Time traveling and a certain pair of goggles.

[Riastrad]

Time is not a loop - at least that's not the intent of the Alexander storyline. Quite the opposite. Loops can be formed within the timeline, but it's more like a knot in a string than a closed loop - nothing (to our awareness) is trapped repeating the same path over and over. There is a single flow of time from past to future, but some people have existed in a particular moment of time more than once in their life.

Also - unless we're up for a real shock in the future of the story - the current state of Shadowbringers seems to indicate that a time traveler can change the past by altering events to the point that their future 'origin point' cannot occur, although this presumably also means they can't return to it and are "stuck" on the new path they've created.

Of course, it also tells us that inventing time travel in the first place required such a specific combination of elements that not even the Ascians conceived of it... which makes it unlikely to be achievable simply by using the Echo.

With the exception of Mide and Dayan. They are released from with the core of Alexander to found the tribe known as Hotogo. The Hotogo tribe eventually produces two children. Mide and Dayan, who go on to summon Alexander to begin with. That is absolute and cannot be changed as it would literally kill the WoL now that it (the Wings of Time) has been used to save(?) them. Cause and effect. Time is a loop that only makes sense the less you think of it. Which is something I have failed at this entire expansion due to time traveling stories always making me try to attempt to find paradoxes...


I subscribe to the Prince of Persia line of thinking. "Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am or why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard..." and as such certain events must conspire to happen or the time line begins to unravel. So you have people sucked out of time to be placed in a position to make sense of the timeline. Contradicting itself in order to repair what should be an impossible order of events.

[Iscah]

With the exception of Mide and Dayan. They are released from with the core of Alexander to found the tribe known as Hotogo. The Hotogo tribe eventually produces two children. Mide and Dayan. That is absolute and cannot be changed as it would literally kill the WoL now that it has been used to save(?) them. Cause and effect. Time is a loop that only makes sense the less you think of it.

That's what I'm talking about though. Their story is a loop within the timeline - but they, the individual people, do not experience it repeatedly. Mide is born in the year 1551, is transported back through time from 1577 to [long ago], grows old and dies in that time. She does not experience the same events a second time - and if she did, it would not be as the same person at the same age she was the first time around.

Mide-and-her-descendents' path through time is a loop, but she does not personally experience it as a loop.

Meanwhile time itself, viewed objectively, is a linear progression from past to future where the second half of Mide's life happens sometime prior to the first half.

There is a point in that timeline where her 26-year-old time-travelling self is witnessing the truth of what happened to her 23-year-old self. But to an observer, that event only happened once.

---

I also think Prince of Persia's time logic isn't the right thing to apply here. The type of magic being applied is very different - the Prince is able to rewind time so an event never happened, but he retains the memory of it. It's time manipulation rather than time travel.

[Riastrad]

Oh, I understand what you are saying. I never said they experienced it however (well Mide did when she realized what happened during the failed summoning). To them (Mide and Dayan) that's just the way it happened. We, outside the game, can see it as a loop because we know that they are destined to do this again and again.

I don't buy into the Exarch's reasoning for his continued survival (the dark future is set adrift never effect us again, and I just so happened to carve a piece for myself here). I mean, I like him a lot and all, but it seems too convenient an explanation. Square (before Enix) had another series on the snes called Chrono Trigger and later on the ps1 with Chrono Cross. In it, its realized that timelines that are cut off are not simply cast aside, but rather attempt to fit to mend contradictions in the current time line so that it makes sense. Now, i'm 99.9% sure that won't happen here (you never know) but you have to admit that it is food for thought.

[Iscah]

Oh, I understand what you are saying. I never said they experienced it however (well Mide did when she realized what happened during the failed summoning). To them (Mide and Dayan) that's just the way it happened. We, outside the game, can see it as a loop because we know that they are destined to do this again and again.

That's perhaps down to interpretation and/or terminology (and the large stealth-edit I may have made to the last post while you were writing this). But I don't see it as them being "destined to do this again and again". It relies on an interconnected chain of events that loop back into the past, but they only experience it once.

[Riastrad]

That's perhaps down to interpretation and/or terminology (and the large stealth-edit I may have made to the last post while you were writing this). But I don't see it as them being "destined to do this again and again". It relies on an interconnected chain of events that loop back into the past, but they only experience it once.

I suppose we will just have to disagree. Granted I see your point. I just see mine too, and if i'm being honest, it just makes sense to me.

Oh and don't fret the edits. I make several in each of my posts in an attempt to make sense of my ramblings. If I could just get the writers in a room and have a chat with them....


Edit: see?

[SaberMaxwell]

My thinking is, if the Echo was capable of time travel, Emet Selch wouldn't have been so desperate to extract the secrets of time travel (as well as the future following the Calamity of Light) from the Exarch.

[Riastrad]

My thinking is, if the Echo was capable of time travel, Emet Selch wouldn't have been so desperate to extract the secrets of time travel (as well as the future following the Calamity of Light) from the Exarch.

I feel there is something far more to the Echo than just going on vision quests at inopportune times. As Lahabrea once said, "Very well. Let us show these mortals the true power of the Echo. The power to break down the barriers of existence!". So much is still not understood as to the nature of our echo. Krile's allows her to see traces of souls if using a strong enough foci, while Fordola's own artificial Echo allows her to see minor shifts in aether, effectively giving her tip off when her opponent is going to attack. The Sahagin Priest's echo in patch 2.2 allowed him to move his soul between bodies after he was killed by Merlwyb.

Ours seems to (from a gameplay standpoint at least) allow us reattempt fights after we have been defeated by allowing us to slip back into an earlier moment in time before the battle. Giving us (the player) an idea of what to expect as we have already tried and failed to do. It's also shown in 1.0 (even if it was retconned, and no I don't buy that in the slightest as that is the easy way out that creates even more problems than if it was left in) that it is possible for another echo user to discern if someone is present in a past event they were not part of by using their own echo. It's how we joined the Path of the Twelve in 1.0, and that is how Minifila recognized us in ARR when no one else did.

I suppose at this point i'm just fueling my own head cannon in an attempt to explain away inconsistencies (dreadful I know). But it also includes a way for ideas and information to be passed back in time. Much like Squall does in FFVIII. (again a big influence on the current raid)

[Kuroka]

I also think Prince of Persia's time logic isn't the right thing to apply here. The type of magic being applied is very different - the Prince is able to rewind time so an event never happened, but he retains the memory of it. It's time manipulation rather than time travel.

But thats an interresting point, as we yet have to see if we just can change the future... or if the Dahaka is comming for us...

I dont want G'Raha to die, but yet, just changing the future still seemed easy. Even more considering the original plan would most likely not have worked, as they seemed to have 0 intel of the first and gettin there the time we got, it would have been most likely lost as it took time to even get us there with many years of time.