timequake
nounEtymology From time + quake.
1
Literature, Media, Publishing, Science fiction A disturbance in the flow of time.
- Or you can have a revisable universe with one timeline (see Hogan's Thrice Upon a Time or Milennium^([sic]) by (I think) Joe Haldeman for the general idea) and in which your actions can "rewrite" the past from that point on. Here, if you shoot your grandfather, you generate a "timequake" in which something ugly happens. Probably you disappear, but there may be other side-effects as the universe works it out, which is, I think, what you are reffering^([sic]) to as the "great expense".1996 November 16, Mike Abernathy, “Re: faster than light travel”, in sci.physics.electromag (Usenet), message-ID <56la8t$5@sjx-ixn2.ix.netcom.com>:
- Finding herself in the middle of a “timequake,” she discovers another world—an alternate universe. Will Mary find a way to return to the world she left?2008, Deanna J. McDaniel, Gentle Reads: Great Books to Warm Hearts and Lift Spirits, Grades 5-9, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 217: