I noticed there seems to be a pretty common theme about stories that involve time travel. It always assumes if you have the wisdom of foresight you can just send in whoever and get the job done. We're not talking about the Terminator where the guys they sent back is presumably the best guy they have here. There's a lot of time story stuff that pretty much just features Joe Average going back in time to make a difference.
Now it's true some events might be so pivotal the mere knowledge of them can turn the tide. If you know the Allies are going to land in Normandy that can turn the whole war around, provided you can get people to believe you in the first place (which is no trivial feat). But what if you got sent back to say the Roman Empire around the time of Attilia the Hun? Any of the opposition while Genghis Khan rised to power? Assuming you don't know the history like the back of your hand, what exactly can an average person do? It's a non trivial task to just convince everyone that what you know is right, but even if you give that, so say you won a big victory thanks to your historical know-how. At this point history is changed so whatever you may know might not even apply anymore. If you're not some kind of military genius then your side is still pretty screwed.
Even if you take stuff that's more of a personal level, like say you go back in time to prevent the sinking of the Titanic, or assassinate Hitler, or whatever. What enables Joe Average to pull this off when history indicates that despite best efforts, these events didn't happen?
Now it's true some events might be so pivotal the mere knowledge of them can turn the tide. If you know the Allies are going to land in Normandy that can turn the whole war around, provided you can get people to believe you in the first place (which is no trivial feat). But what if you got sent back to say the Roman Empire around the time of Attilia the Hun? Any of the opposition while Genghis Khan rised to power? Assuming you don't know the history like the back of your hand, what exactly can an average person do? It's a non trivial task to just convince everyone that what you know is right, but even if you give that, so say you won a big victory thanks to your historical know-how. At this point history is changed so whatever you may know might not even apply anymore. If you're not some kind of military genius then your side is still pretty screwed.
Even if you take stuff that's more of a personal level, like say you go back in time to prevent the sinking of the Titanic, or assassinate Hitler, or whatever. What enables Joe Average to pull this off when history indicates that despite best efforts, these events didn't happen?
