the ever-evolving time travel post

[roxybisquaint]

Happiness is...
An hour long discussion with the man about time travel.

I've always gone with the multiple timelines theory, but life_on_queen argues there's a single timeline in the TSCC verse. So after a brief "single timeline!" / "multiple timelines!" exchange, I took the discussion to real life and mentioned it to the man. He wasn't interested in talking about it. "Single timeline," he said. "Let's watch TV."

Augh.

I grabbed pen and paper, started drawing diagrams and talking about Derek and Jesse. Next thing you know, the man is all into it, grabbing my pen and paper and drawing his own diagrams. Much debate and pages of back and forth scribbles later (with a very annoying pen that kept refusing to write), he declared there must be multiple timelines (and also "let's watch TV").

Here is a coherent version (I think) of what we came up with:





I got to pondering when exactly a new timeline is created. When my husband and I were discussing it, we went with a new timeline being created as soon as someone arrives. Really, we both agreed that the new timeline wouldn't be created until the time traveler actually did something to affect the future. But without knowing how significant such an event has to be, we went with the butterfly effect/chaos theory — that the slightest alteration of anything could result in a chain reaction that leads to a different future. Therefore, a new timeline is most likely created as soon as someone arrives (especially since time travel in the terminator world involves electrical disturbances, big holes cut into the landing spot and naked time jumpers walking about).

The problem with that is it doesn't mesh with T1. In that, the terminator and Kyle did not arrive simultaneously. The terminator arrived first and, by this theory, would have triggered a new timeline. If that had happened, though, Kyle would not have been able to intercept him and Sarah likely would have been killed. Well, that's no good.

For the sake of the film, it looks like I'm going to have to skip the chaos theory and wait for something bigger to trigger a new timeline. Of course, the terminator kills some punks very soon after arrival in T1 and that's clearly action that would impact the future. But I'll have to wash that away by suggesting their deaths are irrelevant until other people are affected by them or until the punks missed doing something they would have done had they not been killed. Since they were out partying, it's possible they would have passed out and not been missed at all until the next day when Kyle had already arrived. It's very thin logic, but then again, we're dealing in the theoretics of time travel as applied to a 24-year-old work of fiction :P

Soooooo... in the terminator universe, a new timeline is not created until something significant has happened (as a result of the time traveler's presence) that causes a chain reaction of events that alters the future's previous path. That doesn't necessarily affect my diagram since I'm dealing in years and not specific dates. But it does mean that it's possible for a time traveler's original future to remain intact for a period of time, allowing someone else from that same timeline to follow them. It also opens up the possibility that not every time jumper actually creates a new timeline.

To put that into a specific TSCC example, it could be that the discovery of Andy Goode's death was the thing that finally caused a new timeline to emerge from Derek's time jump. Or it could be that Vick actually came from the same timeline as Derek and it was his killing of Barbara that caused a new timeline. Whichever it was, that would also be the point, then, that Derek's original future was closed off (people from his future could no longer get to the timeline he's in now). And that brings us to Jesse. She and Derek clearly share some memories, but they also have different memories because the future was altered. Well, if her future was different then she could not have come from the same timeline that he did. She came from the new timeline created when Andy Goode was found dead (or Barbara or whatever event it was that created the new future).

This Jesse never actually knew our Derek. And our Derek never knew her. She knew the young Derek who's now just a kid in the current 2007 timeline. It's technically the same Derek, but since his future is changed to some extent, he won't end up the exact same person as our Derek — he won't ever know Billy Wisher, for example. Likewise, Jesse's not the exact same person our Derek once knew either. This Jesse is also just a kid someplace in 2007 who will grow up in a future that's different from the one in which she knew our Derek. Make sense? Heh. Probably not. Don't worry. You don't need to understand it. I've got it all worked out right up here *taps head* ;)

One last thing I'll throw in here is that I don't really see timelines as being these rigid lines fanning out away from each other. I think they're more like spiraling paths that intertwine and can even intersect. If Derek and Jesse share identical memories of any specific event, for example, that could be a segment where their different timelines actually overlapped. Of course, that also means it would theoretically be possible for someone to jump from one timeline to another. But in order to do that, they'd have to actually know where and when those timelines intersect and I can't think how that would be possible.

Comments

[zanpakto.livejournal.com]

Is the timeline is changed everytime they send something back? Does that timeline that already happened get erased? Or can that possible future still affect the past by sending something back to a point in time. I get confused easy, I need pictures. I'd love to draw it out with T1,T2,T3 included someday. My dry erase might not be big enough.

Oh isnt it next week we find out terminators are sent way into the past? lol. benjamin franklin terminator.

[zanpakto.livejournal.com]

It would be cool if they built more hidden time machines, weapons & bunkers like that. Because right now, they don't have a good plan to fight.

I just thought of this....If sarah and john jump too far back or forward, then they might get stranded. John needs to be there for the war at the right age he will be in order to send people, terminators, build time machines. Its not like the Delorean, where the machine goes with. If he ever does a major jump he needs a tech to go with him, or skynet might win in his absence.

[trinfaneb.livejournal.com]

In S.M. Stirling's T2 follow-up novels, Skynet believes the whole timeline situation exists because of "the persistence of "several alternative world-lines" coexisting in "a state of quantum superimposition." I haven't been able to grok everything into a unified theory myself, but this sounds better than anything else I've heard thus far.

[miniglik.livejournal.com]

Ah, mr miniglik and myself discuss time travel quite often. It's fun.

Personally, I never buy into single timeline predestination paradox theories. I think they're potentially infinite looped timelines which can gradually stabilize into what looks like a single timeline, but was previously many alternate timelines which gradually evolved into a timeline that depends on time travel for consistancy (i.e., Kyle is John's father, John sends Kyle back). Although, in this case I do not think they stabilized into a timeline that repeats itself in a stable manner (I think even the first movie changed things -- that originally Skynet did not develop from the the T-800's hand -- because I can't fathom John Connor knowing about the hand/microchip and not warning his mother to make sure all pieces of the Terminator were destroyed).[/tangent]

However, the best Terminator-related conversations I've ever had with my spouse were regarding the organization of post-apacolyptic humanity's fighting forces. Where they'd hide, how they'd organize, what parts of the world would be harder hit. Etc. Fun times. ;)

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

My roommate and I once did this with 12 Monkeys. We used a whiteboard.

[cisaac.livejournal.com]

This timeline diagram makes complete sense.

And it makes my brain hurt at this time of night. I'll digest it again tomorrow.

It is spiffy, though.

[indiefic.livejournal.com]

In that, the terminator and Kyle did not arrive simultaneously.

They arrived the same night. I don't know about simultaneously. They did the Terminator's arrival, killing of the punks, etc, first, but then they switch to Kyle landing in the alley and breaking into the department store. It's the same night. I suppose the case could be made that they did land simultaneously, but the events were shown out of order. Dunno. Hmm.

As to all the different timelines, the Terminator universe is nothing if not a total mindfuck (and BAD BAD BAD at math. God, in a fandom so dependent on dates, the people with the IP rights really need to pay more attention to their own details.) Personally, I don't know that the idea of linear time really works at all in the terminator universe. With the discovery of a way to jump to different places in time, it becomes fluid, concurrent rather than linear. If actions taken by someone decades in the future can affect present day, then from my point of view, the two timelines are happening simultaneously rather than in succession and aren't necessarily completely dependent on one another.

I think that made more sense in my head before I tried to write it out.

Personally, I like the idea of the multiverse, that every choice by every person (or terminator) creates a separate alternate reality and that all of those realities co-exist simultaneously. But that's just me ;P

And that brings us to Jesse. She and Derek clearly share some memories, but they also have different memories because the future was altered.

I'm still withholding judgment on Jesse at this point. Primarily because I think she's a liar. It's impossible to figure out if she came from Derek's future because I don't trust a single word that comes out of her mouth.

And on the same note, I'm still not convinced that there isn't a future where the now-11-year-old Derek meets Billy Wisher. Maybe Wisher is a terminator programmed to think he's the human formerly known as Andy Goode. (I don't find that scenario particularly likely, but I'm not counting anything out in this universe.)

Kuddos for all the mapping. You rock.

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

Single timeline that's constantly being overwritten.

The man and I have you outnumbered.

[castellan-craft.livejournal.com]

I know I'll be a dissenting voice here, but I wanted to chime in because a previous fandom of mine dealt extensively yet almost inadvertently with time travel.

To me, I always viewed the Terminator franchise through the idea of the "Circular Timeline" due to the paradoxical nature of the kick off movie. I know this sounds ordained, but it really isn't. To quote some wonderful fan fic a writer known as "Sepdet" wrote in that old fandom of mine: "...Will time start repeating itself? Will we hit a terrible contradiction and explode? Will everything start unravelling?" ... "Ah. It would not be repeating, Marrim. Because it is a circle, not a spiral."

Certain things are ordained: Suns die, planets die, worlds are born, life develops, lather, rinse, repeat. Individual lives are not set.

Imagine if Sarah Connor keeps fighting to stop Judgment day. She initiates more events like the death of Miles Dyson and the destruction of Cyberdyne's research. It puts it off, but it doesn't stop it because this advancement is set in the natural course of things. Even if it gets put off until after her and John's life spans, it will not be the end of the world. Someone will take their places. They are an archetype that mankind cannot help but unconsciously fill.

By sending Kyle Reese back to initiate the birth and creation of this perfect soldier for mankind, the circle didn't break... it contracted. Things that might have taken longer spans of time were quickened and unnecessary events were removed from circulation. There was going to be a savior because there already was. Torching Cyberdyne in T2, on the other hand, expanded the circle: they were given more time.

The T-800 in The Terminator would have failed at killing Sarah Connor.

[(Anonymous)]

If only the T-800 shows up and Kyle Reese doesn't, Sarah Connor goes out (with or without that guy on the answering machine) and her roommate stays in. The T-800 arrives at the address, thinking the roommate is Sarah Connor. The T-800 kills her. Sarah Connor lives. The end.

Cut to next timeline:

Kyle Reese arrives. He stalks Sarah Connor. Sarah Connor gets spooked. Sarah calls her roommate. The T-800 hears the message and realizes that this bitch (the roommate) isn't Sarah Connor. The T-800 goes looking for her.


It is only because Kyle arrived, that Sarah's life is in danger.