'All Our Yesterdays' theory
- Thread starter LMFAOschwarz
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True, but it obviously can't send people beyond the nova, even if at earlier times the Library had disks of the future. But having disks of things yet to come doesn't really sound like a library any more.
True, but it obviously can't send people beyond the nova, even if at earlier times the Library had disks of the future. But having disks of things yet to come doesn't really sound like a library any more.
Yeah. There being no planet past the time of the nova might throw a wrench in the works for whoever wanted to go forward.
Since "Atavachron" is a coined Latin-Greek hybrid word that literally means "to regress in time," I assume that's what it does.
Though that might have something to do with not being "prepared", whatever that is.
And that's more of a rubber band effect, it's not sending someone forward with the machine from its current location.
On the other hand, if someone from, say, the last year of Sarpeidon sent discs linked to points from its recent past to somewhere in the more distant past … it's not clear to me that would prohibit the traveller in the far past from moving to her future/the disc's past.
This could create the Somewhere In Time style closed-time-loop paradox about where the library's discs come from, certainly.
That's clever, but maybe those disks wouldn't work, same as the phasers didn't work. Also, could be that preparing certain kinds of tech wouldn't help either. For example, maybe the phasers would stop working as soon as they were prepared.
Ah, thanks!
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atavus
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/χρόνος#Ancient_Greek
SPOCK: Sir, you are employing a double negative.
The phasers didn't work for Spock and McCoy, who had not been "prepared." Yet preparing anachronistic items will stop them from working? Huh?
I expressed exactly what I meant. I said, "Also, could be that preparing certain kinds of tech wouldn't help either." There's no reason to conclude that the phasers must work, even if they were prepared.
That is to say, if someone wrote a sequel in which hand phasers didn't work even if they had been prepared, then that would be perfectly consistent and plausible based on everything we saw in the episode. No examples of them working after being prepared were shown in the episode, so it's wide open for how a sequel handles the question.
There are any number of reasons that could be imagined to justify this behavior, if needed. Just to name two off the top of my head: maybe the act of preparing phasers shorts out some key component immediately; perhaps the Atavachron is based on certain theories of physics in which values assumed to be physical constants aren't really constant.
And, for the record, the constructions of mine that you highlighted are not double negatives.
Here or there, you're presenting your opinion of how time travel should work as if it were some inviolable set of rules that all writers of time travel stories must follow...and guess what, they don't.
Building off this idea, we can go further. We don't know what "preparing" actually does. Perhaps preparing weapons insures they are operable only within the time frame where that technology is available. A .45 pistol might work until a certain point in the past. If phaser technology was never invented on the planet, they might not work at all after going through the Atavachron.
Ah, yes, very good. In other words, what you're proposing is that perhaps part of the very function of the Atavachron is to preserve the integrity of the timeline. Very, very good. That explains quite a lot, including Spock's emotional regression.
Ah, yes, very good. In other words, what you're proposing is that perhaps part of the very function of the Atavachron is to preserve the integrity of the timeline. Very, very good. That explains quite a lot, including Spock's emotional regression.
Yeah...but for one thing: Spock was never "prepared"!
Ah, yes, very good. In other words, what you're proposing is that perhaps part of the very function of the Atavachron is to preserve the integrity of the timeline. Very, very good. That explains quite a lot, including Spock's emotional regression.
Yeah...but for one thing: Spock was never "prepared"!
Well, according to this idea, Spock was never prepared for the changes that the Atavachron would necessarily force him to undergo regardless. If the function of the Atavachron is to protect the timeline, at least to some degree, then it's easy to imagine that it could be designed to impose certain physical modifications on what it sent through automatically. Perhaps preparing simply made sure that those physical modifications were survived.
Yes, it is opinion, but I also qualified that opinion. No one has really time traveled, so we must fall back on logic. I also pointed out that writers of paradox time travel stories try to have things both ways. Readers of other stories expect logic and continuity, but bad time travel stories are exempt.
In the movie JURASSIC PARK there is a scene in the T. Rex paddock where the dinosaur effortlessly stomps through the unpowered electric fence. Only minutes later that same ground-level paddock is suddenly a 40 meter drop that the SUV is pushed over. By the "rules" of time travel, this is perfectly acceptable because the writer wanted it that way.
In James Cameron's AVATAR there is s scene early in the movie were the Na'vi l'ances harmlessly plink off the armor of the Terran helicopters. Later in the movie the same spears righteously smash clean through. This also is not a discontinuity because the writer wanted it that way.
And in BACK TO THE FUTURE II Doc even explains the alternate history concept, then later tells Marty not to worry about Jennifer, who has been abandoned on a porch in the alternate reality. Doc glosses over the inconvenience to the movie makers of having to return for Jennifer (and Einstein) by saying, "Assuming we succeed in our mission, this alternate 1985 will be changed back into the 'real' 1985, instantaneously transforming around Jennifer and Einie."
Invoking time travel is a get-out-of-jail-free card to do anything at all.
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.
One of my favorite displays of temporal mechanics is:
—Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
"Trash can... remember a trash can!"
—Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
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