Alexander Questline Question

What makes it a mess is that, thanks to Shadowbringers, we now know that the game works on multiverse theory. Changing the past creates a new branching timeline. So there may have been an "original" version out there. But, we can't time travel freely, so we'll never know.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

What makes it a mess is that, thanks to Shadowbringers, we now know that the game works on multiverse theory. Changing the past creates a new branching timeline. So there may have been an "original" version out there. But, we can't time travel freely, so we'll never know.

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It seems to me that it only creates a branching timeline if the changes can't be absorbed into the original timeline, though – otherwise the Alexander storyline cannot work.

Our trip to three years ago can be absorbed because everything that happens fits into and does not contradict Mide's memories of what happened the first time she experienced them, even though it recontextualises them with things she didn't notice happening before.

Our later "save ourselves" trip can also be absorbed because what we do the second time fits in with what we did the first time. Alexander just needs to plan that "at an opportune future moment I will send these people back to this moment to break the forcefield" and the loop neatly forms.

If these events created a split, then I don't believe it is possible to return to the present day you came from and still see the consequences of what you "changed" by time-travelling. Either you return to the unaltered version of events (less likely and leaving us without a plot) or you're stuck in this new alternate path of time. Additionally there is another you in this timeline: the version of yourself that was naturally copied into this timeline at the moment of the split while you were the product of the other timeline's copy.

So we cannot have caused a split in the timeline when we time-travelled, or things would be getting very messy.

As for Shadowbringers, I had hoped not to raise that here because the OP is evidently not up to that yet. But I think that is a different and unique circumstance that cannot be absorbed in the same way.

(Shadowbringers spoilers under the cut)

The plot in Shadowbringers is about very deliberately trying to alter the timeline, which causes a split to prevent the paradox of G'raha erasing his own past.

The outcomes I am speaking about hypothetically above – getting locked into an alternate timeline with your alternate self present – are what specifically happens to G'raha. At the moment of the split (somewhere around the present day) he is asleep in the tower and those two split versions of him, the native one and the older time-traveller, will both ultimately end up in our timeline once the time-traveller's actions cause the split.

Though it's worth noting that even in the conclusion to Alexander, the possibility is raised that time could have been altered if we hadn't successfully thwarted the Illuminati's plans to change it. We're just fortunate that for most of the plot span Quickthinx is trying to replicate the "prophesised" events from the book and thus ensuring that they happen to be recorded.

Was reading through this and it seems there might be some confusion which I think has been addressed, but just in case it's not, here's the timeline more or less.

Note there is no infinite loop a la Re:Zero/Groundhog's Day/Edge of Tomorrow. It's just a one time string of events that play out one time, albeit not in chronological order.

Here's the timeline image I whipped up, obvious spoilers. There might be minor errors, but I don't really care if "well actually, blah blah happened before blah blah" within a specific time stamp. This should just give you an overall understanding of what's going on chronologically.

https://i.ibb.co/4PJ84wQ/Alexander.png

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Here's the timeline image I whipped up, obvious spoilers. There might be minor errors, but I don't really care if "well actually, blah blah happened before blah blah" within a specific time stamp. This should just give you an overall understanding of what's going on chronologically.

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We only went to "three years ago" briefly during that one cutscene and returned. Raids A11 and A12 and all the events around them take place in the present day. Quickthinx is the one leading the Illuminati during this period and is active during the present-day plot all the way up to the finale.

Also on minor points – the second point should be that the idea of Alexander (not Alexander the physical entity) was created by the founder of the tribe, which in any case seems to be Mide herself, so she's recording rather than inventing the idea.

And Backrix is a "he". Goblin names are gendered and -ix is the masculine ending.