User talk:Eighty5cacao/misc/WMG dump/The Time Machine

Telepathy
On the Wikia wiki for The Time Machine, someone mentioned that The Time Machine: A Sequel assumes the existence of some telepathic abilities in the Eloi. So does Time Kid, though it isn't truly a retelling of TTM in that it alters the names and relationships of the species descended from H. sapiens.

There is little canonical support for such an interpretation, with one exception: In paragraph 26 of chapter 5, the Traveller says: "I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that I was drowned, and that sea anemones were feeling over my face with their soft palps." The "sea anemones" are evidently a response to the Morlocks walking past him; what's relevant here is the imagery of drowning. Could it imply some psychic resonance from Weena relating to her impending drowning?

If we discard the assumption that the Eloi are relatively unintelligent compared to present-day H. sapiens, the existence of telepathy could explain why the spoken Eloi language is so simple and why there is no written form. I'm unwilling to take this step, though, as it would leave no obvious reason for Weena's nonuse of said telepathy after her rescue.

My guess on the physical basis of such telepathy: The time machine was built using a mineral with a physico-chemical property unknown to real-world science, such as hypersteric hindrance. Over a few hundred thousand years, the course of the nearby rivers changed just enough to run through a deposit (former mine?) of said mineral, allowing it to leach into the water. The chemical's temporal properties manifest in a biological system as various forms of ESP. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 05:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC) (last edit 16:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC))
 * And even if there is no real telepathy, the Eloi might have nonverbal communication skills good enough to look like telepathy to an outside observer in some cases (yeah, it's that Cracked article again). --Eighty5cacao (talk) 16:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This will go onto the content page soon, once I figure out what's worth mentioning about electronic devices connected to human brains. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 06:32, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Even if an individual Eloi doesn't have much brainpower, it's possible that a community could exhibit more complex behavior while communicating telepathically. However, considering the Eloi behavior displayed in the novel, this argues against the existence of telepathy in that time and place. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 04:40, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

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"Imagine a race of people who stop growing mentally and physically at age six. They act six their whole life. Then imagine another race of cannibals who live underground who kill upworlders who turn 30-something for food."

This is how I described the relationship between the Eloi and the Morlocks in some IRC channel. Someone unfamiliar with TTM told me it reminded him of Ocampa from Star Trek: Voyager. And the Ocampa are telepathic. --Tepples (talk) 05:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay ... I haven't watched that much of any Star Trek series. A quick look shows that allthetropes:Psychic Children exists. I'll think about working in a link or finding something better. (TODO: update interwiki prefix for Memory Alpha) --Eighty5cacao (talk) 06:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC) (+ 02:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC))

On a non-preferred WMG topic, I proposed that behavioral neoteny, neuroplasticity, and/or nerve conduction time may justify a negative correlation of psychic powers with biological age. This might be used to argue against the 2002 film's idea that the Morlocks hold the psychic power. --Eighty5cacao (talk) 03:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC) (+ 04:27, 12 December 2014 (UTC))

The Seattle below Seattle
In 1889, Seattle had been through a flood, a fire, and another flood. When rebuilding, they decided to raise the altitude of downtown by one or two stories. But this was done not as in Galveston, Texas, but by building new streets on top of the old ones and putting new development higher off the ground. This led to two parallel downtowns: one above ground for "the happy sun-dwellers" and another for, you know, them. --Tepples (talk) 20:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

WBSE dump
For the Morlocks: How would lack of sunlight affect a human population?

(This other question has a title that sounds relevant to the Eloi, but the actual question isn't, due to the assumptions it makes.) --Eighty5cacao (talk) 22:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Also of dubious relevance: How to secretly harvest/farm human beings as a primary food supply? --Eighty5cacao (talk) 06:05, 2 August 2017 (UTC)