Your descendants don't appear in your family tree, but do appear in the family tree that is on the Time Almanac.
There's a Plumbot family that I came across. I changed one of their trait chips and was told that I was being very rude. But a different Plumbot was willing to high-five my sim.
I haven't found a debris pile in the wasteland yet; excavating it is the task after inspecting the crash site door.
I laughed out loud when my sim crashed with the jet pack, and I agree with Tilia about the future sim's hairstyle. I don't like the clothes and hair much, but absolutely love the furniture and buildings. And the cars! But it's funny, the jet pack is the fastest mode of transportation, yet you have the hover cars, etc. Don't worry about buying the jet pack or the hoverboard -- the Time Traveller will give you both while you're doing the little opportunities.
I've been playing around with the dream pod bed. Once they choose a dream and start dreaming, click on the Sim to pull up the "Influence Dream" tab and keep selecting good options. Otherwise they get bad dreams (red Zs instead of green ones).
The sprites are adorable. My sim picked up one in the community building. They sound like toddlers but robotic.
All in all, my first impressions are highly favorable.
Turoskel, I just read your post. The portal does show up automatically, a minute or two after the university mascot, actually.