The Time Traveler’s Guide to the Worst Timeline

a Tribute to Douglas Adams and the farce that is the digital age

When viewing the timestream that houses all the timelines, you will see a plethora of golden light. Life itself, shining so bright it threatens to overwhelm anyone who sees it. Its branches speeding in every direction into futures yet untold. Most folks who visit this marvel and stare for hours, which is measured in full decades on some timelines. Few who have seen it are usually impressed as time flows past into bright tech-filled futures of flying cars and vacations on the moon Europa. There are paradise worlds where mankind lives synonymous with nature in trees as tall as skyscrapers. Even peaceful worlds where humans have found solutions for both war and death. World’s where you and your grandfather could be best friends for a millennium.

This is not about those timelines. This doesn’t involve those worlds. No, this is a shortened stump of a timeline whose time flows black and curdled. Viewing this timeline from the outside, one would think it is a root of some kind. It sort of resembles a very wonky, dirty corkscrew. It’s not pretty, it’s not intuitive, and unfortunately for everyone on this timeline, it isn’t safe either.

Re: TARDIS

Every person on this timeline is anxious. For a good reason, this is, without a doubt, the worst timeline in existence, in all of the multi-verse.

42 Skidoo

Congratulations are in order. It is a surprising feat to find yourself at the bottom of the briniest barrel of reality. Unfortunately, you’ve found yourself stranded here and are now consulting the Time Traveler’s Guide to the Worst Timeline.

For starters, let’s throw all that calm and chill stuff out the window. This timeline gave up on chill in the late 90s. Maybe you should panic. Perhaps we all should panic. I’m going to say it right here, in large red, sharp letters, “Definitely Panic.” Unfortunately for us, nothing here is ‘mostly harmless.’ In fact, everything in this place will leave you feeling sticky and itchy.

However, you arrived here: time-traveling phone booth of various types, a flying car, a handheld computer, or simply observing patterns of natural timeslip in the universe; I’m sorry you’ve arrived. Not because you’ll ruin this timeline, nothing could make this any worse. But, tragically, you get to bear witness to this frightening parody of existence.

Denizens of this timeline put their hands in tiger cages! They try to befriend bears. They even cross fences into dangerous areas near Volcanoes expecting nature to somehow be “different” and “safe!” They are even surprised when nature never changes!

It’s an old meme, but it checks out.

Some people on this timeline believe in mystical energy martial arts. Right up until a point where a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu pops them square in the mouth. The comedy of this scene is very sobering and fun to watch. There are whole social media websites dedicated to sharing this slapstick.

The Yellow Bamboo cult believed they could stop attackers with “chi”. Many feelings and faces were hurt.

Don’t forget your towel (it’s for the tears)

The following fact will blow your mind while also sounding entirely redundant. This timeline has every bit of data at their fingertips so, some people here use their time to create fake data, to trick other people into believing their data is somehow better data. I’m not kidding. They have whole websites dedicated to alerting folks about what data is real and what data is fake. Last week, the biggest one, well known for being the best at spotting real data, was caught stealing articles about fake data.

That won’t get brought up by anti-fact-checking cranks for the next 100 years or anything goddamnit

If you think that’s crazy, buckle up buddy, this roller-coaster hasn’t even peaked the first hill.

This timeline elected a greedy reality TV star, and many people expected it to turn out well. Some of them still believe, even after he attempted a coup, that somehow this was all a good thing!

(They’re nuking these videos over copyright as fast as they’re coming out, so let us know if this one dies too in the comments -ed) via the Jan 6th Meme archive on the forums

The biggest world-power on earth politicized wearing a mask and getting a vaccine… during a plague! Group A felt that wearing a mask was a healthy and responsible choice. It benefited them and benefited other people around them. Group B hated group A accusing them of shitty political views. Group B screamed about wanting the freedom to make terrible health decisions that affect and infect everyone around them. They claimed vaccines were more dangerous than a plague that killed 4 million worldwide. Oh, and one of those conspiracy theories declared that a billionaire was putting microchips in vaccines! If someone wanted to microchip this population, they’d put them in their Miller High-Life bottles.

There are dozens if not hundreds of these.

If you can, please re-assemble your time machine and leave this violent car-wreck of an existence. If you can’t well, I’m sorry you’re stranded here for whatever reason, but I am right here with you. I am also cursing under my breath and dying inside every single time I meet a flat-earther. I meet a new one almost weekly these days.

I’d rather listen to Pitbull’s entire catalog on repeat

Should you feel like taking the easy way out and destroying all of space and time in a paradox, well, I’ve tried. They simply don’t work here. This timeline is immune to paradoxes. It is like a cockroach wiggling through a nuclear holocaust. Living amongst the rubble. Devouring whatever moldy sustenance its diseased head can sniff out. When people here encounter a mind-bending, world-destroying paradox, they blame the other tribe that is contrary to their political views. They ignore signs of the apocalypse and continue stomping around it, through existence. The cockroach wasn’t a metaphor or an analogy.

Welcome, and all the fish are dying

Anyways, welcome to the worst timeline in every dark and twisted corner of the multi-verse. I am sorry you’ve found your way here, and I’d like to reassure you in the fact that you should definitely panic.

This would make a nice t-shirt to sell to people who joke about dolphin-safe tuna
Steve Mix
Steve Mix is owner of Green Machine Comics and a wounded U.S. Army combat paratrooper. If you ask him which comic book is going to be valuable in 20 years, he may very well beat you to death with a Funko Pop. Or not. You takes your chances.
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