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Time travel in the Stargate universe.

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    Time travel in the Stargate universe.

    Just wondering about the rules for Time Travel in the Stargate universe. Is it possible to come up with a theory that covers all the instances that we've seen so far?

    The theory that seems to fit best is the branching universe theory. When someone (or something) goes back in time the timeline is forked at the moment they arrive. Initially the two universes are the same with the exception of the time traveller being present in the new universe and not in the original, and thereafter they evolve separately. If someone or something travels forward in time a new timeline is not created since no events that have already happened are affected.
    So, does this work with the 7 timetravel episodes that I know of (let me know if I've forgotten any!)

    TIme: (SGU)
    Works fine.
    Timeline 1: Everyone goes to the planet and die, Rush and a kino go through the stargate and are sent back in time.
    Timeline 2: Created when Rush and the Kino arrive. In this timeline when the team arrive at the planet they see the kino and view it, changing their actions. A kino is sent back again, creating timeline 3
    Timeline 3: Splits from Timeline 2 when Scott's kino arrives. In this timeline the team finds both kinos and uses Scotts message to save themselves.
    After all is done, in Timeline 1 and 2 everyone is dead, in timeline 3 they are alive and this is the timeline we follow in the series going on.
    Flow of events in the final timeline: Some time in the past Rush and a Kino come through the stargate. SOme time later another kino comes through the stargate. Finally the party show up on the planet, retrieve the Kinos, grab some of the critters after seeing Scott's message and cure themselves.

    2010: (SG1)
    Works fine.
    Original timeline, the Aschen take over the earth and start their genocide plan. The warning message is sent though the stargate, creating timeline 2
    Timeline 2: Created when the message arrives. In this timeline they avoid contact with the Aschen
    After all is done, in Timeline 1 the Aschen eliminate most of humanity and probably turn the Earth into another farm planet, in Timeline 2 we avoid the Aschen and continue to thrive, and this is the timeline we follow in the series going on
    Flow of events in the final timeline: A message comes through the gate and Hammond locks out the address for the Aschen world.

    Moebius(SG1).
    Nearly works OK, but a few problems.
    Original timeline, SG-1 travel back in time to Ancient Egypt, creating timeline 2
    Timeline 2: SG-1 retrieve and bury the ZPM. They then live out their lives. In the rebellion Ra takes the stargate away with him. Finally when time advances to the present day wimpy SG-1 travel back in time (via Chulak) creating timeline 3
    Timeline 3: Wimpy SG-1 meet up with Timeline 1 Daniel. In this timeline Ra is prevented from removing the stargate. Wimpy SG-1 and Timeline 1 Daniel all die in the past. In the present day, Timeline 3 SG-1 decides that they need to recover a ZPM from the past... but they found it buried in Egypt. No need to go to the past at all.
    After all is done in timeline 1 SG-1 travel to the past... and are never seen again.
    In Timeline 2 SG-1 steal the ZPM from Ra and bury it. Unfortunately they cannot return to the future and live out their lives in the fast. In the present day a ZPM is discovered buried in Egypt. Wimpy SG-1 travel to the past... and are never seen again
    In Timeline 3 Wimpy SG-1 meets up with Daniel and prevent Ra from taking the stargate. Wimpy SG-1 and Daniel die in the past. In the present day Timeline 3 SG-1 thinks about travelling to the past, but doesn't go anywhere. This is the timeline we follow going on.
    Flow of events in the final timeline. Timeline 1 SG-1 arrive and steal the ZPM. Daniel survives until Wimpy SG-1 arrives. They prevent Ra from taking the stargate and then live out their lives in the past. In the present day, Timeline 3 SG-1 don't travel anywhere but find the buried ZPM
    Problems. Timeline 3 SG-1 should have no memories of the events of Timeline 1. Jack should remember that his pond always did have fish, only the audience should know that something has changed...

    Before I Sleep.
    Works fine.
    Original timeline: SGA team arrive in Atlantis, the city runs out of power and floods, killing everyone except Weir who travels back in time creating timeline 2.
    Timeline 2: Weir arrives in the past and persuades Janus to get Atlantis to surface if it runs out of power. Weir then 'sleeps' 10000 years. In the present the Timeline 2 SGA team arrive. Atlantis runs out of power, but surfaces, surviving. Later they find Timeline 1 Weir and learn of the original timeline.
    After all is done, in timeline 1, everyone dies and Atlantis rots on the ocean floor.
    In timeline 2 everyone survives, Atlantis surfaces and this is the timeline we follow going on.

    The Last Man
    Works fine.
    Original timeline: Sheppard travels to the future and finds Atlantis dead amongst the sand dunes. Later he travels back in time creating timeline 2.
    Timeline 2: Sheppard arrives back unexpectedly and the hunt for Teyla is on. This is the timeline we follow going on.
    After all is done, in timeline 1 Sheppard is lost in the future and Michael takes over Pegasus
    In timeline 2 Sheppard disappears for 12 days and then returns. 48000 years in the future Sheppard appears from the past and then returns to yet another timeline which we don't follow.
    Note that the final Sheppard is the Timeline 1 Sheppard, before the episode started it was the Timeline 2 sheppard. That Sheppard moved on to timeline 3...

    1969
    Works, but is a little creepy and mindboggling.
    Timeline 1: SG-1 travel to the past. Hammond has no idea that this is going to happen and doesn't give them a note. The travel creates timeline 2
    Timeline 2: SG-1 arrive in 1969. They have no note and no idea how to get back to the present. They do interact with Hammond though who remembers them. Timeline 1 SG-1 die in the past (or are still around lying low). In the present day Hammond notices the cut on Carters hand and remembers their encounter in the past. He gives them the note. Timeline 2 SG-1 travel to the past creating timeline 3
    Timeline 3: T2 SG-1 arrive and interact with Hammond. They travel to the future and meet Cassie, who sends them back to the past creating timeline 5. In the present day Timeline 3 SG-1 travel back to 1969 creating timeline 4. However note that timeline 5 does not branch off from timeline 3 until after T3 SG1 have travelled back,meaning that timeline 4 and 5 both branch from timeline 3
    Timeline 4: Timeline 3 SG1 arrive and interact with Hammond. They then travel to the future and meet Cassie who sends them back to timeline 7. In In the present day Timeline 4 SG-1 travel back to 1969 creating timeline 6. Again, 6 and 7 both branch from timeline 4. 4,6 and 7 are identical to 3,4 and 5 and the pattern repeats ad-infinitum. The final timeline can be taken to be timeline 5 which is the first timeline in which SG-1 get home.
    After all is done in timeline 1 SG-1 step through the gate and are never seen again
    In timeline 2: SG-1 arrive in 1969, meet Hammond and then die/vanish from the story. In the present T2 SG-1 are given a note by Hammond and step through the gate.. never to be seen again
    In timeline 3: T2 SG-1 arrive and meet Hammond. They then jump forwards in time. In the present day T3 SG-1 are given the note and step into the gate. In the future T2 SG-1 arrive and are sent back in time by Cassie
    In timeline 4: T3 SG-1 arrives and meet Hammond. They then jump forwards in time. In the present day T4 SG-1 are given the note and step into the gate. In the future T3 SG-1 arrive and are sent back in time by Cassie
    In timeline 5: Same as timeline 3 until in the present day, after T3 SG-1 have left this timeline splits off and T2 SG-1 arrives back from the future. Nothing happens in the future in this timeline. This is the timeline we follow going on.
    Flow of events in the final timeline: 1969 T2 SG-1 arrives, meets Hammond and then jumps to the future. In the present day T3 SG-1 get the note and head through the gate. Shortly afterwards T2 SG-1 arrive back from the future. In the future nothing happens (T2-SG1 was send back from timeline 3)

    Window of Opportunity
    Sort of works, but problems.
    Works, as long as you 'scope' the timeline to the subspace bubble created by the ancient device
    Every loop Jack, Teal'c and Malakai's conscienceness is sent back to create a new timeline in which the events of that loop play out.
    When all is done, every timeline has the events of the loop in which it happened and then it continues with Jack and Teal'c not travelling back.
    Flow of the final timeline: Events happen as normal until the machine is activated. The events of the final loop then happen, the machine is deactivated and life goes on.
    Problem. Apparently time outside the subspace region advanced by the total of all the time spend in the loops. To fix that up you have to assume that the Ancient machine sent everything forwards in time by the appropriate amount when the loop is broken.

    Continuum
    Problems.
    Timeline 1: SG-1 watch the execution of Baal. The Real Baal travels back to the past creating timeline 2
    Timeline 2: Somehow T1 SG-1 manage to cross to T2, reasoning unknown. They thwart T1 Baal and then die/live in the past. In the present T2 SG-1 watch the execution of Baal.
    Doesn't really work. people shouldn't just vanish in puffs of smoke, a-la Back to the Future, when Baal went back in time he left this timeline and should have no effect on it at all. What should have happened is that the execution happens without incident and SG-1 would never know that Baal had travelled back in time.
    In the timeline Baal travelled to there would be no SG-1 to thwart him (not that that would save him from Qetesh) and humanity would be in trouble.
    Wouldn't have made a good film though I guess.

    Any ideas on how to resolve the problems, or a theory which works better?
    --Rakhal

    #2
    1969 works better with the presumption of a single timeline. Hammond gave Carter the note because he knew what was going to happen, and it had already happened to him.

    Continuum has a third timeline, created when Mitchell goes back.

    It's been a while since I saw Moebius, but I can't remember anything that suggests that They have memories of the trip. They could get all the information from the tape they buried.

    Comment


      #3
      Yup, definitely 1969 works better with a single timeline. However I was trying to find a theory that works for all the Stargate timetravel eps, and the split on travel back theory DOES actually appear to work for 1969, in a complex and mindboggling way .
      The only one it really doesn't appear to work for is Continuum, which seems to work with the same system (roughly) as Back to the Future uses (single timeline, when you change something in the past it takes a while for your change to ripple forwards in time and alter the future)

      --Rakhal

      Comment


        #4
        I guess the multiple timeline approach just uses a lot of previous timelines to work up to a final sequence of events that is shown in the show. 1969 is so complicated because there are three instances of time travel, in two different directions, and they each rely on events caused by SG1 of other timelines.

        The thing about Continuum is it is the only instance where the narrative is focussing on characters other than the one(s) who use time travel to go back. It could be that this is how it happens every time. In 2010 and The Last Man nothing is shown after the time travel. It could very well be that after 2010, everything just disappeared and was replaced by the world of the resulting timeline in 2010.
        I saw somewhere else on the forum that the reason SG1 didn't disappear was because they were in the wormhole at the time.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Rakhal View Post
          Moebius(SG1).
          ...

          Problems. Timeline 3 SG-1 should have no memories of the events of Timeline 1. Jack should remember that his pond always did have fish, only the audience should know that something has changed...
          It's been a while since I watched Moebius, but as I recall, here was how things played out in Timeline 3:
          * Jack knows his pond has fish.
          * They get a message from the past that explains how things work, with Timeline 1 Jack noting that he has a pond without fish.
          * Jack says to Sam "if everything matches up, we don't have to do anything, right?" She says "yes" and so Jack does nothing.
          * We learn that Jack's pond does have fish.

          The joke was that O'Neill would prefer to deal with a broken timeline rather than deal with fixing it.

          Continuum
          Problems.
          ...
          Doesn't really work. people shouldn't just vanish in puffs of smoke, a-la Back to the Future, when Baal went back in time he left this timeline and should have no effect on it at all. What should have happened is that the execution happens without incident and SG-1 would never know that Baal had travelled back in time.
          Yeah, Continuum messes with stuff. The best way I could explain it was that, at the time of the last clone's execution, the real Ba'al opened up a stargate to the past. As soon as he opened it, things started to change in the present, but changes did not "stick" until they finished up the gate to the past.

          This sort of fits with "Time" in which both Rush and the original kino made it back through the gate before the timeline diverged. Sorta. Kinda.

          This still has some problems: would anyone traveling anywhere in the universe via a stargate find themselves protected? Maybe it only affected gate travel to Earth, but I don't think Ba'al's first trip to the past was to Earth in 1939. He would have wanted to establish a base first before trying to take over the ship, and I sure hope he brought more than just a few soldiers and a backpack on his trip to the past.

          Comment


            #6
            Hmm, the timeline reverts to the original if the events that appear to happen in the past are not initiated at the right time? So if they DON'T send a note back through at the wormhole in 2010 at the right time to be sent to the past, then the resulting paradox (a note that come from nowhere) would force the universe to reset to the original 2010 (with Aschen) to resolve the paradox. Scary thought!
            Unfortunately Time (SGU) causes problems with that. iirc the solar flare continues until past the time for the Destiny, so there would be no way for the final time (where they get cured) to send the kinos back without whoever did it getting stranded on the planet (even if they could deal with the critters), so the series ends there ard the events of 'Life' are just a figment of our overheated imagination

            --Rakhal

            Comment


              #7
              SPOILER Note, I'm not going to use Spoiler tags. There are too many things here. If you haven't seen some episodes, skip past this post without reading.

              So far, everything I've seen (First 9 seasons of SG-1, 1st and 5th seasons of Atlantis, and SGU episodes to date) falls in perfect agreement with Many World Interpretation of Quantum Dynamics, with the single exception of 1969. With this in mind, I'll cover everything the way it should work in MWI of Quantum Mechanics.

              In 1969, they step out from the gate at SGC, and entire SGC dissolves away revealing missile silo which was there in '69. Gate gone, of course. This should not happen. The point of exit must physically exist at time and location of exit. That is, they should have gated to wherever the gate was actually located at the time. If it was buried or there is some other problem with that, lock should not have occurred at all.

              Other than that, things work pretty much as they should. Universe branches on every Quantum Event. These butterfly their way to major events in our world. So pretty much every possible outcome of every possible scenario exists. And because Quantum Mechanics significantly extends the realm of possible (albeit extremely unlikely), the number of realities that exist simultaneously surpasses imaginable.

              Furthermore, events also branch when looking at timeline in reverse, from future to past. Though, it doesn't branch as much, so there are always more possible future states than possible past states. (If that was not the case, we would not perceive time flow.) This is an important feature when considering travel into past. You don't have to end up in your own past, but you will end up in a nearby past, most often indistinguishable, which will have a big contribution to the timeline you started out from.

              Time travel is an inherently quantum event. You have multitude of past/futures you can end up with. Whether time travel results in branching or vice versa is a chicken and egg question. Each one depends on the other to occur. And this is what prevents weird paradoxes. You can kill your own grandfather without suffering any ill effects.

              There are no resets in Many-World. If we assume this interpretation to hold within SG universe, neither the note from the 2010 nor the KINO from Time has any effect on the timeline from which they originate. People still die in these timelines and things go on as they do. Only the timeline that receives this information from essentially parallel reality is affected. In this sense, the time travel works a lot like quantum mirror. The other reality keeps on going, despite any changes to this reality.


              If it would help some people here visualize things, I can sketch the actual time-line branching for some of the episodes. I think "Time" and "Before I Sleep" would be of most interest.
              MWG Gate Network Simulation

              Looks familiar?

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by K^2 View Post
                You can kill your own grandfather without suffering any ill effects.
                This doesn't work with Continuum. Ba'al going back results in the disappearance of everything that was a result of the Stargate program, which he stopped.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by gateface View Post
                  It's been a while since I watched Moebius, but as I recall, here was how things played out in Timeline 3:
                  * Jack knows his pond has fish.
                  * They get a message from the past that explains how things work, with Timeline 1 Jack noting that he has a pond without fish.
                  * Jack says to Sam "if everything matches up, we don't have to do anything, right?" She says "yes" and so Jack does nothing.
                  * We learn that Jack's pond does have fish.

                  The joke was that O'Neill would prefer to deal with a broken timeline rather than deal with fixing it.
                  The Fish is a Lie!!!!
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                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Badhron View Post
                    This doesn't work with Continuum. Ba'al going back results in the disappearance of everything that was a result of the Stargate program, which he stopped.
                    K^2's point was, IIUC, that you can kill your own grandfather when he is born, and you will continue to exist just fine. That part matches up with Continuum -- Ba'al changes history, but he still remembers his own experience in that other timeline.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      I have not seen Continuum, but I would hypothesize that Ba'al ends up in alternate time line, and it is that alternate time line that is portrayed.

                      One of the key aspects of Many-World is the existence of observer-world pairs. In this particular case, Ba'al is the observer. Any sub-system can be selected as one, but cases where sentient being is chosen as an observer are typically of interest, as they can reflect on the world the observe.
                      MWG Gate Network Simulation

                      Looks familiar?

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by K^2 View Post
                        I have not seen Continuum, but I would hypothesize that Ba'al ends up in alternate time line, and it is that alternate time line that is portrayed.
                        If I understood your previous post about timelines branching in reverse properly, then I suppose Ba'al could have gone back to an alternate timeline that results in the present at the time of Continuum. All his mucking around could result in the timeline having a different future, allowing the scene where everything is disappearing. Then when Mitchell goes back everything is fixed and the original future results, minus Ba'al's plan.
                        I don't really understand this, but it is the only way I can think of that is consistent with the rest of the occurrences of time travel.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I don't think I can say anything with any sort of certainty without watching the Continuum.

                          I can tell you that the show diverges from Many-World quite often, in particular whenever quantum mirror is involved. But considering that one of the Talons states that human QM is faulty, deviations could be blamed on that.

                          In fact, he seems to state that it was principle of superposition specifically that was flawed. That can allow for "nearly parallel" realities with some degree of interaction. In turn, that would allow quantum mirror to operate as described, and perhaps even explain Ba'als time travel plan and 1969.

                          But now we are in a realm of made-up Physics.
                          MWG Gate Network Simulation

                          Looks familiar?

                          Comment

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