Question about time traveling...

[Sentenal]

starx posted this on GameFAQs, which got me thinking:

"If you were to say what I think you mean, then the moment Marle even time travels, some of the future would simply vanish, as when you travel to the future, the citizens there are not time travelers, thus they will not be immune to its effects, as the game already stated."

How would you guys address this?  The moment some in the past time travels to the future, the past is change, and the future is put into the DBT.  Well, under this logic, Marle time traveling to the future should have made Doan not exist (since he is her descendant).  Well, Marle would go back to the past latter on, and that would make Doan exist, right?  Well, if it works the way I though it did, Doan would not start existing again until after she actually when to the past.

[V_Translanka]

Then, what, wouldn't that just mean that Doan is from a future where Marle DID travel to the past? Or maybe I don't understand...I'm a little drunk right now...heh...heh...

[ZeaLitY]

It's somewhere else in this forum, as the "Guardia Family Line paradox," I think. It's the only glaring hole in all of this aside from the issue with Marle disappearing.

[SilentMartyr]

I am a little consfused as to what the person is asking.

[ZeaLitY]

Well, once a person time travels to the future, they should be absent from that point onward until their point of arrival. However, if that were true, civilization as we know it would be blown up, because Ayla has to continue the Guardia line through the ages. This means that somehow, she was preserved back there.

teh entitie did it lolz

[Zaperking]

I'm guessing that we simply have to assume that for instance, Ayla had only been gone a few days, destroyed Lavos and came back.

There has to be something like that. Or otherwise it has something to do with a New Ayla being created, staying in her place and being thrown into the DBT when the real Ayla comes back?

[SilentMartyr]

Well, once a person time travels to the future, they should be absent from that point onward until their point of arrival. However, if that were true, civilization as we know it would be blown up, because Ayla has to continue the Guardia line through the ages. This means that somehow, she was preserved back there.

teh entitie did it lolz

Thanks for the 1337 explination

[Andrelvis]

Well, I assume that these modifications on the timeline that happen by the time-travelers not being on their original timeline happen as 'time' passes when they're out of their original timeline.

[Swordmaster]

Belthazar speak of chances of 50 % of life and death to Serge, so it is possible that when someone time travel its have a chance of return safe and continue the timeline. Ayla being strong and with the portals aways opened plus gate key plus friend plus entity; it give around 70 % of chance to return.
And the chages only trigger in the moment of the death of the traveller.

[Sentenal]

well, if it was chance, 50/50, that determines times change, Crono and Co. must have been VERY lucky to change history so many times, and it all keep coming out okay.

[Swordmaster]

well, if it was chance, 50/50, that determines times change, Crono and Co. must have been VERY lucky to change history so many times, and it all keep coming out okay.

50/50 is relative to Serge die or not in Opassa beach. By the wai it's a very strange rate.

Prophet: Serge... This world is not the world you grew up in.  10 years ago,
something happened that put your very soul teetering on the balancing scales
of fate... with a fifty-fifty chance of life or death!  This is when your future
was split in twain.  In your home world, you survived to live a happy and
prosperous life.  That is how you made it to the present point in time.  However,
here in this "alternate" world, you are, in fact, very dead and buried.

If all the Guardia Royal line depend upons Ayala, while she still in existence in any era there is still a chance of her return and give birth to the Royal line.

[/quote]

[Leebot]

I gave a theory on this in another thread, so I'll repost it here:

Aside: Ever seen Back to the Future 2? In it, the main character, Marty (played by Michael J. Fox), travels to his own future. In it, his future self and future children all exist, whom he could theoretically visit. This is similar to Marle traveling to 2300 and meeting her descendant. The paradox is, if Marty left the timestream, how does he exist in the future?

Here's a little theory of mine that can go a bit towards explaining the paradox:

Consider the mechanics of time travel (from a very simplified perspective). When a traveler decides to travel from time X to time Y, X<Y, there are two possible ways this could work:

1. The traveler leaves the timestream at X, is kept in some sort of stasis, the timestream continues naturally to Y, then the traveler reenters.

2. The traveler moves immediately from point X on the timestream to point Y, without any chance for the timestream to change. He enters the timestream as it would be if he had never traveled.

The first method may actually be feasible in the real world, with methods of stasis and such. But if it can be done by such simple methods, is it really "time travel"? It can't be used to travel to the past, as the methods in CT can. It would be possible for a system like this to exist, of course, if paradoxes like the Ayla paradox didn't act as evidence against it. The second method seems more like actual time travel, and fits in with in-game evidence (at least as far as I can see). Note that those mechanics are nowhere near complete; they differ for jumps to the past and when multiple jumps are involved.

[SilentMartyr]

This should have been settled a long time ago. Maybe the answer is so simple it was overlooked or something. Or maybe I am a genius, but probably not. This of course would only apply in the Chronoverse.

The entire stream of time has already occured before any of the time traveling in the game(s) happened. You know the entity reliving its life? Thusly since everything already happened when the entity sends Marle through the gate nothing has been changed yet. Only when she, and of course the rest of the gang, return to thier respective times does the timeline become changed.

That is why I think that the Time Egg is even possible. Since Crono was killed in a foreign time there was still the chance to restore his stream.

[Sentenal]

wait, let me try and understand that theory a little bit better...

A time traveler is living in Timeline A, living in present, or year A.  That person then time travels to year B.  Your saying that in order for this to work, the time you travel to must also be in Timeline 1, i think.  And a Timeline B would only be created at the exact point the time traveler arrives a year B?

If this is what you mean, I dont think it would work.  Firstly, the simple act of timetraveling would be changing the timeline, throughing into the DBT.  So time traveling would have Timeline A being through into the DBT at year A, not year B.

Secondly, it would still then be possible under this theory to actually go and meet yourself, if you time traveled 5 minutes into the future.

And lastly, this would have to work for traveling to the past as well.  i'm not sure how it would work going backwards, but it would surely complicate things.

[Leebot]

Well, it's the only plausible explanation. But, it does work for traveling into the past. I mean, Robo and Magus can both go back and see their past selves.