Paradoxes and Other Show Issues: It All Gives me a Headache

[legaleagle53]

I thought this might be an appropriate place to discuss what-ifs and paradoxes that are raised as a result of events that we see unfold (or not) on the show, since I think discussing them too much in the episode threads may be unintentionally derailing discussion of the episode itself.  For example, this one proposed by @wilnil in the Alamo episode thread:

Quote

I thought they missed a potentially interesting twist re Wyatt staying behind -- they could have had him do that, then Rufus and Lucy return to the present and get asked, "What happened to Baumgartner? Why didn't he come back with you?" They realize they've somehow come back to a timeline where Bam Bam had showed up soon enough to replace Wyatt on that timeline's version of the Alamo mission -- and Wyatt's still there in the present as a consequence, so TPTB have no choice but to put him back on the team at least for the next couple missions.

Thoughts?

Edited November 5, 2016 by legaleagle53

[KaveDweller]

I feel like they'd have to explain how Wyatt dying in the Alamo changed history enough that impacted Wyatt getting fired earlier. With Lucy, they explained how her sister disappeared and how her mom got healthy. And knowing about those two major changes in Lucy's life is enough to explain how she had a fiance. But one extra person dying at the Alamo seems unlikely to have an impact.

I do wish they'd do more changes like that. And I think the first few episodes had a better flow because I kept waiting for them to get back to the present to explain the sister going away. If they introduce another change like that for Rufus or Wyatt, it would add an ongoing mystery to the episodes. But I don't want random changes that can't be explained at all. I want to be able to see the cause and effect path.

[wilnil]

A number of posters have brought up the "butterfly flapping its wings" scenario in which small changes in the past could have unintended, unknowable consequences in the present. I agree that it wouldn't be as satisfying a twist if they couldn't eventually connect the change with something specific that was done in the past; then again, I thought the way TPTB caved on replacing Wyatt was not just implausible but kind of lame.

On the episode thread, someone asked what would have happened to Baumgartner in the scenario I threw out there; the answer probably would be that he and his versions of Rufus and Lucy would've returned to a "Timeline C" that reflected whatever changes resulted from their trip to the past.

Honestly, the biggest problem I have with introducing the notion of timeline changes is not this issue but what others have pointed out about how just having any particular person conceived is a roll of the genetic dice, easily disrupted by fairly minor alterations in the parents' lives -- so "realistically," a timeline that branched off from another should probably have fewer and fewer people in common with the original in each passing generation as people who [were/weren't] born in the altered timeline [had kids unique to the new timeline/no longer existed to have the kids they'd had in the original timeline]. But it'd be hard to build a show (or at least this show) around a team that returned from a century or more in the past to find they and/or many of the people they knew didn't exist anymore and history was significantly different.

[Ripley68]

I posted this in one of the episode threads, but can't find it.  Shouldn't Flynn know they are going to stop him? He has Lucy's diary for freaks sake!  He should know from reading it that they show up and whatever nefarious plan he has gets stopped, but he looks so shocked when it happens.  Lucy hasn't written the diary yet, so the one he has should have what we are seeing happen.  Let's say though that they say the diary was written before everyone mucked about in the past - than there wouldn't be a diary because Lucy wouldn't have gone back. Even if it was written between journeys, he should still know his plans fall through.  My brain is starting to hurt.

[orza]

It depends. Lucy may have chosen to keep it vague and not write any specifics in her diary.

[sjohnson]

1 hour ago, Ripley68 said:

Shouldn't Flynn know they are going to stop him? He has Lucy's diary for freaks sake!  He should know from reading it that they show up and whatever nefarious plan he has gets stopped, but he looks so shocked when it happens. 

It could be that Lucy's diary was the information that convinced him of the necessity of stopping Rittenhouse, the diary of how she herself discovered what Rittenhouse was and how evil it/he/she/they are, so evil changing the time line is preferable. And no so much about how Lucy stopped Flynn. 

Technically it could be the diary of how Lucy failed to stop Flynn in the end, but it's quite obvious that he's more frustrated and seemingly surprised at the team's obstruction. He just doesn't act like a man going through the necessary steps to the desired end, his ultimate victory as detailed in the diary. 

33 minutes ago, orza said:

It depends. Lucy may have chosen to keep it vague and not write any specifics in her diary.

Flynn may be thinking that Lucy's diary gave away the team's plans, in very specific detail. All this time perhaps he's been thinking, "I know they succeeded by doing this to counter my move. So, I'll do something different." Then he is surprised by their continued obstruction. That implies the diary is from an increasingly remote timeline though, so he should have been pretty much done with it after the first episode. Nor does this explain why Flynn thought Lucy should care about an outdated diary anyhow.

There is another possibility, which is that Lucy wrote the diary as disinformation, meant to mislead Flynn. After all, she knows Flynn at some point got it into his hands.

[legaleagle53]

From the Alamo episode thread: 

Quote

 

 44 MINUTES AGO, SHAPESHIFTER SAID:

If he's her father or son, he would just have to travel to a moment when she was out at the grocery store, swipe the journal, and then leave that time and place. He might have been motivated to do this when he realized that some event change (due to either time traveling crew) had caused her to not write the journal — or at least to have left out important observations.

 

That's not possible if he's her son, since he'd have to cross his own timeline in order to do that, and the show made it clear in the pilot that nobody can travel to a point in time when he/she already exists.  If he's her father, then he'd have to travel to a point after his death in order to grab the journal for the same reason (no traveling to a point in time when he already exists, and that's assuming that he can even travel to the future at all).

[LoneHaranguer]

On 11/9/2016 at 2:56 PM, sjohnson said:

That implies the diary is from an increasingly remote timeline though, so he should have been pretty much done with it after the first episode.

If he's carrying the diary with him on his trips, it would become "outdated" for the same reason that Lucy can have a picture of someone who doesn't exist any more. It's possible he hasn't caught on to that yet, or may consider the changes he sees insignificant enough to ignore.

[shapeshifter]

If Lucy had a journal in an alternate timeline, would it keep self correcting everytime Lucy and/or Flynn time travels? If so, he might just be using it to arrive at places she went to in order to correct changes that resulted in some apocalyptic event.

[Bort]

7 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

If Lucy had a journal in an alternate timeline, would it keep self correcting everytime Lucy and/or Flynn time travels? If so, he might just be using it to arrive at places she went to in order to correct changes that resulted in some apocalyptic event.

No, because then Lucy's locket would "self-correct" to not have her sister in it.

[LoneHaranguer]

4 hours ago, kariyaki said:

No, because then Lucy's locket would "self-correct" to not have her sister in it.

But, that's because she's carrying the locket with her. If she was keeping the journal at home, it would change the way her family at home did.

[Bort]

1 hour ago, LoneHaranguer said:

But, that's because she's carrying the locket with her. If she was keeping the journal at home, it would change the way her family at home did.

Right, and Flynn is carrying Lucy's journal around with him. It can't self-correct.

[sjohnson]

57 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Right, and Flynn is carrying Lucy's journal around with him. It can't self-correct.

Which is why I think the journal must be getting so irrelevant to Flynn, assuming it's about Lucy's struggle with Flynn. If it's about her enlightenment about Rittenhouse, then Flynn could be cryptic because the journal leads him to believe she has to go through the process on her own?

[shapeshifter]

Maybe the journal has been sprinkled with magicy time dust so it knows where Lucy is in the time continuum.

[Bort]

What Flynn could do is make copies of the journal to carry around with himself and then leave it on his nightstand while he's gone to see if it self-corrects. Win-win!

[wilnil]

This would be a brilliant freaking idea, one that the show probably isn't sophisticated enough to explore.

[Syme]

Why does a time machine need all those giant spinning gears, anyhow?

[KaveDweller]

51 minutes ago, Syme said:

Why does a time machine need all those giant spinning gears, anyhow?

Didn't they say it had to do with changing the gravitational force? I don't really know what that means, but it sounds like the speed from the gears could help with that. 

[Syme]

You miss my point.... Whirling/spinning nonsense is a time machine TV trope of many decades standing.

(Your cell phone doesn't, why should your time machine?)

[KaveDweller]

9 hours ago, Syme said:

You miss my point.... Whirling/spinning nonsense is a time machine TV trope of many decades standing.

(Your cell phone doesn't, why should your time machine?)

I know, I was just trying to come up with a real reason, even though there probably wasn't much thought put into it. Other than someone thought it would look cool on TV.

Edited November 21, 2016 by KaveDweller

[Cranberry]

Here's the link I mentioned in the latest episode thread; it goes in-depth on the different types of time travel (skip down to the "Type Summaries" section for a quick overview). 

The tl;dr version:

The Deterministic (AKA Permanent) Time Line: History is utterly immutable.  Attempts to “ad lib” always turn out to have been scripted all along.

The Elastic (AKA Resilient) Time Line: History has a preferred course or direction, and makes “corrections” (over time or metatime) for any interference.

The Overwriting (AKA Contingent) Time Line: History is highly vulnerable.  Any Time Travel “erases” the original and replaces it with a freshly generated new version.

The Quantum‐Forking (AKA Multi‐Divergent) Time Line: The “Many Worlds” interpretation of Quantum Physics: the cosmos constantly bifurcates into all possible alternatives.

Lucy's sister vanishing shows us that we're definitely not dealing with a deterministic time line here. I doubt it's elastic (that one's uncommon in media). That leaves overwriting and quantum-forking; I'm not sure we have enough evidence yet to decide which this show is using. I'm kinda thinking overwriting, though, like the movie The Butterfly Effect (except our heroes lack the ability to go back again to a specific event for a "redo").

Also, a very simplified explanation of the three main types of time travel in media: http://imgur.com/gallery/bc8Du

[wilnil]

I'm thinking Overwriting too, mostly because I suspect the showrunners either don't want to deal with the complications of a Quantum-Forking/Multiverse model or haven't heard of it. The Multiverse Model, though, would answer questions like "What happened to Lucy B, the one with a fiancé but no sister?" The answer would be "She ended up in Lucy C's timeline because of what her team did in the past."

[legaleagle53]

Quote

Nope.  He has the journal in his possession, it's not gonna just disappear if Lucy dies 'today'.  Heck, if it's just about the journal, the smart thing for Flynn to do is to kill Lucy as soon as possible.  He would then be in possession of the only version of the journal that will ever be, and even Lucy won't know what's in it.  

This was stated by @henripootel in the episode thread, and I can't bring it directly from that thread for some reason.  But my response is simply to ask how the journal gets written if Lucy dies before she can even start writing it, let alone finish writing it in order for Flynn to possess it in the future. Remember, according to Flynn, she didn't write it prior to any of their previous encounters in the past, so if she hasn't written it yet, how is she going to write it for him to possess in the future if she's already dead before she can even start writing it?  

That's why Flynn hasn't killed her outright even though he's had plenty of chances to do so, and why he panicked when he realized that Santa Anna would kill her along with the other Alamo victims and actually tried to talk Santa Anna out of killing them.  He needs her to stay alive long enough to write the journal in the first place.

Edited November 25, 2016 by legaleagle53

[henripootel]

1 minute ago, legaleagle53 said:

He needs her to stay alive long enough to write the journal in the first place.

I should have payed closer attention but I thought he clearly wants Lucy to stay alive for some reason, but not necessarily that he needs her to write the journal.  Speculation was that he may be her son or father, so there could be other considerations than just the journal. 

But if it's just the journal - as detailed above by Cranberry, we don't know what sort of time dealeo they're using, not exactly.  I think we do know enough to say it's probably Overwriting or Quantum‐Forking.  We know Lucy comes from a timeline where she had a sister and is currently in one where 'she' doesn't (call it LucyB's timeline).  Lucy still remembers her sister who now never existed, she didn't become LucyB (which might have been an interesting choice).  I would hold that this means things can exist which were created in other timelines, even in the 'future' of other timelines, which now don't have a clear cause -> effect background.  If the journal is here, it's here, even if Lucy never writes it at this point.  I think this follows from the same reasoning that Lucy's sister now doesn't exist and never will (unless they go back and change things somehow, but that's another issue) but that doesn't change Lucy's memory of her.

The only way this might not be true is if they do some nonsensical Back to the Future thing, where the timeline 'rights itself', meaning Lucy will slowly forget her sister ever existed.  Isn't there a locket with her sister's picture?  That'll have to fade away like Marty McFly, which is a cute idea but (as far as anything in time travel stories can be called this), that's just ludicrous.  If it was even remotely possible, Marty wouldn't fade as the possibility of his existence gets less and less likely, he'd just blink away and nobody would remember him ever being there.  Be a cool thing if they did that but they'd have to be simply brilliant writers to pull it off - the Time Team does something and the next time they show a group shot, Lucy is played by a totally different actress.  Very cool, but very confusing, although Red Dwarf went there and it worked well. 

[KaveDweller]

13 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

This was stated by @henripootel in the episode thread, and I can't bring it directly from that thread for some reason.  But my response is simply to ask how the journal gets written if Lucy dies before she can even start writing it, let alone finish writing it in order for Flynn to possess it in the future. Remember, according to Flynn, she didn't write it prior to any of their previous encounters in the past, so if she hasn't written it yet, how is she going to write it for him to possess in the future if she's already dead before she can even start writing it?  

That's why Flynn hasn't killed her outright even though he's had plenty of chances to do so, and why he panicked when he realized that Santa Anna would kill her along with the other Alamo victims and actually tried to talk Santa Anna out of killing them.  He needs her to stay alive long enough to write the journal in the first place.

But we saw that Lucy still has a necklace that contains a picture of her sister. She had it with her, and it didn't change when she changed history. So if Flynn is from the future and got her journal, it shouldn't disappear either. This only makes sense if you're in the Quantam Forking Universe mentioned above.

[henripootel]

26 minutes ago, KaveDweller said:

But we saw that Lucy still has a necklace that contains a picture of her sister. She had it with her, and it didn't change when she changed history. So if Flynn is from the future and got her journal, it shouldn't disappear either. This only makes sense if you're in the Quantam Forking Universe mentioned above.

I agree, and I think this argues for the notion that Flynn no longer needs Lucy to actually write the journal anymore - he has it, it exists even if Lucy never writes it (this time, so to speak).  

But why does this mean it must be the Quantam Forking Universe?  Couldn't it just be Overwriting?  Multiple-Overwriting to be sure, but would the Quantam Forking imply that the 'original' timeline for Lucy's sister still 'exists' (in some sense) out there?  Why do we need that?  Lucy herself is just an artifact of a timeline (which included her sister) that has now been overwritten.  Sister never existed, even though Lucy still does.  

[Cranberry]

I think it could be Overwriting, but anything that's in the past with the time travelers (the journal, Lucy's locket) can't be overwritten, because it's not present in the, uh, present when history is being changed... and now I'm just confusing myself, haha.

[KaveDweller]

2 hours ago, henripootel said:

I agree, and I think this argues for the notion that Flynn no longer needs Lucy to actually write the journal anymore - he has it, it exists even if Lucy never writes it (this time, so to speak).  

But why does this mean it must be the Quantam Forking Universe?  Couldn't it just be Overwriting?  Multiple-Overwriting to be sure, but would the Quantam Forking imply that the 'original' timeline for Lucy's sister still 'exists' (in some sense) out there?  Why do we need that?  Lucy herself is just an artifact of a timeline (which included her sister) that has now been overwritten.  Sister never existed, even though Lucy still does.  

I guess it could be overwriting, but in other TV shows and movies I've seen, artifacts from the original timeline change to reflect the change, like Back to the Future. But I guess if we say artifacts don't change in an overwriting universe that could work as well.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

I guess its time (heh) to accept it, but I can't say I'm a big fan of how the team pretty much always fail in the missions - in terms of history is always changed, enough that there's documented evidence of it on the internet and/or in history books or other recorded mediums when they return.  I thought the premise of the show was to prevent historical changes, yet history always does change.

Also questioning why only Lucy's life was so radically changed after the first mission, and the other two's weren't - at least not that we've been shown or heard mentioned.  Will something unexpected happen in their lives in the future, following a mission, or will it just be that Lucy is the show's true central character so only the real interesting stuff happens to her?  That would be hard to digest as a viewer, that only time/history changes affect just one person when three of them are always going to same times & places in the past, together.

Edited November 26, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36

[legaleagle53]

1 hour ago, Cranberry said:

I think it could be Overwriting, but anything that's in the past with the time travelers (the journal, Lucy's locket) can't be overwritten, because it's not present in the, uh, present when history is being changed... and now I'm just confusing myself, haha.

Now you see why I took the tagline for this thread from Captain Janeway's summation of how she feels about time travel and temporal paradoxes.

[Cranberry]

1 hour ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

Will something unexpected happen in their lives in the future, following a mission, or will it just be that Lucy is the show's true central character so only the real interesting stuff happens to her? 

Oh, you know Wyatt has to get his wife back at some point (a lesser show would do this just after he and Lucy hook up. Let's hope this isn't a lesser show).

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

But we saw that Lucy still has a necklace that contains a picture of her sister. She had it with her, and it didn't change when she changed history. So if Flynn is from the future and got her journal, it shouldn't disappear either. This only makes sense if you're in the Quantam Forking Universe mentioned above.

I just assumed that in this show, anything that travels in the time machine is inert as far as change goes.

 

1 hour ago, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

...Also questioning why only Lucy's life was so radically changed after the first mission, and the other two's weren't - at least not that we've been shown or heard mentioned.  Will something unexpected happen in their lives in the future, following a mission, or will it just be that Lucy is the show's true central character so only the real interesting stuff happens to her?  That would be hard to digest as a viewer, that only time/history changes affect just one person when three of them are always going to same times & places in the past, together.

Maybe it will be revealed that Flynn and/or others had already traveled back in time and altered history in such a way that Lucy had a sister who had not previously existed. So perhaps these changes don't mesh well in the continuum of time, and this makes it unlikely that she will ever get her sister back. The same could be true for Wyatt's wife. Since Rufus was likely working on the machine before traveling in the machines began, he might be immune to having such a perceived loss of a friend or family member. If this doesn't make sense, then Janeway's headache applies. 

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

2 hours ago, Cranberry said:

Oh, you know Wyatt has to get his wife back at some point (a lesser show would do this just after he and Lucy hook up. Let's hope this isn't a lesser show).

Agreed on hoping this won't prove to be a lesser show, especially in that type of regard.

Knowing Kripke [metaphorically] (through Supernatural), I have a feeling that if he does get Jess back, she won't be the same person 'now' as she was 'then', as he remembered her.  Thus leading to a whole mega-angst filled plot line of how she can't or shouldn't exist, because she's all 'wrong', and trying to re-fix time to make the 'new' Jess go back to non-existence.  The old "be careful what you wish for" cautionary tale trope.

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I just assumed that in this show, anything that travels in the time machine is inert as far as change goes.

 

Maybe it will be revealed that Flynn and/or others had already traveled back in time and altered history in such a way that Lucy had a sister who had not previously existed. So perhaps these changes don't mesh well in the continuum of time, and this makes it unlikely that she will ever get her sister back. The same could be true for Wyatt's wife. Since Rufus was likely working on the machine before traveling in the machines began, he might be immune to having such a perceived loss of a friend or family member. If this doesn't make sense, then Janeway's headache applies. 

I understand what you mean, but I think we need to see a few more episodes to try and get a feel as to how the show plans on laying out and explaining its time travel rules. 

• "What caused this?  How did that happen?  Why did/didn't our actions cause what we planned?" 
• Are there different co-existing timelines, kind of like a 'Flashpoint' scenario and other qualities like a loose interpretation of how time travel works in the DCTV-verse? 
• Why was the Lucy that her mother knew not the same Lucy we 'know'? 
• Why is she now engaged to a man that (I think?) she's never met before, prior to the first time traveling trip? 
• Shouldn't her traveling in time, in the Lifeboat, have protected her & her direct dealings with those around her from the changes - if traveling in the machines causes inert reactions? 
• Why'd her sister get erased?  (although that last seems to be gaining the tiniest bit of 'murky clarity' now that we know the Rittenhouse bully is her biological father)

They seem to be playing fast and loose with their own rules to start.  Hopefully we'll see a tightening-up on such things as the season/series ages.  If not, it won't help viewership if nobody knows whats going on because the rules aren't more explicitly explained out or keep changing or only certain ones work when the script calls for it. 

Edited November 26, 2016 by iRarelyWatchTV36

[KaveDweller]

On November 26, 2016 at 3:05 AM, iRarelyWatchTV36 said:

I understand what you mean, but I think we need to see a few more episodes to try and get a feel as to how the show plans on laying out and explaining its time travel rules. 

• "What caused this?  How did that happen?  Why did/didn't our actions cause what we planned?" 
• Are there different co-existing timelines, kind of like a 'Flashpoint' scenario and other qualities like a loose interpretation of how time travel works in the DCTV-verse? 
• Why was the Lucy that her mother knew not the same Lucy we 'know'? 
• Why is she now engaged to a man that (I think?) she's never met before, prior to the first time traveling trip? 
• Shouldn't her traveling in time, in the Lifeboat, have protected her & her direct dealings with those around her from the changes - if traveling in the machines causes inert reactions? 
• Why'd her sister get erased?  (although that last seems to be gaining the tiniest bit of 'murky clarity' now that we know the Rittenhouse bully is her biological father)

They seem to be playing fast and loose with their own rules to start.  Hopefully we'll see a tightening-up on such things as the season/series ages.  If not, it won't help viewership if nobody knows whats going on because the rules aren't more explicitly explained out or keep changing or only certain ones work when the script calls for it. 

Lucy was protected from the changes. That's why she remembers her sister, doesn't know her fiancé, and is "different" from what her mother remembers. There is no reason the people in her life would be protected though. They aren't in the time machine. 

They already told us why her sister was erases. The man her mother married, claimed to be Lucy's father, and fathered the sister married a woman descended from a Hindenburg survivor (who didn't survive the first time). I think that change explains why Lucy had a fiancé and possibly other differences. Being raised by a single mother with no knowledge of who her dad was vs being raised by a married mom and dad with a sibling, will result in changes in a person. Maybe in timeline 1 she was hanging out with her sister one night, but in timeline 2 was out by herself and met the fiancé. It opens up tons of possible changes.

[Bort]

Also, Lucy's mother had cancer before, had her convalescing at home and seemingly took turns looking after her with the sister. Without a sick mother, new timeline Lucy would have probably had a lot more free time for a social life, hence meeting the fiancé. 

[iRarelyWatchTV36]

Those answers and scenarios are plausible and make sense.

I love time-travel shows for the sci-fi fun of it all, but damn do I tend to get lost in all the minutia of it.  Keeping track of everything, in relation to changes made, is not my strongest quality.

[legaleagle53]

From the "Stranded" episode thread:

Quote

 

 3 HOURS AGO, IMONREY SAID:

I don't know. Wyatt doesn't seem to give a crap if they screw up history so long as he gets his kill. Why not just go back to 1971 and prevent him from ever being conceived? Problem solved. I don't think a lot of energy is being expended trying to prevent paradoxes: I don't think the military, like agent Christopher, really comprehends them or prioritizes them. Her focus is on killing Flynn before he can change American history in irreparable ways. Wiping out Flynn wouldn't be a major concern because it's not as if his very existence is significant to American history. Yet.

 

The problem, as I said in response to @iMonrey's original question, is the Grandfather Paradox, which, incidentally, is also why Flynn will ultimately fail in his attempt to wipe out Rittenhouse, even if he initially succeeds.

If the team goes back in time and either kills Flynn as a child or somehow prevents his conception, then there's no reason for the team to go back in time, since Flynn wouldn't exist in the reset timeline.  Therefore, the team doesn't go back in time, Flynn is born and grows up, Rittenhouse murders his family, and he steals the time machine and starts the whole process again, which leads the team to go back in time to kill him as a child or prevent his conception, which leads to their never going back in time, so Flynn is born and grows up, Rittenhouse murders his family, so he steals the time machine, etc.  Lather, rinse and repeat for all eternity.

Similarly, even if/when Flynn succeeds in erasing Rittenhouse from existence, the Grandfather Paradox prevents it from being a permanent victory, since without Rittenhouse around, Flynn's family is never murdered, so there's no incentive for him to steal the time machine, so he doesn't erase Rittenhouse from existence, so Rittenhouse murders his family, so he eventually erases Rittenhouse, so Rittenhouse doesn't murder his family, so he doesn't steal the time machine and erase Rittenhouse, etc.  Again, lather, rinse and repeat for all eternity.

Remember, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature, but it's even worse to fool Grandfather Paradox.

[wilnil]

But the Grandfather Paradox only applies under the Deterministic model of time travel, and we already know this is Overwriting or Quantum-Forking, because they can change (or create/cross over to new) timelines. So if they prevented Flynn's conception in the past, they would return to a present timeline where Mason Industries still had control of the big time machine and probably wasn't even using the "lifeboat"; the staff there wouldn't have ever met Lucy or Wyatt, and would be stunned to have a more beat-up copy of the lifeboat appear, containing two strangers and a twin of their colleague Rufus. Lucy and Wyatt would also probably find non-time-traveling versions of themselves when they went home.

Then they'd all die from a massive Paradox Headache. ;)

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, wilnil said:

But the Grandfather Paradox only applies under the Deterministic model of time travel, and we already know this is Overwriting or Quantum-Forking, because they can change (or create/cross over to new) timelines. So if they prevented Flynn's conception in the past, they would return to a present timeline where Mason Industries still had control of the big time machine and probably wasn't even using the "lifeboat"; the staff there wouldn't have ever met Lucy or Wyatt, and would be stunned to have a more beat-up copy of the lifeboat appear, containing two strangers and a twin of their colleague Rufus. Lucy and Wyatt would also probably find non-time-traveling versions of themselves when they went home.

Then they'd all die from a massive Paradox Headache. ;)

Wouldn't the Mason Industries folks expect the changes? 

[wilnil]

Not after Flynn's elimination, because once that happens, then in the newly changed timeline as the Mason staffers perceive it, there never was a Garcia Flynn to steal their time machine in the first place, so they're likely just doing experiments and trial runs with it (and certainly not grabbing the first Special Forces soldier and local historian they find to crew the thing), and setting the lifeboat aside just in case. Then one day, these two strangers and a doppelganger of their Rufus suddenly appear in a shot-up duplicate of the lifeboat telling them "We finally got rid of Flynn!" and the Mason folks all respond, "Who's he? And who the hell are you?"

Remember, the Mason staff thought the Hindenburg had always been attacked by a terrorist group after leaving the Lakehurst base, that John Wilkes Booth plotted the Lincoln assassination but not as the actual triggerman, that there was always a Bond movie featuring characters similar to our heroes ... but from the time travelers' perspective, the people in the present only "knew" those things were historical fact after those trips to the past happened.

[henripootel]

15 hours ago, wilnil said:

Then one day, these two strangers and a doppelganger of their Rufus suddenly appear in a shot-up duplicate of the lifeboat telling them "We finally got rid of Flynn!" and the Mason folks all respond, "Who's he? And who the hell are you?"

Correct, and it'd make for a fairly interesting storytelling technique.  First scene is this one, then (somewhat ironically) we see the words '12 hours earlier', and they explain how this happened.  The guys at home base should be prepared for this, and have protocols in place for dealing with 'complete strangers' who know everything about the project.

It would also bring up some devastating storylines.  Good news, 'Wyatt' is it?  Your wife is indeed alive but she's married to, well, 'you'.  We're sure you're happy about this but you can never, ever see her again, for her sake as much as for everyone else's.  Take whatever bitter solace you can in this, but she's alive and happy, just with another guy.

Edited November 30, 2016 by henripootel

[shapeshifter]

4 hours ago, henripootel said:

Correct, and it'd make for a fairly interesting storytelling technique.  First scene is this one, then (somewhat ironically) we see the words '12 hours earlier', and they explain how this happened.  The guys at home base should be prepared for this, and have protocols in place for dealing with 'complete strangers' who know everything about the project.

It would also bring up some devastating storylines.  Good news, 'Wyatt' is it?  Your wife is indeed alive but she's married to, well, 'you'.  We're sure you're happy about this but you can never, ever see her again, for her sake as much as for everyone else's.  Take whatever bitter solace you can in this, but she's alive and happy, just with another guy.

Didn't something like that happen on another show or in some movie?

Another possible memory lapse of mine: Was it this show or another time travel show where meeting one's self in the past caused only half of the time traveler to return in the time travel machine?

[Bort]

3 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

Didn't something like that happen on another show or in some movie?

Another possible memory lapse of mine: Was it this show or another time travel show where meeting one's self in the past caused only half of the time traveler to return in the time travel machine?

That was this one. However, it's not an unheard of concept in time travel stories. In Timecop, contact with yourself turned you into a gross, dissolving, screaming blob. It did not look pleasant.

[paulvdb]

14 hours ago, henripootel said:

It would also bring up some devastating storylines.  Good news, 'Wyatt' is it?  Your wife is indeed alive but she's married to, well, 'you'.  We're sure you're happy about this but you can never, ever see her again, for her sake as much as for everyone else's.  Take whatever bitter solace you can in this, but she's alive and happy, just with another guy.

That would contradict the show's own rules. Remember Lucy's fiance? Based on your theory there should be another Lucy who is engaged to him but there isn't. Based on the show's own established rules Wyatt's wife would remember being married to him all this time, but there would not be another Wyatt who was marrried to her all this time. He would have disappeared the same way that the other Lucy disappeared who was engaged to the fiance.

[henripootel]

8 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Based on the show's own established rules Wyatt's wife would remember being married to him all this time, but there would not be another Wyatt who was marrried to her all this time. He would have disappeared the same way that the other Lucy disappeared who was engaged to the fiance.

I do, but I don't think this is an example of the writers being consistent, this is them wanting it both ways.  We're now in a timeline that featured an Engaged Lucy but we're still watching Original Lucy, so we're forced to conclude that Engaged Lucy just ... vanished.  That Lucy had a whole life, loved and was loved, and now an imposter has taken up residence in her life, unbeknownst to all.  This is actually horrifying and that's not the tone they're going for, so the Lazy Writer's Book suggests that we just pretend that Engaged Lucy just went poof.  Doesn't mean this makes a lick of sense, but I think they're hoping we don't notice that.  

It is weird that Lucy's sister disappears and it's heartrending for her, and her whole motivation for doing all this, but Engaged Lucy disappears and it's all 'ha, I'm kissing a boy I don't even know - awkward'.  

Edited December 1, 2016 by henripootel

[wilnil]

You won't have the chance of two versions of the same person ending up in the same timeline unless the new timeline is one where that person isn't part of the time travel project or wasn't sent on that mission. We know Engaged Lucy was also sent back in time for the Hindenburg mission because the Mason crew in that timeline were not surprised to see Lucy return with the others. (This is why I think this is a Quantum-Forking/Multiverse scenario. Under that scenario, explaining what happened to Engaged Lucy is easy: Her team ended up in yet another timeline based on the changes they made in the [already-altered, from our perspective] Hindenburg incident.)

[henripootel]

29 minutes ago, wilnil said:

Under that scenario, explaining what happened to Engaged Lucy is easy: Her team ended up in yet another timeline based on the changes they made in the [already-altered, from our perspective] Hindenburg incident.)

Oh, I agree that's a possibility but it's still horrifying.  Think we'll ever see a scene where Our Lucy tells Engaged Lucy's fiancé "Yeah, I'm not your girl, I just look like her.  The woman you planned to spend the rest of your life with, have children and grow old together?  She's gone, likely forever.  But hey, if she's lucky, she's in another timeline banging some other dude, who probably looks a lot like you.  Sorry, I really wanted to take that very slight chance of getting my sister back, and I can't see why you're not delighted for me."

We will never see this scene.  If the show gets picked up for another season, like as not Lucy will quietly (and possibly off-camera) break up with said fiancé, and he'll never know the truth for why the love of his life dumped him.  It's the easy way out for the writers, but it's both horrifying and cruel.

Sorry to be such a downer.  Hey, wanna hear my soon-to-be-unpopular hypothesis about why Rufus has no problem killing folks in the past?  I think it's because, from his 2016 perspective, they're already dead.  Like as not, they actually are, and it's easy to take the long view that a few years one way or the other isn't any big deal.  I think Rufus is horrified to discover this, especially because I don't think he's quite capable of killing someone in 2016, or at least he'd feel like a murderer if he did.  The people in the past though, they died long ago, some centuries back.  How's this for a downer idea.

Edited December 1, 2016 by henripootel

[wilnil]

2 minutes ago, henripootel said:

Oh, I agree that's a possibility but it's still horrifying.  

Oh yeah. I've read a fair amount of SF novels over the years, and a solid majority are cautionary tales. If they're about Deterministic/Elastic time travel, the story is usually about the futility of not accepting fate; if Overwriting/Quantum-Forking, then it's often about the unintended horrible consequences of making a change.

This is where the show really screwed up this week -- they had Flynn, by saving his half brother before Flynn's own birth, endanger his own existence in the resulting timeline. That wouldn't make him vanish under the "rules" the show has implied, but he'd still arrive in a present timeline where he hadn't previously existed, so everything he's previously done in the past wouldn't be part of this timeline. (And now he and Mason both have a new-model time machine!)

Damn, this is headache-inducing.

[henripootel]

12 minutes ago, wilnil said:

That wouldn't make him vanish under the "rules" the show has implied, but he'd still arrive in a present timeline where he hadn't previously existed, so everything he's previously done in the past wouldn't be part of this timeline. (And now he and Mason both have a new-model time machine!)

Yep.  At the very least, he'll meet a brother who's known Flynn all his life but who Flynn has never met.  It'd be perfectly reasonable if Flynn also found a new version of himself, happily married having never come up against Rittenhouse.  Previous evidence suggests we won't see this, of course, but we're back at square one - what happened to Flynn-With-a-Brother?  Did he just go poof when our Flynn went back to 2016?

It would be a masterful plan for Flynn to throw off pursuit by Mason and co.  They would know nothing about Flynn or how he got his time machine, as their time machine is clearly right over there in the hanger.  The Time Team would still know about Flynn and what he's up to, but good luck on them bringing Mason and company up to speed on this.  

Edited December 1, 2016 by henripootel