WEIRD FF8 ENDING?

[Threesixty]

That all depends on which Time Flow your following. You can't focus on just one Time Flow....you have to Focus on all of them and turn them into one Time Flow.

Squall went to the wrong timeline when he came out of Time Compression (by this point of the game Ultamecia's timeline is distroyed). Then later he returns to the correct Time Line.

....Guess he was concentating more on his Sister and Edea, than Rinoa at the time. Then he went to...?? end of time? like in Crono Trigger.....?

His small intrusion in his own past caused all those small clues and the sequence of event for the introduction of the SeeD and Garden. And he was able to influence the past because the future was now distroyed, and his timeline was now the present. Ultamecia must have followed him to that wrong timeline. I guess she couldn't return to her Timeline because it no longer existed...so she followed Squall into his. This is pure speculation, and can't be proven, but it's the only thing I can come up with.

I guess this all lays to another question....What is the branching of the sorceress' powers?

Edea recieves her first powers when she is still a child, from an unknown sorceress.

Adel has her powers, also from an unknown. Could it be, because at a certain instant in the game, Ellone gave Adel the powers of Rinoa and Ultimecia at the same time? hmmmm.

Edea gave all her power to Rinoa. This includes the powers Edea got when she was young.

Ellone gives Rinoa's powers and Ultamecia's powers to Adel...Time Compression happens. Maybe Time Compression could only happen at that point, because that is the only instance where a good portion of the sorceress' powers on Earth, are in one person? and The Machine that Ultimecia was using couldn't go that far? (That's why I like doing these...Brainstorming)

Edea gets all of Ultamecia's powers....who is supposed to have the combined powers of all the Sorceresses at this point of the game.

Edea should then automaticly transfer all her powers back to Rinoa, through the retracking of the past, and because of Squall's trek to the wrong timeline....Rinoa wouldn't have been able to transport herself to Squall if she wasn't still a sorceress.

Hmm...guess that's the sorceress timeline of powers...except for one little thing.....where did Ellone get her powers? They never tell us. Guess it's was from the lesser Sorceress' out there, that weren't told in the story.

Same conclusion goes for Edea's first encounter with the powers and the reason why only a large portion of the powers had to be in one person...and not all the powers, to allow the Time Compression to happen. Ellone never gave up her powers...or did she? I can't remember.

It's a lot harder to figure out the Balance of the Sorceress Powers through all the Time Jumping.

I think that's all the info, I can provide on this subject without repeating myself. I'm gathering a lot of this way of thinking  because of the game I played recently....The Longest Journey. Go out and play it. It explains a thory of timetravling, pretty good, if you read between the lines. In that game the beginning of the game is the true present and the story is the, set in stone, past.

[This message has been edited by Threesixty (edited April 05, 2001).]

[Terence Fergusson]

By that logic... *EVERYONE* at the end of the game is in the wrong time flow.  Laguna, Ellone, Squall, Rinoa, Zell, Quistis, Selphie, Irvine, Cid, Edea, Seifer, ....

How did they come together?  Through the events of the game.  If you destroy Ultimecia and then move Squall to a timeline where Ultimecia never existed, then you hit *TONS* of problems.  Edea never absorbs Ultimecia's powers.  Edea never has the idea for SeeD.  Balamb Garden never takes off.  Squall and Rinoa never meet.  The Galbadian President is still alive.

In addition, Chrono Trigger uses different time mechanics altogether, so while you can call it End of Time all you like, I'd try not to draw *too* many comparisons between the two.

Also note that Squall's present has been influenced *BEFORE* he leaves Time Compression.  We *know* that he gave Edea the idea for SeeD.  We even suspect that Edea recognises adult Squall when she sees him.  That's why she tells him to continue to fight, no matter what tragedy it may bring.  She knows both the beginning and the end to the story.

You seem to think that Squall is *CHANGING* the past in that final scene.  He's not.  That's the past as it was all that time ago.  You play through the game that has been mostly generated *because* Edea got the idea of SeeD from a time-travelling adult, and because she absorbed the power from a dying Sorceress at that time.  That's not change.  That's fate.

As for the branching of Sorceress powers...

Edea receives US1 (Unknown Sorceress 1's powers) and Ultimecia's powers.

Adel receives US2's powers.

Edea gives US1+Ultimecia's powers to Rinoa.

Rinoa gets US2's powers from Adel.

Ultimecia gets her powers from US3.

Now... US3 could either have US1+Ultimecia's powers, inherited down the ages... but that would cause a loop.

An easier solution is that US3's powers *don't* contain US1+Ultimecia's powers.  Thus, what we get is Rinoa having US1+US2+US3's powers at the end of the game, while the powers US3 will inherit are *ALSO* out there elsewhere in the world.  This will continue until Ultimecia inherits the original US3's powers and disappears into the past, taking them with her.  At that point, the total amount of Sorceress power in the world will return to normal.

Finally, it's categorically stated that Ellone's powers do not derive from any Sorceress or from the Great Hyne.  It *is* left unexplained, but it's also known that Dr Odine is able to harness them.  (Something to do with the electric current running through her brain, according to Odine ^_^)

Yes, there are other Sorceresses out there.  Ultimecia's goals were either Ellone or a large quantity of Sorceress Power.

The final thing you're failing to recognise is that the timeline Squall returns to after Rinoa finds him in Time Compression/End of Time, is a timeline that could only exist if Ultimecia had interfered from the future.  As stated: Balamb flying and SeeD still existing are only two of the clues that show that they made it back to the same timeline they left.

I'd like to cite Occam's Razor here, because it's fairly obvious it's needed.  "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances," or "When you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better."

Multiple timelines and destructed timelines are *NOT* simpler than one single timeline that is both consistent with itself, holds no paradoxes, and cannot be changed.

I still feel your theory holds many fundamental flaws that don't adequately explain FF8, and is too complex for the task where a simpler theory would do.

[Threesixty]

I wasn't understood. Let me try it once more.

The key to my theory is that we are following Squall's influences, no one elses.

When Ultimecia is finally defeated, Time becomes uncompressed. Everyone returns to a certain timeframe. The only people that are aware of this, "Compressed time", are Squall's party and Ultimecia....everyone else in the Universe is in limbo (unaware of the compression...same as dying). When time goes back to normal, every one in limbo automaticly go to their original timeline (never knowing that time compression has ever happened.) Squall's Party has to concentrate on their own Timeline to get back to it.....(At least that's what I think they said....before Ellone put "Rinoa's" powers and "Adel's + Ultamicia's" powers into the young Adel...you forgot about that sequence of events, in your explanation of the sorceress' power, timeline)....Squall said he would concentrate to that Field, but for some reason he didn't. I explained all that on my first post.

Ok...Because Ultimecia was interfering with Squalls Timeline....(her spirit/soul was living in Squall's Timeline and not her own)
when she was defeated by Squall, I'm going to guess that she was either too weak to return to her own timeline (which would have been altered, because of her interference); or she couldn't return, because the pardox she created wouldn't allow her to return.

(I believe the last explanation, but the first explanation covers my butt.)

I'm guessing she had two choices....either Stay at that place of nothingness, or follow Squall. (or she had to attach herself to Squall because she was too weak) She chose to follow Squall. Squall went to far into the past....he did go to the field, like he promised...but he went a little to far in time. And that's when Ultimecia made her final appearance. Edea Absorbs Ulta's powers....and then tells all those things that you remember to Squall. I will know what she said word, per word, when I get to that point, but I currently don't remember what she said. I'm pretty sure there was no mention about 'having to fight, no matter what the consquences'....the Final Battle is over by then. I think she just told Squall that he didn't belong there, and that she absorbed Ultimecia's powers.

I never said Ultimecia never existed, by the end of the game....Oh! she existed...and everyone on that version of Earth, remembers her deeds. Most may connect Edea to those deeds, but they will always, remember.

To sum it up: We are in Squalls Timeline. The deciding Timeline is Ultamicia's. Ultamicia's Timeline is what I consider to be the present (non-fate). Squall's Timeline is Ancient History (fate). When Ultamicia goes to Squall's Timeline she started to change her own History. But since we are following Squall, we don't see those changes...we see the effects like we would see effect of the present and that's how FF8 is written. Then Squall and Ultamicia go too far into the past and alter some things.....(still fate). Squall goes back into TimeCompression and then goes to his original TimeFrame. (fate dies) Fate dies here....why? Because, Squall has finally stopped his time jumping. When he returns to his final distination (which so, happens to be close enough to the correct timeframe he belongs in.) any, "to be", paradoxes cease/won't (to) happen.

Ultamecia lost and died in Squall's past. She didn't Die because she was never born....she died because Edea and Squall killed her. Squall doesn't realise his involvment with the creation of Garden and SeeD until the end of the game. From then on forward...the future is an unknown factor. Ultamecia in her involment with her Anchient past, made the Anchient past the present. Squall's world becomes unwritten as soon as Rinoa and Squall returns to the Correct Timeframe.

When a paradox happens in time....no one remembers what the future is before the paradox and the only people who know that there was a paradox are the people who created the paradox. Squall releases this paradox when he goes too far in the past. Edea's future at that point was going to be different. We are following Squall's influences in the Universe, so we nor he knows what would have happened if he didn't go to the past at that point of the story. He didn't know that he was the cause of that paradox, until he created it...and he will always remember, not remembering that he helped create the idea of Garden and SeeD. He will always remember that he was the cause, because he jumped to far into the past and Ultamecia followed him there. (The key to my theory is that we are following Squall's influences, no one elses).

When he tells his friends that he put the idea of SeeD and Garden into Edea's head, they will probably say something like, "Heh...Sure you did." and he will say, "No it's true! I just found out, myself. I traveled to far into our past when I tried to come back, here...and that's when I put the idea into Edea's head."

--------------------------------------
Don't jump Timelines...Forget about the common theory of: If I keep myself from being born...none of my influences in the past will matter...because if I keep myself from being born then I can't go to the past and then I will be born.....

You see. When you think like that, Timetravel makes no sense. It becomes the question of, "What came first, the chicken or the Egg?" The answer to that question is neither came first...."Evolution" is the true answer to that old question.

If you plug in my theory of timetravel...FF8 makes total sense and it has a happy ending. Fate "dies" at the end of the story.

(I could give examples....)

[This message has been edited by Threesixty (edited April 06, 2001).]

[Terence Fergusson]

I understand the theory of multiple universe timelines all too well.  I already know the various ways of reconciling paradox.

Rinoa + Ultimecia + Adel's power were *temporarily* placed into the young Adel by Ellone.  It was the standard 'junctioning' that Ellone had done all along, making young Adel all that more powerful.  Thus, we don't really need to care about it in a power timeline, because it's only temporary.

What you're describing is classic 'multiple universes' theory.  Why?  Because of the way you deal with Ultimecia; once Squall returns after the final battle, you say the future is undefined, and that Ultimecia is never 'born'.  But she had to have come from somewhere... this is where you get Another Future, and start straying close to the theories Chrono Cross/Chrono Trigger use.

I think that's far too complex a method, personally, when it's a lot easier to fit it all into one timeline and one sequence of events.

Just for the record, I'll give you Ultimecia's timeline, from the game:

Ultimecia is born in the far future.  We don't know what kind of person she is, but we assume she is malicious, or grew up that way.

She later inherits the power of a Sorceress, and starts on her descension into tyranny.  Or maybe SeeD had records of her from the past, and decided to nip this problem in the bud, forcing her to fight back... we don't know.

What we do know is that she learns of the secret of Time Compression, where she would be able to meld several presents into one and absorb all the Sorceress power in the world, becoming the most powerful being ever (equal to the Great Hyne).  She also discovers the Ellone Machine.

Ultimecia uses the Ellone Machine to go back and take control of a young woman named Edea.  The time she takes control is uncertain... but definitely before the start of the game itself.

Insert the entirety of FF8 here; when Edea is defeated, Ultimecia junctions onto Rinoa instead.  After Adel is released, Ultimecia is about to try to junction onto Adel, but Laguna's plan is put into motion, and Rinoa absorbs Adel's powers, then awaits Ultimecia's next attempt to enter her.  As soon as that happens, Ellone uses *her* power to transfer Rinoa+Ultimecia into young Adel, and them shifts Rinoa straight back into her own body, leaving Ultimecia there.  Ultimecia begins Time Compression.

Squall and co enter Time Compression and travel to the *FUTURE*.  They are now where Ultimecia's body is.  They enter the castle, defeat Ultimecia (and enter Time Compression again during that battle), and defeat her.

When Squall tries to return home, his memories lock onto his desire to find Ellone, and, yes, he goes too far.  Ultimecia does follow.  Ultimecia ends up giving her power to Edea, and Squall unwittingly gives the idea of SeeD to Edea as well.

Ultimecia dies.

There.  No inconsistencies, it's understandable, and it doesn't breach the 'can't change the past' rule Ellone preaches to use in Disc 3.  It also sets up the present and the future.

If you're still saying that 'fate dies', then what you're really saying is that the universe Squall returns to is *NOT* his universe.  Or the universe Ultimecia goes back to to try and take over is not *her* universe.  Both of which lead to more complex explanations and freak occurences.  I have no doubt you could likely explain them... but not as simply or as elegantly.

Nature abhors a paradox.  We know this.  That's *why* there are several ways of dealing with it.  You seem to think I subscribe to that 'common theory'.  I don't.  Let me tell you the theories I do subscribe too...

1) Past cannot be changed, but future *can* be changed.

In this theory, time travel is not possible.  This is the world I believe we live in.  There's still the 'free will' aspect here, but the future is not predetermined, unless you think that humans are all automonous beings who are just act how their brains tell them too, with chaos theory only making the events and decisions *seem* random.

2) Past cannot be changed, future cannot be changed.

Under this, time travel *is* possible.  FF8's story and consistancy makes more sense under this theory, simply because a lot of what happens is set up for what Squall and others do.  (This includes stuff like helping out Laguna: "The fairies are back again")  This is one of the most elegant ways of explaining time travel (the puzzle is already fitted together), but it's not as 'fun' to work with; a lot of people like time travel to see what they could *change*.  FF8, however, isn't about change, as you notice ^_^  It's about living the present.

3) Past can be changed, Future can be changed.

This is the final theory, usually.  However, it's here that you start hitting extremely complex theories, involving multiple universes all along a probability axis.  It's under this theory that you can have effects without a seeming cause (the cause having come from a different vector on the probability axis).  It's also extremely complex and ugly, frankly.

The biggest flaw to your theory, in my opinion, is one of elegance.  Why Squall?  What makes him special?  Why does his influence count more than Ultimecia's?  Why does fate have to die?

The other thing you seem to have missed is that the theory I've proposed still makes sense, and still gives a happy ending.  So what if Ultimecia will still be born in the future?  It's already been dealt with; the danger has passed.  And that wasn't the point of FF8 at all.  The point of FF8 was Squall's own growth.  For me, Squall's smile at the end is probably the most telling aspect that it was a happy ending after all.

[Threesixty]

I don't knooowwwww......

Everyone seems to be dead in Ultimecia's time. There were SeeD bodies, everywhere. And being that about 10 people make up a town in FF8....I would assume that meant a lot of people, maybe even everyone. If that, or something simular, is the fate of FF8's world. That doesn't seem like a happy ending to me.

Hmmm...This is why I started all of this:

"Overall, if you think too much about FF8, it's a depressing turn of events; everything is prophesised. You can't change the past... but because of that... you can't change the future either. All you can do is live.

Don't think about that too much though. It *is* a depressing fact, but humans have shown great capacity to ignore the horrible truth and cling to their own securities. That's how most people survive."

Doesn't look like you believed it was happy back then. For FF8 to have a happy ending...the fate of the story has to be broken in the end. (I had to take the challenge, of finding a happy ending. I really wasn't expecting this kind of opposession  )

Here's my theory, in a nutshell:
1. The past can't change the past.
2. The present can change the past.
3. If a future timeline/world exists, then the present is defined as the past.

Also, I've noticed that in the game Ultimecia never goes back to her own timeline....she is always in Squall's. Maybe she can only use the machine, once.

Take a look at my Flow-sheet....
It's a rough draft...so there are spelling mistakes...and could change. But I think it's pretty close to what happens in the game.

 http://pages.prodigy.net/360/" TARGET=_blank>http://pages.prodigy.net/360/  

 http://pages.prodigy.net/360/Download/FF8.zip" TARGET=_blank>Direct DL  

edit:
U've been away for a while  . Thought the topic was dead for sure....and what happen to all the others? guess they are just shadowing.

[This message has been edited by Threesixty (edited April 11, 2001).]

[Anonymous]

Yesssss. Sssshadowing. Lurking. I do those thingss very well. Reading. Absssorbing. Ssssucking all the information out of each and every word. I do that well, you know.

I nourissssh myself that way, and this dicussion fills my mind with much tasty food to digesst in those quiet hours after I have fed on tasty morsels caught in my web, a web so haphazzardly woven the unwary fail to recognize it for what it really is...their fate lying in wait, eternal, immutable.

Not all your wissshes or imaginations can change that which was written in the beginning, that destiny toward which we all travel, an ultimate destination from which not one of us escapessss.      

[Black Widow]

Who is this? What strange female dares encroach upon my territory? This is my corner, my warm and secluded corner in the murky shadows behind the computer!

Begone, intruder! Leave without further challenge! Only one will emerge from any encounter between us, and it will be me! I lurk here! I hunt here! Mine! It is mine!    

[Terence Fergusson]

I never said it wasn't a happy ending  I just said that the theory used is often a depressing one.  But who's the one concentrating on all this?  Certainly not the characters.  They've all seem to learnt an important lesson of FF8: You've got to live for the present.

Notice how all of the time travel schemes went awry.  Ultimecia's and Ellone's motives both failed.  They concentrated too much on the past.

The reason why FF8's future seems so dead, by the way, is partly due to Time Compression, and also partly due to Ultimecia (but only partly).  Come on... you don't see *hardly* as many dead SeeD there as you do in the battle of the Gardens.  And don't try to bring FF8 town mechanics into this  It's generally assumed there's usually a lot of places, buildings and people in each town that you never get to see or enter.

Looked through your flowchart... and there are a number of things with it I disagree with.

First off, young Adel wouldn't have inherited Ultimecia's powers just through Ellone's powers.  Does Laguna get to keep Leviathan just because Ellone moved Squall back into him?  No.  Laguna gets the *use* of Leviathan and other GFs... but once Squall's returned, Laguna's back to relying on his own again.  (Remember Laguna and Kiros' words about how the fairies were back again, and how things should be easier with them?)

Another thing I disagree with... we don't *know* that young Ultimecia will eventually be the one to inherit Rinoa's powers.  Rinoa seems to think she will, but there's no evidence for it.  It's strongly hinted at that there are far more Sorceresses on the planet than are made public at any one time.

In fact, it makes more sense for Ultimecia not to inherit it... that solves the problem of the Great Hyne's powers coming from nowhere and running in loops.

Also, keep in mind that when Ultimecia is defeated in the future, all the powers she was drawing on through Time Compression would return as soon as Time Compression is broken.  Time Compression is *VERY* similar to Ellone's powers, except it seems to involve junctioning one person into every present at once.

You've also got "Unknown -> Young Sorceress Edea" twice, even when you've also got Ultimecia's powers going into Edea.  Edea only became a Sorceress twice.  Not three times.

Anyway... you seem to have misunderstood what I said way back then.  The *theory* itself is depressing.  No one likes to hear they can't change the future.

But guess what?  Squall and co don't know that for sure.  Ellone may have some ideas, but she doesn't know for sure either.  And even if Squall did work it out... I don't think it would bother him.  It would certainly bother me if I were in his position... but to him, he's been there and done that.  And he's got more important things to concentrate on.  Like Rinoa ^_^

Remember when I said 'ignorance is bliss'?  Sometimes, it really is.

Oh, and no happy ending is ever going to stop another evil Sorceress from rising up and having to be put down by SeeD

[Threesixty]

(Oh yeah....to the quite people here....spoiler abound....little late but, oh well...Little FF7 spoiler, too. )

...who's the one concentrating on all this? Certainly not the characters.

Yeah...well.

If the characters did focus on it, it would have been a more intresting game. It may have even been considered better than FF7 or FF6.

And every Timetravel story, I ever saw/read have a failed Time Travel Scheme somewhere in it.

And the reason why FF8's World is so dead, is because all FF Worlds are dead. It seems to be Square's trademark. Either there is a whole bunch of people and they say only one line...or they say a lot, but are very few. Call it System Requirement's, if you like.      

Yeah, Yeah....the flowchart....but it was fun to follow, right? It was also pretty fun to make.

And where are you getting all this Junction Stuff....Anyway, I don't feel that Junctioning a GF is the same as Junctioning a person who has GF Junctioned to him/herself. And did you consider the Fact that Laguna's level goes up faster when Squall is inside him? Besides, Squall isn't a sorceress (wrong sex)....maybe some of the powers get left behind or something. Maybe that's the reason why Ultim, never left Squalls World....She would lose all her powers, when she did. (Sounds good to me....   )

I never said Ultim get's Rinoa's powers. If anything, I said that she gets Edea's powers. Besides, if Square wrote about that there wouldn't be any theories... Not that there are a lot of them in FF8.

Great Hyne? coming from nowhere? running in a loop? Hey...I didn't write the novel.  

According to those writers. The first sorceress war is where the Great Hyne gave his "bottom" end to the mortal people and apparently, only the females (looks like Square did it again...always putting that subjective sex, thing, in their games). That's where it came from. And there is no real loop in my theory. With Rinoa, now owning the great power,....I have no idea where it goes into next. In my explanation the Future is now, unwritten.

I Misunderstood? Nah....If I misuderstood I would have agreed with you. ROFLOL. Remember, the last thing that stayed in Pandora's box, was 'Hope'. And that's why I'm writing all of this, and wrote all of that other stuff.   Have to keep hope alive.....And Aeris isn't dead either! .

no happy ending is ever going to stop another evil Sorceress from rising up and having to be put down by SeeD
 
Well....not in your version of the story, it won't. (that, right there should prove that my version is better )

...BTW: I tried to send the several times....guess I had too many Smilies Stuff on it, Kept getting an timing error. Then I got rid of some of the razz smilies and it went through. Guess Qhimm put a cap on the Smilies Legend stuff. Looks like the razz thing doesn't work with a CAP "P" either....none show up on your post....or it's disabled on your post.

[This message has been edited by Threesixty (edited April 14, 2001).]

[Terence Fergusson]

Junctioning and Ellone's power aren't the same?  They may not be precisely the same, but they are similar.  It depends a lot on what your concept of GFs are... and here, Greiver is the most telling evidence of this.  Griever, for one, isn't real... it's a creation of Squall's mind brought to life.  Yet... how different is that from a Guardian Force?

Rinoa left the present and travelled to the future through Time Compression... and didn't lose her Sorceress powers.  So why would Ulti have that problem?  The reason she didn't go back physically was because she was using the Ellone Machine.

Edea's powers were fully passed on to Rinoa; Rinoa *HAS* Edea's powers.  Thus, you can't say that Ulti got them in the end.

The Great Hyne is said to have split his power and granted them to Sorceresses far in the past.  If we assume he's some god-like being, we don't really want this power to get duplicated or arrive from nowhere; we need a decent cause-effect trail of where all the power goes.  That is what I was talking about.  The loop in your theory is Ultimecia; or how she never gets born in Squall's new 'non-fate' timeline and thus never gets to inherit the Great Hyne's power.  Thus, you get Sorceress power arriving without a cause in that timeline... that's problematic.

And... um... even in your version of the story, there's nothing stopping a new evil Sorceress rising up in the future.  No fate, remember?  Thus, anything could happen.

In the version I've continually described, I don't doubt that Squall and Rinoa get a chance to live 'happily ever after'.  There's no evidence against them having a long and happy life... because we *don't* know that part of the future.  What you seem to want to change is the far future as well... you seem to want to be able to make it as happy as you can until the end of time.  That's not only unrealistic... but it's also been already taken care of... at least, Ultimecia has.  If fate 'dies', then anything can happen; even bad endings.  In which case, it's left in the hands of your imagination... which is really fate again.  If you're choosing a future... you're really playing the role of fate.

You can't pick and choose what you like here.  If you're going to abandon fate, then you have to realise that after that, anything can happen.  It also causes a lot of problems with cause and effect.

You can't say that the future is unwritten, and then go on to say that it's going to have a happy ending because you say so.  That's a contradiction in your logic right there.

If you do go with 'fate' (which I dislike being described as something that exists or is alive in this scenario), then you must realise that even though Ultimecia will be born and wreak havoc... she's already been taken care of.  Thus, there's nothing for Squall and Rinoa to fear about it.

In addition to all this... whichever version you use, they don't *KNOW* their immediate future.  Ultimecia's time is far far away.  Not knowing what's going to happen in the years between that, but knowing that the world around you is good and that the troubles afflicting it have been fixed... there's your hope there.

You seem to think my version doesn't have hope.  It does because of ignorance of the future.  The only thing they know that will happen in the future, they already know the outcome of.

I've got an exam coming in five or six weeks.  I don't know whether the future is determined or not.  But even if I got a vision of, say, a town in 2100AD, and was told that the future cannot be changed... do I know whether I will pass my exam or not?

Answer: I don't.  I have hope that I will.  And *that* is the difference.

[Wing]

Now THIS is a discussion. Time travel and rifts (changes) are either OBVIOUS to you or a complete mystery. You can gain basic understanding by playing the (OLD) computer game "The Journeyman Project TURBO" (I believe there is a related game with a similar title on PSX) and watching the Back to the Future movies  

[Terence Fergusson]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend Back to the Future if you're interested in this sort of thing.  A lot of it is more drama than time travel mechanics.

Journeyman Project is a lot better, and covers certain paradox theories reasonably well, but it's a more complex take on the multiple universe/changing universe theories (which, really, are all pretty complex, since you can have so many variations).

I'm not sure of where you'd find a good source to go over the various theories that we've already covered.  Most of them are more logical and stuff you could work out yourself if you really thought about things.

After a quick search on the Net, I found  http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html" TARGET=_blank>http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html , which is worth taking a look at.  It clearly shows how paradoxes are avoided in theory.  Most of the rest of the page is devoted to the mechanics of achieving time travel and the possible theories in doing that, but the real interesting part is in the first document that talks about paradoxes.  That should bring you to the three conclusions I displayed earlier in this thread: Time Travel not possible, Time Travel possible but past and future are determined, and Time Travel possible with quantum universes/multiple universes/probability axis.

Enjoy.

[This message has been edited by Terence Fergusson (edited April 15, 2001).]

[Qhimm]

Bah, I was gonna make a smart-ass reply to all this, but that page already covered most of it... it also went a bit over my head at times. ^^

This discussion has appeared before, I'm afraid. The people I was arguing with at the time had a theory of two similar, yet distinct time lines. These would have intersected when Squall was killed by Edea's ice magic. Yes, the theory was based on the assumption that he was killed. This way, when disc 2 started, we had entered another time line. This somehow explained most of the paradoxes found in the game, but I can't remember the details. However, the theory had some major flaws that I pointed out; the main flaw being the fact that the party remembers the earlier events when starting disc 2. My point of view was basically the same as Terence's, and could be presented in a single sentence. "Every change to the past that will happen, has already happened". Thus implying a strong sense of fate, and a heavy lock-down regarding future events.

The question immediately arises; if Squall is fated to defeat Ultimecia (since she has died by his hand in the past), how much of Squall's future has already been decided? Is it completely unchangeable, or...? Lets visualize the theory of quantum universes (every possibility in a given situation does happen, but in separate, new "copies" of the universe). In this situation, "fate" would mean removing every "time thread" except those leading to the determined situation.

Of course, all this becomes void if we follow the rule that the past cannot be changed. The future would be completely decided up till the point of the last time travel to the past. Or even completely decided to the end of time itself. What a sad concept.

"Every change to the past that will happen, has already happened", consequence before cause. Entirely possible in temporal mechanics, but only theories. Let's take a look on our own universe. Using the current theories for describing it, things are as in Terence's example #1 (Past cannot be changed, but future *can* be changed). At least, it seems so. A simple addition though; time travel is not only possible, it is happening all around us. It's just that the effects are usually much too small to measure. Einstein's theories predicts that the time of a moving object moves slower than the surrounding time. Meaning, if you move fast, you will begin travelling into the future. The past is safe thanks to the mechanics of it all; you can't use this theory to travel back in time, thus you can't change anything.

There are, of course, other theories in which time travel is possible. Black holes, for example, could be connected to another black hole at another point in space-time (wormholes). There are obvious problems to this theory... ^^

While looking through the link Terence gave us, I noticed the current theories of using the energy of black holes to power time travel. This may be very possible, but I didn't quite agree with their way of travelling backwards in time. The basic concept I found was travelling above the speed of light, relying heavily on quantum tunneling. This itself is a nice concept, but hard to make anything practical of.

The problem lies in the assumption that moving at super-light speed would mean reverse time-travel. I'm going to use an image to make my point:

http://qhimm.3dstream.net/time.gif" border=0>

(If nothing appears, I might still be working on it. My PC is breaking down, so I'll post this while I can)

[Qhimm]

Final point: Humans will never find a way to travel back in time. If we were to discover a way, where are all the time travelers?

[The SaiNt]

Let's all "assume" that it is indeed possible to travel back in time, ok?

Then, for every smallest unit of time that exists, there would be a copy of your self, wouldn't it? (something like a frame from an animation)

Using out assumption that time travel is possible, then it would be possible for every single "frame" of yourself in the entire existance of yourself to appear at specific time. Now consider every "copy" of yourself to have considerable mass. Wouldn't you have introduced new "mass" and upset the whole rule that an equilbrium in mass, matter and energy? Not only have you upset the equilibrium in your that "specific" time frame, other time frames would be affected too since they have loss the "mass" that was formerly you at that particular "time frame".

Even if the above-mentioned problem didn't occur, what if I decided to kill let's say myself? Would it affect my existance? It really depends on how we view time. If we see time as continuous loop, then killing myself would destroy the loop. A paradox would occur if I were to go back in time to kill myself since if I'm dead how would I kill myself? If we consider that every single "existance" of me in every time frame to be independant, then it "would" be possible to kill myself. That would mean that I'm assuming that time is an indefinite figure and it never goes through a loop. This would also mean that when I kill myself at let's say 10.00am (correct down to the smallest unit of time), i would create 2 possible futures for myself, one with me dead and one with me alive. That would make it possible for me to make an infinite number of futures for myself at that time. Should that be so, even if I could travel through time, how would I decide which future I would end up in?

If you ask me, travelling back to the past is not a likely thing to happen since you will upset most of Einstein's theory of Relativity and a whole lot of idea's in Physics. It is already a known fact that travelling in an object at a faster speed makes time progress at a slower rate, thus time appears to slow down for people within the object. Time passes as usual for people outside the object. Should we accelerate as near as possible to the speed of light, we would reach a stage where time passes at an extremely low rate. What we have to remember is that the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe so nothing "theoratically" can be faster than it. Let's assume we do somehow manage to break that rule and travel at the speed of light. That way, time completely stops within the object that is travelling. Your object would then be completely useless since no one within it can control it since time has stopped anyway. should you then decide that you would control the object externally so you can stop it, we still have a problem; we have not gone back in time, we have only made time not pass for us. What if we go faster than the speed of light then? It is assumed by many that if we go faster than the speed of light, we will move back in time. Note that this travelling back in time would only occur within the moving object and thus would be completely useless within the object. Should time travel backwards, wouldn't we be in trouble? Every object within the object was formally something else before that and should going into the past make them "really" go back to the past, then the objects would not exist in the first place would they? Looks like the only kind of thing that we're gonna get from this method of travelling through time would be "disaging" old objects into new ones?

Honestly, with the currect laws of physics time travel is nowhere near possible. I would elaborate longer with formulas and examples(though Qhimm's formula is a good one) but my exam is tomorrow  

[ficedula]

SaiNt: You're assuming there *is* a "smallest unit of time". What if there isn't? For example, give me the smallest decimal (real) number in existence...

[Qhimm]

Very valid point on the total mass of the universe being altered. Time traveling using Einstein's theories doesn't have this problem since your mass has already been "separated" from the rest of the universe when you started your journey, thus the total mass remains unchanged. Your time machine, after all, still exists in the "outside world" during the entire trip. Going back in time, let's say to a time before you were born, would be troublesome, because your mass wouldn't have existed in that time frame. More specifically, it wouldn't exist in your shape. You would introduce new matter, increasing the total mass of the universe. And that can't be good. ^^

This could be solved though, for example we could think of time as two-directional, like the spatial dimensions. This is part of the explanation for theoretical phenomena like effect before cause. However, since time only seems to move in one direction in our universe, we instantly run into trouble.

So, in a universe where time only flows one way (our universe), you'd run into trouble traveling to the past, introducing duplicate matter. Then again, maybe it is perfectly acceptable to alter the mass of the universe? I mean, lots of matter gets dumped into black holes all the time.

And finally, a correction. Time, just as space, has infinite resolution; meaning there's no such thing as a smallest unit of time. If there were, things like waveforms could not exist. A sine wave, for example, would consist of small steps instead of a smooth curve, thus breaking physics theories by the hundreds.

[The SaiNt]

Damn it! Stop replying so fast or I'll keep replying and not get back to by books!

Assuming that there "isn't" a smallest unit in time, many physics laws would be broken.

Even if there isn't a smallest unit in time, it still does not prove my explaination wrong! If there isn't a smallest unit in time, time can only exist in two conditions; one that has infinite number of units and the other with no units at all making it one whole object by itself.

If time were to be indivisible and be a single object, then time would be indistinguishable between one second and the next. That would bring us to a condition that would be even worse;that the whole universe destroys and rebuilds mass and matter in an analogous cycle so there is no way time travel (back to the past) will be possible since there is no past to travel to in the first place.

If it were to be divisible into an infinite number of time frames, we would be getting a lot of zeros no matter what equation we make since anything divided by infinity is zero  
Simply said, time travel would again be not possible in this condition either.

[This message has been edited by The SaiNt (edited April 15, 2001).]

[Qhimm]

I don't quite follow your logic here... I'm comparing time to space. Space has inifite resolution, othewise theories based on waves wouldn't work. We humans have invented units to measure space, but no matter how small a unit we pick, a point can still exist between two of our unit marks. The same, I argue, is true with time. Division by infinity is no problem, as we calculate using our units, not the resolution of time/space itself.

[ficedula]

Actually, infinity is Not A Number, as our maths lecturer keeps telling us at uni. You can't treat it as one. So you can't divide or multiply a normal number by infinity. Technically, infinity is a state of existence.

[Qhimm]

Division by infinity is nothing you'd want in your equations, that's the key issue.

[ficedula]

Yes ... more or less. Dividing by infinity technically has as much mathematical meaning as dividing by a sock or a poodle. It just can't be done because one thing (infinity, a sock) isn't a number at all. It's a meaningless exercise.

Of course, sometimes we behave like infinity is a number because it makes equations (like some graphs) easier to understand, but it really isn't...

[The SaiNt]

I...
will...
reply...
tomorrow...

Await my return  

[Terence Fergusson]

Heh.  My current theory regarding the real world is that time is an abstract creation; something humans made up.  As I see it, I currently believe that the universe is a series of presents, with no past and no future.  No memory, that is.

Movement of matter and energy through the universe, as well as the aging of objects... that's how we perceive time.  The past can't be changed because it doesn't *EXIST*... only the present does.  The future may or may not be able to be changed because it's merely the reconfiguration of the present into a new configuration over 'time'.  The only question is how much control does the present have over its new configuration; ie how much control does physics have?

That's an interesting question that I'll return to in a moment.

Time dilation/slowing down is possible in this theory since all it involves is slowing down perceived time and aging (remember, time is a human concept in this theory, and all that matters is the spectator; no global time here).

Of course, because the universe has no memory, it seems impossible to time travel to the past in this theory.  You can time travel to the future, of course, but all you're doing there is something similar to cryogenics; slowing down the aging and perceiving of your own personal time until your surroundings have aged the appropriate amount.

Now, back to determination and fate... personally, I'm not sure whether 'fate' exists or not ^_^  Einstein famously remarked that 'God does not play dice with the universe'... if that's true, then does no random element exist?  And if no random element exists, does that mean that everything I do and think could be predicted by a complex enough formula?

I think you get the idea I'm trying to put across here.  It's by no means the only theory that could work, but it's one I find compelling enough to believe in... for now.

Of course, what fictional universes use is a different matter.  Playing 'what-if' is a game lots of people love... which is, of course, why time travel stories can be so popular ^_^

[The SaiNt]

Fice, I can't agree more with you that infinity is not a number. Strangely enough, my Maths lecturer tells me the same thing  

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that if you were to assume that there is no smallest unit in time, you will find that there is an unlimited amount of mass in the whole timeline. That shouldn't be the case, should it? I was also trying to put forward Terence's idea that the universe doesn't have any memory. If the universe doesn't have any memory, it doesn't keep any of the mass,matter or energy of the past. If the amount of mass, matter of energy is supposed to be constant, then the whole universe would be destroying itself and rebuilding itself in a whole analogous cycle. (Notice I don't use for the smallest unit of time since I'm gonna be corrected again)