     
    They should only be punished for the heinous acts they commit if they're being punished on the actual timeline they committed the heinous acts. In the situation you described, the timeline was reset, and, therefore, the heinous acts were never committed, so the "dictator" shouldn't be punished.

    Of course, this is assuming that time is not strictly linear and there are an infinite number of timelines occurring at any given moment.
     
    Only you Jolene, only you.
    But as for if he should be punished, well, if this set of events happened, then the existence of that "Paradox Crystal" would imply that time is not a linear sequence of events and is in fact a... big... pink... timey-wimey ball. This means that this "Mad Scientist" may not follow his alternate timeline.
    And this is less like an alternate universe as it only existed temporarily and so does not run parallel to our (or rather their) own universe, it is more like... "a year that never was".

    10 internets for who ever spots the references to a certain TV program ;)
     
    Rich Boy Rob, I couldn't have said it better myself ;), love your avatar, by the way. ...but back to the initial question, hypothetical situation notwithstanding, if we could be punished for acts that we committed in alternate universes than we would indeed all be guilty. There would be no choice. At least, if you believe that there is an alternate universe for each alternate choice a person makes, than we'd all be guilty, in one universe or another, of every crime we've decided not to commit (I may or may not be making any sense anymore).
     
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    Umm....wow to this thread.

    Until they actually make those kind of devices, I think we should just stick to the normal laws and what you do in this universe.
     
    ^ I agree to this one. It's better to be punished with the traditional methods of punishment rather than the new ones because as far as I'm concerned, I don't know of any future methods of punishment.
     
    Any particular reason why the evil dictator didn't warp back to his original time plane when the paradox crystal was shattered? o_0;
     
    Thank you for making my day spectacular<3333 Now for your question. :p

    First of all I didn't read anyone else's responses just because I don't want other member's ideas clouding my ideas. So if my thoughts come out similar then it was an honest coincidence!

    Well I think he should still be arrested. If he once thought up of taking over the world then how do we know even with just that time period of his mind erased he won't think it up again? Then again a better idea could be just to keep watch over him for the remainder of his life since he himself doesn't even remember what happened.

    Also what if the fairy princess is really lying? If those events have been erased from everyone's memories then nothing is for sure. Also suppose she tells someone from the future about the whole situation. If they were to disagree with her they could warn the evil time traveler from the future about the princess stopping him thus changing the events of time once again!
     
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    I really don't know. Is the dictator-to-be the same man, or has his life been different? Does he still have the capacity to do those horrible things or was it just the fact that he had access to a time machine that drove him mad with power? More questions than answers, really.
     
    No, they shouldn't because of the word 'alternate'. Every time you say yes or no to a question, in another universe you say the opposite answer than the answer you gave in the first universe. It's sort of like heads or tails when choosing what to do, like heads for should I go to university or tails should I just be lazy and have a low paying job.

    I guess you can say it's also cause and effect because the fairy princess herself has became the new evil dictator.
     
    Since in theory, an alternate universe could be formed everytime you chose something. In the althernate, you chose something different.

    Everyone thinks about committing some sort of crime here or there. So..wouldn't everyone be put into jail? Hurray for over-analyzing situations..
     
    Let me start by saying, Time travel is much more complicated than Paradoxi crystals, faries, and unicorns. If your situation happened, nobody would have memory of the events. Therefore, people are going to think you are crazy by suggesting to arrest this "Dictator".

    And the fairy princess would be impeached from office and have to go back to granting wishes at a Burger King! Because universities don't accept fairies! D: WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE FAIRY PRINCESS?!?!!!!!111!!1ONEONE
     
    The fairy princess is you, I assume. If you do try to arrest the dictator, then I might at well be his lawyer. We'll be seeing you in court, Jolene!
     
    Inversely, I've saved all of you several times in alternate universes. Where is my compensation?
     
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