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Bender's Big Score part 5:  Tut, Tut, Tut

The second larcenous trip Bender makes to the past in the Futurama movie Bender's Big Score is to steal the contents of an Egyptian tomb before they are interred.  This does not face the same problems as the previously considered stealing of the Mona Lisa.  Since they will spend four thousand years in the limestone caves beneath the office, they will certainly age sufficiently to pass for originals.

That, though, might be a flaw in the plan.

The treasures of King Tut's tomb were so well preserved after thousands of years in large part because of the combination of the dry climate of Egypt and the securely sealed tomb.  The conditions under which objects are stored play a significant role in their rate of deterioration; a great deal of money is spent on climate control in museums of all types, not primarily for the comfort of the patrons.  Bender's plan is to capture objects centuries previous and keep them safe in a limestone cave--one of the wetter environments of the earth.  It is certainly questionable how many will survive the thousands of years of such exposure.

Of more interest from a time travel perspective is the experience of being in that cave.  If, as suggested, the last departure was the first trip made, life in that cave would be interesting to observe, from an atemporal position.

Bender, in a tuxedo, travels from the end of the story to January 1, 2000, places the tattoo on Fry, and then enters the empty cavern to await the proper time for his return.

Before that time arrives, Bender not yet having made that trip makes his first trip to steal the Mona Lisa.  He, too, enters an empty cave; but before he leaves, a version of himself in a tuxedo arrives.  Neither Bender knows anything about the other; it is not part of the history he remembers.

Bender leaves the cave with the Mona Lisa and then goes to Egypt; in around 1351 B.C. he enters the empty cave.  Almost three millennia later he is joined by a Bender he remembers being, carrying the Mona Lisa.  Later still they are joined by a Bender in a Tuxedo, but this Bender neither recognizes them nor is recognized by them, apart from that they know it is him. He is in their future, but they are not in his past.  Ultimately the Mona Lisa Bender leaves the cave, and moments later the Egypt Bender.  The Mona Lisa Bender must then make the trip to become the Egypt Bender, and the Egypt Bender in turn makes his next trip.

The cave continues to fill like this, each additional trip adding a Bender with a treasure, none of them knowing who the tuxedo Bender is, the tuxedo Bender not knowing what they are doing.

The question is, how much information do they exchange?  The very fact that they see each other tells them much, but for tuxedo Bender the fact that his doppelgangers are stealing for the Scammers is new information.  It is difficult to imagine loud-mouthed Bender not bragging a thousand times over about what he is doing and why.  But this interaction of the doppelgangers will impact events.  For example, if the Bender who steals the 2308 Nobel Peace Prize brags about it, the Benders who have not yet done so will gain information that will refine their own approach to that heist.  This creates multiple overlapping sawtooth snaps as the information trickles through from future to past versions of Bender ("I heard me talking about how he stole the Gutenberg Bible, and I thought that it would be easier to do it this way, so I did, but now I think that I should have tried this other idea instead").

More complicated is the impact of tuxedo Bender on the others; but this, too, is complicated by the addition of terminator Bender--questions that will have to be addressed as the analysis proceeds in future articles.

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Webmaster of Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies, M. Joseph Young is cited and consulted by philosophy professors, film critics, and scriptwriters. His other works include Multiverser, several other books, and many Internet articles.

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