S03.E06: Twice In A Lifetime

[Yeah No]

14 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Also, that Riker thing was him duplicated as a transporter accident. There was no alt timeline involved there.

Yep, you're right I misremembered that but the point is still the same - that the same person can change to be very different than they would have become with a different set of experiences.  As soon as one person splits into two and have different sets of experiences, depending on how different they are it's like they can almost become completely different people.  The Riker that was left to fend for himself apart from the Enterprise as a result of that transporter accident became a very different person as a result of that, which had a huge impact on him and was likely very traumatic.  It can be somewhat analogous to Gordon's situation for those reasons.  The Gordon of 2025 is probably very different from the Gordon of 2015 because of his very different and impactful experiences.

[ketose]

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

[Yeah No]

12 minutes ago, ketose said:

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

After scratching my head about this I figure that they were still in the previous timeline where he stayed there much longer when they received the message.  That timeline changed again when they brought him back from 2015.

[Yeah No]

BTW, last night I forgot to mention the genius way they used the Rolling Stones song, "Can you Hear me Knocking?" from their legendary "Sticky Fingers" album in this episode.  I wore that record to death as a teenager, especially that song.

Also, @shapeshifter, thanks for posting that photo of you and your science project as a kid, you were adorable and obviously always thinking about the right stuff!

[DoctorAtomic]

13 hours ago, ketose said:

I've watched a lot of time travel shows and I think the ones who did it best were the movie Paycheck and 3 out of 4 seasons of Continuum.

And the episode of Farscape where they thought they were helping. Very much no. 

Clearly, this temporal directive practically terrifies the Union. I wonder if something did happen that led to it being policy? People in general are poor at risk mitigation and only fix things after something goes wrong. Seemingly this was a proactive policy. 

On the one hand, I would have thought maybe they worked out a way to have a 2025 Gordon live his life, as they showed, it was a full life and nothing went wrong. Presumably, they could have tracked his descendants, as I said before. On the other, just ripping Gordon out of his new life is kind of bold. I mean, it's Seth's show; I give him credit for playing Ed so harsh. Bringing in Talla at the end and just being like, yeah we're going back to 2015 and you're not going to know this anyway is stone cold. 

But as John said, that universe has been created now with the 96 y/o Gordon. I would like to see how that plays out. The show has been really good with its own continuity so I don't think this is a one off plot. 

Not for nothing too Ed, you guys went down to the out of phase planet and Kelly ended up creating a religion. So, not quite a temporal directive, but still not so smooth there either. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, ketose said:

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

Good point. It would be possible with the time travel theory that each change causes time to branch. So 2025 Gordon would still be in The Orville’s past to send the message. Of course that’s inconsistent with the rest of the episode. 

I like time travel plots but the one thing I really dislike is when they come up with rules about it, make a big deal about those rules and then can’t be bothered to consistently follow their own rules. 

[shapeshifter]

21 minutes ago, Dani said:

5 hours ago, ketose said:

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

Good point. It would be possible with the time travel theory that each change causes time to branch. So 2025 Gordon would still be in The Orville’s past to send the message. Of course that’s inconsistent with the rest of the episode. 

I like time travel plots but the one thing I really dislike is when they come up with rules about it, make a big deal about those rules and then can’t be bothered to consistently follow their own rules. 

🎶La-l'-la-la-laaaah🎵 [hands over ears] I can't hear yo-o-u!

And I love time travel, 
Oh yes I do!
Da d' da d' dahh
Bippity bappity boo.

*******************************

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

...Clearly, this temporal directive practically terrifies the Union. I wonder if something did happen that led to it being policy? People in general are poor at risk mitigation and only fix things after something goes wrong. Seemingly this was a proactive policy. 

On the one hand, I would have thought maybe they worked out a way to have a 2025 Gordon live his life, as they showed, it was a full life and nothing went wrong. Presumably, they could have tracked his descendants, as I said before. On the other, just ripping Gordon out of his new life is kind of bold. I mean, it's Seth's show; I give him credit for playing Ed so harsh. Bringing in Talla at the end and just being like, yeah we're going back to 2015 and you're not going to know this anyway is stone cold. 

But as John said, that universe has been created now with the 96 y/o Gordon. I would like to see how that plays out. The show has been really good with its own continuity so I don't think this is a one off plot. 

Not for nothing too Ed, you guys went down to the out of phase planet and Kelly ended up creating a religion. So, not quite a temporal directive, but still not so smooth there either. 

Even if this prime directive for time travel was handed down by intelligent, well-meaning people after a temporal hiccup threatened the existence of everything, I'm betting there was some computer/AI programming involved in determining what protocols would safely prevent the annihilation of the known universe. 
Maybe in a future episode Isaac will save Life by warning of a kind of Y2K-ish bug in the plan.

[madfortv]

If the timeline splits with Gordon and his family continuing to exist in the alternative timeline, there are a couple of additional issues that could affect that timeline.  The writers were too dismissive about that possibility.  Charly and Isaac took two cycles and rode them to another location.  What is the possible impact on the future of the former owners?  Were the cycles dumped or returned? They mined dysonium. Even if they had removed Gordon from that timeline, what are the repercussions on the new timeline because of their actions?  Was there an impact in the future because some dysonium was no longer available? If there was an attempt to hide the shuttle, I missed it.  At the start they were attempting to retrieve Gordon from 10 years in the future yet there was little care to hide their actions, which left many plot holes.

Despite my criticisms, I did enjoy this episode. 

[ketose]

44 minutes ago, Dani said:

Good point. It would be possible with the time travel theory that each change causes time to branch. So 2025 Gordon would still be in The Orville’s past to send the message. Of course that’s inconsistent with the rest of the episode. 

I like time travel plots but the one thing I really dislike is when they come up with rules about it, make a big deal about those rules and then can’t be bothered to consistently follow their own rules. 

There's a fan theory now that because of the sandwich discussion and the whole 1 month vs. 6 month thing, they're setting up for a return of alternate Gordon. It would also make sense if Gordon changed his and his family's name so that there was no clear evidence in the history books.

Edited July 9, 2022 by ketose

[shapeshifter]

4 minutes ago, madfortv said:

If there was an attempt to hide the shuttle,

I flove your entire post, @madfortv, but how did you miss the gorgeous CGI cloaking of the shuttle? 
You must rewatch--perhaps on a relative's ginormous screen, like I do. 

And, yes, regarding the cycles won with arm wrestling:

12 minutes ago, madfortv said:

Charly and Isaac took two cycles and rode them to another location.  What is the possible impact on the future of the former owners?  Were the cycles dumped or returned?

Either:

1. They returned the bikes and
   the bikers were too drunk to notice or recall what happened, 
   or:
2. The missing bikes did screw up the future, and Isaac and Charly need to go back and fix it. 
3. When the captain reads Isaac and Charly's detailed report, they are tasked with running probabilities on likely impact on the future, and Isaac and Charly determine that:
   1. the bikers were too drunk to notice or recall what happened
      and:
      It was par for the course in bikerland; nothing in the timeline changed.

My thoughts on the missing quantities of handwavium dysonium are for another time.

[supposebly]

I think that TV in general makes too light of the impact one would have by time traveling backwards. Just by being there, things can change and they snowball very quickly. So, I'm on board with the harshness because we don't ever know what and how we influence things. I sympathize with 2025 Gordon but again, no man is an island and now there are children that weren't there before.

Someone simply could have seen Charly and Isaac on their bikes and decided in that moment to learn how to ride one. And then dying on one insead of having 10 children where one would solve world hunger. Or do something simple like having more children. That now do not exist. It's not just interacting, simply being there is bad enough.

However, they really should have only picked him up earlier. That trip to 2025 was necessary for the macguffin material to fix the time machine but Kelly's and Ed's trip was not. The moment they realize he made a life, they should have tried to get back to earlier. It was good TV but bad planning on their side.

[chaifan]

Thoughts on Gordon using his previous knowledge of Laura (through the cell phone left in the time capsule in Season 2)...

I honestly don't find it as creepy as everyone else.  I see it about the same as looking up someone's open Facebook page or Twitter feed, which is practically the norm at this point.  All Gordon had was the cell phone with pictures, videos and text messages.  He programed the simulator to create a program based on that information, but that's really not that much different than just using your own imagination to imagine how potential conversations might go based on what you've seen on someone's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.   There is some deception there, as he would have known more about Laura than she could have ever expected when they first met, but again, everyone on first dates acts as if they don't know the person across from them has already looked them up on Facebook or whatever, so it's still in the same ballpark to me. 

[ketose]

7 minutes ago, supposebly said:

I think that TV in general makes too light of the impact one would have by time traveling backwards. Just by being there, things can change and they snowball very quickly. So, I'm on board with the harshness because we don't ever know what and how we influence things. I sympathize with 2025 Gordon but again, no man is an island and now there are children that weren't there before.

Someone simply could have seen Charly and Isaac on their bikes and decided in that moment to learn how to ride one. And then dying on one insead of having 10 children where one would solve world hunger. Or do something simple like having more children. That now do not exist. It's not just interacting, simply being there is bad enough.

However, they really should have only picked him up earlier. That trip to 2025 was necessary for the macguffin material to fix the time machine but Kelly's and Ed's trip was not. The moment they realize he made a life, they should have tried to get back to earlier. It was good TV but bad planning on their side.

The original Star Trek did an episode like this (Tomorrow Is Yesterday) where they transported a pilot out of a destroyed aircraft. They weren't going to let him go back because he knew about "the future" now, but then Spock found out his future son was going to be a famous astronaut. They figured out some way to fix things when they went forward in time.

[legaleagle53]

24 minutes ago, ketose said:

The original Star Trek did an episode like this (Tomorrow Is Yesterday) where they transported a pilot out of a destroyed aircraft. They weren't going to let him go back because he knew about "the future" now, but then Spock found out his future son was going to be a famous astronaut. They figured out some way to fix things when they went forward in time.

I think the better comparison is to "The City on the Edge of Forever," with Laura as Gordon's Edith Keeler. The difference is that Laura wasn't supposed to die in order to restore the timeline. She was simply never supposed to have hooked up with Gordon in 2015 and married him in 2018 because Gordon was never supposed to have gone back to 2015. So Ed was right that 2025 Gordon's family and life there were never  supposed to have existed because Gordon should never have been in 2015 to begin with, which means that Gordon was never "ripped" from anything. Since he was rescued in 2015, there was nothing to "rip" him from. That's why his reaction upon hearing what happened in 2025 was so blasé regarding the whole thing.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

On the one hand, I would have thought maybe they worked out a way to have a 2025 Gordon live his life, as they showed, it was a full life and nothing went wrong. Presumably, they could have tracked his descendants, as I said before. On the other, just ripping Gordon out of his new life is kind of bold. I mean, it's Seth's show; I give him credit for playing Ed so harsh. Bringing in Talla at the end and just being like, yeah we're going back to 2015 and you're not going to know this anyway is stone cold. 

Tracking his descendants really would be enough or even possible. In 400 years there are a lot of branches. Plus it they can’t know how Gordon changes the lives of the people around him or the life his wife had in the original timeline. If she originally got married and had kids that is a lot of people who no longer exist. If she original husband married someone else and had kids than all those people exist who didn’t originally. There are so many dominoes making it impossible to determine the actual impact. 

To me there are two time travel plots that work. The one where the come of with a clear theory and stick with it. Or where they choose to have no rules and hand wave it as timey wimey. 

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Clearly, this temporal directive practically terrifies the Union. I wonder if something did happen that led to it being policy? People in general are poor at risk mitigation and only fix things after something goes wrong. Seemingly this was a proactive policy. 

It’s a big retcon because there is no indication that these rules existed when the Orville was dealing with past Kelly or when past Kelly decided to change her own future based on what she saw. Then it was clear that there were no guidelines. I guess it is theoretically possible that the rules are a result of the Orville’s experience with Kelly but they weren’t talking about it like it was a new thing. 

[benteen]

I was totally on Gordon's side here against sanctimonious Ed and Kelly. It did seem out of character for them to be this unsympathetic and hypocritical. Especially considering last week they risked their alliance with the Moclans to help Topa. 

My mixed feelings aside, I thought this was an excellent episode. Scott Grumes gave a great performance here and I'd like to think this isn't the last we'll see of his family. I wish Gordon forgiven Ed.

LOL about Charley claiming she was seperating her personal feelings with her duty when it came to Isaac. Is that what that was? I suspected she might have been in love with her friend but Winters delivery there was one-note and unconvincing, which the character is increasingly becoming. That being said, the Charley and Isaac road trip was a LOT of fun.

Enjoyed the John and Talla scenes and the FX was great.

Always great to hear Norm MacDonald again. 

Edited July 9, 2022 by benteen

[Joimiaroxeu]

Gordon has a nice singing voice. After Bortus and Gordon, will they have a woman character sing next?

Rolling Stones. Hmm, would they really play a Stones song in a biker bar? I'd expect heavy metal or Southern rock.

On ST: Picard they let their version of Gordon bring his alternate reality family (which he'd adopted) back to the ship with him. But eventually he decides to stay in the past with them.

[Bort]

6 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Rolling Stones. Hmm, would they really play a Stones song in a biker bar? I'd expect heavy metal or Southern rock.

Sure, why not the Stones? Besides, “Guitars and Cadillacs” was already done in the T2 biker bar.

[benteen]

This episode ultimately showed that only Ed and Kelly are allowed to break the rules, suffer no consequences for doing so and then smile smugly about it afterwards.

[legaleagle53]

3 minutes ago, benteen said:

This episode ultimately showed that only Ed and Kelly are allowed to break the rules, suffer no consequences for doing so and then smile smugly about it afterwards.

What rules did they break? As Kelly said, temporal law required them to go back and rescue Gordon and repair whatever damage he might have inadvertently done to the timeline.They had no choice but to confront him in 2025 and try to force him to leave before they knew that they could simply avoid the whole ugly mess by going back to 2015 and picking him up from there while he was still in self-isolation.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

What rules did they break? As Kelly said, temporal law required them to go back and rescue Gordon and repair whatever damage he might have inadvertently done to the timeline.They had no choice but to confront him in 2025 and try to force him to leave before they knew that they could simply avoid the whole ugly mess by going back to 2015 and picking him up from there while he was still in self-isolation.

I can’t speak for the original poster but my issue is with what they did in the last episode. Kelly and Ed ignored direct orders while knowing that their actions had the potential to start a war but come down on Gordon like a ton of bricks when he breaks the rules. Topa being suicidal meant they could break the rules even though they didn’t have to rush that decision but Gordon is supposed to commit suicide when he found himself stranded in a situation through no fault of his own. 

[shapeshifter]

46 minutes ago, Dani said:

It’s a big retcon because there is no indication that these rules existed when the Orville was dealing with past Kelly or when past Kelly decided to change her own future based on what she saw. Then it was clear that there were no guidelines. I guess it is theoretically possible that the rules are a result of the Orville’s experience with Kelly but they weren’t talking about it like it was a new thing. 

Isn’t comparing the Kelly God story to this episode a little like comparing oranges to apples——or maybe comparing Red Delicious apples to Golden Delicious apples, since Kelly would not have been constrained by a directive that strictly applied to time travel, because in her case they were just visiting a planet with a really huge, slow orbit such that 1 Orvillian year was something like 75 of the Kelly worshiping planet’s years? 
That is, the rules weren’t so strictly codified for the slow-orbit planet interactions (yet?) and were simply to avoid significant interaction, rather than avoid all interaction, and hide in the woods and eat animals so as not to screw up the history of the entire universe and potentially end all life?  
IDK. Like someone upthread said, I didn’t study for the exam/rewatch the seasons from 3 years ago. I figured with extra time, we’d get “previously on The Orville…” as necessary. 🤷‍♀️

[legaleagle53]

4 minutes ago, Dani said:

I can’t speak for the original poster but I think it is a reference to last weeks episode. Kelly and Ed ignored direct orders while knowing that their actual and the potential to start a war but come down on Gordon like a ton of bricks when he breaks the rules. Topa being suicidal meant they could break the rules even though they didn’t have to rush that decision but Gordon is supposed to commit suicide when he found himself stranded in a situation through no fault of his own. 

I wouldn't say that there were no consequences for them. The Admiral ripped both of them several new orifices over it and made it clear that they were lucky that the Moclans didn't make good on their threat to leave the Union over the surgery. She also made it clear that that was the ONLY reason that they still had their jobs and weren't facing a court-martial right then and there -- but they WOULD be if they ever tried to pull a stunt like that again based upon the flimsiest of technicalities.

[benteen]

16 minutes ago, Dani said:

I can’t speak for the original poster but my issue is with what they did in the last episode. Kelly and Ed ignored direct orders while knowing that their actions had the potential to start a war but come down on Gordon like a ton of bricks when he breaks the rules. Topa being suicidal meant they could break the rules even though they didn’t have to rush that decision but Gordon is supposed to commit suicide when he found himself stranded in a situation through no fault of his own. 

Exactly. And even though they were dressed down again, they'll still get a pass next time they break the rules and there will be a next time.

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Isn’t comparing the Kelly God story to this episode a little like comparing oranges to apples

It is and I wasn’t. I was referring to the Kelly time travel story last season where past Kelly travels to the future and decides to make different choices based on what she learned. These temporal rules are a retcon because they weren’t mentioned in the previous time travel story. 

41 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

I wouldn't say that there were no consequences for them.

I would. 

41 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

The Admiral ripped both of them several new orifices over it and made it clear that they were lucky that the Moclans didn't make good on their threat to leave the Union over the surgery.

Then she gave the equivalent to a knowing wink making it clear she agreed with what they did. It was as meaningless as Ed ordering Isaac to not perform the surgery. Anyway, I don’t have a problem with Ed and Kelly feeling that Gordon couldn’t stay. I do have a problem with them being sanctimonious asses in their delivery and judgement. 

[PurpleTentacle]

Discarding the fact, that the obvious solution would have been to never contact Gordon in the first place and try to jump 10 years further into the past right away, as that would have been the only way to ensure the timeline stays intact, why wouldn't they take his wife and kids with them? I mean the kids are never supposed to be born and the wife has been changed so much, it's a major deviation from the timeline. Removing them from 2025 and bringing them with them back to the future™ would have been the best, most logical course of action.

Edited July 9, 2022 by PurpleTentacle

[benteen]

I agree they should have taken his wife and kids, even if it meant facing charges. Only concern would be a family can't just disappear out of thin air in 2025 without many people noticing. 

Edited July 9, 2022 by benteen

[Bort]

2 minutes ago, Dani said:

It is and I wasn’t. I was referring to the Kelly time travel story last season where past Kelly travels to the future and decides to make different choices based on what she learned. These temporal rules are a retcon because they weren’t mentioned in the previous time travel story. 

It’s still not really the same situation, as Kelly wasn’t a stranger plopped down into the past like Gordon, she was someone who’d gotten a glimpse of her future. Which I submit, she should’ve known better than to try and change something but it doesn’t seem like the temporal law they were citing applies there. Although you’d think they’d have several different scenarios to which the law applied. I mean, if they have one for Gordon’s situation, why not Kelly’s? Or maybe the law came about because of the Kelly incident.

[legaleagle53]

3 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Discarding the fact, that the obvious solution would have been to never contact Gordon in the first place and try to jump 10 years further into the past right away, as that would have been the only way to ensure the timeline stays intact, why wouldn't they take his wife and kids with them? I mean the kids are never supposed to be born and the wife has been changed so much, it's a major deviation from the timeline. Removing them from 2025 and bringing them with them back to the future™ would have been the best, most logical course of action.

And how would they have integrated them into life aboard the Orville in 2422, assuming that Gordon wasn't summarily thrown into the brig and court-martialed for what Kelly said were at least 50 separate violations of temporal law?

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Discarding the fact, that the obvious solution would have been to never contact Gordon in the first place and try to jump 10 years further into the past right away, as that would have been the only way to ensure the timeline stays intact, why wouldn't they take his wife and kids with them? I mean the kids are never supposed to be born and the wife has been changed so much, it's a major deviation from the timeline. Removing them from 2025 and bringing them with them back to the future™ would have been the best, most logical course of action.

That would minimize the damage but it doesn’t ensure that the timeline would stay intact unless the wife originally had zero long term impact of the timeline. What if her original child or grandchild went on to be important? Or if her original husband married someone else and their child (who wouldn’t have existed in the original timeline) grew up to be super important to history?

23 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

It’s still not really the same situation, as Kelly wasn’t a stranger plopped down into the past like Gordon, she was someone who’d gotten a glimpse of her future. Which I submit, she should’ve known better than to try and change something but it doesn’t seem like the temporal law they were citing applies there. Although you’d think they’d have several different scenarios to which the law applied. I mean, if they have one for Gordon’s situation, why not Kelly’s? Or maybe the law came about because of the Kelly incident.

I’m not saying they are the same but both episode dealt explicitly with time travel and involved discussions about how time travel works and the implications. So the fact that there are temporal rules means that they should have come up. Unless the Union is stupid enough to only create rules for time travel to the past but not for time travel into the future. It only works if the rules were written after that episode but it wasn’t talked about it a way that would indicate they were a recent thing. 

[Bort]

1 minute ago, Dani said:

It only works if the rules were written after that episode but it wasn’t talked about it a way that would indicate they were a recent thing. 

Since nobody ever said it was any sort of long standing law, I’m willing to go with it being new.

[Lugal]

17 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I thought this myself!  Can you really erase what's already happened and wouldn't it be possible somehow for that timeline to stay split off from the original restored one instead of just ceasing to exist as if it never happened?  Like remember that TNG episode with the two Rikers who split off into two different timelines and then came back together very different people in some ways?  That can also explain how different Gordon was 10 years after finding himself in 2015.  A person's experiences can really change them.

The multiverse theory says that every divergence point results in a new timeline and that when Gordon changed the past, it either changed the future or it jumped everyone from one timeline to another.  So on some branch Gordon and his family could continue in 2025.

I tend to believe that timelines can be self-healing and even cross back over to a certain degree.  I've seen alternate history types refer to "holms" in regards to timelines that branch off only to reconnect to the main timeline.  It looked like Gordon tried to lead a quiet life as a pilot and his changes to the timeline didn't really change things all that much, so I could see it as more of a holm than a alternate timeline.

8 hours ago, ketose said:

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

That would be a paradox, a la "If Gordon isn't there to send the message how will they know to go to the past to retrieve him?"  Unless, it's part of the Orville's continuous timeline, from their perspective. (Avengers: Endgame kinda of touched on this idea) like when we watched the episode as it went from the beginning to the end in a linear way, despite the fact that they jumped all over the timeline.

Like Quantum Physics, a lot of time travel rules come down to the perspective of the observer and where the "Now" is, which gets into a destiny vs. free will debate.  From Laura's perspective, her future is unwritten so if she wants to marry Gordon and have a family with him, why not?  From the perspective of the Orville crew, everything she did happened 400 years earlier and shouldn't be messed with.  As to who is right, that's a philosophical discussion.

[ketose]

2 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

I think the better comparison is to "The City on the Edge of Forever," with Laura as Gordon's Edith Keeler. The difference is that Laura wasn't supposed to die in order to restore the timeline. She was simply never supposed to have hooked up with Gordon in 2015 and married him in 2018 because Gordon was never supposed to have gone back to 2015. So Ed was right that 2025 Gordon's family and life there were never  supposed to have existed because Gordon should never have been in 2015 to begin with, which means that Gordon was never "ripped" from anything. Since he was rescued in 2015, there was nothing to "rip" him from. That's why his reaction upon hearing what happened in 2025 was so blasé regarding the whole thing.

Not really better because my example had to do with the impact progeny had when you consider an individual's contribution to history. Then again, I'm not a big fan of "City" or Harlan Ellison in general.

[Nialla]

I think it would be interesting if they went with the idea that there's more than one Gordon now, and that we see this one again in the future, or at least consequences of his actions.

What if that timeline went really dark in the next 400 years, and creates this show's version of the Mirror Universe? I think TPTB and the cast would have a lot of fun with it.

[ketose]

6 minutes ago, Lugal said:

The multiverse theory says that every divergence point results in a new timeline and that when Gordon changed the past, it either changed the future or it jumped everyone from one timeline to another.  So on some branch Gordon and his family could continue in 2025.

I tend to believe that timelines can be self-healing and even cross back over to a certain degree.  I've seen alternate history types refer to "holms" in regards to timelines that branch off only to reconnect to the main timeline.  It looked like Gordon tried to lead a quiet life as a pilot and his changes to the timeline didn't really change things all that much, so I could see it as more of a holm than a alternate timeline.

That would be a paradox, a la "If Gordon isn't there to send the message how will they know to go to the past to retrieve him?"  Unless, it's part of the Orville's continuous timeline, from their perspective. (Avengers: Endgame kinda of touched on this idea) like when we watched the episode as it went from the beginning to the end in a linear way, despite the fact that they jumped all over the timeline.

Like Quantum Physics, a lot of time travel rules come down to the perspective of the observer and where the "Now" is, which gets into a destiny vs. free will debate.  From Laura's perspective, her future is unwritten so if she wants to marry Gordon and have a family with him, why not?  From the perspective of the Orville crew, everything she did happened 400 years earlier and shouldn't be messed with.  As to who is right, that's a philosophical discussion.

Avengers applied the "time heist" theory. They minimized the change to the sequence of history by returning the items when they were done with them. Then Cap changed things anyway. Some shows basically close the loop with a bootstrap theory anyway. So, Orville sees Gordon in the history books, retrieves him and no more Gordon in the past. In terms of the show, I'm pretty sure Gordon and Laura continued and he made sure to cover his tracks so history would look like he wasn't there.

This whole thing about time firming up is negated by Orville's own rules. Kelly was sent back into the past, remembered things because the memory block failed, didn't date Ed and changed history so the Kaylons took over the galaxy. They were still able to get to the Orville and use the time machine to fix things years after.

[legaleagle53]

19 minutes ago, ketose said:

Not really better because my example had to do with the impact progeny had when you consider an individual's contribution to history. Then again, I'm not a big fan of "City" or Harlan Ellison in general.

But that's just the thing. Gordon isn't supposed to HAVE any progeny to affect history between 2025 and 2422 because he never married Laura or fathered children by her in the original timeline, just as Edith Keeler was never supposed to live beyond 1930 because she died in that year of the original timeline. Her survival is what changed history and had to be undone. Captain Christopher's son was supposed to be born sometime after 1967 so he could play his predestined part in the history and development of space travel. Gordon's children in 2025, in contrast, could have had no predestined future roles to play in the original history leading up to the Orville's time because they were never born in the original timeline.

Edited July 9, 2022 by legaleagle53

[DoctorAtomic]

2 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Gordon has a nice singing voice.

He sang a lot on American Dad too. Really funny songs. 

I don't think it would be too hard for Ed et al. in 2422 to track Gordon's descendants from 2025. They found the obit fast enough. With the computing power they have and the digital fingerprints we leave, certainly they could track some of them if they couldn't do all. Sure though, other people that were influenced and affected by him, there's no way to track that. I was thinking they were going to find one of Gordon's descendants actually did something like Nobel level good and have to make the decision to take him out of 2015. 

However, Gordon isn't a bad guy, and he pointed out that Ed and Kelly were still there, so while it's not certain that he didn't cause any big problems; it is likely imo. That's why we fit probability distributions to everything because we don't know how things happen; rainfall, radioactive decay, and so on. It seems more likely to me that him being there affected nothing at all. 

I'm not complaining. I like the show. It's been B+ for me this season, but these last two were solid As. Really, they could have made this alone a 2 hour movie. 

[PurpleTentacle]

2 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

And how would they have integrated them into life aboard the Orville in 2422, assuming that Gordon wasn't summarily thrown into the brig and court-martialed for what Kelly said were at least 50 separate violations of temporal law?

Um, they could have sent all of them to earth. I don't see the problem.

Gordon might have landed in prison, but that would have been for a judge to decide.

It doesn't change the fact that the family has to be removed from 2025 as well and short of murdering them, taking them with, would be the best option.

2 hours ago, Dani said:

That would minimize the damage but it doesn’t ensure that the timeline would stay intact unless the wife originally had zero long term impact of the timeline. What if her original child or grandchild went on to be important? Or if her original husband married someone else and their child (who wouldn’t have existed in the original timeline) grew up to be super important to history?

Sure, but at the time their solution was to take Gordon alone. That's just the worst option out there.

Like I said, of course the best option is to go back 10 more years, but for some reason that option wasn't on the table at that point.

I mean lets be real here. Even just being in the past and accidentally killing one bug, or altering air currents with the presents of your body, or spreading your germs, etc. will probably change the future dramatically, so these time travel stories are doomed from the start. But if we are following the logic presented in this episode, that there is such a thing as changing the past not too much, why would they just leave a two kids that are not to be there running around? Now that is a major change to the timeline.

Edited July 10, 2022 by PurpleTentacle

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, Lugal said:

11 hours ago, ketose said:

The Orville retrieved Gordon one month after he got there. How was he able to send the message 5 months later?

That would be a paradox, a la "If Gordon isn't there to send the message how will they know to go to the past to retrieve him?"  Unless, it's part of the Orville's continuous timeline, from their perspective. (Avengers: Endgame kinda of touched on this idea) like when we watched the episode as it went from the beginning to the end in a linear way, despite the fact that they jumped all over the timeline.

Like Quantum Physics, a lot of time travel rules come down to the perspective of the observer and where the "Now" is, which gets into a destiny vs. free will debate.  From Laura's perspective, her future is unwritten so if she wants to marry Gordon and have a family with him, why not?  From the perspective of the Orville crew, everything she did happened 400 years earlier and shouldn't be messed with.  As to who is right, that's a philosophical discussion.

Yes. Just one (fun?) possibility would have been if, at the end of the episode, when Gordon arrives on the shuttle or is back on the Orville, he asked, "How did you guys know where and when to find me?" and everyone else in the room looks at each other with puzzled expressions.

[DoctorAtomic]

I know we're at the point of just riffing, and that is a strong indicator of a good episode. 

Certainly anyone in the military gets all the vaccinations, so to be fair, Gordon could have brought back some disease that in 2422 they have vaccines, but could have wiped out everyone. 

I thought it was funny that they mentioned covid because I'm not sure 400 years later that was even well known beyond an historical footnote. 

[legaleagle53]

31 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I thought it was funny that they mentioned covid because I'm not sure 400 years later that was even well known beyond an historical footnote. 

One of Gordon's hobbies is studying early 21st-Century history and culture, so he'd have known about COVID when the pandemic first hit in 2019. That's why he was able to reassure Laura that they'd be all right, because he already knew what would be required to remain safe until it had finally and completely run its course (as it appears to have done by 2025).

Edited July 10, 2022 by legaleagle53

[Yeah No]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Like I said, of course the best option is to go back 10 more years, but for some reason that option wasn't on the table at that point.

Yeah I said that too and don't understand why Ed and Kelly couldn't wait until they found out whether they had the ability to go back to 2015 before demanding that Gordon go back with them.  He's already been there 10 years, what difference is a few more hours going to make?  I doubt it would make that much difference.  That entire sequence was for drama's sake, but it was a very thought provoking situation so I appreciated seeing it.

5 hours ago, Lugal said:

The multiverse theory says that every divergence point results in a new timeline and that when Gordon changed the past, it either changed the future or it jumped everyone from one timeline to another.  So on some branch Gordon and his family could continue in 2025.

I tend to believe that timelines can be self-healing and even cross back over to a certain degree.  I've seen alternate history types refer to "holms" in regards to timelines that branch off only to reconnect to the main timeline.  It looked like Gordon tried to lead a quiet life as a pilot and his changes to the timeline didn't really change things all that much, so I could see it as more of a holm than a alternate timeline.

I was thinking along those lines.  I don't see why 2025 Gordon and his family wouldn't continue to exist on their branch even after they retrieved 2015 Gordon.  The timeline they're "righting" is the one the original Orville exists in, not the one 21st Century Gordon exists in.  That one could continue on its own path separately.  It won't exist from the perspective of the timeline that the original Orville exists in, though, once they retrieve Gordon from 2015.  But that's the only timeline Ed and Kelly care about anyway.  The concept of timelines that branch off only to reconnect to the main timeline reminds me of "Sliding Doors".

5 hours ago, Lugal said:

That would be a paradox, a la "If Gordon isn't there to send the message how will they know to go to the past to retrieve him?"  Unless, it's part of the Orville's continuous timeline, from their perspective. (Avengers: Endgame kinda of touched on this idea) like when we watched the episode as it went from the beginning to the end in a linear way, despite the fact that they jumped all over the timeline.

From their perspective when they received Gordon's message, he was still there to send it because they hadn't yet gone back to retrieve him.  So that message would have gotten through to them.  If once they retrieved him from 2015 wouldn't that change things so that they would never have received the message in their timeline because they got him back before he sent it?  Probably, although that would create another paradox because if once they got him from 2015 he never sent the message, then how would they remember what made them go get him there at all?  They'd be confused about how they knew where and when to get him.   

5 hours ago, Lugal said:

Like Quantum Physics, a lot of time travel rules come down to the perspective of the observer and where the "Now" is, which gets into a destiny vs. free will debate.  From Laura's perspective, her future is unwritten so if she wants to marry Gordon and have a family with him, why not?  From the perspective of the Orville crew, everything she did happened 400 years earlier and shouldn't be messed with.  As to who is right, that's a philosophical discussion.

I love a good philosophical discussion!  Whose perspective matters more?  I think they both matter to each of them but is there a higher perspective that would make clear which one is more valid?  Or is any more valid?  This is a discussion in Christian metaphysics too because since God in some sense exists outside of time, from God's perspective everything in time has already happened.  So does that mean that we don't have free will?  No, it doesn't because just the fact that everything has already happened from God's perspective doesn't imply that it was destined to happen in one particular way.  God could still have allowed beings to be free to make their own choices in time.  But does that mean that we have the power to change what has in some sense already happened from the highest vantage point?  I would say "yes" because free will is very important to the Christian God so so our vantage point is given validity in our time and from our perspective. Our freedom is real and not just a figment of our lack of perspective.  I think it's hard to wrap our minds around an omniscient being for whom those two seemingly opposing things are not really opposed at all.  For us they are, but not for God, at least that's my opinion.  Gordon himself brought up how it was possible for them to know that the way things had worked out for him wasn't what was "supposed" to happen and how could they claim to know what was supposed to happen.  He had a point and they didn't answer his question.  From their point of view they think they know what's supposed to happen, and actually I find it hard to argue with them too and would have a hard time working this out.  One reason I'm kind of glad we don't have to deal with such situations in real life right now, and never will unless someone invents a time machine!

[Lugal]

18 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I love a good philosophical discussion!  Whose perspective matters more?  I think they both matter to each of them but is there a higher perspective that would make clear which one is more valid?  Or is any more valid? This is a discussion in Christian metaphysics too because since God in some sense exists outside of time, from God's perspective everything in time has already happened.  So does that mean that we don't have free will?  No, it doesn't because just the fact that everything has already happened from God's perspective doesn't imply that it was destined to happen in one particular way.  God could still have allowed beings to be free to make their own choices in time.

I've only read a little bit about Christian metaphysics, but I seem to recall coming across Molinism about middle knowledge and counterfactuals (like if you were going to go to the beach but didn't, God would still know whether you would have gone swimming or not if you had gone to the beach).  Personally, I've never thought free will and predestination are mutually exclusive, and that they weave together in various ways (some points you have to hit, regardless of how you get there, others are wide open).  As for whose perspective matters more, my thoughts on it are a little more, I guess animist, so maybe no one's perspective is more important.  Maybe we've just figured out the Mandela Effect!

19 hours ago, Yeah No said:

But does that mean that we have the power to change what has in some sense already happened from the highest vantage point?

One reason I'm kind of glad we don't have to deal with such situations in real life right now, and never will unless someone invents a time machine!

PEAR labs at Princeton University showed that it might actually be possible to change the past, at least on a very small level.  Personally, I find it easier to think that time has multiple dimensions (at least 2) but trying to conceive of what that would be like is almost impossible.

[shapeshifter]

10 minutes ago, Lugal said:

I find it easier to think that time has multiple dimensions (at least 2) but trying to conceive of what that would be like is almost impossible.

OTOH, I regularly imagine alternate universes to calm myself down about the path not taken. Or do you mean something else?

[ketose]

I mentioned one of my favorite time travel movies being Paycheck is kind of a cheat because a person doesn't physically travel in time. The time part is the ability to see the future, which is more likely than actually popping into the future. In that case, the "future" could be changed.

Ironically, Strange New Worlds did a time manipulation plot line and came to the conclusion that knowledge of the future allows you to change it, but probably not for the better.

The Orville had this device since the pilot and the time travel device is a combination of human genius and Kaylon knowledge, which is also an indication that the Kaylon should embrace biological life forms. So far, this season has been full of callbacks and I think the time device will be back.

[tennisgurl]

Y’all, time travel makes my brain hurt, I’ve absolutely gone cross eyed. 

[GreyBunny]

On 7/9/2022 at 12:13 PM, shapeshifter said:

• They returned the bikes and
  the bikers were too drunk to notice or recall what happened, 
  or:
• The missing bikes did screw up the future, and Isaac and Charly need to go back and fix it. 
• When the captain reads Isaac and Charly's detailed report, they are tasked with running probabilities on likely impact on the future, and Isaac and Charly determine that:
  1. the bikers were too drunk to notice or recall what happened
     and:
     It was par for the course in bikerland; nothing in the timeline changed.

They don’t have to worry about it. Once they go back to 2015, the 2025 timeline with Gordon gets wiped out.  I think the dysonium reappears as it was never mined in 2025 in the correct timeline.

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, GreyBunny said:

They don’t have to worry about it. Once they go back to 2015, the 2025 timeline with Gordon gets wiped out.  I think the dysonium reappears as it was never mined in 2025 in the correct timeline.

I hereby anoint @GreyBunny our Official Arbiter of Time Travel or GOAT. 👑

[Lugal]

16 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

OTOH, I regularly imagine alternate universes to calm myself down about the path not taken. Or do you mean something else?

Yes and no.  Rather than separate timelines branching off like a tree, I see it more like a braided river system with timelines branching off, intersecting and crossing over others.

[iMonrey]

I admit it was fun seeing the actor who plays Isaac. Posts upthread indicate we've seen him before? I don't remember when. My question is, is it Mark Jackson inside the Isaac robot suit every week and his voice? Or just one or the other? Typically, the guy in the robot suit is not the same person doing the voice. Those are generally two different talents.

I'm confused though. At the beginning of this episode, the Kaylons have destroyed a space station orbiting earth. At the end of the episode when they jump back to the future, the space station is just fine. Did they change something to prevent the destruction of the space station? Or was that another space station? What did I miss here? I kind of figured they jumped back to a point in time before the station was destroyed and would warn everyone about the impending attack but nothing came of it.

I agree it was unnecessarily cruel to tell Gordon and his wife, right in front of their young son no less, that they were going to jump back 10 years and prevent this from ever happening. They could have just walked away and let them think they were leaving things as is. It just made them look like assholes.

I'm also surprised they didn't notice Gordon's wedding ring on the drive back to his house - I did. But maybe that's not a thing in the 25th century.