I realize there are a lot of unexplained things in this series, but one thing that really bugs me is this: Olga and Ballard and the other scientists always seem to know what they're doing at the control panel before a backstep. In reality, however, everything should be new to them because they've never done it before. Parker is the only one who's experienced the events leading up to a backstep. I really wish they had addressed this issue on the show.
shareIt's even worse, there is a real possibility that the backstep never been done and it's just Parker who makes stuff up for laughs. :D
shareEven though the first message in this topic is from 4 years ago I shall respond to it. Having a backstep isnt new to them. Yes it may be the first time technically, the whole branch of government they work for does nothing but focus on the ability to go back in time and change things. They would know very well what to do since there would have been test runs, training and tons of preparations. Its not like riding a bike for the first time. Their job is to run a backstep program, its what they do, its the whole reason they work there. They are gonna know how to perform the job they are required to do. Frank is not even the first person to do the backstep program, there were others before him.
shareWell, first, the project existed before they selected Frank. During that time, Olga and Ballard no doubt designed and went through extensive training and simulations of a backstep. Therefore, they would know what to do during a backstep, with or without time changes. Second, there isn't anything saying that there is a backstep every seven days.
shareWhen Frank backsteps 7 days into the past the first time, there is another Frank still in existance. When the backstep Frank does it a second time, there may be potentially, two other Franks in existance. Soon, the place would be overridden with Franks! The only way Backstep would work is that when the agency receives a call from the Backstepped Frank, they immediately sequestered the Unbackstepped Frank. If the Backstepped Frank saves the day AND survives, the Unbackstepped Frank is immediately terminated!
sharei always loved how parker backstepped he would tell them why and they would never believe him
trivianerd
well if you think about it, they always said element 115 was very rare and that it was in a limited supply, but since frank goes back in time that would mean that the fuel is unlimited as if he goes back in time, the fuel he just used would reappear. I always wanted them to keep going back, I mean time travel is limited to 7 days, but when he reappears 7 days earlier, he should be able to do that indefinatly, as long as they can get the sphere back to the lab.
shareThat occured to me several years ago. Only Parker would remember the backsteps. The team would do the backstep (let's say sending Parker from the 7th to the 1st) to stop a disaster, Parker will prevent the disaster, then on the 7th, the team would not do the backstep because there is no longer a disaster to prevent. So each backstep they do will be their very first backstep.
Also present day Parker would seemingly vanish into thin air whenever his future self gets sent back to the present.
It's a shame this was hardly ever mentioned on the show, or that we never saw Parker vanish into thin air.
It also would have been pretty cool to do an episode where we only see the altered timeline. In the very first scene Parker would suddenly disappear into thin air and then a moment later they get a phone call from Parker where he says "conundrum" and tells them about a disaster to prevent. Us viewers would never have seen the original disaster. It would have been interesting to have us viewers as well as the backstep team only having Parker's words to go on to prevent the disaster.
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