Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 24, 2021

“Plus, you could find those cases where shoddy police lead to innocent people convicted.”

“Let’s not go overboard here.”

Think I’d pointed out that “Time Travel” would be what Smith was working on.

Maybe the time drone could solve JFK murder, and maybe show it was only the one crank Oswald. But what if soneone nasterminded Oswald, who was killed shortly after arrest, conveniently for someone?

Good morning™, comic strip travelers!

I’m still a little unclear on why Smith decided that human time travel was bad and he doesn’t really make a case for why device time travel is good, either, but that’s the situation we are in. This device would be amazing for historians, too.

Good morning™, boon to police kind !

I saw this cold case stuff coming the other day …. because I have means for going into the future and I aint tellin’.

~

Ah.

The Light of Other Days is Stephen Baxter’s expansion of a synopsis written by Arthur C. Clarke, in which microscopic “wormholes” are manipulated to feed visual information between any two points on the spacetime continuum.

I can see everything you do… or ever did… and vice versa.

Secrecy ends. Detective work can be done by anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Like spacetime fiber optic threads, invisible eyes sprout at all points throughout history. The origin of life on earth is directly observed… as are the events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. And, of course, of all the other usual suspects.

I wonder how much or how little these notions will be developed here?

Can we all agree this is NOT an original story???

Team retread strikes again! LOL!

I read all of yesterday’s comments, so I feel as if I’ve already read today’s strip.

Just the police? TRACY! THAT’S THE GREATEST INVENTION EVER!

Why limit it to cold cases? Grocery store robbery at 10:47 this morning? Quick lets get a clear video of the thieves fleeing and track them to their hideout so we can arrest them by 1:15 this afternoon. 100% arrest rate for every crime within a couple hours.

“How many flashback stories could be done with the time drone?”

The device would open up a whole new world of solving ancient mysteries!

Philosophically speaking, the action of a modern observer observing the past, alters the past as well. This could cause all kinds of paradox.

♫ “Let’s do the Time Drone again…”♫

In the current unpleasant climate, defense attorneys and conspiracy theory junkies will immediately dismiss the device as unreliable, showing only what it’s programmed to show, relying on “deep fakes” and an attempt by the Deep State, The Man or whatever it’s called it this week to keep us under their thumb OR (on the opposite side) by radical elitists to take control, our freedoms, etc. All this will leave Diet Smith to wonder what he was thinking as he gives up on time travel altogether.

On the positive side, however, you don’t have the unpleasant side effect of scientists bouncing back and forth through time, unable to return to the present. ( The Time Tunnel, Quantum Leap )

“Minority Report.” Send the drone into the future and solve crimes before they happen. Of course, that assumes the future is immutable and can’t be changed…or does it? Time travel is so confusing.

this could be a good and a bad thing.

Imagine the judge being requested for a warrant for a time drone.

I currently live in Atchison, Kansas – birthplace of Amelia Earhart. Could you send the time drone out to the Howland Island area to look for her on July 2, 1937 :)

My thoughts are these; who would decide if the evidence from a time drone was reliable? And, wouldn’t the principles of Double Jeopardy, and, no law can apply to past acts acts, also possibly apply?

“And don’t forget the most important thing, Tracy! This allows us to re-visit all your dead enemies so that we can retain their trademark!”

“Y’know, Diet, for such a utopian visionary, you sure can be a cynical cuss!”

Zero: All the crimes were committed by politicians that passed laws against time drones.

1-DT: Can you use that thing to see who my real father is? My mom was the town tramp so…

DOIT: THINK, Dick. Why do I always bring you in to see my inventions?

2-…Why have I always cared so much about your career and safety? _Ooh. This Calmgar (patent pending) is giving me Chinese eyes.

3-DT: I dunno. I guess I’m the son you never had.

DOIT: Ai yi yi. Well, you’re getting closer.

DT: Oh, look. There’s my mom when she was young. And you’re at the door with – what is that? Looks like money in your hand. What a guy! You’ve always helped my family. I wish you were my dad.

DOIT: Yes, well, let’s just forget about that. Maybe I’ll send this thing back in time to see how the hell you ever became a detective…

I guess it’s like going back through the comic archives to catch up to today. (I’m in the Gruesome storyline at the moment)

The Time Drone??? Imagination!

There have been so many sci-fi stories about this theme. None ended well.

And when is the past? 30 years ago? 30 seconds? Welcome to the fishbowl.

H.G. Wells rolls over.

Please!! That’s been on my mind even as I pursue the JFK family & its White House archives!!

Ooof….already there’s something Gort: Klaatu Barada Niktoh-ish about this……….

And now,let’s meet the inventors of the Time Drone,Mr.Peabody and Mr.Sherman

Hey,if you KNOW somebody did it,you just go to dig up the long-buried evidence.Legally.

Sorry to disturb your nap,Judge Crater.

Charlie Watts just died. 2 iconic members of rock royalty gone in 2 days. Life is short. Cherish every moment.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/entertainment/2021/08/24/rolling-stones-drummer-charlie-watts-has-died-at-age-80/

The technology will be stolen from Smith Industries, and instead of drones, humanoid AI robots will be sent to the past. It will be a free for all. China, Russia, Dominica, and the rest will wreak havoc. We are doomed. Thanks, Mr. Smith.

“Do it to me one more time, once is never enough” Captain and Tannile !

I’m reading a lot of squawks about how the “Time Drone” will be used to re-hash so-called“boring villains from the past”.

Well,during that Locher/Killian era everybody says they hated,except for Pruneface and that “Mumbles Family” atrocity;ALL the villains were originals.

And none of them are remembered at all.So be careful what you wish for.

I have a feeling this invention is going to go very sideways very quickly.

I wonder if Diet will patent his invention. He may not because it would mean he’d have to describe in detail how it works to the Patent Office and then it would be a matter of public record and I don’t think Smith would want that; better to keep it to himself.

One thought provoking idea was from a science fiction story that explored an area missed here. How far in the past is “the past”? A day, a minute, a microsecond? At the extreme, the past is indistinguishable from the present. In the story, the characters believe in a government conspiracy, and get the word out to those scientists who can make the viewing machine a reality. (And unwittingly bring Big Brother into our lives. Anyone who has the money for a machine can see everything in near-real-time. Privacy will be a thing of the past.)

The Time Drone, even if carefully monitored by honest technicians, will open a big old can of worm(hole)s. Since your observance of the past will not allow you to change it, crimes will still have happened that have happened. But you will be changing the future if you arrest all the surviving perps who had up to now gotten away with murder!

Diet Smith and his gung ho team have not thought through all of the implications of use of the Time Drone technology, and things could get messy!

“Imagine the applications, Tracy! We can see and hear historical events as they happened”! I’ll laugh when someone in the historic past shoots this time drone down like they were duck hunting. How much did it cost to make the thing and Diet create a spare?

Cold cases…shouldn’t the police department be trying to solve the warm ones first?

Would the courts allow this kind of technology?

Unless this drone can multi-task, it can only solve one cold case at a time.