"The Final Countdown": USS Nimitz ISOTed to December 6, 1941

Has anyone seen this movie? It was released in 1980 and starred Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen. It's a by-the-book ISOT scenario of the kind we like to speculate about in the ASB forum: one sunny day in 1980, the USS Nimitz, while on manoeuvers in the vicinity of Hawaii, crosses a temporal vortex and finds itself sent back in time to December 6, 1941, of all days.

The scenes in which the characters piece together what has happened are fairly well-made. First they wonder why all they can hear on the radio are old shows and sports broadcasts; then they send reconnaissance planes take a look around, and they come back with photos of Pearl Harbor as it looked just before the Japanese attack. Finally an AWACS spots what turns out to be the Japanese war fleet, and no doubt is possible any longer. There's a nice (if brief) dogfight between a pair of Zeroes and F-14 Tomcats, and plausible agonizing about what if anything the Nimitz should do about the impending Japanese strike. Kirk Douglas closes the debate with a firm: "I shall take my orders from the Commander in Chief of the US armed forces!" To which one of his officers replies: "That's going to be Franklin D. Roosevelt."

The rest of the movie is unfortunately disappointing. Uninspired editing takes most of the thrill out of watching an aircraft carrier from the inside, and even what should have been adrenaline-packed scenes of fighters taking off for battle come out as dull. As for the temporal vortex, even by the standards of the pre-digital age, it looks absolutely terrible, as though there just was no budget left for special effects and they just threw a cheap thing together at the last minute.



Of course, I used this film as an example of the ISOT trope.

They should've attacked.

Assuming they stayed behind...I think it's virtually assured they butcher the Japanese carrier force.

What I would be interested to know is how relations proceed with the Soviet Union from here on out considering the future knowledge brought back.

CT23 said:

They should've attacked.

Assuming they stayed behind...I think it's virtually assured they butcher the Japanese carrier force.

What I would be interested to know is how relations proceed with the Soviet Union from here on out considering the future knowledge brought back.

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Dude...OH dude...I was trying to remember the name of this movie...

...they need to make a sequel with absolutely no storyline and just tons of shit getting blown up. Only THAT could make up for...oh MAN how can I not give it...(bangs head on keyboard)



In as far as the whole "relations with the Soviet Union" thing would go, you need to look no further than the whole Weapons of Choice series, I think. They talk a LOT about that.

Amerigo Vespucci did do a further developed story version. The problem really with the original from the ISOT point of view is that it fits the usual stranger-in-a-strange-land thing about wanting to get back and not changing the timeline, whereas with ISOTs we assume it's permanent, the timeline is already changed and it's about worldbuilding.

If this was turned into an ISOT-style work it would be quite interesting. A ship from 1980 avoids many of the problems with modern ISOTs, as the only big difference of social opinion between 1980 and 1941 Americans is black civil rights (and women's lib. to some extent).

CT23 said:

Assuming they stayed behind...I think it's virtually assured they butcher the Japanese carrier force.

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They were about to, in fact, and aborted at the last moment because the vortex was about to take them back to 1980. (A very persistent vortex, too, they tried to evade it but it followed them around, which clearly proves ASB involvement).

Thande said:

Amerigo Vespucci did do a further developed story version.

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Got a link to it?

Hendryk said:

Got a link to it?

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Here you go

Thande said:

Amerigo Vespucci did do a further developed story version. The problem really with the original from the ISOT point of view is that it fits the usual stranger-in-a-strange-land thing about wanting to get back and not changing the timeline, whereas with ISOTs we assume it's permanent, the timeline is already changed and it's about worldbuilding.

If this was turned into an ISOT-style work it would be quite interesting. A ship from 1980 avoids many of the problems with modern ISOTs, as the only big difference of social opinion between 1980 and 1941 Americans is black civil rights (and women's lib. to some extent).

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I read it. I think if he ever finishes it, it could be published, get the permission from the original author of the Final Countdown for the use of his characters of course.

The original movie and book is just a time travel story, a vortex takes the Nimitz to 1941 and people debate about whether to interfere with history and then the Vortex takes them back. Its rather pointless if you ask me, the real interesting story is how they might interfere with history and change it. I have the same complaint about the end of the New Battlestar Galactica Series, its the same old thing about "lets blend in with history." In the case of BSG, they have to learn how to grunt like cavemen and give up their technology so as not to mess up our prehistory too much. The whole premise of the new BSG is much like alternate history with our society basically transplanted to a fleet of starships, with a little bit of window dressing added about the "Lords of Kobol" and so forth.

Time travel stories about people who "look but do not touch" are as boring as reading a history book, after all why have a time traveler in the first place if your going to do that?

Heh! Saw it back in the 80s. Its cheese in spots, but I liked the premise. It seems a ripe candidate for a better remake.

I loved that movie when it came out, and even if the Nimitz just launches a strike and sinks all the carriers, then blinks out due to paradox or the vortex kicking it back home it would be completely disastrous to Japan.

I can just picture Lt Commander Rochefort reporting to Admiral Kimmel that a Japanese fleet briefly went on the air and then was quickly knocked out, and American search planes and ships finding hundreds of square miles of debris and oil slicks and American commanders scratching their heads.

Meanwhile of course the Japanese have already started operations in Malaya and the Philippines, so the war is on anyway.

Haranobu said:

Heh! Saw it back in the 80s. Its cheese in spots, but I liked the premise. It seems a ripe candidate for a better remake.

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I think with an ISOT, once strains credibility enough, that is you have one freak phenomina that sends the carrier back in time and the crew has to deal with it, call it a freak of nature not likley to be repeated and move on from there. What strains credibility the most is that vortex in the movie comes back after that same Aircraft carrier as if its trying to fix an error and get that ship back in the time period to which it belongs - as if there is an intelligence behind that storm. Once the storm has an intelligence, you then have to start assigning a "motive" to it. The Nimitz wasn't just send back in time by accident, but was instead send back there for a reason, what that reason was, I'll never know, but apparently it wasn't to change history or any of that in the movie. A whole lot of trouble for nothing.

It it happens once, it could be anything, a freak storm of nature, but if it happens twice to the same ship, then a pattern is established, some intelligent entity is behind it, but in the movie, we never learn what it was, its just a rather arbitrary plot device to put the Nimitz in the middle of World War II and then take it back again. I prefer it just drops it there and leaves it there, just like in the Island in the Sea of Time there is no going back the present and resolving it like a typical Star Trek "Time Travel" episode.

Meanwhile, the Japanese brass is wondering what happened to its carrier force.

MacCaulay said:

In as far as the whole "relations with the Soviet Union" thing would go, you need to look no further than the whole Weapons of Choice series, I think. They talk a LOT about that.

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IIRC, from that series though, all sides got pieces of the advanced technology somehow.

In this scenario (Final Countdown), it would very likely be just the Western Allies (not the USSR) sharing the vast majority of the futuristic stuff. Like in Amerigo's fanfic based on this, with knowledge about the Soviet atrocities and how they became an ideological enemy, I doubt America would want to share everything with them.

Tom Kalbfus said:

I think with an ISOT, once strains credibility enough, that is you have one freak phenomina that sends the carrier back in time and the crew has to deal with it, call it a freak of nature not likley to be repeated and move on from there. What strains credibility the most is that vortex in the movie comes back after that same Aircraft carrier as if its trying to fix an error and get that ship back in the time period to which it belongs - as if there is an intelligence behind that storm. Once the storm has an intelligence, you then have to start assigning a "motive" to it. The Nimitz wasn't just send back in time by accident, but was instead send back there for a reason, what that reason was, I'll never know, but apparently it wasn't to change history or any of that in the movie. A whole lot of trouble for nothing.

It it happens once, it could be anything, a freak storm of nature, but if it happens twice to the same ship, then a pattern is established, some intelligent entity is behind it, but in the movie, we never learn what it was, its just a rather arbitrary plot device to put the Nimitz in the middle of World War II and then take it back again. I prefer it just drops it there and leaves it there, just like in the Island in the Sea of Time there is no going back the present and resolving it like a typical Star Trek "Time Travel" episode.

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Actually you don't need to ascribe motive to the storm. I never did when I saw the movie (and I've seen it several times, and loved it each time).

The way I interpreted it was the Nimitz backwards goes through the storm by some fluke. It then is in the wrong place, so the storm will tend to suck it back up (e.g. like mass causes gravity, no intelligent motive is required) and send it back to the correct time.

The idea that the events are pointless is also wrong.

Yes nothing changes during the battle, but the time travel back to 1941 allows Lasky (who gets left behind in the past) to design Nimitz, based in part, on his knowledge from the future - a classic ontological paradox - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_paradox

One other issue - was the Europe song inspired by the movie (I know it was several years later)? If it wasn't, it ought to have been!

SunilTanna said:

Actually you don't need to ascribe motive to the storm. I never did when I saw the movie (and I've seen it several times, and loved it each time).

The way I interpreted it was the Nimitz backwards goes through the storm by some fluke. It then is in the wrong place, so the storm will tend to suck it back up (e.g. like mass causes gravity, no intelligent motive is required) and send it back to the correct time.

The idea that the events are pointless is also wrong.

Yes nothing changes during the battle, but the time travel back to 1941 allows Lasky (who gets left behind in the past) to design Nimitz, based in part, on his knowledge from the future - a classic ontological paradox - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_paradox

One other issue - was the Europe song inspired by the movie (I know it was several years later)? If it wasn't, it ought to have been!

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So essentially no one designed the Nimitz as they all copied from the future. That's kind of like the paradox of the mad scientist who's busy building a time machine and then an older version of that scientist suddenly appears in a time machine and says, "Never mind, don't bother, I already got a time machine, you can borrow mine."

"Thank you," says the younger version of the Mad scientist, "Inventing a time machine is really hard work, now that I got the time machine from you I really don't have to bother."

Later on that day the mad scientist decides to take a trip into the past and visit his former self. He finds a younger version of himself frantically trying to build a time machine and the older mad scientist says, "Never mind, don't bother, I already got a time machine, you can borrow mine."

"Thank you," says the younger version of the Mad scientist, "Inventing a time machine is really hard work, now that I got the time machine from you I really don't have to bother."

And so on ...

I thought this thread was a joke at first...

Tom Kalbfus said:

So essentially no one designed the Nimitz as they all copied from the future. That's kind of like the paradox of the mad scientist who's busy building a time machine and then an older version of that scientist suddenly appears in a time machine and says, "Never mind, don't bother, I already got a time machine, you can borrow mine."

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The paradox theory is flawed because it fails to take into account what we on this forum take for granted, the existence of multiple timelines. Time travel is really no different from cross-timeline travel. There is no paradox because, in your example, the older scientist is from another timeline.

Which is also the reason why a given time-traveller, or for that matter the entire crew of an aircraft carrier, shouldn't be all that concerned about "changing the past". Nothing is going to change their past, which has already happened. What they would change is the present of another timeline. So I think Amerigo Vespucci's story took the right approach overall.

Hendryk said:

The paradox theory is flawed because it fails to take into account what we on this forum take for granted, the existence of multiple timelines. Time travel is really no different from cross-timeline travel. There is no paradox because, in your example, the older scientist is from another timeline.

Which is also the reason why a given time-traveller, or for that matter the entire crew of an aircraft carrier, shouldn't be all that concerned about "changing the past". Nothing is going to change their past, which has already happened. What they would change is the present of another timeline. So I think Amerigo Vespucci's story took the right approach overall.

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Isn't it strange how we've gone from monolinear time travel to many-worlds crosstime travel predominating in fiction basically from the 1980s to the 1990s? (Though it was the 60s when monolinear time travel really had its day).

I mean, I know part of it is to do with quantum theory ideas becoming better known, but it does seem like a big paradigm shift. We go from agonising over treading on a butterfly to shrugging and saying that it's just another universe.

I don't believe in Many Worlds.

Apart from it being so depressing (every choice you make is pointless, because you've also made all the other choices too). Here is why:

1. Assume a binary* atomic** event at the limit of the uncertainty principle***. A or B.

* By "binary" I just mean 2 choices, and only 2 possible choices

** By "atomic" as in undividable, not necessary is in atoms of matter.

*** This is so as not to allow hidden variables, Such that you can say A is actually a sum of several ways to get to A, and B is a sum of several ways to get to B.

2. According to the Many Worlds theory, the universe splits into 2 timelines, A-timeline and B-timeline. There are two universes, you are in one or the other. You therefore have an equal chance of finding yourself in either. 50:50 right.

3. The Many Worlds hypothesis, and 50:50 chance of being in either timeline, is only compatible with 1, if the binary atomic event had a 50:50 chance of producing A or B. If any binary atomic event can exist, does exist, or could possibly exist, where the odds are not exactly 50:50 of A or B, then the probabilities calculated based on the event, as compared to the probability in being in 1 or 2 universe are not the same. Any deviation from 50:50 for chance of A:B, even by the tiniest amount, one in zillions, breaks the many Worlds hypothesis.

4. Personally, I assume that such a binary atomic event, which is not exactly 50:50 could be found, and thus disprove the Many Worlds hypothesis. If any wants to do physics research, this is what I suggest you study!


To get back on topic somewhat - the Many Worlds hypothesis, in this case at least, doesn't quite remove all elements of the Paradox. It just that Lasky's knowledge of Nimitz came from another timeline. However, it does raise the question did the Nimitz return to the original timeline at the end? Because when they return, the timeline they arrive at, they discover, Lasky developed Nimitz - but it's not revealed if that was the same as the timeline they left.

Do you believe in free will?

If you believe in free will and also that time travel is possible, then you have to believe in the "many worlds" hypothesis.

If you believe in Time Travel but don't believe in the "Many Worlds" hypothesis then you must not believe in free will.

If you believe in free will but not in the "many Worlds" hypothesis, then you must not believe in time travel.

FWIW, I believe time travel is probably impossible.



But let us assume Time Travel (TT) is possible, and the past is mutable, that still does NOT require Many Worlds (MW). I assume you are arguing that it is because of the grandfather and ontological paradoxes, and MW offers a way out of it. However there are others alternatives:

For example
(a) TT is possible
(b) There is only one time line
(c) The past is mutable
(d) But there is no rule that stops something appearing from nothing.

Add those together: If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you haven't caused a paradox. You have changed the timeline, so you won't be born. That doesn't mean that you don't exist anymore (causing a paradox). Instead it means that you live in a timeline in which you appeared from nowhere with an imaginary past and killed somebody who you thought was your grandfather.

I can think of other variations too.


(BTW, I think you are conflating free will with predestination. (I presume because you don't want the answer, you can't TT to kill your grandfather, because you didn't previously, however much you might want to).)