Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

"1969" Temporal Padadox

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    "1969" Temporal Padadox

    OK, think back to Season 2's "1969" for the durration of this post. Hammond has a note for Carter and asks her not to open it till after she goes through the Stargate. Later on, she opens it and discovers it's adressed to his younger self along with two dates. Young Lt. Hammond reads the note and decides to help SG-1. They use the dates and times to get home via solar flair, only they go too far into the future and meet old-Cassandra whom tells them that she had been waiting "all this time" to send them back to 1999.

    The Paradox:
    In the original timeline (before they go back to 1969), Hammond would have no knowledge of SG-1 meeting his younger self, so he would have no note to give Carter.

    Padaox Solution:
    Timeline A: SG-1 gets sent back to 1969
    Timeline B: SG-1 gets sent back to 1969, catch up with Lt. Hammond... does he help, does he refuse? Who knows, SG-1 is forced to live out the rest of their natural lives in the past.
    Timeline C: Years later, to prevent this, Hammond sends a note with SG-1, hoping they can use his younger self to get help and the calculated dates to get home. SG-1 succeeds, they make it the future, then old-Cassandra sends them back to 1999.
    Timeline D: Hammond remembers meeting SG-1 as a young Lt, and knowing their trip is about to send them back to 1969, sends a note with Carter to ensure they can return home, completing the circle you could say.

    Basically, the episode "1969" as we see it, happens in the 4th timeline with it's "paradoxial timeloop." However, they'd be creating a 5th timeline in that when they return to 1999 thanks to Cassandra, her future no longer exists.

    So, whut do ya all think?
    Last edited by Daniel Jackson; 10 October 2004, 07:37 PM.

    #2
    There need not be quite that many timelines. There could just be three involved in that episode; the original, pre-loop and post-loop. The original would be one in which SG-1 had never appeared in their past, but one day disappeared in the present when they did go back in time. The first altered timeline is pre-loop in that being from the original timeline didn't allow all the pieces of the puzzle to fall in place (i.e. the note and such). In this, SG-1 either lived out their lives or died in the past, and Hammond wished to prevent this when he meets SG-1 for the "first time" later. So, remembering what Carter must've claimed was the reason for the trip through time when he considered her to be some "raving lunatic" (or perhaps based on finding out how it worked via the research he ordered Carter to do before all the missions started), he looks up the necessary dates and gives it to SG-1 as they head off on the mission that takes them into the past. Post-loop is the timeline in which SG-1 now has this note, and is able to get the help they need to return to the present (and is also a timeline in which Hammond has the choice to either complete the loop by sending them on that mission, or end the loop by scrapping it; prior timelines would still exist).

    My thought is that the timeline we see at the episode's beginning may actually be pre-loop, and the one they return to is post-loop; such scenario is very well possible, and would explain Hammond's need to have Carter research that stuff when it seems that he should have known what to write down for 'em anyway.

    And Cassandra's future still exists; if it didn't, then SG-1themselves would no longer exist thanks to spending a short time there. Actually, there's no indication that SG-1 changed things enough that they may not still be in that timeline (Daniel's still alive, after all ); unless that's the same timeline as the Aschen future, in which case that opens up a whole new branch of complexity to the timeline. Cliff note's version is that the Quantum Multiverse allows either a loop or a divergent timeline to play out, w/ the deciding factor of which up to the traveler (as long as they're aware they have that choice, of course ); the Aschen timeline, then, is one in which has been purposely changed; the current SG-1 timeline either wouldn't exist or would have some infinitesimal probability if it weren't for that future-Earth-saving intervention.

    -Bloodaxe

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Erik Bloodaxe
      There need not be quite that many timelines. There could just be three involved in that episode; the original, pre-loop and post-loop. The original would be one in which SG-1 had never appeared in their past, but one day disappeared in the present when they did go back in time. The first altered timeline is pre-loop in that being from the original timeline didn't allow all the pieces of the puzzle to fall in place (i.e. the note and such). In this, SG-1 either lived out their lives or died in the past, and Hammond wished to prevent this when he meets SG-1 for the "first time" later. So, remembering what Carter must've claimed was the reason for the trip through time when he considered her to be some "raving lunatic" (or perhaps based on finding out how it worked via the research he ordered Carter to do before all the missions started), he looks up the necessary dates and gives it to SG-1 as they head off on the mission that takes them into the past. Post-loop is the timeline in which SG-1 now has this note, and is able to get the help they need to return to the present (and is also a timeline in which Hammond has the choice to either complete the loop by sending them on that mission, or end the loop by scrapping it; prior timelines would still exist).
      OK, you're right, it can happen in just 3 timelines.
      Timeline A: Pre-timeloop
      Timelime B: SG-1 arrives in 1969, crap happens to them, years later, Hammond sends a note with them so they can save themselves.
      Timeline C: SG-1 shows up in 1969 again, this time, they have the note, the timeloop is created, they end up in the distant future, then back in the present.

      So, you're right, there's actually only 3 timelimes. The first is before any time travel occurs, the second is where the timeloop is created, and the third is the final result - whut we see in the episode.

      My thought is that the timeline we see at the episode's beginning may actually be pre-loop, and the one they return to is post-loop; such scenario is very well possible, and would explain Hammond's need to have Carter research that stuff when it seems that he should have known what to write down for 'em anyway.
      If they episode begins "before" the timeloop, Hammond wouldn't have that handy note to give Carter, becuase SG-1 wouldn't have met him in the past if it were the "first" timeline.

      And Cassandra's future still exists; if it didn't, then SG-1themselves would no longer exist thanks to spending a short time there. Actually, there's no indication that SG-1 changed things enough that they may not still be in that timeline (Daniel's still alive, after all ); unless that's the same timeline as the Aschen future, in which case that opens up a whole new branch of complexity to the timeline.
      Still, Cassandra was waiting for SG-1 becuase they "never returend," wasn't she? If that's the case, that future will no longer exist, and SG-1 will encounter a nother future, or they don't show up in that future at all, and we end up with a major paradox.

      Cliff note's version is that the Quantum Multiverse allows either a loop or a divergent timeline to play out, w/ the deciding factor of which up to the traveler (as long as they're aware they have that choice, of course ); the Aschen timeline, then, is one in which has been purposely changed; the current SG-1 timeline either wouldn't exist or would have some infinitesimal probability if it weren't for that future-Earth-saving intervention.

      -Bloodaxe
      Well, you can't have a Quantum Multiverse with time travel. When we speak of alternate timelines, it's just an easier way of discussing alterations to a "single" timeline. Only one timeline can exist at a time, becuase it's their own reallity they're messing with. You mess up history, and your reallity (world you know, not other reallity/dimension) is gone as you know it, which is why they'd need to correct the timeline.

      Comment


        #4
        think Bill and Ted, time is one thus it happened that way the first time..
        sigpic
        Banner By JME2

        Comment


          #5
          It happened from the start.

          It's too confusing.

          *brain explodes*

          Ow.

          Note: User's posts are rarely serious.
          Member of the F.O.R.D. || Martouf Marty's Webpage || (LJ)

          Comment


            #6
            Time's linear, so it can't happen from the start. You have to have a number of timelines that "create" the timeline with the paradoxial timeloop. In "1969" we only see the paradoxial timeloop and not the timelines that created it.

            Comment


              #7
              When they went back in time, it had already happened. So they had to do it to make sure it happened so they would go back in time and do that so it would happen and so on...

              Am I making ANY sense today?

              Note: User's posts are rarely serious.
              Member of the F.O.R.D. || Martouf Marty's Webpage || (LJ)

              Comment


                #8
                Yes, you are. That describes the final paradoxial timeloop timeline, but there were non-timeloop timelines that lead up to it.

                Comment


                  #9
                  If you remember in the episode, Carter tells General Hammond that he had to live with that information for 30 years, but like she said earlier, they couldnt do anything that would further jeopardize the timelime in itself (Grandfather effect). Hammond basically had to act like he never saw them, but after time, he had forgotten until he saw Carter's hand and it reminded him of the event in 1969.
                  Red counter: 14 Dings and growing.

                  Green (positive) JELLO donations are always welcome


                  Mckay: Oh my god, He IS Kirk...

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Daniel Jackson
                    If they episode begins "before" the timeloop, Hammond wouldn't have that handy note to give Carter, becuase SG-1 wouldn't have met him in the past if it were the "first" timeline.


                    Actually, if you read what I mentioned more carefully, there's still the second timeline in which the note originated; in that one, Hammond's trying to find a way that'll actually allow SG-1 to return home again, unlike the first timeline. He accomplished that in the form of the note, and the note is from then on necessary in all iterations of the loop.

                    Still, Cassandra was waiting for SG-1 becuase they "never returend," wasn't she? If that's the case, that future will no longer exist, and SG-1 will encounter a nother future, or they don't show up in that future at all, and we end up with a major paradox.
                    Actually, she tells Carter that Cassandra was told about all this when she was "old enough to understand", and so she was waiting to complete another part of the loop by sending SG-1 back home. True, it could be possible for a timeline in which SG-1 skipped over that time (in which case Cassandra would've been most surprised to see them, rather than expecting them), but this wasn't it; it's possible that timeline B was one in which everyone in the future were surprised by their sudden appearance, and then another loop started in which Cassandra needed to be informed to help them get back again much sooner.

                    Well, you can't have a Quantum Multiverse with time travel. When we speak of alternate timelines, it's just an easier way of discussing alterations to a "single" timeline. Only one timeline can exist at a time, becuase it's their own reallity they're messing with. You mess up history, and your reallity (world you know, not other reallity/dimension) is gone as you know it, which is why they'd need to correct the timeline.
                    No, actually, time travel depends upon the Quantum Multiverse. Read The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch; it's got a very good summary of the actual physics behind all this fun stuff. More timelines than one (and do) exist (a timeline can exist for each possible path a particle can take), it's just that altering the timeline changes the probability of that timeline, or the proportion of realities that are similar to said timeline (and yes, there can be "proportions" of infinity; another good book I recommend is The Mystery of the Aleph by Amir D. Aczel); the danger then is not so much undoing your own existence (it'd all ready be undone, and that conversation opens up a whole new can of worms ), but rather getting trapped in a worse timeline. "Correcting" the timeline is then necessary to actually get back home.

                    Anyway, w/o the Quantum Multiverse, time travel couldn't occur because it would be destroying everything, and Stephen Hawking's "Chronology Protection Conjecture" hints at the likelihood that the universe would much rather destroy the traveler than let itself be utterly destroyed.

                    -Bloodaxe

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Erik Bloodaxe
                      No, actually, time travel depends upon the Quantum Multiverse. Read The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch; it's got a very good summary of the actual physics behind all this fun stuff. More timelines than one (and do) exist (a timeline can exist for each possible path a particle can take), it's just that altering the timeline changes the probability of that timeline, or the proportion of realities that are similar to said timeline (and yes, there can be "proportions" of infinity; another good book I recommend is The Mystery of the Aleph by Amir D. Aczel); the danger then is not so much undoing your own existence (it'd all ready be undone, and that conversation opens up a whole new can of worms ), but rather getting trapped in a worse timeline. "Correcting" the timeline is then necessary to actually get back home.

                      Anyway, w/o the Quantum Multiverse, time travel couldn't occur because it would be destroying everything, and Stephen Hawking's "Chronology Protection Conjecture" hints at the likelihood that the universe would much rather destroy the traveler than let itself be utterly destroyed.

                      -Bloodaxe
                      It sounds to me like you're describing other reallities, and not time travel. Here's how I picture time travel...

                      Say you have a stream. You dig a trench, then build a dam, the water now flows some where else. You could interpret that as alterring history. To repair history, not down the dam and plug up the trench you dug up, and walla, back to the old stream's coarse. Whut you describe sounds like hopping to different streams, and do me, that's not time travel at all, but simply travelling to other reallities.

                      Thoughts?

                      Comment


                        #12
                        .... I know! A Wizard did it!

                        Note: User's posts are rarely serious.
                        Member of the F.O.R.D. || Martouf Marty's Webpage || (LJ)

                        Comment


                          #13
                          the biggest [problem with any sci fi show, book, movie is when they bring time travel into the mix because of all the potential paradoxes. I say forget the paradoxes and go with suspension of disbelief, its a lot easier

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Daniel Jackson
                            Time's linear, so it can't happen from the start. You have to have a number of timelines that "create" the timeline with the paradoxial timeloop. In "1969" we only see the paradoxial timeloop and not the timelines that created it.
                            What are you on about? If somethings linear by definition it starts from the begining. Theres no way something can't start at it's begining by definition.

                            Any as time travels nigh impodsible in real life, we can't actually argue what would really happen because it can't. In "1969" the idea is that theres no paradox or altering timelines.

                            What happens is:
                            1969: A mysterious four person team appears in Missle Silo, are taken away. George Hammond finds the note and helps this team escape custody. Notices cut on Sams hand.

                            1999: Hammond notices the cut on Smas hand an rights the note. SG-1 are send back to 1969.

                            Theres no paradox at all, it just requires us to use the theory that their are no altering timelines, this of course contrasts slightly with 2010.
                            sigpic
                            Banner By JME2

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Well, in my belief, a traveling timeline is simply another reality since if you know if something is going to happen in the future, its possible to change the outcome in that future by changing the past of that future, therefore creating a reality, or in this case, a new future.
                              Red counter: 14 Dings and growing.

                              Green (positive) JELLO donations are always welcome


                              Mckay: Oh my god, He IS Kirk...

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X