Time Travel - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Time Travel

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
kalthandrix
Oct 15, 2005 10:53:28 I am making this thread to move the discussion from my item and spell thread so it does not become overly cluttered with different discussions. Here is my last post and several others from that thread.

cnahumck wrote:
#2
xlorepdarkhelm_dup
Oct 15, 2005 10:58:46 I'm personally an advocate of Avangions having temporal manipulation abilities (time travel spells). Mainly because I think it helps account for one of the little discrepencies in the setting -- the claims of Avangions in the past, when everything else tends to show that Oronis invented/created the spell series for Avangions, and that there's only been a handful of Avangions ever on Athas.
#3
lyric
Oct 15, 2005 16:10:36
Originally Posted by Grummore
If I would be handling time travel, I would tell my player to be careful but wouldnt say why.

In fact, IMO, if you return in time, let's say you move in time to the birth of Rajaat. Here is the big problem: How would you get back to your actual time since magic doesnt exist!?

I think we have to be careful since we are in a low magic setting where magic is a new born fact. Magic have been existing for a short period of time and so, how would you use magic to get back if actually, magic DOES NOT exist?

Originally Posted by Kalthandrix
Well here is an answer of sorts- the only way someone could time travel that far into the past, ie before his birth or even when he first started making magicyou would have to be several thousand years old- read over the Door of Time spell and you will see that travel into the past is limited to twice the casters age- so a PC would most likely never be able to time travel that far into the past to do so.

The only one who would be able to, or to cast the spell to enable anyone to do so, is Oronis- whom I am crediting with the creation of the Door of Time and the Step Into the Past spells. So actually, many of the problems associated with time travel and messing with really historical events are really limited to what the DM will allow, seeing how you would need in this cast Oronis to cast the spell.

Problem solved

As for magic not exiting in some point in history- well this would not affect the PC's whom are connected through the timestream by the 16 additional spellcasting pasticipants for the Door of Time spell, and just because no one else knows how magic works does not necessarly mean that is just does not exits- thousands of years ago we did not know that Pluto was a planet, but that does not mean that it did not exist. The PC's would have the knowledge to still use their magic- allowing for the fact that the PC's could even get so far back into the past that this issue would even come up.

That's pretty much what I would have said. If you take a defiler or preserver off athas into the planes, say, Dregoth through his mirror, does he cease to be able to cast his spells there because those rules for magic don't exist in any other variation of the same cosmos for other worlds? Nope. You take a wizard from athas to the planes and he can still cast spells, you take a wizard and toss him into athas' past, and he can still cast his spells, as long a there is an energy source... heck, perhaps the brown tide came about by a time traveling defiler trying to cast an ultra epic spell upon the life force of the blue seas of athas??

But yeah, if you don't want to handle things that far back, never let your PC's get the power to do so, or simply state that they aren't finding the resources and knowledge needed to craft time magic...

Oh, yeah.. I agree that Avangions should have temporal magic... but mostly because I like Avangions, and love time travel :D best of both worlds ;)
#4
ruhl-than_sage
Oct 15, 2005 17:35:18
I'm personally an advocate of Avangions having temporal manipulation abilities (time travel spells). Mainly because I think it helps account for one of the little discrepencies in the setting -- the claims of Avangions in the past, when everything else tends to show that Oronis invented/created the spell series for Avangions, and that there's only been a handful of Avangions ever on Athas.

That's a good point. Though it could be based on similar beings that existed in the past with a different origin. What are all the specific references to avangions in the past anyway?

There's the Thri-kreen's Great One, right? But what's the time-frame on him/her? Did (s)he exist before or after the creation of magic?
#5
zombiegleemax
Oct 15, 2005 17:52:51 The way I see it, time travel can be explained in a way that avoids the known paradoxes. How? Here's a picture for your infotainment ;)

IMAGE(http://lumumba.uhasselt.be/~danjal/timetravel.jpg)

You could look at life as a tree of events. Every event that has multiple options, creates that number of branches in the tree. Thus, reality as your characters see it, is one branch among the tree. (a)

If you travel back in time, you basicly return to a node in the tree that you visited before. (b)

To other characters - including your 'younger' self - this immediately shuts down the branch you followed in 'your' past, thus taking another path (c).

To the time traveler himself however, this can be seen as a path among the tree, containing a cycle. (the dots in (d) are the same node).

Taking this point of view, you can NEVER return to your original future, because the future is altered by your very return. But you don't have to worry about 'preventing your own birth', as it will technically not be YOU who will be born, but your identical twin.

I love theorising about this kinda stuff. What do y'all think?
#6
lyric
Oct 16, 2005 15:30:30 that IS an alternate way of doing things, however, to me, that makes it more like you're traveling not through time, but through realities, through each possible existing reality, and while your actions do influence where you go, you don't get complete control. It becomes more like sliders (if you recall the show) than Dr Who.. (if you recall that show :P)
#7
xlorepdarkhelm_dup
Oct 16, 2005 17:21:57 I'll have to dig up the book, but there was one that basically had two different approaches to time travel. The standard web/thread model people are used to, or the "wave" model, where you have distinct separate waves which people are existing in. When you travel back in time, you actually jump back to a different "wave" that is passing through that segment of time. Anything you do to affect that wave does not interfere with your own wave, and thus what you do will not produce a paradox. It is a similar theory as Steven King had used in the Langoliers. Each "wave" is basically it's own separate instance of reality, independent of all of the others -- and if you slip too forward in the wave, you actually see reality form around you, while if you slip too far back in the wave, you could potentially see reality be destroyed around you. However, you can casually hop from wave to wave with no worries about killing off your own grandfather and such.
#8
lyric
Oct 16, 2005 22:18:30 Reminds me of Dragon Ball Z time travel actually, in that fashion.. there were two or three alternate futures, that converged on a few points in the past/present, and attempted to alter things.. they did alter the past time line, but not their own future time lines.. but they did gain experience from their own travels of course..

Think of it like this.. you go back into the past, battle Rajaat for posession of a cool artifact, you win, you take it, you return home.. with tons of experience points, you go up a level... so now, in your own timeline, you have the artifact, and you've gone up a level.. but in your worlds history, the artifact was never taken..

You benefit, the world stays the same..

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 kalthandrix Oct 15, 2005 10:53:28	I am making this thread to move the discussion from my item and spell thread so it does not become overly cluttered with different discussions. Here is my last post and several others from that thread. cnahumck wrote:
#2 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Oct 15, 2005 10:58:46	I'm personally an advocate of Avangions having temporal manipulation abilities (time travel spells). Mainly because I think it helps account for one of the little discrepencies in the setting -- the claims of Avangions in the past, when everything else tends to show that Oronis invented/created the spell series for Avangions, and that there's only been a handful of Avangions ever on Athas.
#3 lyric Oct 15, 2005 16:10:36	Originally Posted by Grummore If I would be handling time travel, I would tell my player to be careful but wouldnt say why. In fact, IMO, if you return in time, let's say you move in time to the birth of Rajaat. Here is the big problem: How would you get back to your actual time since magic doesnt exist!? I think we have to be careful since we are in a low magic setting where magic is a new born fact. Magic have been existing for a short period of time and so, how would you use magic to get back if actually, magic DOES NOT exist? Originally Posted by Kalthandrix Well here is an answer of sorts- the only way someone could time travel that far into the past, ie before his birth or even when he first started making magicyou would have to be several thousand years old- read over the Door of Time spell and you will see that travel into the past is limited to twice the casters age- so a PC would most likely never be able to time travel that far into the past to do so. The only one who would be able to, or to cast the spell to enable anyone to do so, is Oronis- whom I am crediting with the creation of the Door of Time and the Step Into the Past spells. So actually, many of the problems associated with time travel and messing with really historical events are really limited to what the DM will allow, seeing how you would need in this cast Oronis to cast the spell. Problem solved As for magic not exiting in some point in history- well this would not affect the PC's whom are connected through the timestream by the 16 additional spellcasting pasticipants for the Door of Time spell, and just because no one else knows how magic works does not necessarly mean that is just does not exits- thousands of years ago we did not know that Pluto was a planet, but that does not mean that it did not exist. The PC's would have the knowledge to still use their magic- allowing for the fact that the PC's could even get so far back into the past that this issue would even come up. That's pretty much what I would have said. If you take a defiler or preserver off athas into the planes, say, Dregoth through his mirror, does he cease to be able to cast his spells there because those rules for magic don't exist in any other variation of the same cosmos for other worlds? Nope. You take a wizard from athas to the planes and he can still cast spells, you take a wizard and toss him into athas' past, and he can still cast his spells, as long a there is an energy source... heck, perhaps the brown tide came about by a time traveling defiler trying to cast an ultra epic spell upon the life force of the blue seas of athas?? But yeah, if you don't want to handle things that far back, never let your PC's get the power to do so, or simply state that they aren't finding the resources and knowledge needed to craft time magic... Oh, yeah.. I agree that Avangions should have temporal magic... but mostly because I like Avangions, and love time travel :D best of both worlds ;)
#4 ruhl-than_sage Oct 15, 2005 17:35:18	I'm personally an advocate of Avangions having temporal manipulation abilities (time travel spells). Mainly because I think it helps account for one of the little discrepencies in the setting -- the claims of Avangions in the past, when everything else tends to show that Oronis invented/created the spell series for Avangions, and that there's only been a handful of Avangions ever on Athas. That's a good point. Though it could be based on similar beings that existed in the past with a different origin. What are all the specific references to avangions in the past anyway? There's the Thri-kreen's Great One, right? But what's the time-frame on him/her? Did (s)he exist before or after the creation of magic?
#5 zombiegleemax Oct 15, 2005 17:52:51	The way I see it, time travel can be explained in a way that avoids the known paradoxes. How? Here's a picture for your infotainment ;) You could look at life as a tree of events. Every event that has multiple options, creates that number of branches in the tree. Thus, reality as your characters see it, is one branch among the tree. (a) If you travel back in time, you basicly return to a node in the tree that you visited before. (b) To other characters - including your 'younger' self - this immediately shuts down the branch you followed in 'your' past, thus taking another path (c). To the time traveler himself however, this can be seen as a path among the tree, containing a cycle. (the dots in (d) are the same node). Taking this point of view, you can NEVER return to your original future, because the future is altered by your very return. But you don't have to worry about 'preventing your own birth', as it will technically not be YOU who will be born, but your identical twin. I love theorising about this kinda stuff. What do y'all think?
#6 lyric Oct 16, 2005 15:30:30	that IS an alternate way of doing things, however, to me, that makes it more like you're traveling not through time, but through realities, through each possible existing reality, and while your actions do influence where you go, you don't get complete control. It becomes more like sliders (if you recall the show) than Dr Who.. (if you recall that show :P)
#7 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Oct 16, 2005 17:21:57	I'll have to dig up the book, but there was one that basically had two different approaches to time travel. The standard web/thread model people are used to, or the "wave" model, where you have distinct separate waves which people are existing in. When you travel back in time, you actually jump back to a different "wave" that is passing through that segment of time. Anything you do to affect that wave does not interfere with your own wave, and thus what you do will not produce a paradox. It is a similar theory as Steven King had used in the Langoliers. Each "wave" is basically it's own separate instance of reality, independent of all of the others -- and if you slip too forward in the wave, you actually see reality form around you, while if you slip too far back in the wave, you could potentially see reality be destroyed around you. However, you can casually hop from wave to wave with no worries about killing off your own grandfather and such.
#8 lyric Oct 16, 2005 22:18:30	Reminds me of Dragon Ball Z time travel actually, in that fashion.. there were two or three alternate futures, that converged on a few points in the past/present, and attempted to alter things.. they did alter the past time line, but not their own future time lines.. but they did gain experience from their own travels of course.. Think of it like this.. you go back into the past, battle Rajaat for posession of a cool artifact, you win, you take it, you return home.. with tons of experience points, you go up a level... so now, in your own timeline, you have the artifact, and you've gone up a level.. but in your worlds history, the artifact was never taken.. You benefit, the world stays the same..