The Brompton Cemetery Time Machine

December 13, 2015 7:24 AM

The Victorians were fascinated with the idea of time travel, and some believed the pharaohs had discovered its secrets. Might Bonomi have learned the time-travel trick during one of his expeditions to the pyramids?
posted by veedubya (18 comments total)

this is an ARG right
posted by dismas at 7:33 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

See John Carter of Mars. (I did, and I loved it!)
posted by Mike Mongo at 7:36 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

My bet is that it's actually one of the exits from the Ghoul Warrens. That's why they stole the key. The plus side is that you can travel quickly across London by opening the tomb. The bad news is that traveling via "dragged by hungry ghouls" is a) hard to steer and b) rarely ends well (except for the ghouls).

It's also time travel, since the inhuman digestive systems of ghouls let them poop the residue of meals they haven't eaten yet. Or so Francois-Honore Balfour asserted, but you know what he was like.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:09 AM on December 13, 2015 [5 favorites]

You know this is legit because the scientists are in fact composers.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:29 AM on December 13, 2015

Spoiler: Betteridge's Law.
posted by ardgedee at 8:35 AM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

“I know he’s [Mr Godson] not a subscriber to the time machine theory,” he says, “but that in itself is suspicious in my view.”

This is how I'm resolving all future disagreements.
posted by terretu at 8:38 AM on December 13, 2015 [22 favorites]

You know this is legit because the scientists are in fact composers.

Alexander Borodin resents your implication.
posted by NorthernLite at 8:51 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

see The Anubis Gates... crypto-conservative protosteampunk scifi
posted by ennui.bz at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

the villains are ancient Egyptians seeking to overturn British colonial rule of Victorian Egypt by travelling into the future and then the past to conspire with English republicans (including Lord Byron as a idiot dupe of time-travelling ancient Egyptian clones) and gypsiesRomany against the monarchy, that's what's going to happen when they get that key...
posted by ennui.bz at 10:13 AM on December 13, 2015

You know this is legit because the scientists are in fact composers.

Given the subject matter, we are more concerned with the scientists who are decomposers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:16 AM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Given the subject matter, we are more concerned with the scientists who are decomposers.

I thought we were more concerned with scientists who are reanimators?
posted by ennui.bz at 10:19 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's an Orgone Box... for dead people.
posted by lagomorphius at 12:49 PM on December 13, 2015

An eighth mausoleum resembling the Courtoy tomb is located in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris, so if the teleportation theory is correct, the network might be used to pop over the Channel as well as whiz around London in split seconds, and without paying the congestion charge.

Oh England, don't ever change. (Because obviously the most important thing about a teleportation device would be avoiding the congestion charge.)
posted by chavenet at 1:02 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was there last week.
Lovely Place
posted by TheDukeOfChalfont at 2:11 PM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

So what we're saying is that I spent my two senior years at University living right next door to a time machine and nobody told me this whilst I had project deadlines?

(Imperial College 1986-90, lived 88-90 on Ongar Road, just around the corner from Brompton Cemetery.)
posted by Major Clanger at 3:09 PM on December 13, 2015

Wait, is this Stephen "The Real Tuesday Weld" Coates?? Cooool.
posted by Kitteh at 3:46 PM on December 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Nice catch, Kitteh!
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:26 AM on December 14, 2015

GenjiandProust, the ghoul warrens are mostly over towards the City, around the old plague pits.
posted by Hogshead at 4:12 AM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]