[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:]( Image below cut )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:]( Another image below cut )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:]( Yup another image )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!]( The image pile doesnt stop from getting taller )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]
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