You are a stranded time traveler on a mission to retreive 100 Terabytes of important historical information to save the future; How would you get this data intact into 100 years in the future?

So, here's the deal: You've managed to acquire the data, but disaster strikes, and your time machine is destroyed by an enemy time traveler team. This is crucial historical data that you'll have to get into the future to avert the apocalypse. Due to the constraints of the space-time continuum, all time travelers staying outside of their "home" time for longer than 1 year will die, so you have exactly 1 year to prepare. How do you make sure the future discovers the data, while preventing the enemy time traveler faction from stealing the data?

(Remember: don't just chuck it in a hard drive and bury it in a forest somewhere, the data will degrade)

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Does it only need to be discovered by the people 100 years in the future, or can people before that be aware of it?
Because this reminds me of the nuclear waste protection research. You found a religion that fears glowing cats....
- It has to be 100 years, becuase the idea of sending a time traveler in the past is conceived in 100 years, so they wouldn't be looking for the data before then.
  Once they come up with the idea of the mission to send someone to the past, they also realize: "Hmm what if the mission has already been done?" and so they immediately send a team to search for possible clues on where the data is, if someone alredy went to the past and weren't able to return.
  If its gets found in like 99 years, the enemy forces could get their hands on it before your teams starts looking for it.
  Basically, in exactly 100 years, the idea of sending someone to the past is thought of, then some time after that, say, in year 120, they finish the time machine. They would be looking for the data in year 100, 20 years before the time machine has even been built. Get it? They would never think of looking for the data before 100 years since they haven't thought about the time machine idea.
  
  Okay yeah that makes sense. So that rules out founding cults that use the information as their holy book. But it could allow for "keep it secret, keep it safe" cults where there's a holy object that they know is important but don't know contains the data. (But it can't be SO interesting that people try to inspect and understand it and inadvertently discover the data).
  I wonder if you could rely on your buddy in the future knowing what your favorite password is and encrypting the data somehow.
  Does it need to be discovered ASAP in that 20 year gap or can it be later on in that period once they know that you specifically are selected for the mission?
  
  Does it need to be discovered ASAP in that 20 year gap or can it be later on in that period once they know that you specifically are selected for the mission?
  Basically, the enemy team is already looking for it sometime before year 100. But starting year 100, both teams are looking for it. So your hidden archive can reveal itself anytime after that (but not too late, otherwise they wouldn't be able to make use of the data), and your team will almost certantly find it before the enemy does.
  (lol I feel like I'm doing a lot of world building here 😅)

57 comments