Hello all: just thought I would do my quarterly check on the progress of "Peace Talks".  Over the past couple of years I have had the pleasure of reading the entire "Sharp's rifles" series, the Patrick Rothfuss books (also in a holding pattern, and several non-fiction historical works.  My heart keeps returning to Jim Butcher.  Maybe it's time to catch up on the Raymond Feist universe in Midkemia? 

I hope Jim gets his life and motivation redirected back to the Dresden Files.  The latest news sounds promising but we are looking at a long wait.  I will be back in about three months.  I love JB and this forum.  Bye for now.

I love the Dresdenverse, but what was once a passion for me has become simply an interest.  I have been down this road with other authors and I can not sustain the level attention I once had.  I have been reading the Bernard Cornwell "Sharpe" books.  Thanks, Jim.  It has been a great ride, but I just don't care like I once did.  Really, it's not you it's me.  I just need some "me time".  Can't we just be friends? Give me some space and I might reconsider.

I think the use of time travel will be more subtle, like a butterfly effect.  One choice made at just the right or wrong moment that causes a split in realities. Any huge event involving dozens of people would cause chaos on a level that would rip reality asunder, it would also be trite from a story telling perspective.  I could see Harry having to patch a rent in reality due to time travel.  In the vein of, Marty McFly has to stop Biff from screwing everything up but some things turn out different because of the events that took place.

Last Jedi was a dog's dinner of a movie.  Visually interesting, but designed to deconstruct everything about the established universe and characters.  Harry, who chose to live in an apartment that never changed and with a classic Star Wars poster, will hate this movie. 

i WAGed that it would be used as a thaumaturgical springboard to travel back to chicago the way it used to be. like a little piece of history to use as the connection. but a duck nailed me with a woj that little chicago would be totally destroyed in a fire, though he never precisely says it was... its still great theory based on sound magical processes.

I haven't fleshed my "theory" out.  It was more like stream of consciousness suposition.  I had thought that Lash could potentially recreate LC, or any setting she was familiar with.  I was honestly embarrassed to post that thought.  I have seen LC posts degenerate into wild speculation, based on a very thin premise.  I suppose I don't have the courage of my own convictions when I started speculating about LC being a potential device for time travel.

There are couple of really big IFS in my "theory"

IF#1:  Time travel via mental projection.  The OP supposes that Harry was able to project himself back in time into the role of his own subconcious.  I like this theory, mostly because of the cool factor, but the dialogue with Harry sounds a lot like a more experienced Harry offering advice to his younger self.  Accepting that as apremise I started speculating about how this might be accomplished.

Harry has projected himself outside his own body on a couple of occasions.  Most recently when he was "mostly dead" and before when he used LC.  It greatly resembled Astral Projection when he did it in WN.  He placed himself in a deep trance (an unconscious state) and using LC as a focus was able to project his thoughts (his sub-conscious) into the city of Chicago.  This was accomplished by using a scale model of Chicago (LC) in a meticulous recreation of its PRESENT state.

IF#2:  Recreating LC in a past point in time would allow Harry to project his thoughts into said past.  Ms. Duck pointed out the LC is a "puddle of goo". I speculated about what a person with an eidetic memory might be able to do and Neurovore pointed out that Harry may have Lash still in his head (she has an eidetic memory as exhibited in DB) and she can project detailed recreations of anything she has seen. 

If#3: Lash is still in Harry's brain.

If Lash is still in there, she could recreate LC or a simulacrum thereof inside Harrys mind to use a focus.   We saw Harry do a rather complex summoning ritual, without a focus object when he summoned Mab in GS.  He did it all in his own mind.  If Lash were to help Harry  visualize Chicago, or any place else for that matter, at a certain point in time he would have the opportunity to project his sub-concious to that place.  There is no place that Lash is more familiar with than Harry's brain, she has been there for years (maybe). 

So, IF all of this is true, Lash could at some future point create an image of Harry's state of mind via his own memories as it existed in FM and future Harry could project his sub-conscious back to that point in time to give past Harry a pep talk at a critical decision point in his life.  This could allow him to affect the future and avoid many of the dangerous variables of time travel like the "butterfly efect" as the location of interaction would be his own mind.  It also has the elegance of him not having to lie to himself. it really is his own sub-concious mind with whom he is having the conversation, just not his present sub-conscious.

Whew.  I'm not sure even I believe this but it seems to fit with a number of things we have been shown about the laws of magic.  And it's cool!  Also, Logistics is the guy who gets credit for this line of thinking.  My ideas were based on his seed.  He may not agree with what I have posted.

True. However, even if LC were not lost, it would not serve as a focus to go back to the events of Fool Moon - Chicago changes, Harry needed to update LC regularly to keep it from being obsolete. It would only be useful to go back to the time period for LC's last update remaining viable; no earlier, no later.

*Mostly ninja'd by roteral

I thought the same thing after reading my own post.  LC would preserve a snapshot in time.  It might function within a certain window to the past depending on modifications.  A person with eidetic memory might have a shot at time travel based on this premise, but the premise is speculative,  I do love seeing what everyoone thinks,

I hate to even open this can of worms but it fits with the line of reasoning from earlier posts.  Little Chicago: Harry projected himself outside his body using that device.

If Little Chicago still exists could it be used to breech the 4th dimension?  Maybe Harry can leave his body without it now that he has more experience being out of body.  LC is just a focus, though extremely complicated, magic can be performed without a focus.

Sits back to watch the speculation.

maybe this was brought up alreadt but did anyone else notice
 

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hwwb lead harry into committing his first magical violence? specifically against an evil being messing with mortal life? seems fishy, a set up...
lea also comments to harry how hard it is to get young talents to believe in magical violence when talking about justin. a double meaning? was harry manipulated into laying the smack down on magical bad guys? he's pretty much been doing just that ever since..

Imagine Lea responding to Harry after his encounter with HWWB and saying to herself.  "What a wonderful weapon the enemy is crafting, let us use it against them."  This may shed a new light on why Maggie had Lea pledged to be Harry's Fairy-God-Mother.  Then the enemy corrupts Lea, and Mab steps into Lea's role while she purges the the influence of Nemesis from Lea.  Makes a person wonder.