♈ Aradia: Explain the time travel in a hundred words or less! GO! [video]

[psych0p0mps]

[It's getting to be nighttime when Aradia films this. She's sitting on a sofa a little ways back from the camera, with a small stack of papers on the coffee table in front of her, and waves once she's sure it's recording.]

Hello, everybody. My name is Aradia Megido, Maid of Time. As you might guess from my title I have a great deal of experience with time travel. But while I have been here I've noticed a major flaw in the Initiative's overall plan; namely, that they don't seem to have any idea how time travel works.

[She reaches over and picks up the first paper, showing it to the camera:]



As you can see, the basic idea is that, by traveling back in time and altering certain events, we can sabotage the United Earth and improve our situation in the present.

[She pulls up a second diagram, holding the two side by side:]



In reality it is a little more complicated than that. Let's say, here, that the red timeline is one in which the desired result is achieved, whether that's the United Earth losing power or never achieving dominance in the first place, whatever. We'll call this "Timeline Alpha". The blue timeline is ours, in which a result occurs which we want to prevent. Let's say, the UE dominating the planet and everybody else dying.

As you can see, the time traveler does change the targeted key event. However, all this does is link two separate timelines, contingent upon how that event happened. Timeline Alpha continues with the alteration in place, but the offshoot timeline that caused the alteration continues without it. Because obviously, if no timeline existed where the event needed to be changed, no one would have gone back in time to change it.

[She puts down those two and picks up a third diagram instead:]



This leads us to the fundamental paradox of time travel, which is: the alpha timeline simultaneously must be changed, and cannot be changed. It is the final result when all temporal meddling is taken into account, as well as the only viable version of the timeline. All alternate timelines are, by their nature, doomed. Think of it as paradox space's way of cleaning up before things get too messy.

[Switching pictures again!]



Of course, you can travel within the alpha timeline as well, but only within the context of stable time loops. That's where you cause an event to play out in the way it already did. This is the only way you can affect the past without creating a doomed timeline.

That leads me to the first point I wanted to make - I don't think I'll have time to make the second, since the timer is coming up on five minutes already and I do want people to actually watch this.

[She picks up the first image again, holding it next to the fourth.]

Basically, either A) our time travel missions are having or will have a tangible effect on the alpha timeline, but our timeline is a doomed offshoot and will die off sooner or later; or B) this is the alpha timeline, but our intervention is and will be the direct cause of the current circumstances.

[PHEW. That was way more than a hundred words! She puts down both pictures and folds her hands neatly in her lap.]

I think that explains it adequately. Let me know if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. Thank you for your time! [PUN VERY INTENDED 0u0]

Comments

[video]

[blahblahblah]

...Let me make sure I understand your point right. Because we're traveling back in time and making all these changes to create a timeline favorable to us... we're causing the United Earth to, in the Exiles' past, send us here?

Or to put it differently, we're going to lose by virtue of the fact that we're trying to win in the first place?

le video

[psych0p0mps]

Actually, those are two separate scenarios! If this is the alpha timeline, then yes, our meddling is either causing the current situation, or at the very least not doing anything to fix it. But if this is an offshoot timeline, then yes, we'll probably lose.

Either way, time travel is the wrong strategy for the goals we're trying to accomplish. It doesn't mean that we'll lose, necessarily - just that the plan is fundamentally flawed as it currently stands.

[blahblahblah]

[Rita brings a palm to her forehead; she can already tell she's going to get a headache from working through the time logic, but it's important enough that she'll work through it.]

Yeah, I think I understand. But then, what else can we do? As it stands, if we try to take them on now... we're going to lose. There's no other way to put it. We're just not strong enough. As much as your little demonstration convinces me it might be wrong, there's no other way right now.

( audio )

[argentite]

Can you, um, explain again why the alternate timelines would fail?

vidya

[psych0p0mps]

Sure. [She shifts on the couch slightly, to make herself more comfortable.] To put it simply, it's because paradox space cleans up its messes. When the event that creates an offshoot timeline is changed, there's no longer any reason for that timeline to exist. Thus, it ceases to exist.

I'm afraid I don't have any experience as someone left behind in a doomed timeline, but to the best of my knowledge they all die. If anyone lived, they would be trapped in a timeline with no chance of success.

permavoice even though she is watching v keenly

[argentite]

Well, then wouldn't that mean we're not in the doomed one? Since we're still here.

text

[lazyinlove]

[Wow, what? That was intense.]

did you talk to them? don't think they watch these.

text also

[psych0p0mps]

i havent yet
to be honest im not sure who counts as "them" besides that one artificial intelligence
and i doubt they give it a great deal of authority

[crocodilesmiles]

I lean toward A if that's the breakdown, since we've already seen changes that are done then undone here based on -- other stuff. Or we are the Alpha Timeline and in the end how things get undone is exactly the way it always was going to, I guess.

What do you think we are?

[psych0p0mps]

im not sure yet
im leaning toward option b since we can actually return to our point of origin thus far
(i forgot to mention but a time traveler from a doomed timeline cannot return to it)
but maintaining such a large number of stable time loops over the entire history of the planet would be phenomenally difficult
so difficult in fact that it might *only* be possible by coincidence

could you give me an example of a time something was altered
because that shouldnt be possible

[have_hat_will_travel]

Or time works differently here than in your world in some key way?

I mean, they've got to have accounted for this if they're so flagrantly screwing with time, but...

And with so many events to change, the image would be...

My brain just broke.

le video

[psych0p0mps]

["time works differently"? she... hadn't actually considered that, and gives it a moment of serious thought before shaking her head (with less than absolute certainty).]

... I guess anything's a possibility, but that one seems really remote. The flow of time is a fundamental property of reality, it's not a rule that just changes from one universe to another. There might be exceptions, but not an entire universe's worth.

[She chuckles, though.] It does make for a pretty complicated diagram, though, definitely! I simplified it a lot, but I don't expect everybody to understand it.

video;

[biwinning]

[She used red and blue in all the drawings.

God, he loves this girl.]

Thith ith a really great explanation, but I wouldn't be thurprised of these morons thtill didn't get it.

[psych0p0mps]

Hey, time travel isn't exactly an easy subject! I don't expect everybody to get it. That's what Time players are for.

[EVEN THE MUN ISN'T SURE SHE HAS THIS 100% RIGHT OH GOD THIS IS HARD. 0u0]

[fintastic]

[ r u srs right now

Feferi is so not reading all that but she gets the idea. ]

Aradia.

permavideo~

[psych0p0mps]

Feferi? What's up?

[more to the point whats with that face :0a]

video;

[taijiya]

[Sango can't read those diagrams or make much sense of time jargon, but Aradia's message is pretty clear.]

So you're trying to say that all these missions are pointless?

[That's really upsetting.]

Couldn't it just be that time works differently in your world? I knew a girl in mine who time traveled and it didn't seem to work like... like that.

video 5eva

[psych0p0mps]

I wouldn't say they're pointless per se, just... probably futile, and at worst actively counterproductive.

[ARADIA NO, THAT'S NOT BETTER.]

At any rate, time is a fundamental property of reality, it isn't something that changes from one universe to the next. Not to discount that there might be exceptions, since most rules do have them, but on this kind of scale I really doubt it.

Can you tell me a little more about your time traveler?

video;

[cesar]

[ Because he needs to make sure she isn't just messing with his mind. ]

How do you tell them apart before one ends?

[psych0p0mps]

[pfft, her entire canon messes with your mind, cesare]

That's a good question! Usually it requires some kind of foreknowledge about the alpha timeline, whether that's acquired through someone from the future or through the abilities of a Seer. But also, someone with a finely attuned sense of time might be able to disentangle the threads of causality and intuit the answer. Theoretically, that should be one of my abilities.

video;

[scienceinacan]

So instead of changing anything, it's just creating alternate timelines?

video;

[srslynotguy]

I see...

[ Thinking seriously about this. He doesn't understand it fully but... he's getting there. ]

[ text ]

[reassures]

If we're constantly changing the past, I don't think we can be the alpha timeline. There are too many people participating and being involved for that.

[video]

[ainsophaured]

[At least there's someone here experienced in this kind of thing. He goes over the information again, looking at the diagrams as well. What she said did make a lot of sense. He seems interested and genuinely curious about this subject matter. ]

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. Coming here is my first experience with time travel, as I am sure it is for many others. If you do not mind my asking, what was the second point you wanted to make?

[Video]

[speakveryclearly]

I've been waiting for ages to hear what you have to say about timelines! I wrote out my own impression here--

[She's quickly sketched on paper in green pen, which she moves the camera from her face down to show.]



Basically to the effect that we leave our own timeline, go to a new timeline where we change the past, and return to the future of that altered timeline, with the goal of the last change leading us to the alpha. I'm not sure how wishful that thinking is though.