text; un: kurikame

[timemachine]

your thoughts on time travel and alternate worldlines/timelines: GO!

bonus points. what are your experiences with them, if you've had any, and what are your favorite time travel theories?

Comments

un: yinandyang

[sifukatara]

Alternate timelines? Like... things turning out differently than they're supposed to back home?

I don't think that's possible. Every time I meet someone from my world they don't seem to know anyone ever left. That's what I'd base my answer on.

[Her brother is the scientific one. Katara is a little more skeptical about these things even after all she's seen and done.]

I guess sometimes being places like this almost feels like an alternate timeline, though, if that makes sense?

( ooc: I'm so sorry for those edits! )

you're good!

[timemachine]

it does make sense. but there's no other way things turn out in your world, just that time seems to have perhaps not acknowledged your absence?


that seems a bit odd, but i'm also not entirely sure how it works, either.

un: filthyrich1

[whitehairedprettyboy]

When I was a child, I met four men who turned out to be future employees of mine partaking in a spot of time travel. Had I not learned of my future career at such a formative age, it is entirely possible I would have chosen to follow a different path when the time came, rendering this meeting impossible. So, to sum up, because I chose this career and hired these men, they were later able to go back in time and tell me that I had done those things, which may have caused me to do those things in the first place.

My thoughts on time travel: it's a bloody mess.

[timemachine]

it is a mess and has a potential for a boatload of paradoxes. however, i can see how meeting your future employees could help solidify your career path.

it must have been important they meet you to ensure you took the path you did. however, at some point you must have chosen that career path on a whim at some point on your own. so you must have deemed it important that you make sure that all iterations of you in time take the same path for one reason or another.

then again i don't know, these are all theories i'm spouting since i'm still thinking in the mindset that the flow of time is linear. perhaps it's not as linear as we believe it to be.

text; un: magichands

[slyguy]

Messing with all those butterflies always sounded like a bad idea.

[timemachine]

are you speaking of the butterfly effect?

text; un: milesedgeworth

[bratworth]

I never believed time travel possible, but then again, if you asked me a year ago if I would ever find myself stranded on an alien planet where people occasionally turned into animals, I would have answered 'absolutely not'.

There are people from my future here, but I haven't yet decided whether that means my future is immutable.

Perhaps that's for the best.

[timemachine]

no kidding, right?

i've met someone from my future back home. while in the worldline i'm familiar with she never explained herself due to reasons, she told me in another worldline the future i have. i've experienced the other lines in dreams and via someone who can observe multiple timelines. he told me what was going on.

but that's only one of my futures. i know of other futures i have if things change. even little things.

un: mirrormatch

[timefordinner]

I don't have any experience with time travel or alternate timelines, but back home it's always presented as a bad idea. Things always seem to go wrong when people go back in time trying to change the future.

[timemachine]

there is a potential for things to go wrong and paradoxes to occur. i've seen examples of time travel gone wrong as well that's resulted in the death of the person attempting to travel.

un: D.Vel

[justicedevil]

No real experience with time travel to speak of, but... alternate timelines really seem to be a thing. Considering that this isn't the first other world I've been pulled into and some of the people I've met both here and there don't remember there at all.

[timemachine]

i don't remember alternate worldlines immediately, either. they end up coming to me in dreams later, but this sounds like a totally different case.

i'm very curious about how even different worlds work if this isn't your first rodeo with being pulled into a random universe.

un: colress

[pokexplorer]

I do not have experience in traversing points in time, but I have encountered people that I know from other "timelines". In their timelines, these people carried out terrible plots that succeeded where they had failed in my timeline. Naturally, they hoped to correct their mistakes once they found themselves in my timeline, and needed to be sent back whence they came. It was quite an ordeal!

Returning to the concept of time travel, there are legends of creatures in my world that have the ability to do just that, but not so much about humans gaining the ability.

[timemachine]

i’ve experienced what you’ve mentioned as well. somewhat. a girl came from the future to thwart someone else’s plans so her future would change. apparently the world was a peaceful dystopia where a group used time travel to have a stronghold on the world. basically they were in control. anyone who tried to fight them was killed so most people likely acquiesced to just live.

in that future i was told I created the first successful time machine. that dystopia was my fault.

un: j. kujo

[botaro]

Sounds like a huge pain in the ass.

[ says man with time-related powers. ]

[timemachine]

it is. it really is.

[Says the girl who created a time machine.]

un: vivelafrance

[ringlette]

It is a truly interesting concept! The history of a planet should be revisited in my opinion, although I am against every sort of attempt to change anything unless it is for the sake of a better future. Messing with the timelines can be extremely dangerous if we don't tread carefully!

As for my esperience, I used to be... well, I still am in an organization specialized in finding Singularities, which are distorsions in the timeline that were never registered in history. Certain people usually grasped control of those Singularities for selfish gain, others had the worse purpose of extinguishing humanity as a whole. We were tasked with the duty of destroying those Singularities so human history could flow regularly, preventing a disastrous extinction.

It was a tense but fun adventure! At least until I was pulled in here!

[timemachine]

it is dangerous to change anything, as even the smallest changes can affect others in a large scale. not to mention, messing with history has the potential to activate the grandfather paradox, say if you went back to in time to kill someone who was infamous. their children could have been a blessing to this world that we may not know of.

or if we stop an invention that we need.

though i've never heard of these 'singularities'. can you elaborate more? it sounds like it's something we haven't heard of because your job is to stop these irregularities, from the sounds of it.

text;

[punshots]

uhhh does it count as time travel if it was also a different world?

[ Because technically those were different ages...but not in his own world. He just wants to be able to call himself a time traveler! ]

[timemachine]

isn't that just traveling to a different world? though i guess it would feel like time travel if it weren't so advanced. it does feel like i came to the future here.

[poisontippedcure]

Somebody once traveled through time to save my life.

All I understand about alternate worlds is that time flows differently.

[timemachine]

someone did that for their childhood friend where i came from. i understand completely.

though i've never heard of time flowing differently in different worldlines. i'll have to look into that given i've never thought it to be a possibility.

[lightthedarkness]

I always get a headache when I think of time travel. I liked it better when it was just something you read about in stories, not actual aliens from the future trying to destroy the past.

[timemachine]

hold up, aliens? i mean i'd believe a secret time travel organization, but aliens?!

i shouldn't even be surprised here anymore.

un: almasy

[gotdreams]

[oh boy. shame he doesn't know the end of his story, there's a lot of time fuckery.]

This is pretty much an alternate timeline isn't it?

People from back home didn't know I was gone. Seems life is still happening, without us.

[timemachine]

[She honestly doesn't know hers either. Well, yes she does since hers ends in a morbid way thanks to time travel.]

it has to be, honestly. that was my first theory when i arrived is that this place is just somewhere for us who were displaced by time, or messing with time.

un; firecrotch

[witchwithoutacause]

well I'm here so that's a whole unrelated other world.

no time travel but I've heard about magic that can alter time.

[timemachine]

i'd love to talk about time altering magic, but i'm too distracted by your username to really do that right now.

( TEXT. )

[pubertytwice]

That's a specific topic you got there.
One specific topic I happen to be an expert in.

Any reason you're wanting input on this or just.. curious?

[timemachine]

It’s just a topic I’m interested in. I’ll admit I studied it some and believe I have some sound theories in regard to it.

It’s just been a while since I’ve discussed the topic with anyone as well.

text / un: carcinogeneticist

[mutantblood]

A HUGE AND INCONVENIENT PAIN IN THE ASS.

TIME TRAVEL SEEMS TO FUCK THINGS UP MORE THAN FIX THEM UNLESS YOU'RE ACTUALLY COMPETANT AT IT.
ALSO I'VE MET MY PAST AND FUTURE SELVES.
THEY WERE EVERY BIT INSUFFERABLE AS I EXPECTED AND I PITY ANY UNFORTUNATE BULGELORD THAT EVER HAS TO ENDURE THE DISPLEASURE OF INTERACTING WITH ME EVEN A *SECOND* TOO SOON OR TOO LATE.

....
ACTUALLY I WILL SHOW THIS TO A HUMAN I KNOW WHO HAS THE LITERAL ASPECT OF TIME.
IT WILL BE LESS PAINFUL FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED.

[timemachine]

how did you meet your past and future selves without creating a paradox?

I’ve heard of what my future self is like but I’ve never met her.

[Text; un: turntechGodhead]

[itsknighttime]

hello
alerted human who has the actual aspect of time here
my thoughts in essay format are as follows

no one fuck up their timelines in this or any other place
the end
- an essay by dave strider

[timemachine]

i'm a bit concerned by your definition of an essay, but i digress.

i can attest that no one should screw up timelines. it leads to really bad things.

[What she doesn't know is that the timeline she endorsed is officially the Worst One™. It's good she doesn't know that...]

un: voidgear

[darkcharge]

Where I come from time travel is definitely possible. There is a price to pay, but my master seemed to think that it is worth it.

It requires the traveler to give up their body.

[timemachine]

[This has her curious now.]

traveling via consciousness is definitely safer than traveling physically. unfortunately, the body can't handle the force of traveling through a blackhole thus ends up with the attempted traveler squished into a jelly like substance.

[letxequalnull]

Time travel is not beyond the realm of possibility, should that be your question. However, it is not easy to do so - in order to freely travel across time, one must leave behind one's body and become a being of heart alone.

[timemachine]

which is the easier way to time travel, honestly. to travel physically has too much consequence right now, but the mind can travel no problem if under the correct circumstances and with the correct help.

text; anonymous

[zunge]

Before this place I would have called it nothing but fiction. It comes up in video games I play or movies or TV shows. never real.

now, fuck if I know. I only know that I arrived here the same time as someone else that I'd spent the last few days with, but he experienced those days completely differently and with someone else. my experiences and his couldn't both happen. I had injuries I'd sustained in my version. He lacked injuries that he'd sustained in my version.

whatever it is, it's fucked up.

[timemachine]

sounds like two different worldlines happened and you met. which shouldn't be possible, but it happened here. makes this place seem like some multiverse for not just universes, but timelines as well.

and you're right. fucked up is a good way to describe it.

un: undyingsoul

[necroyalty]

I have never been the particularly religious sort, but I have come across some rather interesting writings on the subject by those who venerate the Weaver of Fates.

My own mother also had some things to say about mirrored universes, which, while not precisely the same thing, has some overlap.

[timemachine]

i'm not entirely sure if time travel is really a religion. though with how some people are obsessed with it, you may as well call it one.

it sounds like it's something you know of a little. i'm curious to know more.