Homer G Weiss - The "Timigrant"

The Protagonist is a young man in his mid-20s, he made the leap forward because he wanted something better, something different.

• Didn't feel like he belonged in the present. Glorified vision/expectations of the future. Optimism and imagination of what the world might be like.
• Different motivation than the imigrants and refugees of the past - he wasn't fleeing persecution, poverty, violence. He was living in a prosperous country (Toronto) with a decent job and a comfortable life but was just bored with it. Wanted something different, inspiring.
• Also he is running from the problems of his present/past wants to make a fresh start of it all in the future.
• He got caught up in the enthusiasm of the first wave of timigrants - specifically marketed and propogandized towards people like himself. The people who are initally targetted for "temporal relocation" are the same as those targetted for the military - poor, uneducated, willing to risk themselves for a chance at a better life. Many see it as a more respectable and less dangerous alternative to the military. The governments of the world view colonization of the future the way they did the space race in a way. Other countries see it as a way to deal with over-population (e.g. China)
• Eventually, liberal educated young people saw it as an opportunity to
• He faces discrimination in the future when it comes to getting jobs, being accepted by modern society, dating "natives" of the future. Society variously looks at the people of the past as backward, cowardly (for abandoning their own time). Society is just as xenophobic towards the timigrants as it was towards imigrants in their own time.
• While there are segments of society (the new new liberals) who embrace the timigrants and the valuable perspectives and traditional values, they are essentially quaint novelties to them like a pioneer village.
• Essentially the timigrants are ghettoized - they live in communities of ex-patriates.
• The protagonist is trying to write the first substantial and respected immigrant narrative - while a host of media and entertainment genre has sprung up to cater to the timigrants essentially they're just pandering to stereotypes, like the one-dimensional gay characters in sitcoms, blaxploitation movies that spoof the past and how ridiculous it was like Anchorman or The Wedding Singer, focusing instead on the excesses of our own time.
• He's trying to give a voice to his generation/community.
• Names/Slurs for Timigrants: Retros (Rets), Chronics, Rips (as in Rip van Winkle)
• Essentially the timigrants experience a disorientation similar to that of Rip van Winkle - they suddenly find themselves in a world that is strange, time having passed them by, instead of laziness or sleep their pessimism or cowardice has led them to skip a huge chunk of their lives. Suddenly all the people from their past/present are dead or aged and they've missed out on a huge chunk of their lives and the progress of society in general.
• Name: Same initials as HG Wells? Homer G Weiss. Appropriate as the bard of his people. Ironic since the name is an anachronism - nobody sees his name as a reference to the poet but as a reference to The Simpsons which is viewed as a relic of the past from where he came.
• Personality - conflicting traits: Homer considered himself a liberal and a revolutionary when he left but now that he sees the future he becomes conservative and yearns for the simpler past. His optimism soured into disillusionment and disappointment.
• He is aware of the fact that he is more in touch with reality and the true nature of life than most people who are integrated but he feels deadened by this burden.
  

His Friends:

• Homer made the leap as a pact with a group of friends. The experience affects them all differently. Some integrate perfectly. Some are so overwhelmed and depressed with the finality of their decision that they take their own lives or dull their senses with the new sensory overload options available to them in the Chips.
• One friend fathered a child (unknown to him) right before he abandoned its mother. The child is his own age on the other side. The difficulty of resenting someone who is your own age and hasn't had time to think about what he did. Could be a self-contained story or chapter from the child's perspective.
• The friend who integrates perfectly (or appears to do so) has a knack for adapting. He could have succeeded anywhere and in any time. He brings the perspective of his own time to the technology and media of the future. Homer regards him as a sellout but is jealous of his success and the ease with which he found his place. He is in fact happier than most timigrants but is still plagued with the same angst that they left behind a piece of their lives in the past.