Baal's Time Machine On Praxia

[fems]

But if Ba'al built the outpost (which I still doubt) then he would have to have built it twice; once in the original timeline and once in the new one. We don't know where he went when he dialed out from the ship the first time he came through, so there's a chance he went elsewhere to get started on building that outpost again in 1939 and to amass his armies.

So if Mitchell killed him the second time he came through the gate onto the ship then he would have never built the machine again, thus there wouldn't be an outpost in that timeline.

[Asgard Flu]

But if Ba'al built the outpost (which I still doubt) then he would have to have built it twice; once in the original timeline and once in the new one. We don't know where he went when he dialed out from the ship the first time he came through, so there's a chance he went elsewhere to get started on building that outpost again in 1939 and to amass his armies.

So if Mitchell killed him the second time he came through the gate onto the ship then he would have never built the machine again, thus there wouldn't be an outpost in that timeline.

Are you all winding me up? the machine was built before any time travelling took place, it was built so he COULD time travel. The time traveling that takes place makes absolutely no difference to the machine, it gets built every single time in all timelines!
In the altered timeline then yes, he built it again because he'd changed things, but once the timeline went back to how it was meant to be, the timeline went back to the one where he built it in order to travel to the ship to sink the gate, therefore it exists and was never destroyed.

[Pytheas]

I've never been able to follow most time-based episodes, because half of them make no sense, either by the process or the paradoxes they create. I choose to see time travel as being nothing more than creating another alternative reality, but that runs parallel (on another dimension?!) to the other alternative realities that exist (those that can be accessed through the Quantum Mirror in Stargate). So, as long as it's just a one-way ticket, travelling into a "Beta" Reality (one altered by travelling through time) from an Alpha Reality would not require the use of the time machine.

Plus, even in the process assumed by Continuum, if the time machine was built after 1997 (they say he got the idea from SG-1), and the timeline is altered in 1939, then as long as the facility is automatically created by the fabric of the cosmos by means of a glitch in space created as a result of the time travel (or some other mumbo-jumbo), then it would not have been created. So it doesn't exist. I think... yes, no... it doesn't exist.

Wait...

"You're not thinking four-dimensionally enough!"

[fems]

In the altered timeline then yes, he built it again because he'd changed things, but once the timeline went back to how it was meant to be, the timeline went back to the one where he built it in order to travel to the ship to sink the gate, therefore it exists and was never destroyed.

But by traveling to the ship to sink the gate (at the end) he entered a new/different timeline, where he had not yet created the machine and got killed by Mitchell before he ever could. Therefore the timeline unfolded as it was supposed to (no major changes, assuming Mitchell didn't interfere) and with all events occurring as they should this new timeline was practically the same as the original one. Hence, the machine doesn't exist at the end of the movie.

Of course, I don't believe it was Ba'al who built it but rather the Ancients so in that case the outpost would still exist.

[Asgard Flu]

But by traveling to the ship to sink the gate (at the end) he entered a new/different timeline, where he had not yet created the machine and got killed by Mitchell before he ever could. Therefore the timeline unfolded as it was supposed to (no major changes, assuming Mitchell didn't interfere) and with all events occurring as they should this new timeline was practically the same as the original one. Hence, the machine doesn't exist at the end of the movie.

Of course, I don't believe it was Ba'al who built it but rather the Ancients so in that case the outpost would still exist.

But it DOES get built by Baal in the original un-altered timeline, thats how he time travels in the first place! why can you people not grasp this simple fact! the machine isn't only built in the altered timeline, it's built in the first ever original one because that is how he finds the solar flare to originally travel back in time to the correct time and place to sink the gate!
How the hell do you all think he time traveled in the first ever instance?
The Baal that was being extracted even says that SG-1 gave him the idea in the first place to use a solar flare to time travel and he said that before the timeline got altered, so the machine at Praxia exists in the first ever unaltered timeline therefore when mitchel puts things right then Baal will still build the machine.
Does everyone think he just got lucky to find the relevant solar flare to go back to the time the gate was being shipped across the ocean? he would have needed to place sattelites all over the galaxy and build the Praxia machine in order to go exactly where he wanted to go.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[fems]

But it DOES get built by Baal in the original un-altered timeline, thats how he time travels in the first place! why can you people not grasp this simple fact! the machine isn't only built in the altered timeline, it's built in the first ever original one because that is how he finds the solar flare to originally travel back in time to the correct time and place to sink the gate!
How the hell do you all think he time traveled in the first ever instance?
The Baal that was being extracted even says that SG-1 gave him the idea in the first place to use a solar flare to time travel and he said that before the timeline got altered, so the machine at Praxia exists in the first ever unaltered timeline therefore when mitchel puts things right then Baal will still build the machine.
Does everyone think he just got lucky to find the relevant solar flare to go back to the time the gate was being shipped across the ocean? he would have needed to place sattelites all over the galaxy and build the Praxia machine in order to go exactly where he wanted to go.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To me it seems you are the one with the comprehension problem; I was merely saying I don't think it was Ba'al who built it, mostly because of its design, all the satellites that would have been needed and the Ancient language that was shown.

So, all he had to do was stumble across it and perhaps modify its original function (mere observation and cataloging perhaps) to what he needed it to do; travel back in time from 2008. All questionable things like how he would have even known where to go and how/when the gate was originally transported aside, he managed to travel to 1939 and get aboard the ship and alter the timeline.

Presumably this is also when he rebuilt the machine, although I'm not sure why since it seems like everything went as planned and he would have needed those 70 years to get to the position he was in to attack/enslave Earth. Maybe it was a backup plan for when things didn't turn out the way he wanted them to and he could redo it.

Or, what I think is the case, the device wasn't built by Ba'al but the Ancients, waaaay before 1939 and thus would still exist in the altered timeline.

Either way, Carter, Daniel and Mitchell managed to travel to the same alternate timeline and did their thing, ending with Mitchell's trip back to the past (in a timeline different from the original and the altered one, but presumably resembling the original one closest).

Then, in 1939, Mitchell is on the ship awaiting Ba'al's arrival and kills him. The timeline unfolds as it should have now that Ba'al isn't there to alter it and we fast forward to 2008 where the extraction ceremony goes through successfully.

However, with the original Ba'al (who according to some built the machine) killed in 1939 he never managed to build the machine again in the current timeline, so at the end of the movie we're in a different altered timeline that closely resembles the original one (only differences are presumably an extra Mitchell in the past, dead original Ba'al in 1939 and a successful extraction ceremony) but no machine to travel through time waiting to be discovered again...

Unless it wasn't built by Ba'al and earlier than 1939, of course.

[SaberBlade]

But it DOES get built by Baal in the original un-altered timeline, thats how he time travels in the first place! why can you people not grasp this simple fact! the machine isn't only built in the altered timeline, it's built in the first ever original one because that is how he finds the solar flare to originally travel back in time to the correct time and place to sink the gate!
How the hell do you all think he time traveled in the first ever instance?
The Baal that was being extracted even says that SG-1 gave him the idea in the first place to use a solar flare to time travel and he said that before the timeline got altered, so the machine at Praxia exists in the first ever unaltered timeline therefore when mitchel puts things right then Baal will still build the machine.
Does everyone think he just got lucky to find the relevant solar flare to go back to the time the gate was being shipped across the ocean? he would have needed to place sattelites all over the galaxy and build the Praxia machine in order to go exactly where he wanted to go.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't matter that Baal built it to go back in time in the original timeline, he travelled back in time about 70 years. So unless the device was built 70 years ago, when he went back it would have ceased existing.

It's exactly like Window of Opportunity. O'Neill makes a recording, but when he went back in time, it ceased to exist. Baal made a time machine. When he went back, it ceased to exist.

Since SG1 gave him the idea, it's impossible for the machine to exist before SG1 were born. This brings me back to the machine not existing when Baal went back so would need to be created again. Thus, the machine could have never existed if it was built after Baal intended to sink the gate.

[Pytheas]

Unaltered
1900---------1997-98: Stargate found, events of 1969---????: Baal creates time machine------2008: Baal uses time machine

vvvvvvvvvvv
TRAVELS TO:
vvvvvvvvvvv

Altered
1939: Baal enters altered universe, killed on entry-----1997-98: Stargate found, events of 1969---2005-: Baal presumably never has the idea, never builds the time machine, etc.------2008: Baal is executed

Although, having gone through it, whose to say that Baal wouldn't have had the idea a second time, in the altered universe? This is why sci-fi writers really need to nail the conceptual intricacies of time-travel writing before doing it.

[Snowman37]

Let me simplify...

Timeline A: The original timeline. It's highly doubtful that Ba'al built that massive time machine complex and all of the satellites within two or three years as a failsafe. He never would have needed it prior to the fall of the Goa'uld. He probably didn't get the idea until after he was hiding out on Earth while the Ori Priors were popping up around the galaxy. I think it's safe to assume that he simply found a solar observatory and realized it could be used as a time machine. Reasonable, no? Regardless, Ba'al found or built a time machine. He goes back in time while his last surviving clone taunts General O'Neill and SG-1 on the Tok'ra homeworld. Everyone begins to vanish; Carter, Mitchell, and Jackson escape through the stargate...

Timeline B: Ba'al shows up in 1939 and begins rewriting history. In the present day, what's left of SG-1 returns to Earth... in the alternate timeline. At the end of the movie, Mitchell escapes back to 1929...

Timeline C: Mitchell arrives in 1929. Ten years later, Ba'al travels back from the future to 1939 about the Achilles where he and his Jaffa are killed by Mitchell and the ship's captain (Mitchell's grandfather). Fast forward to the present day. No one disappears, the last surviving clone boasts about Ba'al's failsafe plan anyway, and the extraction ceremony goes as planned. Ba'al still goes back to 1939 only to be shot by Cameron Mitchell, time traveler and former member of SG-1. In the present, Ba'al's time travel complex goes unknown to the SGC.

Point is, that facility is how Ba'al went back in time to begin with. Presumably, he built an alternate timeline counterpart, the one we actually saw in the movie's climax. With the timeline restored, the one Ba'al built in the proper timeline will likely remain a mystery. Unless someone stumbles upon it via the stargate.

[Brother Freyr]

Most importantly, whether a time machine exists (and I'm in the "no" camp), there are no more Ba'al's to use it.

[Asgard Flu]

Let me simplify...

Timeline A: The original timeline. It's highly doubtful that Ba'al built that massive time machine complex and all of the satellites within two or three years as a failsafe. He never would have needed it prior to the fall of the Goa'uld. He probably didn't get the idea until after he was hiding out on Earth while the Ori Priors were popping up around the galaxy. I think it's safe to assume that he simply found a solar observatory and realized it could be used as a time machine. Reasonable, no? Regardless, Ba'al found or built a time machine. He goes back in time while his last surviving clone taunts General O'Neill and SG-1 on the Tok'ra homeworld. Everyone begins to vanish; Carter, Mitchell, and Jackson escape through the stargate...

Timeline B: Ba'al shows up in 1939 and begins rewriting history. In the present day, what's left of SG-1 returns to Earth... in the alternate timeline. At the end of the movie, Mitchell escapes back to 1929...

Timeline C: Mitchell arrives in 1929. Ten years later, Ba'al travels back from the future to 1939 about the Achilles where he and his Jaffa are killed by Mitchell and the ship's captain (Mitchell's grandfather). Fast forward to the present day. No one disappears, the last surviving clone boasts about Ba'al's failsafe plan anyway, and the extraction ceremony goes as planned. Ba'al still goes back to 1939 only to be shot by Cameron Mitchell, time traveler and former member of SG-1. In the present, Ba'al's time travel complex goes unknown to the SGC.

Point is, that facility is how Ba'al went back in time to begin with. Presumably, he built an alternate timeline counterpart, the one we actually saw in the movie's climax. With the timeline restored, the one Ba'al built in the proper timeline will likely remain a mystery. Unless someone stumbles upon it via the stargate.

Finally! someone who understands!

[Asgard Flu]

It doesn't matter that Baal built it to go back in time in the original timeline, he travelled back in time about 70 years. So unless the device was built 70 years ago, when he went back it would have ceased existing.

It wouldn't exist in the past but Baal gets shot in the head, therefore all events unfold from then on as they should therefore future Baal will still build it and travel back in time to get shot again. Come on!

[Mnikolic]

Let me simplify...

Timeline A: The original timeline. It's highly doubtful that Ba'al built that massive time machine complex and all of the satellites within two or three years as a failsafe. He never would have needed it prior to the fall of the Goa'uld. He probably didn't get the idea until after he was hiding out on Earth while the Ori Priors were popping up around the galaxy. I think it's safe to assume that he simply found a solar observatory and realized it could be used as a time machine. Reasonable, no? Regardless, Ba'al found or built a time machine. He goes back in time while his last surviving clone taunts General O'Neill and SG-1 on the Tok'ra homeworld. Everyone begins to vanish; Carter, Mitchell, and Jackson escape through the stargate...

Timeline B: Ba'al shows up in 1939 and begins rewriting history. In the present day, what's left of SG-1 returns to Earth... in the alternate timeline. At the end of the movie, Mitchell escapes back to 1929...

Timeline C: Mitchell arrives in 1929. Ten years later, Ba'al travels back from the future to 1939 about the Achilles where he and his Jaffa are killed by Mitchell and the ship's captain (Mitchell's grandfather). Fast forward to the present day. No one disappears, the last surviving clone boasts about Ba'al's failsafe plan anyway, and the extraction ceremony goes as planned. Ba'al still goes back to 1939 only to be shot by Cameron Mitchell, time traveler and former member of SG-1. In the present, Ba'al's time travel complex goes unknown to the SGC.

Point is, that facility is how Ba'al went back in time to begin with. Presumably, he built an alternate timeline counterpart, the one we actually saw in the movie's climax. With the timeline restored, the one Ba'al built in the proper timeline will likely remain a mystery. Unless someone stumbles upon it via the stargate.

Finally! someone who understands!

Maybe the writers, if the franchise would go on, would do a continuation of the story and have this mystery resolved.

Persoanlly, I think (although my memory of the movie is rather fuzzy) that if Ba'al's time machine really did exist in the original timeline and if it still exists in the restored one, it became all rusty and had collected a lot of dust since it's last use in the altered timeline (if he was all for the secret time travel program thing, than he wouldn't time-travel from a ship or from a planet). You see, Ba'al didn't tell anyone of his time machine, perhaps not even to his clone, if he's smart. Also, he would have needed a Stargate which wouldn't be connected to the Stargate network, mentioned by Daniel in "Children of the Gods", so SG-1 wouldn't come across it. If the time machine does exist, SGC doesn't have to worry about it if somehow they find out about it, because they don't have the Stargate address which leads to it - actually, the same pretty much goes for everyone else in the Universe.

Unless some kid from some planet or even from Earth (now that the Stargate program went public) accidentally guesses the address and somehoew, SG-1 is called to destroy the device, I think we're good.

[Brother Freyr]

The rules of this particular movie establish that changing causal events in the past does make things disappear in the future. Thus (assuming Ba'al built the device), Ba'al's death in 1939 causes the device to disappear.

Those are the rules of this particular episode, however they conflict with other episodes in which timelines are mapped over multi-verses.

[Snowman37]

The rules of this particular movie establish that changing causal events in the past does make things disappear in the future.

Nope. Mitchell, Ba'al, and his Jaffa were never suppose to be in 1939. The stargate was never suppose to activate in 1939. The brief attack on the Jaffa and Ba'al were never supposed to happen in 1939. Mitchell presumably lives out his life in the past. The future at the end of the film is exactly as the beginning, only the timeline's not shifting, so Ba'al's (the clone) extraction continues without a hitch. So much for casual events changing the future...

Thus (assuming Ba'al built the device), Ba'al's death in 1939 causes the device to disappear.

It's assumed that Ba'al built or found his fail safe device in the proper timeline in order to go back to 1939 to begin with. His death in 1939 merely restores the timeline. Ba'al still finds or builds his fail safe device between 2006 and 2008. He uses it to go back in time to 1939 to change history. Nothing happens to the present day timeline, because Mitchell (from the original timeline) was waiting for him.

If Ba'al didn't build his fail safe in the original timeline, please explain to me how he went back to 1939.

Those are the rules of this particular episode, however they conflict with other episodes in which timelines are mapped over multi-verses.

"Before I Sleep" is the only time-travel episode to imply a multi-verse. All other time-travel episodes have suggested a single timeline that can be rewritten. This is why restoring history was so critical in "Moebius" and Continuum. It's also why changing the future was so critical in "2010" and "The Last Man."