Alexander Lore

[Khalithar]

Snip

Every time I read the Alexander lore I get reminded of that episode of Futurama where you learn because of time travel, Fry is his own grandfather.

[Cilia]

Every time I read the Alexander lore I get reminded of that episode of Futurama where you learn because of time travel, Fry is his own grandfather.

That's one way to make sense of it, I suppose. Causal paradox and all.

For my part I rationalize it by applying concepts from BlazBlue, which has a lot of time travel shenanigans (and does get sort of scientific about it, at times). It's how I've currently rationalized our overwhelming successes in spite of impossible odds - Hydaelyn is our observer, which is why we simply never lose. We can lose, but it's not "us;" the "us" that lost is simply one of myriad possibilities Hydaelyn does not observe. She only observes the "us," the temporal pathway that happens if / when we succeed. The reason she had to directly intervene to save us from Ultima? There was no possible way we'd walk out of that - Lahabrea's machinations made sure we'd perish - and she wanted us kept alive, but outside of direct intervention there was no way for us to survive. So Hydaelyn directly intervened, something observers aren't supposed to do, which is why it was so taxing on her.

... explains a lot, but I seriously doubt I'm right.

[Alynn]

Wow, thank you everyone for all the wonderful responses! It took me a few days to thank you guys, due to my mind not being able to comprehend the whole "Mide-and-Dayan-are-just-there-it-can't-be-explained-ever" thing, but after rereading, it made a bit more sense. I'd love to just accept the fact that:

In historical terms, from our perspective the events play out as such:
1. Alexander spits Mide and Dayan out in the distant past. They return to Othard(?), found the Hotgo tribe, and pass Alexander's tale down in the tribe until it becomes legend. The fragment Mide brought with her becomes the basis for the rest of the Enigma Codex.

But I'm still really confused. Would it make more sense to just think of this part as an enclosed bubble kind of thing? Both you and Anony Moose said that we were all just actors playing our part in a script that was predestined and has happened over and over, and that somewhere out there, Mide could've lived her life out, and so forth. It's just hard thinking about that when I know there's an object she held onto (that Codex fragment from seemingly her encounter with our whole squad).

Sorry if I'm being increasingly difficult/overthinking it, but I really just want to understand my favorite story in the game T_T

[Anonymoose]

Would it make more sense to just think of this part as an enclosed bubble kind of thing?
Sorry if I'm being increasingly difficult/overthinking it, but I really just want to understand my favorite story in the game T_T

Please, be as difficult as you need to if you feel that there's more to understand. With time travel loops / paradoxes like these, it tends to be a situation where if you don't get one thing, your understanding of the rest collapses until it all just clicks into place for you. I'm not entirely sure if I understand which thing it is that's giving you trouble, but I'll answer the one I think it is as best as I can:

Mide and Dayan go into the core in the game's "present day" and (from our perspective) they vanish. Who knows how long they were in the core, when "now" was in the core, etc. But for some reason, it seems to have spit them back out of the core after traveling thousands of years back in time. This allows them to become their own progenitors, solving the paradox and setting the whole thing into a stable loop.

(I think this means that there are two loops? One plays out from 3 years ago until looping back into itself mid-story, and then the other ends just after the story and loops back into itself many, many years ago? I wanted to add this for clarity but I'm starting to confuse myself, too! LOL)

If I had to guess, understanding it as I do at this point in time (and I cannot promise 100% certainty that I understand it correctly) I would assume that this is how Alexander solved the problem of his own existence. Remember the video I liked up top, where Fitz refers to every moment of the "present" as a sheet of paper, and that we never see or comprehend the 4-dimensional stack of paper? Alexander would have had to observe time from that perspective, and manipulate the contents of the "sheets" so that everything lined up in a clean loop that kept him from existing long enough to do more harm than good.

Cause and effect goes out the window if you can manipulate the stack. A later event can cause an earlier event if that's where the time travel happens and the loop manifests, so long as it's a clean, stable loop.

[treuhavik]

But I'm still really confused. Would it make more sense to just think of this part as an enclosed bubble kind of thing?

I think it does a lot of good not to focus on the chronological order in which these events took place. Trying to start your line of thought with Mide and Dayan in the past makes things messy. If you concentrate on the characters' timeline, it's much easier to comprehend. Mide and Dayan started in one place in time and ended in another. It really doesn't matter that the latter period is chronologically prior to the former.