A Sound Of Thunder

"A Sound of Thunder" is an influential science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury, first published in Collier's magazine in the June 28, 1952 issue and Playboy in June 1956. As of 1984, it was the most re-published science fiction story up to the present time.


In the year 2055, time travel has become a practical reality, and the company Time Safari Inc. offers wealthy adventurers the chance to travel back in time to hunt extinct species such as dinosaurs. A hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to join a hunting party that will travel back to the late Cretaceous Era, on a guided safari to kill a Tyrannosaurus rex. As the party waits to depart they discuss the recent presidential elections in which an apparently fascist candidate, Deutscher, has been defeated by the more moderate Keith, to the relief of many concerned. When the party arrives in the past, Travis (the hunting guide) and Lesperance (Travis’s assistant) warn Eckels and the two other hunters, Billings and Kramer, about the necessity of minimizing the events they change before they go back, since tiny alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history. Travis explains that the hunters are obliged to stay on a levitating path to avoid disrupting the environment, that any deviation will be punished with hefty fines, and that prior to the hunt Time Safari scouts have been sent back to select and tag their prey, which would have died within minutes anyway, and whose deaths have been calculated to have minimal impact on the future.

Although Eckels is initially excited about the hunt, when the monstrous Tyrannosaur approaches, he loses his nerve. Travis tells him he cannot leave, but Eckels panics, steps off the path and runs into the forest. Eckels hears shots, and on his return he sees that the two guides have killed the dinosaur, and shortly afterward the falling tree that would have killed the T-Rex has landed on top of it. Realizing that Eckels has fallen off the path, Travis threatens to leave him in the past unless he removes the bullets from the dinosaur’s body, as they cannot be left behind. Eckels obeys, but Travis remains furious, threatening on the return trip to shoot him.

Upon returning to 2055, Eckels notices subtle changes - English words are now spelled and spoken strangely, people behave differently, and Eckels discovers that Deutscher has won the election instead of Keith. Looking at the mud on his boots, Eckels finds a crushed butterfly, whose death has apparently set in motion a series of subtle changes that have affected the nature of the alternative present to which the safari has returned. He frantically pleads with Travis to take him back into the past to undo the damage, but Travis explains that the time machine cannot return to any point in time that has already been visited (so as to prevent any paradoxes). Travis raises his gun, and there is a sound of thunder, implying that Eckels is fatally shot.

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HandBrake 0.10.0.6534 - 64bit Version

Metadata:
creation_time : 2015-08-03 09:42:15

[11:45:09] scan: 10 previews, 1280x536, 23.976 fps, autocrop = 0/0/0/0, aspect 2.39:1, PAR 1:1
Scanning title 1 of 1, preview 10, 100.00 %[11:45:09] libhb: scan thread found 1 valid title(s)

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[11:45:09] 1 job(s) to process
[11:45:09] starting job
[11:45:09] work: sanitizing track 1 mixdown Dolby Pro Logic II to Stereo
[11:45:09] sync: expecting 145670 video frames
[11:45:09] job configuration:

[11:45:09] + title 1, chapter(s) 1 to 1
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[11:45:09] + data rate: 1331 kbps

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[11:45:09] + filters
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[11:45:09] + frame rate: same as source (around 23.976 fps)
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[11:45:09] + source: 1280 * 536, crop (0/0/0/0): 1280 * 536, scale: 1280 * 536
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[11:45:09] + level: 5.0
[11:45:09] + quality: 23.00 (RF)
[11:45:09] * audio track 1
[11:45:09] + decoder: Unknown (AAC) (2.0 ch) (track 1, id 0x1)
[11:45:09] + bitrate: 191 kbps, samplerate: 44100 Hz
[11:45:09] + mixdown: Stereo
[11:45:09] + encoder: AAC (libavcodec)
[11:45:09] + bitrate: 160 kbps, samplerate: 44100 Hz
[11:45:09] reader: first SCR 0 id 0x0 DTS 0
[11:45:09] encx264: min-keyint: 24, keyint: 240
[11:45:09] encx264: encoding at constant RF 23.000000
[11:45:09] encx264: unparsed options: level=5.0:ref=1:deblock=-1,-1:8x8dct=0:weightp=1:subme=2:mixed-refs=0:trellis=0:psy-rd=1.00,0.15:vbv-bufsize=135000:vbv-maxrate=135000:rc-lookahead=10
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x264 [info]: profile Main, level 5.0
[19:34:01] reader: done. 1 scr changes
[19:34:12] work: average encoding speed for job is 5.176205 fps
[19:34:12] sync: got 145670 frames, 145670 expected
[19:34:12] render: lost time: 0 (0 frames)
[19:34:12] render: gained time: 0 (0 frames) (0 not accounted for)
[19:34:12] h264-decoder done: 145670 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
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x264 [info]: frame P:86658 Avg QP:20.56 size: 6463
x264 [info]: frame B:55819 Avg QP:22.44 size: 1349
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x264 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:3.2% UV:2.3%
x264 [info]: kb/s:943.79
[19:34:13] aac-decoder done: 0 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
[19:34:13] mux: track 0, 145670 frames, 716671546 bytes, 943.67 kbps, fifo 8192
[19:34:13] mux: track 1, 261656 frames, 122662410 bytes, 161.51 kbps, fifo 16384
[19:34:13] libhb: work result = 0
Encode done!
HandBrake has exited.