Steampunk, Time Travel and Suspension of Disbelief
By
AncientSpirit_NA,
Posted on: 2009-05-31 16:42 in Mission Architect
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Like I said before: If you open up that "what if" box, you've got to pick a point where you close it. You're saying "They'll just keep coming" and I'm saying "from where?" If you can't accept a story for what it is because of what happens hundreds or thousands of years in the future, then you can't just stop at "They could send more." If you want to write the next few thousand years of a story's history, then you'd better really write them.
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Which is exactly our point. The box should be closed.
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Removal of an entire story device because a small group can't stop playing "what if" isn't a valid solution to the "problem."
I'm just pointing out that if you want to play "what if," then you have to pick an arbitrary point to stop at. For those of us that enjoy these stories, we're basically stopping where the author tells us to. For those that don't, I'm pointing out that maybe you aren't going far enough.
Then again, I've always found people more interesting than situations. I prefer something where I know the characters in and out over something that has some grand meta-plot with cardboard cutouts. So if an author hooks me with their characters, I'll forgive all sorts of other issues because I want to know what's going to happen to so and so.
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History abhors a paradox
We are arguing personal perception of a mechanic with very few stated laws in our current game universe.
My personal view is captured in the statement above. Sure you can go back in time and tinker. The problem is that it is like tossing a pebble upstream. The river just alters slightly and continues on it's chosen path. Try to mess with it too much and Time will hit you back, hard.
Send 50 of yourself to fight a team of Heroes and what happens? They happen to stumble upon a device that allows them to hurt you.
Of course the main problem is that CoH time mechanics are not spelled out in black and white. This leaves a lot for the reader to interperate. If the reader believes that Time Travel allows infinite access to resources then they will have a hard time believing that these will not be used.
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History Abhors a Paradox
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I think you're entirely missing the point, which is that whoever possesses time travel can throw an infinitely regenerable army at whatever critical event they choose. If the first 100 agents you sent couldn't get the job done, send another 1000. Or 10,000. Or 1,000,000. The fact that it takes a century to train and dispatch 1000 agents doesn't matter because they all end up at the same destination. If the event is important enough to the possessors of time travel, they will eventually pile enough of their side onto it to win.
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Ok.
That will not work.
Why?
Because every time a new group gets sent into the past, there will be a consequential reaction on the time span between the past and the future. The past gets to play itself out every time before the next group gets sent back from the future.
Every failure will result in more and more change to the future as the past starts to wise up to the event. This would probably result in the eventual elimination of what ever group started time traveling back to the past before they were even formed. Congratulations, you get a paradox.
Even worse, if you win, you probably lose. Now whatever historic event that prompted the time travel in the first place didn't happen as it originally did, and the repercussions of that alter history in untold ways, perhaps in ways that were critical to your own groups formation or reasoning for even wanting to expend so much resources and manpower into sending agents into the past in the first place. Again, paradox.
Trying to change the past with brute force is like trying to fix a wrist watch with a sledge hammer.
Steam-driven technology is modifiable by any change in the liquid providing the steam; which opens a plethora of interesting scenarios.
Sentient water with a phoenix-cycle running parallel with its matter changing
Subatomic representation of steam power used to enact tech at the current 'normal' scale of perception
AI embedded Nanotech
Advanced prototyped tech that allows for the maximized optimization of steam-based functioning with minimal outward indications of that use (like condensed steamcore power cells with advanced electrical conversion, storage and recycling).
Then there's figuring out exactly what is read during a Rikti mind read... and how its read...
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
Time travel is another jacked up can of worms whose entire basis of debate hinges on how one chooses to define it:
Do you actually go back to the exact same time-space point you plan on going to
Do you actually appear to go back to the same exact time-space point you were planning on going to only to have stumbled onto an existing parallel of 'same total events'
Do you actually appear to go back to the same exact time-space point your were planning on going to only to have stumbled onto an existing parallel of 'similar total events'
Do you actually appear to go back to the same exact time-space point your were planning on going to only to create an existing parallel of 'similar total events'
etc...
then applying the various 'rules' of matter displacement; through presence and degrees of motion (or non-displacement) to each of these...
then figuring out the converse and limitations of traveling forward
then figuring if any of these lines could/would actually cross one another or pass close enough to be significant.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
Because every time a new group gets sent into the past, there will be a consequential reaction on the time span between the past and the future.
That's not a given, it's an imposed rule.
Every failure will result in more and more change to the future as the past starts to wise up to the event.
Again.
Even worse, if you win, you probably lose. Now whatever historic event that prompted the time travel in the first place didn't happen as it originally did, and the repercussions of that alter history in untold ways, perhaps in ways that were critical to your own groups formation or reasoning for even wanting to expend so much resources and manpower into sending agents into the past in the first place. Again, paradox.
And again, and this one says "don't use time travel at all".
See where this is going?
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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See where this is going?
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Not really, since you're playing both sides of the fence to support your rather flimsy stance. You're holding time travel stories to an arbitrary set of rules, then pointing out that when you hold it up to a set of rules that arent' defined within the story, said new rules are arbitrary.
Pretty much any story can be taken to an extreme where it eventually falls apart when you start saying things like, "Well, what if the entire globe spends the next three centuries trying to undo what just happened?" It's a ridiculous criticism to start with.
A valid "plot hole" would be if they hadn't gone back and stolen the book back in Back to the Future 2. It isn't a "plot hole" to say that what if Biff's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren take a future time machine and go back to give it back to their ancestor again?
To paraphrase: What if monkeys fly out of my butt?
QR - Any day now...hurry up, me. I wanna go back to the eighties and put a bet on 'hey Mickey' by Toni Basil getting to number 1 in the UK.
Eco.
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Not really, since you're playing both sides of the fence to support your rather flimsy stance. You're holding time travel stories to an arbitrary set of rules, then pointing out that when you hold it up to a set of rules that arent' defined within the story, said new rules are arbitrary.
The arbitrary rules invariably either get applied or not selectively as the story requires, or create contradictions, or require someone to catch the Idiot Ball (if not an outright Idiot Plot).
Not defining the rules within the story is itself bad writing.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Not defining the rules within the story is itself bad writing.
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How so? Were not talking about writing technical manuals here. In any fantasy genre, and especially one based on such a variable framework such as a MMO, you have to leave some points open and free for the reader to understand as they see fit.
Is it bad writing to say that Influence is not a set of coins minted in 2001 with Statesmans head on one side and Atlas on the other? Some points HAVE to be left to the readers imagination. Otherwise you are just talking about tech manuals and reference material. While detailed and accurate they are not a lot of fun to read.
Venture, have you seen "Timecrimes"?
It's a really interesting movie, and I think I'd enjoy you dissecting it.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
There doesn't have to be an actual rulebook, but the behind-the-scenes rules and guidelines should at least be consistent.
Or even pretend to be consistent.
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
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There doesn't have to be an actual rulebook, but the behind-the-scenes rules and guidelines should at least be consistent.
Or even pretend to be consistent.
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That I will not argue. Consistency is key when dealing with mechanics the reader will not directly understand.
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The arbitrary rules invariably either get applied or not selectively as the story requires, or create contradictions, or require someone to catch the Idiot Ball (if not an outright Idiot Plot).
Not defining the rules within the story is itself bad writing.
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From the beginning I've agreed with that. The problem is that you've got some folks in here that have their own set of time travel "rules" that they carry from story they are reading/watching/playing to story they're reading/watching/playing/whatever.
Bad writing is bad writing. Every story needs to follow it's own set of internal rules. Whether it be a time travel story, post apocalypse (like The Road), hard or soft science fiction, or even a romantic comedy. Every story has internal rules created by either the situation, the characters' personalities, some mix of both, etc. Saying "writers who aren't internally consistent are bad writers" is a truism that has nothing to do with any specific genre.
Applying some of these rules to time travel that I've seen in this thread (and elsewhere) is like not enjoying a romantic comedy because one of the characters doesn't have a jerk of a spouse they have to drop in the final act. It's like not enjoying a comedy because nobody slips on a banana peel. It's like not enjoying an action movie because it doesn't have circa 1988 Sylvester Stallone in it. Not all tales within a given genre are the same story told in the same way and there's a lot of room for interpretation and extrapolation by the author.
Likewise, not every story is an 800 page Michael Crichton book where he spends half the text explaining why the hook of his story works. In general, the less information the better. In almost every case, you're best off explaining things in as few words as possible with as little detail as possible to allow the plot to move. If you're going for mood, that's one something else entirely.
This is why most science fiction (and genre work in general) is so bad. You have writers that have forgotten this and spend half their works using mastubatory text that does nothing but stroke their ego as they explain how clever they are. In most cases, the reader doesn't need to know the intricacies of how your warp coil works. All they need to know is "this engine makes us go real fast." Any additional information needs to drive the story along or help create the mood.
A lot of the best sci-fi I've read doesn't say one damn word about the how's and why's of a given situation. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is ficking chilling, but you never find out for sure what exact consistency of excrement hit what brand, size, and oscillating speed of fan. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
If an explanation slows down a story for even a second and it isn't the author's intent for pacing reasons, it should be cut.
Basically I'm saying I don't think I'd like the stories that "follow the rules" because the rules are dumb and have nothing to do with actual storytelling. I'd rather read a gripping tale with solid characters and good internal consistency than something that I need a degree to understand that is technically correct in every way.
And here's a hint: no science fiction is going to work out 100% correctly since it's science fiction. By it's very nature it is dealing with things that are not possible and rarely plausible.
A time traveler would become unglued from the time-space continuum. Whether he/she can return to the exact same point they left is doubtful.
At the end of the Back to the Future trilogy, the McFlys are changed from what they were at the beginning. Not because the original future was altered, but because Marty now lives in an alernate timeline. His efforts created a separate branch on the time tree.
Any future you go back in time from has already happened. Going back in time to change anything will not affect it in any way. All you can accomplish is to create a branchline and then continue to live in this new section of time-space.
In this sense, time travel is wish-fullfilment.
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A time traveler would become unglued from the time-space continuum. Whether he/she can return to the exact same point they left is doubtful.
At the end of the Back to the Future trilogy, the McFlys are changed from what they were at the beginning. Not because the original future was altered, but because Marty now lives in an alernate timeline. His efforts created a separate branch on the time tree.
Any future you go back in time from has already happened. Going back in time to change anything will not affect it in any way. All you can accomplish is to create a branchline and then continue to live in this new section of time-space.
In this sense, time travel is wish-fullfilment.
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That is 100% reader interpretation based on the provided information for a given story. It also has very little to do with CoH based Time Travel which is based on what appears to be a single time line with no branches. In the CoX universe going back in time effects the time that you return to in a paradox way. Meaning we do not perceive the changes because they have already occurred.
Of course we are limited by the mechanics of the game and method of presenting the story to the reader, who has an active part in the plot as the player.
I guess my point is..
Dr. Who <> Star Trek <> Quantum Leap <> CoX Time Travel. Do not judge one based on the laws of a different story or medium.
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I guess my point is..
Dr. Who <> Star Trek <> Quantum Leap <> CoX Time Travel. Do not judge one based on the laws of a different story or medium.
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This. This. A thousand times: This.
<QR>
Fun thread.
Overall, I don't mind time travel in stories, its the time loops that I dislike. More specifically, an event happens then someone, who is part of the event, somehow figures out how to 'undo' the event. Which is where I go: How can you undo the event if the event doesn't happen? Then I go: That was a waste of my time. I watched/read something that didn't happen. Well then give me back my money, you know, because it didn't happen.
However, there has been one time I said "Hey, they did this right." A game called Spellforce had a story that was a paradox, and they did it right. If you like RTS/RPG games, I'd give it a look at, just beware that the voice acting is probably the worst I've ever heard.
-= idspispopd =-
[size=1]Arc ID: 3155 - Project Prometheus (Seeking Feedback, now with less invalidation)[/size]
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Dr. Who <> Star Trek <> Quantum Leap <> CoX Time Travel. Do not judge one based on the laws of a different story or medium.
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I was speculating on actual time travel and the most likely reason we have not seen (afawk) time travelers in the real world. I was thinking of the many-worlds theory in physics and the view of time as an arrow. What's happened will always have happened (is there a name for that verb tense 
). No takebacks.
Any changes made to a timeline will be irrelevant to those who have already lived thru it. At best, they can experience it as fantasy, which is what we do when we read or watch time travel stories. The new timeline will be an alternate version of the original branch. Even if you wish to hop to another timeline, the original remains unchanged. Conservation of time+energy?
CoX time travel is far too entagled to work out consistently.
Instead of a time tree we have a tumbleweed.
Another funny thing that can happen with the ability/tech to time travel is that two separate groups may utilize two different methods which could concurrently exist but follow different 'rules'.
So, while group A's tech may limit the extent of their ability to transverse time to only functioning as an observer; group B has already progressed to the point of inadvertently creating parallel time-lines in their attempt to change past events
Meanwhile, group C is capable of exerting mild influences at points along the time line in the form of 'apparitions' and duplicate transmissions of a message embedded into a seemingly inconsequential event, ala deja vu.
A story could feasibly utilize all three and could also feasibly wrap even more around a single protagonist; so forcing consistency of a single method within a story isn't necessarily the 'end-all'. Nor is a fluid transition (or subsequent explanation of that transition) an absolute requirement; although the reader, and more importantly the protagonist, would like one.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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Because every time a new group gets sent into the past, there will be a consequential reaction on the time span between the past and the future.
That's not a given, it's an imposed rule.
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It is a given, it is not an imposed rule. In "True Time Travel" there is only one single time line, if changes to the past are suppose to have any effect on the future, it will not be done arbitrarily at anyone's convenience. It will be done with the unforgiving, uncaring force that is Physics. The results will be felt on the future immediately as the past which is changed has already played out. Otherwise it is...
"I can't believe it's not Time Travel!" in which it really is NOT Time Travel, it is just an Alternate Reality which feels, tastes, and looks like the Past or Future and is not. In that case, you can do whatever you like, because no paradox can be generated, because your "Future" native Reality and the Alternate Reality "Past" are not linked by cause and effect, only by your method of travel. You leave your native Reality, travel to a "Past" Reality, make some changes, and then migrate to a 3rd "Future" Reality that is based on what the "Past" Reality would progress into.
Ouroboros is a lot like that, except you return to your native Reality where obviously no changes have taken place. All your doing is changing an Alternate Reality "Past" , then returning to you "Future" native Reality, and never getting to see the results.
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Every failure will result in more and more change to the future as the past starts to wise up to the event.
Again.
Even worse, if you win, you probably lose. Now whatever historic event that prompted the time travel in the first place didn't happen as it originally did, and the repercussions of that alter history in untold ways, perhaps in ways that were critical to your own groups formation or reasoning for even wanting to expend so much resources and manpower into sending agents into the past in the first place. Again, paradox.
And again, and this one says "don't use time travel at all".
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No, and No.
The message was: Don't use brute force to invoke changes when Time Traveling, you never know what you will accidently break that was important to you.
As far as I know, the real world has yet to discover any methods of time-travel, so there's no way to know how actual time-travel works. If it even works at all....
And even if it does get discovered someday soon, there's no outside point-of-reference from which to examine the overall effects. It would solely come down to the traveler's experience, and how would he know if he was in an alternate timeline or not? Maybe he's been removed from timelines in general, and so gets to retain his memories of how things "should be". Or maybe he's actually in a branching timeline due to his own meddling.
There is no right answer, only conjecture.
Rise of the Copper Legion (#60280; with soundtrack)
The Fractured Dreamer (#498588; with musical theme)
"Now Leaving: Paragon City": original composition for the end of CoH
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I was speculating on actual time travel and the most likely reason we have not seen (afawk) time travelers in the real world. I was thinking of the many-worlds theory in physics and the view of time as an arrow. What's happened will always have happened (is there a name for that verb tense ). No takebacks.
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Ah, I took it as being about CoX Time Travel. My mistake 
CoX has some interesting dynamics in the story. We have multiple Universes yet Time Travel does not directly interact with these. Kind of a screwed up Quantum theory where Time and Space are drastically different rather than being tied into he same force.
It's possible I met myself this morning and tried to give myself the blueprints to my time machine, but I declined and so prevented myself from being able to cone back in time and give myself the blueprints. I don't remember meeting myself this morning, so that's a paradox averted!
Eco
MArcs:
The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
|
History abhors a paradox
We are arguing personal perception of a mechanic with very few stated laws in our current game universe.
My personal view is captured in the statement above. Sure you can go back in time and tinker. The problem is that it is like tossing a pebble upstream. The river just alters slightly and continues on it's chosen path. Try to mess with it too much and Time will hit you back, hard.
Send 50 of yourself to fight a team of Heroes and what happens? They happen to stumble upon a device that allows them to hurt you.
Of course the main problem is that CoH time mechanics are not spelled out in black and white. This leaves a lot for the reader to interperate. If the reader believes that Time Travel allows infinite access to resources then they will have a hard time believing that these will not be used.