Spoilers Timeless: Season 1 on NBC

[Mr Awe]

^As I've said many times, I do not dispute the possibility that it can happen that way. I am merely pointing out that it doesn't invariably have to, that that's just one of the two possible outcomes.

We just have different takes on the matter. I do entirely understand what you're saying. You're picturing the whole tapestry of, say, 10 generations. Your input into the system is that you change one person in the oldest generation and hold everything else constant. The expectation is that because you're holding everything else constant, the output you end up with is a very small difference in the present.

I just have an entirely different view. For one thing, you can't hold everything else constant. So, you change one person in the oldest generation, and this results in entirely new people who behave differently, do different things, and, importantly, have kids with different people than the the original timeline. Now you have a person who didn't exist originally having kids with entirely different people and that repeats over 10 generations and the differences just magnify. You can't hold everything constant, all of those interactions are going to change everything about the people.

I do agree that all of these changes in people may or may not change the flow of history. You might have fairly similar history in broad strokes just with a bunch of different people. Or, you could possibly end up with a radically different history. I think that depends on the specific people that no longer exist versus the new people who now do exist. I agree with you on that standpoint that the broad strokes of history don't necessarily need to be different within a given time period.

Although, I'd add that the probability of a major divergence increases with the amount of time because the change in people increases exponentially. So, it's probably just a matter of time before they produce a major divergence.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

I think this episode marks the latest point in history that we'll ever see them travel to as long as they're chasing Garcia Flynn, since Goran Visnjic is 44 years old. Assuming Flynn is the same age, then he traveled back to just a couple of months before his birth. And as he said, you can't travel to a time when you already exist.

I generally agree with your take on this. I was hoping it was more than just a large conspiracy. The idea of this super secret group manipulating events since Revolutionary War days is ludicrous. I have to wonder what the solution is too? Too destroy Rittenhouse without changing history too dramatically? If Rittenhouse has played a very large role in shaping history, that's essentially impossible. You remove Rittenhouse and history will be hugely different. That's the logical result if you posit that Rittenhouse has been hugely influential.

In fact, that would make a fascinating episode where if they found a way to delete Rittenhouse and they then return to an unrecognizable present! The next episode seems to be set during the Revolutionary War, perhaps they'll find a way to prevent Rittenhouse from existing?

But, to your point about the ages. I hadn't thought of that but it introduces and interesting possibility. If this were the real world, they'd undoubtedly recruit younger and younger people so they could go to the more recent past. Plus, it would really be that you'd have to go back further than your age plus 9 months because you still exist in the womb. But, the main cast are all younger than Flynn (I think), so they could theoretically travel to more recent times if they wanted. They could do this to basically collect intelligence I suppose. Or, they could stop Flynn's family from being killed and thereby prevent him from taking the route that he did.

Various interesting possibilities there where they use the time machine not just to stop Flynn but to proactively get information and change things to their advantage.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

Same guy. He was putting on a good Poker Face to hide that he knew Lucy. So his voice and personality he was projecting was a little different.

Yes, I actually had to go back and compare the scenes on my DVR to confirm that it was the same old guy!

Mr Awe

 

[Christopher]

You have the supercomputer that has the original history (counterpart to Ziggy) in there too.

No, we don't. The only people who remember the original history are the travelers themselves. When they come back, all the historical records are changed to reflect the altered history, and only the travelers are able to tell the others that history has been changed.

Even aside from that, Timeless has virtually nothing in common with Quantum Leap aside from being a time-travel show on NBC. QL was a show in the classic pseudo-anthology mold, with the overarching premise being little more than an excuse to generate a diverse range of self-contained stories where each episode had the lead actor adopt a different role dealing with different problems in a different setting. Donald Bellisario wanted to do an anthology series, but those had become unpopular with networks, so he created an ongoing-series premise that would be as anthology-like as possible. Timeless, by contrast, is in the modern mold where there's a single overarching story that drives the whole thing and the individual episodes are just pieces of that puzzle. Also, QL's focus was very much on the small scale, dealing with personal problems and deliberately avoiding the cliche of focusing only on big, famous historical events as shows like The Time Tunnel and Voyagers! had done -- at least until later seasons when they started doing the occasional big-event episode to boost sagging ratings. Timeless has been all about big historical events and figures. So it couldn't be more diametrically opposite to Quantum Leap in its intentions and emphasis. It's really more of a hybrid of things like The Time Tunnel and Seven Days -- and the producers have specifically cited Voyagers! as an influence, which is kind of mind-boggling, because that show was dumb as hell and I'm amazed anyone even remembers it.

We just have different takes on the matter. I do entirely understand what you're saying. You're picturing the whole tapestry of, say, 10 generations. Your input into the system is that you change one person in the oldest generation and hold everything else constant. The expectation is that because you're holding everything else constant, the output you end up with is a very small difference in the present.

No. No. No. Not "is." Can be. What I've been saying over and over is that it can happen either way. Physics and probability do not compel a single inevitable outcome in every case. Rather, they define a range of different possible outcomes, each with a different probability attached. Some are more likely than others, but they all have a chance to happen. The outcome you're describing will happen in many cases, yes. I have stated that over and over and over again. I am merely saying that there is a second possibility that coexists along with it. I am not saying it's either your way or my way. I'm saying it's both. How many more times do I have to repeat that?

Although, I'd add that the probability of a major divergence increases with the amount of time because the change in people increases exponentially. So, it's probably just a matter of time before they produce a major divergence.

That's only half of it, though. Again, you're only seeing one side, and I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm saying it's incomplete. The exponential increase goes in the other direction too, in that any single ancestral line becomes an exponentially smaller part of the total number of contributing factors to your past. So it's just a question of which exponential increase wins in a given instance, which one overwhelms the other. The process you're talking about is competing with the process I'm talking about, and just as in any competition, there's no guarantee that the same side will always win. Sometimes the Cubs win the World Series.

 

[sojourner]

Sometimes the Cubs win the World Series.

But most of the time, they don't.

The best way to defeat Rittenhouse? Go back in time to before it was created and create your own secret cabal working even deeper behind the scenes with the mandate to get into key positions within Rittenhouse and then wait for a sign from you on when to act. Return to your own time, give the signal, Rittenhouse goes down from the inside and the timeline as yu know it is preserved.

 

[LJones41]

Perhaps they'll eventually realize there is no way to defeat Rittenhouse and will have to find another way to deal with it.

The idea of this super secret group manipulating events since Revolutionary War days is ludicrous.

Is it? I think it's plausible.

 

[Christopher]

Is it? I think it's plausible.

No way. Like I said, the larger a conspiracy is, the more impossible it becomes to keep it secret indefinitely. Maybe a really small conspiracy could keep itself secret sufficiently to ensure that history never learned about it, but a massive, sweeping conspiracy that pervades all of society for generations? Absurd. With that many people involved, the odds of a leak or a critical mistake rise to effective certainty in a relatively short span of time. That's why conspiracies like Watergate and Iran-Contra do get discovered -- because they were large enough and had enough important people involved in them that it just wasn't practical to keep people from finding out about them. Given how intently politicians try to investigate and expose their rivals, how much new regimes like to make their names by cleaning out the messes of their predecessors, and how intently journalists try to dig up dirt on politicians, Washington in particular is an exceedingly hard place to keep secrets in. Generally the only way something can reliably be kept secret is if everyone in both political parties and the press are in agreement that keeping the secret is in the best interests of the nation. And even then, later history will probably find out, once the need for secrecy has passed.

So it's actually pretty contradictory to tie this supposedly sooper-seekrit Rittenhouse conspiracy so directly into Watergate, a conspiracy that was uncovered and thoroughly investigated. There was so much scrutiny brought to bear on the events of Watergate and everyone involved with it that any Rittenhouse connections would almost certainly have been exposed.

 

[Kahless the Unforgettable]

No way. Like I said, the larger a conspiracy is, the more impossible it becomes to keep it secret indefinitely. Maybe a really small conspiracy could keep itself secret sufficiently to ensure that history never learned about it, but a massive, sweeping conspiracy that pervades all of society for generations? Absurd. With that many people involved, the odds of a leak or a critical mistake rise to effective certainty in a relatively short span of time.

And yet there's absolutely no way to know for sure.

I also have to laugh at your obsession with the "math" of it. According to the same type of math, everyone is a descendant of <insert historical figure here, such as Charlemagne>, all while completely ignoring all the reasons everyone isn't. You know, like everyone doesn't (unknowingly) mate with their distant relatives, which everyone actually does.

 

[Mr Awe]

No. No. No. Not "is." Can be. What I've been saying over and over is that it can happen either way. I'm saying it's both. How many more times do I have to repeat that?

I do get what you're saying. Yes, probability comes into play. But, it's not a case of me misunderstanding you. I understand what you're saying, I just disagree with it.

You talk of probability, but there are some certain outcomes that are involved. Once you change one of the distant ancestors, you have 100% chance that all offspring of the original descendant will be different. You have a 100% chance that if you're a 10th generation descendant of that ancestor in original timeline, you won't exist in the new timeline. If you assume that there is continual succession of descendants after the initial change (i.e., they aren't all wiped out), the number of new totally different people will definitely increase.

Then you get all the interactions between different people behaving differently and having kids with different people. There are a wide variety of possible outcomes. It's very unlikely that of all possible outcomes the result would be an outcome that is very similar down to the same people in the same circumstances as the original timeline. There would be a certainty of different people and there would be a virtual certainty that these people would change at least their local circumstances, living arrangements, etc. They are different people after all.

I'd agree that in terms of the degree of change in the broad strokes of history, probability plays a bigger factor. You will have different people, but the degree of change is based on probability of different outcomes. However, as the number of different people increases over time, you can be sure the probability of a major divergence increases, and given a sufficient amount of time, eventually becomes a virtual certainty.

It's alright, we don't have to agree. You've put a lot of thought and study in your viewpoint and I respect that. It did get me thinking about my own position on it, and I just happened to come to a different conclusion.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

But most of the time, they don't.

The best way to defeat Rittenhouse? Go back in time to before it was created and create your own secret cabal working even deeper behind the scenes with the mandate to get into key positions within Rittenhouse and then wait for a sign from you on when to act. Return to your own time, give the signal, Rittenhouse goes down from the inside and the timeline as yu know it is preserved.

I was addressing this in an earlier post. If Rittenhouse is so influential over the life of the U.S., then they've actively steered events. If you remove them from history, the future should be radically different. I think that would make an interesting story line where they prevent Rittenhouse from forming and then get back to an unrecognizable future. The trick then becomes to control Rittenhouse in such a manner that it (mostly) preserves history but yet removes their evil side.

If they infilitrate it as you suggest, the infilitrators would need to have Rittenhouse do what it would've done anyway, which would be tough on the good guys! But, that might be one way to do it.

Mr Awe

 

[Scout101]

Good luck, I tried it as well, to no avail. He's stuck on the genetics, but no one is arguing we turn into flying monkeys because of a different ancestor, just that I'll either be a different Scout101, or I may not exist at all. (Or may be female, or maybe I'm Mexican, who knows).

Yes, his 0.000001% example is ALSO possible, but he keeps dismissing the other fairly large percentage chance that it affects things the way you and I said.

Yes, most big historical moments will probably still happen. if not Hitler, someone else. WWI ended that badly. But maybe the 'someone else' doesn't have a hair across his ass about Jews.

Scout101 is not an inevitable result. The same two people had sex 3 years later, and my brother was born, not another copy of me. Vaguely similar look, genetically very close I'm sure, but he's not me.

I'm not sure why that part is even an argument. Even if no relatives change, a change in the circumstances will change a million different things. Have a girl instead of a boy, throws off a succession of marriages and further relations. Maybe the kid is just a few months younger, so ends up in a different class, doesn't marry his high school sweetheart because they're in different grades/social circles. Or the boy that was a girl in the other timeline joins the Army and settles in Germany, now your family isn't born in the US anymore, trigger bunch more little changes.

Doesn't mean the fabric of time will be ripped apart, or even that major events will happen much differently in many cases. But especially the further back you go, the more these very minor changes will propagate and ripple. They may not all matter, maybe the girl that would have been a boy still dies in a car crash at age 10, or was never going to have kids. maybe everyone stays local and no one ever became anything much, so it's just a few people with their last names shuffled a bit. Enough of those things WOULD result in some subtle changes, though. Much more likely than not. Which is why I made the small comment/joke about how the actors in the control room should be changed every now and then (or for an episode or whatever) to reflect that. Just have someone missing one episode, back the next, to that effect. or Chris is running the computer instead of Christine, whatever.

Instead, they're mucking with history, coming home, and then continuing a fight or discussion right where they left off.

What's the probability of things changing so little that the words and emotion of a basic conversation are happening at the same time and exactly the same way every time? Seems low, but I don't know enough temporal mechanics to show my work

 

[Scout101]

Also hate the evil conspiracy trope. It's lazy and rarely makes any sense when thought out.

 

[Christopher]

You talk of probability, but there are some certain outcomes that are involved. Once you change one of the distant ancestors, you have 100% chance that all offspring of the original descendant will be different. You have a 100% chance that if you're a 10th generation descendant of that ancestor in original timeline, you won't exist in the new timeline.

That is way too simplistic. A 100% chance? Come on. Nothing is so absolute. An argument that denies any possibility of uncertainty is completely unscientific and closed-minded. We do not live in a deterministic universe. We live in a quantum universe where outcomes are probabilistic. You can't say something is 100% certain unless you're able to know every last variable that affects it, and the Uncertainty Principle alone makes that impossible, along with the sheer size of the universe.

 

[dahj]

Also hate the evil conspiracy trope. It's lazy and rarely makes any sense when thought out.

That's what they want you to think...

 

[Timewalker]

... the producers have specifically cited Voyagers! as an influence, which is kind of mind-boggling, because that show was dumb as hell and I'm amazed anyone even remembers it.

I have the Voyagers! DVD in my video collection. I enjoyed that show, and if you recall the later episodes, there was some sort of story arc going on involving Bogg's superiors and colleagues.

My own favorite time travel stories are those of Poul Anderson and Robert Silverberg (both involve a Time Patrol, although Silverberg's stories are more focused on Time Couriers, who take groups of tourists into the past to observe various major and minor historical events). In both series, the time travelers are protected by some sort of process that means they are able to remember how history is supposed to be, and are thus able to figure out how to correct it when it goes wrong.

I just assumed the people working in the headquarters in Timeless (as well as the time travelers) are similarly protected so they always know what the original history was.

 

[Aragorn]

Rufus being able to throw the stay outside line back at Lucy was nice, but otherwise this is feeling like a CW show with a higher budget, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We see the scientists after the life boat leaves.

Their universe continues to exist.

Flynn always gets to the past first, and they see him there (in the past) from the future, that still exists, no matter what changes he has already made, that has snow balled into present day.

Every time they return the scientists say "But that's established history! You changed nothing!"

1. They are messing with time in their home universe, but in stead sliding to parallel universes with new histories.

2. Flynn does nothing, unless he sees that Lucy is there. I'm guessing that his ship can see when they arrive, just like their base can see when Flynn arrives some where in history. There's no reason to follow him. Especially if returning home slots them into yet another new universe.

 

[Mr Awe]

That is way too simplistic. A 100% chance? Come on. Nothing is so absolute. An argument that denies any possibility of uncertainty is completely unscientific and closed-minded. We do not live in a deterministic universe. We live in a quantum universe where outcomes are probabilistic. You can't say something is 100% certain unless you're able to know every last variable that affects it, and the Uncertainty Principle alone makes that impossible, along with the sheer size of the universe.

Some things are absolute. If originally person A and person B have a child C. Assume you replace person B with Person D, you're absolutely guaranteed to NOT have child C. There is no probablility other than 100% here. There is no way to have the same child with different parents.

As others have pointed out in this thread, it wouldn't even necessarily require replacing a person to produce a different child. Timing by as little as 10 seconds or a temperature change could result in a different child. That may not be absolutely guaranteed, but given the huge number of sperm, it would not be surprising if one of the other millions fertilized the egg.

I focus on changing a person because that scenario absolutely 100% guarantees a different child. That's pretty basic biology there. And, that certainty carries forward to future generations. That child is a different person and any offspring he/she will have would not exist in the original time line. Furthermore, any descendents of the original Person A/Person B pair in the original timeline would not exist in the altered time line. So, the new timeline is 100% guaranteed both to have new people that didn't exist before and that the previous descendents would not exist.

Mr Awe

 

[Christopher]

Some things are absolute.

Human knowledge is not. We can never assume we know absolutely everything about a given thing, and so science depends on the recognition of uncertainty. We can never learn anything until we admit that there are limits on our ability to know something.

 

[Mr Awe]

Human knowledge is not. We can never assume we know absolutely everything about a given thing, and so science depends on the recognition of uncertainty. We can never learn anything until we admit that there are limits on our ability to know something.

I will assume that it is impossible to produce the same child with different sets of parents. I think I'm on safe ground with that one!

Mr Awe