What happens to the Future when you Disappear?

[Eriol]

This is in regards to time travellers going into the future.  It could apply if they went into the past AND NEVER CAME BACK, but really, it mostly applies to time travellers going into the future.  What I mean is, how does time proceed when you go into the future?  Does it assume (know) that you came back at some point?  Or does time proceed as if you NEVER came back?

To use a non-CT example, think of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Yesterday's Enterprise" (which being geeks, I'm sure most of us have seen ).  In this episode, the "old" enterprise ("C" suffix) gets thrown into the future.  But what they encounter is a future where THEY NEVER CAME BACK.  And thus it is radically different than the TNG universe we know.  At the end of the episode, they go back, and thus history is restored, but this is the question I'm asking.  I'm NOT saying that TNG's "time rules" have any effect on CT's world (they don't), but this is an example of what I'm asking.

To get you thinking, I'm going to use a few examples in Chrono Trigger.  I'm specifically calling these "events" and not "facts".

Event 1: Guardia Castle changes "instantly" during the Rainbow Shell events.  We know that at the beginning of the game (and for most of it) there was no "basement" to the castle.  That area only appears after you have retrieved the Rainbow Shell in 600AD.

Event 2: After defeating Lavos, in the Castle, Marle specifically says that Kino (and King Guardia from 600AD, obviously) is her ancestor, and Doan is her descendant.

Event 3: Medina Villiage changes multiple times during the course of your adventure.  First from worshipping Magus, to Ozzie, then to being peaceful with humans.

Event 4: Ayla travels forward in time with Crono & Co, and stays there for a period of time.


Now the central question stands: what occurs in Time when you step through a gate into the FUTURE?  I'm not asking what happens to the traveller (as they're protected by the act of travelling), but rather the world.  Does time flow until the moment you re-appear in the future, assuming you were NEVER back, or does it assume you were back at some point in your OWN future (and had kids, etc)?  Some of the events I listed above argue for it, and some argue very much against it.  But my personal conclusion is: they forgot to account for this, and "ignored" it, and have examples both ways, and thus we don't have a rule-based universe (not really).

IMO, Ayla (I'll ignore Marle for now) HAVING descendants at all argues for the idea that "time" knows you'll be back.  I would think that a leader like Ayla leaving (note: she only leaves AFTER the reptites are defeated, so there's no "war outcome" problems here) would have a profound impact on future bloodlines, considering the small population/gene pool.  Though Marle could be wrong when she states Kino (and by extension Ayla) as her ancestors, I can't help think that basically by probability, 100% of the villiagers back there ARE their ancestors from somewhere along the way (just like IRL, all humans are related on SOME level if you go back far enough).

So if time "knows" Ayla will be back, and thus doesn't disrupt all of Humanity's evolution, what happens later?  Shouldn't it "know" crono & co. will be back to kick ozzie's ass too?  This whole thing throws a lot of the "causality" in the Chrono universe all out of whack IMO.

One "countertheory" I thought of was "well perhaps time only flows as much as personal time does while you're away."  Kind of like how gates are only +- offsets of current time, perhaps CHANGES only propogate at a certain rate too, and thus while history IS being changed while figures like Ayla are away, it would take more than 65M years for the change to "propogate" all the way up to the rest of the adventure.  But that would throw the Principle of Discarded Timelines (among others, like the Singular Worlds Theory) out the window, as everything "post-change" (ayla not being there) is NOT thrown out immediately.  As well, it does NOT explain "changed Guardia" as my Event 1 says.  Events 1 & 3 completely invalidate this explanation, as the future is changed IMMEDIATELY.

So what's the answer?  What happens to time when you travel into the future?  Asumming you're in real danger of dying (they're adventurers after all), NEVER coming back seems like a REAL possibility.  So what happens in the time up to where you travelled in the future?  Can time "know" for certain things, and thus "creates" a timeline like you were there up until the moment you actually never come back?  Or does it flow up until the point you "re-appear" and only THEN assume you were never back, and "re-create" the timeline accordingly?

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but please enlighten me if I am.

[Legend of the Past]

If you go to the future and never come back, you just stay there. The future assumes nothing, and if the timeline gets changed and the furure you're in gets sent into the DBT, you get sent with it.

[Eriol]

If you go to the future and never come back, you just stay there. The future assumes nothing, and if the timeline gets changed and the furure you're in gets sent into the DBT, you get sent with it.

Of course you just stay there.  And according to other axioms (I'm not looking up the article to re-state them explicitly), if you go to another time, and that time is then changed by somebody in the past, you as a time traveller there "kind of" get sent to DBT.  Wherever the traveller is, they only know "what happened since they arrived" as the changed timeline.  So they're not immune to time changes in wherever they travel to, but they are NEVER in danger of "popping out of existance" due to their own past not existing.


But that's not what I'm asking at all.  I'm asking about what has happened between the points where you jump.  If you leave time at point A, and re-emerge at point B where time B > A, then what happens between B and A?  Does time "think" that you were never back between B and A, and time flowed accordingly?  Then if the traveller comes back at point C where B > C > A, everything beyond point C goes to DBT, as B was CREATED with you never back at C when you first travelled to B.  You "remember" everything you did at B when you were never at C, but B and everything there goes to DBT forever.

THAT'S what I'm asking.  And according to events in CT (which I did put in my original post), there seems to be no "consistent" answer, because people would never have had descendants if such a thing was true, thus DRASTICALLY impacting the future.  The travellers themselves would be safe, but the face of the world would be different.

[Legend of the Past]

Time dosen't 'think' anything, and your events affect the future only once you've done them... Think of it this way. Time still flows when you arrive. Until Crono haven't won the battle at Zenan Bridge, history remained as it was before Crono's interference, and Guardia won the battle. But once Crono won the battle, there were records of a "Sir Crono" who had won the battle. Until Crono dosen't change that point in time it remains as it was in the Lavos Timeline. And from that point onward, it's all history.

[Eriol]

Time dosen't 'think' anything, and your events affect the future only once you've done them... Think of it this way. Time still flows when you arrive. Until Crono haven't won the battle at Zenan Bridge, history remained as it was before Crono's interference, and Guardia won the battle. But once Crono won the battle, there were records of a "Sir Crono" who had won the battle. Until Crono dosen't change that point in time it remains as it was in the Lavos Timeline. And from that point onward, it's all history.

Exactly.  That's an example of "once you're gone, you're REALLY gone."

But as I stated in my original post (you did read the WHOLE THING right?), this causes all sorts of problems with meeting your own descendants (Ayla problem) when they haven't been born yet.

[Legend of the Past]

Not really. If your desendants are Time Travellers as well, they're protected by TTI. Besides, Crono's interference changed nearly nothing in 65 Million BC.

[Eriol]

Not really. If you're desendants are Time Travellers as well, they're protected by TTI. Besides, Crono's interference changed nearly nothing in 65 Million BC.

The travellers themselves are protected yes, but the rest of history between the point in the past they leave, and the point in the future they arrive are NOT protected.  They never exist.  And hence the examples I gave cause problems with them ever being there for the traveller to see.  Basically Doan would never exist for Marle to see in 2300AD, as time would have progressed WITHOUT her ever being back, and thus never had children, and he never would have existed for them to see in 2300AD.  As soon as they come back to 1000AD, he'd be "back in existance" in the whole of time, as they're back to HAVE descendants, but before they actually have the child (who will stay in the timeline) he's gone.  This is all of course before Lucca pulls him out of time, and thus he is protected.

[Legend of the Past]

I don't think you quiet understand. It's not like he woulden't exist EVER. He existed, but ceased to. As in, he used to exist. Bah. Hard to explain. Point is, he exists for Marle to meet him. If he dosen't exist, Marle dosen't meet him. Bad future gets reborn. Kind of a peradox. Imagine the Chrono world is in a loop.

Lavos Timeline-->Chrono Timeline---> Lavos Timeline

[fxar99]

Chrono world is in a loop.

Right! Marle talks to Doan. Then, after changing the future by killing Lavos, there's no more bleak future, no Doan (as we know him, at least) in the future. But they have already seen him, so this cannot be undone. The only paradox in this case is that while Doan does not exist after Lavos' death, Lucca brought him to 1000 A.D. in the Beyond Time ending  

Eriol, you say the party talks to Ayla and so changes the past. Although this may not affect them, since it is not an event that could prevent them from being born, for example, even if you think it does affect them, you must remember this loop Legend of the Past mentioned. I hope we mean the same thing - that after the party talks to Ayla, a new timeline is created (where Ayla knows them). But, perhaps they already were in that timeline (this means that their ancestor Ayla DID know them, but that was caused by them, later when they visited her).

Confusing...

[Eriol]

Eriol, you say the party talks to Ayla and so changes the past. Although this may not affect them, since it is not an event that could prevent them from being born, for example, even if you think it does affect them, you must remember this loop Legend of the Past mentioned. I hope we mean the same thing - that after the party talks to Ayla, a new timeline is created (where Ayla knows them). But, perhaps they already were in that timeline (this means that their ancestor Ayla DID know them, but that was caused by them, later when they visited her).

Confusing...

It's not the fact that she knows them (which would have a small effect, though likely not impact "greater history" much), but the fact that she travels FORWARD in time.  When she travels to any other era forward (in CT she can ONLY travel forward, obviously), and she has APPEARED in 12kBC, or any other era, what has occurred between the time she disappears into a gate in 65M BC, and the instant she arrives in another era?  One way of looking at it is that according to the Iokan villiagers, she never returned, and history went on WITHOUT her, until she re-appears in 12k BC.  So any descendants she might have had NEVER WERE BORN, and all the effects from such a thing.

There's a similar situation with Doan.  If Marle is to be believed, he is her DIRECT descendant.  And if so, because she travelled to 2300AD (this is before they defeat lavos, so we don't have that problem), she didn't HAVE ANY descendants (yet).  So none existed to "live on" between 1000AD and 2300AD.  So when she hits 2300AD, there should be no Doan, as her family line has essentially "disappeared" from the timeline between 1000AD and 2300AD.  Even if she "eventually" stays in 1000AD and beyond, and has children (gogo Crono!) it still hasn't "happened yet", and so Doan shouldn't appear.

That's what I'm getting at.

[CatchRBFivy]

Eriol you're missing the entire point.  You need to understand one VERY important feature about time travel.  That is the time-space continuum.  And the principle behind it is that all time is happeneing all the time.  I had a teacher that liked to use this example to explain it...."Right now, Ceasar is crossing the Rubicon"  So when yuo travel from 65,000,000 BC to 12,000 BC you're not actually passing just under 65mil years.  You're only traveling the time it takes for your method of time tavel to take you there (the time in the blue portal.)  So even though you travel to a different time period, nothing changes because the events in the past are happening simultaneously.  You're still traveling in the Lavos timeline so everything stays the same.  Now if you took Ayla away and didn't beat Azala, and waited millions of years, then something would change.

I kinda wish I had a more scientific way of explaining this....I feel like I failed, but it makes sense to me.

[Aitrus]

There was only one obvious fact you missed: that Marle cites Kino as her ancestor, not Ayla.  We all assume that Ayla is the matriarch of this line, but it's not required.  So long as Kino lives long enough to have kids, the timeline is preserved.

As for Marle and Doan... I'm not sure about that one.  I'll get back to you on that.

[ZeaLitY]

Damn, I wish everyone had seen the other topic. Yes, this is a major plot hole according to our rules of time travel within the Chrono series, and with the Marle paradox of disappearance, forms one of the only two major flubs we know of. As far as everything tells us, yes, when you step through a Gate, time flows up to the point you emerge. The Chrono series apparently doesn't take chaos into play here, and the future turns out exactly how it would have plus your change.

However, this totally negates a person's ability to leave an era into the future and team up with someone he or she gave birth to. For now, like the Marle paradox, it's "the Entity protected time" or something. While the Entity excuse is total patchwork here, it nonetheless is a logical explanation for the other Marle paradox.

Also, good to see a TNG fan. I'm really hoping I get to see Patrick Stewart at a convention next year. Denny Crane himself would be a bonus too. Getting a photo op with William Shatner would be like standing next to a legend. I can't help but laugh when I see that guy nowadays.

[Eriol]

Damn, I wish everyone had seen the other topic.

Which other?  I'll admit I didn't go down the ENTIRE forum, but I thought I at least looked at the front page, and couldn't see one.

Yes, this is a major plot hole according to our rules of time travel within the Chrono series, and with the Marle paradox of disappearance, forms one of the only two major flubs we know of. As far as everything tells us, yes, when you step through a Gate, time flows up to the point you emerge. The Chrono series apparently doesn't take chaos into play here, and the future turns out exactly how it would have plus your change.

Pretty much.  Hence why I made examples both ways.  At least my understanding of it is on-par with veterans like you.  That article on Axioms was a really good teacher.  =D  I guess we can put this situation down to "time plothole".  Perhaps such things should be explicitly stated in the Axiom article?  I only started posting on this (and the Another World DBT thread) because I couldn't find an explanation (or theory) one way or the other.

However, this totally negates a person's ability to leave an era into the future and team up with someone he or she gave birth to. For now, like the Marle paradox, it's "the Entity protected time" or something. While the Entity excuse is total patchwork here, it nonetheless is a logical explanation for the other Marle paradox.

As I said above, if they had the child before they started time-hopping, it'd be OK, but with the idea their child was orphaned while they were gone.  But ya, it's kind of... bad.

What you mentioned here brought up something else though: what about Robo?  Isn't Robo "kind of" a descendant of Lucca?  From what I've read, Lucca did some of the earliest AI research, and thus "in spirit", he's HER descendant (at least through work, if not biologically).

Definitely a major hole.  I like the "entity pulled Marle out" explanation for her disappearance (and consistency with the rest of the theories), but I don't think any such explanation works well here.  I think it was just plain overlooked by the developers when crafting the series.

Also, good to see a TNG fan. I'm really hoping I get to see Patrick Stewart at a convention next year. Denny Crane himself would be a bonus too. Getting a photo op with William Shatner would be like standing next to a legend. I can't help but laugh when I see that guy nowadays.

hehe

[Aitrus]

What you mentioned here brought up something else though: what about Robo?  Isn't Robo "kind of" a descendant of Lucca?  From what I've read, Lucca did some of the earliest AI research, and thus "in spirit", he's HER descendant (at least through work, if not biologically).

Lucca had already done her earliest work in AI research.  He's called Gato.  If she had not returned, that alone could have helped someone else continue her research.