p/o1odvw

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:49 AM

Here's my weird concept for a time machine that could be in a semi-hard sci-fi story

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:49 AM

after stewing on that last time travel conversation

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:50 AM

it's predicated on the idea that the only time travel that can ever occur is time travel that has already occurred

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:50 AM

accordingly, the machine cannot be activated under normal circumstances

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:51 AM

if you just try to travel, it will fail

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:51 AM

but every time it's used, in the future, successfully

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:51 AM

it sends an impulse back to the moment of its first activation

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:51 AM

and thusly all times when it will ever be used are stored, at the moment of its creation, in an inaccessible data black box

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:52 AM

and then, it becomes active at specific moments in the future, when someone is going to use it to go back in time

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:52 AM

so when you need to use it, and the effects of you using it have already occurred in the past

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:53 AM

it will become usable at the exact moment you go to use it

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:53 AM

then deactivate again

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

I'm imagining it as like a portal

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

if you would, upon learning that you time traveled, refuse to time travel in order to cause a paradox, then it won't work for you

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

because your time travel wouldn't be consistent, so therefore it didn't/won't happen

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

There's no on switch

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

There's no date setting

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

the question is how it 'knows' what time to send you to

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

You just walk up to it and hope

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:54 AM

the answer is that it knows because you already arrived

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

which is weird and circular

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

but hey

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

that's time travel

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

So wait I don't get the paradox thing

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

if you would, upon learning that you time traveled, refuse to time travel in order to cause a paradox, then it won't work for you

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:55 AM

How does that prevent a paradox?

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

If you refuse to time travel then it doesn't matter whether or not it would work for you

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

Because that paradox is predicated on you learning that you time travel in the future

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

so the machine by design refuses to let that situation ever occur

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

So if you WOULD have tried to cause a paradox

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

That aspect of you as a person

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:56 AM

yeah

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

would prevent the machine from working

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

ok

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

then the machine will never send you

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

Machine just looks at you like "This fucker looks like they want to cause a time paradox"

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

"I'm not touching this"

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

another way to view it:

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

you use the machine

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:57 AM

and go back in time and cause a paradox

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

this causes a breakdown of causality, and that timeline dies

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

and therefore

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

the machine never sends the impulse back to the origin indicating that the time travel occurred

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

therefore, when that time comes, it won't turn on

Villain

@Overbringer

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

The only timelines where the time machine can EXIST are the ones where no one causes a paradox

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 3:58 AM

exactly

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:06 AM

More or less legit

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:07 AM

If you don't like self-culling Many Worlds, you could also look at your black box as information that exists outside of time

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:07 AM

But frankly the former's easier to wrap your head around

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:07 AM

either way, as we came to the conclusion of last time

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:07 AM

the machine will sometimes let you time travel and sometimes won't

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:08 AM

and the force that determines that looks like magic

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:08 AM

but it's because it's relying on information that doesn't follow normal routes of causality

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:14 AM

It occurs to me, semi-relatedly, that Chrono Trigger partially follows these rules

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:15 AM

until you get the Epoch

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:15 AM

For the first half to 3/4 of the game from our perspective, travel through the temporal Gates is carefully controlled by some willful Entity for a purpose the characters can only speculate on

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:16 AM

The difference is in that universe only certain particular events are "required"

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:16 AM

And everything else is basically a free for all

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:17 AM

It's got a much more malleable sense of ontology than we presume the real world has

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:18 AM

As long as particular key events like Lavos's arrival and Crono's apparent death happen when they're supposed to, reality is fine.

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:19 AM

And I appreciate that neither CT npr CC make it 100% clear what the rules are because the characters don't have the means to figure that out. They just do what they can.

Quinn Angstrom

@quinn2win

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:19 AM

also because CT isn't really concerned with its rules

Rama

@Nerdorama

Wed, Oct 14, 2020 4:20 AM

No, ultimately, it's an adventure story about saving the world. They figure out enough to do that and anything else is intellectual curiosity.