Mein Sci-Fi Kampf

May 14, 2008 5:10 PM

There was a post (I believe on Boing Boing) a few months ago about a sci-fi short story in the form of an internet message board. The message board was for a group of time travelers, and the new members were always being scolded for going back in time and killing Hitler (this was against the rules, as without Hitler we wouldn't have many technologies, etc etc). I have Google strings that I've tried inside...

time travel sci-fi story message board
Hitler sci-fi short story
hitler sci-fi story message

ad infinitum...

I've tried the various strings in Google, on Boing Boing, and on MetaFilter to no avail. Anyone out there have this story?

posted by pedmands to Writing & Language (14 answers total)

Best answer: My first try was "kills hitler time traveler", and here it is.
posted by martinrebas at 5:14 PM on May 14, 2008 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: What the! Thanks, Martin. The nuances of Google Fu might always elude me.
posted by pedmands at 5:16 PM on May 14, 2008

Strong Google Fu depends on realizing that search engines index content, not meaning. So unless you're sure that "sci-fi" appears somewhere on the page you're looking for, it's probably better to leave that out.
posted by flabdablet at 5:30 PM on May 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Wise, flabdablet. I was preoccupied with searching for the article and not the story. I should have cut out the middle man.
posted by pedmands at 5:35 PM on May 14, 2008

Response by poster: Mods can feel free to delete this post, answered quickly and seems to have no benefit for the rest of the MeFi community. Thanks.
posted by pedmands at 5:44 PM on May 14, 2008

Don't delete! I like reading random stories other people were searching for on the internet.
posted by emyd at 5:48 PM on May 14, 2008

story was excellent, i wouldn't have seen it otherwise. thanks!
posted by spinturtle at 6:42 PM on May 14, 2008

Me too - good story!
posted by jb at 6:43 PM on May 14, 2008

This is a great story; don't delete.
posted by charlesv at 7:26 PM on May 14, 2008

Don't delete! I wouldn't have seen this otherwise. Thanks for asking.
posted by lilac girl at 7:42 PM on May 14, 2008

...no benefit for the rest of the MeFi community.
I benefited.
posted by lekvar at 9:09 PM on May 14, 2008

don't delete! I saw the post and thought "gee I hope it gets answered because that sounds like a cool story."
posted by Lucinda at 5:19 AM on May 15, 2008

I enjoyed that until I realised that, every time a newbie fucks up and negates time travel by his Hitler-killing antics, someone can still somehow go back and fix it before it happened. I vote for deleting the question. ;)
posted by Skyanth at 6:16 AM on May 15, 2008

I benefited. And so did some people who don't know that AskMefi exists.

Someone needs to go back and "take care" of Skyanth's parents. Anyone?
posted by deborah at 5:29 PM on May 15, 2008