Tales from the Shadows

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

I mean, I do think its a given that alternate timelines means infinite alternate timelines. For one thing, you can say that everyone's individual instance of the WoL is an example of an alternate timeline, hence why G'raha can pull 7 more of us in to help his WoL in that final battle with Hades. We all experience it cus Exarch!G'raha did it for each of us in our dimension where our character is the WoL.

But multiple timelines doesn't make us worth less than before. Our existence and success very much matter to those in our timeline.

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I guess I just dislike it when stories go that way. We could have had a simple: Change the past and thus change the future with Graha being a paradox that can only somehow exist thanks to the crystal tower. (And imo this is still not off the table as a possibility)

Different timelines in a universe that is already split..can they touch each other? Would it be possible to have one timeline where the Ascians won and Zodiark by destroying the whole plane of current existance could collaps everything? (Could our character visit another timeline and just simply snatch Haurchefant out of it for greedy personal reasons? :'))

In the end if these different timelines exist then I feel happy and bad for the bad future..on one hand they can continue to exist...on the other hand they had done all this to change their future (Graha believed that he would cease to be so he believed that the bad future wont simply happen) and now they would sit there after generations of hard work, in a dying world and nothing changes...making them believe that it was a failed mission..

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

I mean, I do think its a given that alternate timelines means infinite alternate timelines.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I guess I just dislike it when stories go that way. We could have had a simple: Change the past and thus change the future with Graha being a paradox that can only somehow exist thanks to the crystal tower. (And imo this is still not off the table as a possibility)

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"Could have had"? That is what we have, except with the possibility that the old timeline split off rather than ceased to exist.

It does not imply that it "is a given that alternate timelines means infinite multiple timelines". I don't think there's evidence for that in this story at all.

As I wrote earlier, how it is described - and taken in combination with information from Alexander - implies that there is ONE split in the timeline created under extraordinary circumstances where a time traveler interfered with the past of their origin timepoint, making it impossible for events to lead back to their original time.

ie. If G'raha simply traveled back in time but didn't change anything, only watched it happen, he would witness the Eighth Calamity and eventually see his younger self released from the tower and prepare to travel back in time. There would only be one stable (but dying) timeline.

Instead he has prevented the Calamity that happened in his original timeline, making it impossible to see those same events play out. He has "changed tracks" and is now on a different path that will not lead to the timeline he originated from. This (I believe) is the one time that the timeline splits as a result of his actions, forcing both timelines to exist because they are both part of 'his story'. Once that single split has occurred, there won't be another one because there is no pre-established future for him to contradict from this point onwards.

The exact way he describes the plan to change time (in his conversation with Urianger) is a to create a "crossroads" - one deliberate point where we can take one path or the other.


Also interesting: the bit about the Namazu implying that - assuming we can trust Gyoshin's visions and Seigetsu's interpretation - he might be able to receive visions from the good future and not just the bad one, though perhaps only prior to "reaching the crossroads" and going down the other path.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

(Could our character visit another timeline and just simply snatch Haurchefant out of it for greedy personal reasons? :'))

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From my take on it: no, you can't.

You can't just "visit another timeline" and do this for the satisfaction of knowing he survives somewhere - you would travel back in time to that point, rescue him right in front of your very confused younger self... and you've split the timeline, because that is definitely not how you personally saw the event play out last time.

So now you're on a different path of history to the one you arrived from - can you return to the "present"? Or would you travel forward in time to realise you're still in that altered timeline where the other version of you - the one that saw you rescue Haurchefant - is the Warrior of Light doing all the Warrior-of-Lighty things you did. Meanwhile, you're stuck (and your 'home timeline' is minus a WoL) until the Ironworks manage to go an extra step in figuring out how to cross not only time and dimensions but also timelines. So good luck with that.

Well I would be happy if this is only a one time deal (but its still kinda bad for that other timeline since they would never know that they succeeded) but we just cant be sure. If a split can somehow happen who is to say that it did not already happen? We only know of this one but I do fear that this could lead to more.

And if someone from the bad future can see events from our path, doesnt that show that it is in some way connected? And who is to say that a god-like being like Zodiark could then not have the power to travel between that? We are talking about something that was able to make a whole planet alive again and who rewrote the rules of reality. So even just that one timeline existing could already be dangerous because we simply wont know what happens there and they are at least one more step nearer to release Zodiark.

(The part with Haurchefant was meant as a joke)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well I would be happy if this is only a one time deal (but its still kinda bad for that other timeline since they would never know that they succeeded)

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I didn't address this but last night because I wanted to give it more thought, but I've realised there is no circumstance in which the people from the other timeline would be aware that the past had been successfully changed.

Their options are:

Timeline is erased: The world essentially ceases to exist once G'raha departs. Unless there's some kind of artistic "slow unraveling" of reality, they will not exist to realise that their non-existence indicates a successful timeline change.

Timeline continues: Much like G'raha at the end of Shadowbringers, their anticipated lack-of-existence fails to occur, and they're left asking "well, what now?"

Left to theorise over this new piece of information about how time works, they may reach the conclusion that they can never be certain that their plan worked - but they did what they could, and continue to hope that it succeeded.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

And if someone from the bad future can see events from our path, doesnt that show that it is in some way connected?

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That's not how I was meaning it, actually. I took it as a sign that rather than there being one "original timeline" and one "altered timeline" that only comes into existence once we create it, both exist as equal possible futures if you are looking into (or receiving messages from) the future at a point before the timeline splits.

Gyoshin's vision was during the Namazu questline in 4.3, prior to the point where G'raha starts trying to summon us in 4.4. That means that at that point, when he's having visions of a "future that could be", the good future is already an option.

Maybe a good way of visualising it is if the timeline is a tunnel that we're walking through. By changing the timeline, we dug a second tunnel and now there's a fork in the path. Once you reach that fork, you have to go one way or the other and can only see that one path ahead of you - but for someone who hasn't reached that point yet, they can look ahead and see down both paths at once.

(I'm not sure if this adds anything to the theorising or just confuses people, but it makes sense in my head. The 'new' timeline is just as real a future as the one that was 'always there'.)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

(The part with Haurchefant was meant as a joke)

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Oh well. It gave me an opportunity to explain my logic. Hope it made sense.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Well I would be happy if this is only a one time deal (but its still kinda bad for that other timeline since they would never know that they succeeded) but we just cant be sure. If a split can somehow happen who is to say that it did not already happen? We only know of this one but I do fear that this could lead to more.

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For what it's worth, remember what we learned from the Alex raids. Alexander used his prodigious powers to consider all possible timelines and came to the conclusion that the only timeline that did not result in the end of the world was when Alex secreted himself away in his little pocket dimension so there would be no risk of his power being used and bringing about the world's destruction. Part of that vision was that the only successful timeline was muddled in such a way that Alex only knew that there was a possibility that the world would survive, and that said possibility would only manifest in the timeline in which we, the WoL, defeated Alexander and continued to do what we had been doing. I think this "muddling" was Alex seeing the timeline split that came about when the Ironworks sent CT and G'raha back in time to the First. My point here being that the primal of time itself saw only a single diverging point in all the infinite futures that were considered, which lends a lot of credence to the idea that this was a one-time deal. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future we are responsible for creating at least some of the conditions that eventually allow for events of ShB to unfold in the future, essentially wrapping all this up into another stable time loop.

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Originally Posted by Quor

I think this "muddling" was Alex seeing the timeline split that came about when the Ironworks sent CT and G'raha back in time to the First. My point here being that the primal of time itself saw only a single diverging point in all the infinite futures that were considered, which lends a lot of credence to the idea that this was a one-time deal.

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It definitely adds up, although Dayan was talking about Alexander's predictions like it's a computer running mathematical calculation of possibilities, rather than actually seeing the future, which shouldn't allow for discovering "unexpected" variables... unless it's good enough to predict everything up to the time travel invention and where they would go with it.

Even before all this, it seemed like Alexander needed more omniscience than a computer should have to make those predictions... will need to ask about it at the next lore Q&A opportunity, I think.

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Originally Posted by Quor

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future we are responsible for creating at least some of the conditions that eventually allow for events of ShB to unfold in the future, essentially wrapping all this up into another stable time loop.

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I'm not sure what you're picturing here.

The whole point of the time-travel plot was ensuring that we couldn't have a stable time loop, because that would lead straight back into the Eighth Calamity and the exact dark future that G'raha was trying to prevent from happening.

(If he'd failed his mission and couldn't save us or prevent the Calamity, that would result in a stable time loop - his actions are part of the overall timeline, even though he didn't successfully change anything.)

The events of Shadowbringers seem designed to "drive a wedge into the loop" and force us to take a different path from the natural flow of time, by making it impossible for circumstances to lead to the events he knows as history.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I'm not sure what you're picturing here.

The whole point of the time-travel plot was ensuring that we couldn't have a stable time loop, because that would lead straight back into the Eighth Calamity and the exact dark future that G'raha was trying to prevent from happening.

(If he'd failed his mission and couldn't save us or prevent the Calamity, that would result in a stable time loop - his actions are part of the overall timeline, even though he didn't successfully change anything.)

The events of Shadowbringers seem designed to "drive a wedge into the loop" and force us to take a different path from the natural flow of time, by making it impossible for circumstances to lead to the events he knows as history.

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I'm not saying it happened for sure, more that there is a lot of unknowns that could end up being filled in with something. A lot of time passed between the 8th Calamity and when CT got sent back in time to the First, which from a writing perspective leaves room for adding all sorts of stuff in as (or if) the plot demands.

I'm kind of torn between a bit of eye-rolling at "of course that's why he's called Hades" and a nod of acknowledgement that if the writers were going to tie his name with some meaningful lore, this was probably the quickest way to do so.

This short story was all I could've asked for. I love it.

However, it makes me question whether Emet-Selch truly holds the title 'the Architect'. I never found a source for that to begin with...

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Originally Posted by RicaRuin

This short story was all I could've asked for. I love it.

However, it makes me question whether Emet-Selch truly holds the title 'the Architect'. I never found a source for that to begin with...

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Sound like Hythlodaeus was the Architect perhaps?

Loved the story. This is my favourite so far, especially the snippets at the end that explained so much about Hades and about Varis. If Solus' son hadn't died, how much might have changed .....