Who was John Titor, the 'time traveller' who came from 2036?

I've thought about this same issue a lot, especially while reading Crichton's Timeline. I decided to justify all of it in my head by making an assumption about the fictional time-travel technology. The assumption is that the function of the device is somehow tied to matter, either through the physical manifestation itself or through the distortion that matter has on spacetime. Either way, the mass of the earth would "drag" the path through time with it to about the same location from an earthling's perspective.

You're technically correct (which is the best kind of correct) but a time machine that always sends the heroes hurtling into space is a very difficult thing to write a plot around.

When Time Magazine asked Star Trek technical advisor Michael Okuda how the Heisenberg compensator on the transporters worked, he answered "it works very well, thank you." Rarely can a show afford to go much more beyond "it's a box that goes ding when there's stuff" levels of technical acumen before they just waste time with technobabble - especially with time travel which is more often than not about the period setting than anything else.

So just assume there's an... Einstein-Rosen framijam (or whatever) tucked away somewhere that just takes care of it and repeat to yourself "it's just a show, I should really just relax."

I wonder how many times Edward Snowden has been asked about whether or not he happened to stumble across The Truth behind ${CONSPIRACY}. Since he (or whomever on his behalf) got a Twitter account, I can't imagine no one has ever asked.

Hello fellow time traveler, do we sync our time journal now or after the tea?