In Tempus Fugitive, Clark built a second time machine with the help of HG Wells' plans. By the end of the episode, there were two time machines in Smallville, one at Rocky Cove, one in the alleyway next to the Frozen Foods store.

Wells used the first time machine, the one he built, to take Tempus back to 1866, and told Lois and Clark to meet him at the second time machine. Then he took L&C back to Metropolis using the second time machine built by Clark.

This means that one time machine (the one built by Wells) stayed behind in Smallville in 1966. Correct?

As far as we know, yes.

I'd expect Wells would have picked it up or something, but there's always the chance he forgot or had other plans.

If you want it to be there, I don't think there's anything that says it can't.

Paul

Yeah, that's true, since it doesn't say anywhere, it could still be there. However, I always felt that since Wells asked them to meet him at the 2nd time machine, that he was going to have Clark destroy the 2nd one and then take them home. Just my opinion though.

Thanks for the replies.

Well, just after Wells informs L&C what he did with Tempus, we see the gates to the alleyway and there's light flashing and fog and noise, so Wells did take them somewhere in the second time machine. Whether he immediately returned them to Metropolis or took the time to get Clark to help him take care of the other time machine we don't know.

I think your theory is a good one, MetroRhodes, although I'll have to modify it slightly .

It's interesting that this subject should come up just at this time, because I was watching Tempus Fugitive just the other day and thinking about the possibilities presented by the second time machine. It seems reasonable to me that anything could have happened with that second machine between the time they left it and the time they got back, or maybe even afterwards.

I trust that different stories involving the item in question are acceptable, even if someone has already written one, because I have a couple of ideas about it, after I finish Supercop 2 -- which will probably be a while anyway, considering the small amount of time I have to write at the present. In any case, I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

Nan

Wells was bringing them back to the point before they met him to erase their memories of their escapades in the past so techically, the second machine wouldn't have existed.

It erased their memory, but not their actions. At least I don't think so. Or else, how would their trip to the past have prevented Tempus from killing Clark? Also, how would L&C have been able to remember that adventure later on if it didn't happen?

Yes, I agree with you there C_A. He erased their memories of the events...not the events themselves. If you remember, in that episode, we find out that Clark's spaceship actually arrived on earth during the daytime but he tells Lois that his parents said they found him at night. They did find him at night because Clark lit the way for them. So those events remain consistent. Did that make sense?

It makes perfect sense. Besides, I always thought that the "memory erasing" explanation was pretty thin. Even if he put them back in the timeline before he ever met them the first time, it would still be later in their own personal timelines, so why should they forget? The only thing that I could come up with might be that the conflict could have produced a shock to their systems that might cause a temporary memory loss, but even that sounds kind of iffy.

Nan

Exactly Nan! I totally agree with you. That whole memory loss thing, at least the way *they* explained it, wasn't the greatest.

But of course, we knew why it had to happen, it wasn't time for her to find out yet. Although I do distinctly remember picking up a shoe and thinking about hurling it at my TV screen when Clark tore that note up at the end.

**Edit** - I can't wait to see what stories come from this little thread - woo hoo!

Oh, this has me excited!

James

Welcome to the joys of temporal paradoxes. Now, it may be true, as Heinlein wrote, that a paradox can be paradoctored, but TV writers aren't very good at it. TF is a good example of this, as people have discussed above, but Star Trek was worse: the "resolution" of the episode "Tomorrow is Yesterday" almost defies belief -- using the transporter to somehow place 20th-century people back where they already were before they found out about the Enterprise, thereby erasing their memories of the last few hours/days, is just plain crazy.

What it boils down to is that you can do pretty much whatever you want: Wells could have arranged for the second machine to have been collected, or he could have used a remote control unit to return it to his time, or he might have erased it from history, or.... He's got a time machine; he can go back to pick it up at any (subjective) time he wants to (Hi, Wendy. Got a headache yet? ).

I have to agree that it's unlikely that the events of Lois and Clark's trip to 1966 (and 1866, for that matter) were erased because there are external references to them -- outside the time loop. There's the tale (and sketch?) of the flying man who rescued Marshall Kent, and then there's the "meteor" that brought Jonathan and Martha to the landing site to find baby Clark -- said meteor being Superman. So some of what they did in the past must have always been there, even though they supposedly can't remember it -- or couldn't until their wedding night, IIRC.

Phil

Well, to me, Wells bringing them back to before they met him in the first place should have meant there were two Loises and two Clarks in the newsroom... so it's all a bit spurious to me.

And, no, Phil, no headache. I think I'm a bit more comfortable with time-travel paradoxes these days, thanks to my new fic-writing obsession...


Wendy