The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
Proof that Time Travel Harry did not fix Little Chicago?? (CD Spoilers)
wizard nelson:
--- Quote from: wyltok on February 12, 2013, 02:23:11 PM ---Whoops, you're right. I combined what you said in two separate topics. My most heartfelt apologies. Still, how can you say the self-consistency conjecture applies (which states that only time travel that does not change the past is possible) when Odin states that changing the past is possible, but just takes considerable more effort (and luck) than changing the future? The two principles seem to be mutually exclusive...
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not to me? either you loop time or you shift its direction? pretty sure merlin did both. created a loop in which he created DR and altered time by creating DR. the only thing this does is create parallels in which he never made DR and 'prime' in which he did. the only time travel mechanism i don't believe applies is paradox, for the same reason odin gives, we're still here. it seems a given warlocks used to muck with time pre-WC so i'd imagine 'paradox' would have happened if it were possible, or it did
wizard nelson:
(continuation) happen but only that reality exploded and everything was shunted sideways to a parallel without any awareness.
i'm almost certain DR was created on loop because bob mentions that trying to measure DR would irrevocably change its measurements. i can't remember what principle this is ot why its important right now though (its ten A.M here and i'm a total insomiac zombie right now)
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: wizard nelson on February 12, 2013, 02:56:51 PM --- not to me? either you loop time or you shift its direction? pretty sure merlin did both. created a loop in which he created DR and altered time by creating DR. the only thing this does is create parallels in which he never made DR and 'prime' in which he did. the only time travel mechanism i don't believe applies is paradox, for the same reason odin gives, we're still here. it seems a given warlocks used to muck with time pre-WC so i'd imagine 'paradox' would have happened if it were possible, or it did
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The whole point of the loop/bridge time-travel concept proposed here is that there wouldn't be a time where it didn't happen.
From Uriel's perspective, time is not linear. Stand back far enough, and it's apparently wibbly wobbly. By creating a permanent temporal bridge, those 5 times are linked to occur at the same time the first time. There was no time he didn't make the prison.
Picture a piece of string. It's linear, as mortals see time. Now imagine that Merlin got help creating a loop, where two parts of the string overlap, like this:
Where the string overlaps itself is two separate points of time. Now imagine a pin getting pushed through the string, bonding the two points together. That makes them permanently bound together. Only instead of just one loop for two points, there are 4 loops for 5 points of time.
The reason Ms Duck has an issue with it is because messing with time like that would seem to be a very high-level trick. She thinks that it would take a WG-level talent to do it.
But Merlin clearly did it, presumably with help. We can either assume that TWG helped, but if so, why did TWG both involving a mortal at all? Or we can assume that one or multiple lower-tier powers (Mab, Odin, Uriel) worked together to do it.
We know that the Ladies working together were able to channel their attack across multiple times. So the idea that there are time-travel capabilities among the powers isn't outrageous. By nature, Mab should be more powerful than Maeve in that aspect.
Again, the theory breaks down at why do it. There was clearly a major, reality-level need for Merlin to create the DR prison. If it's as difficult as Duck suspects, then it would require a reality-level need for Harry to go back. And I can't think of one.
But if it doesn't take as much power to create a single bridge, and there were a really-really-important-reason for him to go back, then Mab and others might work together to get it done. I still don't know why, though.
wizard nelson:
--- Quote ---The whole point of the loop/bridge time-travel concept proposed here is that there wouldn't be a time where it didn't happen.
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except in a parallel? honestly is it so out there? creating a loop in 1 time line would invariably create parallels in which it did NOT happen or happened without the time travel. but the loop would close in on itself creating the one self consistent timeline. do other people not see this?
--- Quote ---From Uriel's perspective, time is not linear. Stand back far enough, and it's apparently wibbly wobbly. By creating a permanent temporal bridge, those 5 times are linked to occur at the same time the first time. There was no time he didn't make the prison.
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THAT IS A LOOP. he used time travel to create DR obviously? if there is no time he didn't create it then he always traveled through time and created it, novikov imbodied dude :o
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on February 12, 2013, 04:15:19 AM ---BUT, saying it does, the issue always seems to be, what happened first? If Harry had to travel back to fix LC, then who fixed it the first time? Why didn't they fix it the second time? Did Harry do something that screwed up the other person's actions, and he had to fulfill it himself? Or did it not get fixed the first time? Thus, Harry would have died, so how did the reality where Harry didn't die come about?
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Arguments of this sort always seem to me to be somewhat palming a card, in that they appear to be assuming that at the end of whatever it is you need to have a coherent and consistent causality with no paradoxes. I see absolutely no reason to assume this needs to be the case - it's like assuming the Earth is flat and the sun goes around it because that's what things look like by the evidence of one's eyes, but ruling out the possibility that more complicated and abstract things may work differently from what makes immediate common sense to a human.
What Harry saw of Merlin making the prison was dumbed way the heck down for human comprehension. Your temporal bridge explanation of it makes sense but I do not think we can assume that we have the right explanation.
I am entirely on for closed causal loop explanations of the form "Harry has to go back because he finds out he did go back", myself.
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