Time Travel,Timelines, I'm my own Grandpa(just kidding)

[Perelandra]

I've seen enough Stargate/Star Trek ect. to think I understand the time travel rules, but I'm having trouble wrapping my puny little brain around what happened in Common Descent and Epilogue. If the Older Destiny crew went back in time, but older Rush came back to warn them to NOT go through the gate, shouldn't the younger Destiny's actions have changed the timeline, thus erasing the Common Descent/Epilogue timeline since it never happened? Or am I thinking straight. And please forgive me if this has been discussed before and just point me to the thread.(Like in Moebius, TLM in SGA, ect)

[morbosfist]

Time travel in Stargate creates new timelines. They don't reset time, just change it from the point of interference. By travelling back in time, the Destiny crew made a new timeline. They are not reset by Rush's interference because they came from a different timeline. Rush's interference doesn't change the fact that they already exist.

[LtColCarter]

I agree with Captain Janeway...all of this gives me a headache!

[Perelandra]

Time travel in Stargate creates new timelines. They don't reset time, just change it from the point of interference. By travelling back in time, the Destiny crew made a new timeline. They are not reset by Rush's interference because they came from a different timeline. Rush's interference doesn't change the fact that they already exist.

Oh, Ok-soo there's a main timeline and one that branched off?

[Perelandra]

I agree with Captain Janeway...all of this gives me a headache!

I agree!

[Egle01]

Different timelines confuzzled the hell out of me. Then I thought I almost understood 'em. Now I'm positive I have pretty much no idea what's going on. Reading this thread just confused me more.

[morbosfist]

Yes, pretty much. The Destiny crew in this timeline came from the first one.

[Trinary]

Want to know why the 2000 years older them didn't get erased? Because the time travel into the past happened in the new timeline. In fact that was the 2nd time travel as soon as the destiny arrived in this new timeline caused by the solar flare. The 1st time travel was triggered because they dial the gate inside the star. Destiny and it's passengers has been send back 12 hours earlier (new timeline).

Nothing can be done to fix it unless the older them able to time travel into the present in this new timeline to get the older destiny and make another time travel to their time at 12 hour ahead.

I hope the above explanation it simple enough and less confusing.

[Keeper]

Oh, Ok-soo there's a main timeline and one that branched off?

bit like parallel universes, yeah.

to try and paraphrase, badly, from Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) (i studied a bit of his stuff back at uni, and this is the only part i remember):

a man is looking down from a tower, with a bird's eye view of the area around him. another man is walking toward a fork in the road. on the right is a clear path, no hazards. on the left, out of sight, is a man-eating animal. the man in the tower can see both possibilities in front of the walker, though the walker cannot see which choice will take him where.

in context: aquinas was trying to defend free will, while saying god could see all possibilities at all times.*

essentially - every possibility exists, branching off from each other.

not sure if this has helped at all...



i used to follow christianity. while i no longer do, this bit stood out to me as something that made sense, and helped me comprehend multiple timeline and universe stuff in stargate

[carmencatalina]

Do the events of "Twin Destinies" and the other episodes mean that the SG1 folks who traveled back in time in "Moebius" lived and dead in the past? So our Alt!Daniel, who saw his own team die in the rebellion, gets to live out all his days with the "new" alt team in the past, and die there?

That makes me sad. They weren't even his real friends, they barely knew their Daniel, and his real friends are dead.

Am very sad.

I don't think I like time travel very much.

[morbosfist]

Yes, pretty much. Those alternate timeline copes never came back, far as we know.

[Perelandra]

bit like parallel universes, yeah.

So they would sort of be in something like a parallel dimension I'm wondering how the first timeline would be able to cross back in order to meet their decendents...
If the first timeline (A) older Destiny goes through the gate, lands on the planet,(2000 years in the past) starts a civilization-that's one timeline. Second timeline(B) branches off and never goes through the gate is 2000 years ahead on timeline B.....
How can A and B cross if they B branches off from A(please pass the Exedrin!)
A catches up to B over 2000 years but-arent' they on different branches?

[Keeper]

ok, lets see... err...

best way i can think of to make it make more sense: 2 roads, that cross each other at random intervals. sure, they're seperate roads, but things from one can go to the other, and back, randomly.


or again: all possibilities, simultaneously - in other words, it's possible that a particular thing may have happened, without it's causal event re-occurring.



you obviously, like most people, understand the idea of cause leads to effect. in other words, push an object and it will move. or, chuck a crew back 2000 years and they'll build a civilisation of millions.

however there's a theory i vaguely remember hearing about where effects can happen before, or even without, causes. i didn't understand it then, and i've not had any interest in understanding it since then.

it's a poor attempt from me, trying to explain it when i can't think of words for it, but there ya go


edit - while parallel universes are separate, they are essentially different versions of time. they may not routinely cross paths, however points which cause a split may cause a sort of ripple effect, increasing the effect's occurrence throughout other parallel universes.

and yes, this is all out of my backside

[Stargater276]

Haven't we seen this kind of time travel before in episodes like SGA's before I sleep?

During Twin Destinies when the Stargate was dialed everyone was sent back several hours back into the past in the same location. With the introduction of the second Destiny which obviously wasn't in the first timeline a new reality was created.

Once the Gate was dialed Telford went back to Earth in this second timeline which involves the introduction of the second Destiny. Second later, the Gate malfunctions causing it to jump back 2,000 years to all those who step through it. Since it has been established (In SGU at least, not in the other series) a Gate loop back onto itself when time traveling, the Gate could not locate Destiny's Stargate in the past so it jumped to the nearest Stargate. Assuming only a few Seederships had passed through this Galaxy at this point that nearest Gate was located at the sandstorm planet.

The crew was thus introduced to a third reality which involves all of the same events as the second just only now in this timeline they will eventually create Novus. That leaves us with three timelines, one which never really it noted (Though implied) in the series.

Timeline 1 - Destiny vanishes upon dialing its Stargate and is never heard from again.
Timeline 2 - Destiny appears near star several hours before the Destiny of this timeline appears. The crew steps through the Stargate and is never heard from again, excluding Telford. The events of Twin Destiny occur in this time line. Novus does not exist.
Timeline 3 - Destiny crew appears on sandstorm planet 2,000 earlier. Like timeline 2, Destiny appears at the star before this timeline's Destiny. The events of Twin Destiny, Common Descent and Epilogue occur here.

The events of timeline 2 would be exactly as they were up until the part of Common Descent where Scott and Greer run into their descendents.

Time travel is evil. I've probably forgotten something.

[Wayston]

I think as far as alternate universes go there is no need for a distinction between your second and third timeline? I mean the second timeline is just a continuation from the third timeline isn't it? Your Telford arrives on earth and is heard from again immediately; and the crew arrives on that planet and their effects are noticed through their descendants

universe 1: everyone enters the stargate except rush - somehow rush and the destiny disappear from this reality nonetheless

universe 2: destiny 1 and rush 1 have somehow arrived not long before destiny 2 and rush 2 arrive in the vincinity - Rush 1 warns people not to enter - crew 2 starts stripping destiny 1 - nobody dials out from this universe - Telford 1 turns out to have ended up on the earth of the same universe that destiny and rush travelled back into - Telford 2 dies at the hands of Rush 1 - crew 1 turns out to have also ended up in universe 2 on some random planet fairly near to the geographical location of Destinies 1 and 2 in this universe, only a lot further back in time

Of course they all have infinite variants
for example
universe 1b: the plan is never implemented, Destiny 1 continues on with Telford 1 on board but without spare parts, Novus doesn't exist
universe 1c: the plan is implemented, but the entire crew remains on board
...

universe 2b: Destiny 1 does not appear here, Destiny 2 continues with Telford 2 alive but without spare parts, Novus doesn't exist
universe 2c: Destiny 1 appears, but Telford 1 doesn't arrive on earth
universe 2d: Destiny 1 appears, but crew 1 never arrives on the random planet
...



This time the writers could have followed the timetravel explanation behind the movie "Primer" with this. There timetravel doesn't suffer from any temporal grandfather paradoxes whatsoever. It just clones people within the same universe (although I suppose you could still just consider it to be multiple universes being created) so you can end up with doubles in the same timeline as two different human minds where the time traveller is perfectly aware of his presence and can, for him it feels like he is distorting his own timeline, and the person that hasn't time travelled is completely ignorant of it (the latter doesn't even have to enter the time machine later in order for the time travel of the first to occur) and for whom everything that happens is perceived as a perfectly normal flow of time (although he would be surprised to a copy of himself which has memories from the future, for him that would still just be a normal part of his timeline because he hasn't time travelled and doesn't even have to do it in order for the duplicate to exist).