'All Our Yesterdays' theory

[Greg Cox]

If your point is that time travel stories should have some internal logic to them, then I agree. But the exact details of how time travel works can and will vary from story to story, and aren't beholden to your own rules of time travel logic.

Exactly. It's like with vampires. Back when I writing the UNDERWORLD books, I was surprised to discover how many people seemed to think there was a universal rulebook for vampires that every book or movie or TV show needed to follow: "This is stupid. Everyone knows vampires can't have babies! BUFFY said so!"

I kept having to explain that UNDERWORLD vampires did not necessarily follow the same rules as BUFFY vampires . . . or TRUE BLOOD vampires . . . or Anne Rice vampires . . . or Bram Stoker vampires or whatever.

Same with time-travel. Certainly, you don't want to rewrite the rules mid-story, but there's no reason that every time-travel story, from H.G. Wells on, has to follow the same playbook. Or even that every method of time-travel operations under the same conditions. Clearly, the atavachron operates differently than, say, the Guardian of Forever . . . ..

 

[Melakon]

I ran into this when a friend argued with me about an alien race I invented. I had them as powerful telepaths, who also had some sort of telekinetic ability. He insisted that it was impossible for them to have both. It was my own sci-fi universe, they were my own aliens, yet he kept insisting I was wrong.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There's no evidence the Atavachron can send someone into the future.

Well...

It obviously can at least bring people from the past to its "present".

But only people that it had already sent back. There's no evidence that someone "native" to the past could be brought forward. The Atavachron could be like the Guardian in that way: you can't come forward through it if you didn't originally go BACK through it.

 

[Greg Cox]

I ran into this when a friend argued with me about an alien race I invented. I had them as powerful telepaths, who also had some sort of telekinetic ability. He insisted that it was impossible for them to have both. It was my own sci-fi universe, they were my own aliens, yet he kept insisting I was wrong.

Yeah, it's almost as though they imprint on the first version of some trope they see and internalize those rules as The rules.

Granted, if you're plowing well-tilled soil like time-travel or vampires, it helps to spell out your rules clearly so the reader doesn't get confused. With UNDERWORLD, I always made a point of establishing early on in each book that "Contrary to myth, Selene could see herself in the mirror" and so on.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Or even that every method of time-travel operations under the same conditions. Clearly, the atavachron operates different than, say, the Guardian of Forever . . . ..

That's always been my take on it as well, where settings have multiple methods of time travel...whether the setting is Trek or a shared comic book universe. Silver/Bronze Age Superman stories, for instance, had their own set of rules when Superman was traveling through time under his own steam...but the rules might vary when, say, the Flash, Atom, or Green Lantern traveled through time via their individual methods.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Or even that every method of time-travel operations under the same conditions. Clearly, the atavachron operates different than, say, the Guardian of Forever . . . ..

That's always been my take on it as well, where settings have multiple methods of time travel...whether the setting is Trek or a shared comic book universe. Silver/Bronze Age Superman stories, for instance, had their own set of rules when Superman was traveling through time under his own steam...but the rules might vary when, say, the Flash, Atom, or Green Lantern traveled through time via their individual methods.

I can buy that. A crude analogy, but sort of like how a hybrid vehicle has differences from a conventional-fuel car, which are different from horse-drawn carriages. They all do basically the same thing, but each has its own peculiarities.

Maybe it's more accurate to compare it to how each alien race seems to have its own particular transporter effect.

 

[publiusr]

Having one of these things right before the Big Rip might be handy as well.