Tales From the Shadows Updated (SPOILERS ABOUND)

[Iscah]

We currently have both Cid and Graha alive and well with all his memories on how to actually achieve time and space travel.

That depends on how much G'raha understood of the time-and-space mechanism personally and whether he can explain it to Cid (and whether both of them agree that it's a good idea to do so).

Obviously G'raha has a full understanding of any parts relying on the Crystal Tower and/or involving the spell to draw anyone he stumbles upon the WoL across the rift. But as for actually getting there, it's not clear if he would understand how to build such a thing from scratch or whether he simply knows how to drive it.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this world's Cid, on being told about it, goes "wait, I invented what? That could be abused terribly and I must have been seriously desperate to even contemplate it. Don't tell me how it works; I don't want to know."

(And then the knowledge that it's possible bugs him so much that he figures it out anyway.)

I concede that it doesn't answer the issues with Alexander's timeline being a loop instead of split, though.

My take on the timeline theory entirely started from the point that "Alexander is a loop, Shadowbringers is a split; how do we reconcile these stories into a consistent mechanism of how time works?"

And my answer is, Alexander is a loop because we didn't change any facts we previously knew. Therefore there was nothing that required a split to prevent a paradox, and so our actions simply melded into the single timeline.

When we briefly visited "three years ago", if we were prepared and determined to act then we theoretically could have done something to change events as Mide knew them, but that would have created a split and we wouldn't have been able to return to our own timeline again.

Or to be exact, there'd be a version of us still in the other half of the split timeline that hadn't changed anything, and they could go back to where they came from, but we're not that version. And if we tried to go back to "three years later" again it wouldn't be our original present and there'd be a second version of us running around too. (Analogous to young G'raha being asleep in the tower in both timelines as of 5.0ish, while the Exarch is a third instance of the same person existing due to time travel.)


On a side note: from the way this would work, one half of a split timeline still functions as a loop. In the case of Shadowbringers, it's the bad future that's the loop while ours is the spin-off. In the other timeline - at least as I picture it - G'raha travels back, tries to call us to the First but either fails or we refuse the call in favour of urgently fighting Garlemald, and the Calamity still happens. This version of events would lead right back to where he started.

[Riastrad]

That depends on how much G'raha understood of the time-and-space mechanism personally and whether he can explain it to Cid (and whether both of them agree that it's a good idea to do so).

Obviously G'raha has a full understanding of any parts relying on the Crystal Tower and/or involving the spell to draw anyone he stumbles upon the WoL across the rift. But as for actually getting there, it's not clear if he would understand how to build such a thing from scratch or whether he simply knows how to drive it.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this world's Cid, on being told about it, goes "wait, I invented what? That could be abused terribly and I must have been seriously desperate to even contemplate it. Don't tell me how it works; I don't want to know."

(And then the knowledge that it's possible bugs him so much that he figures it out anyway.)

It was seemingly enough for Emet Selch to take him as compensation for our failure to contain the light of the First. I'm not saying your wrong, I in fact agree with your hypothetical conversation Cid and Graha would have on the matter, but I am saying we are not done with the knowledge. It's too convenient a plot element for the devs not to use in some fashion or another and that is the real issue with Graha surviving. I myself would abuse the crap out of it if I could. The worst part is, why wouldn't they use it to secure the future at a much earlier time like big heroes? Entire nations have experienced tragedy and loss at the hands of the Empire (the same Empire that created the weapon that sealed our fate and that of the world). Why not nip that problem in the bud instead of travelling to the first? And now that we are back on the Source, can you imagine the report our allies are going to get? "So we traveled to another reality and across time to save everyone! Oh, yeah time travel is possible! What? Use it to win the war? Why on Hydaelyn would we do that?"

Thus my love and hatred for time travel stories. The obvious never seems to just work without some contrivance to stop it from being so. Some will give all manner of reasons why it can't be done, all the while ignoring that time travel has been cracked along with reality jumping and seemingly works well enough to save not one but two worlds at the brink. The answer of why it wouldn't work doesn't make any sense if it would have been easier to do than what was already achieved.


tldr; time travel is apparently possible and it would have been easier to do than reality jumping and time travel combined.

[Iscah]

It was seemingly enough for Emet to take him as compensation for our failure to contain the light of the First. I'm not saying your wrong, I infact agree with you (and the hypothetical conversation Cid and Graha would have on the matter), but I am saying we are not done with the knowledge. It's too convenient a plot element for the devs not to use in some fashion or another.

Definitely G'raha is going to have valuable knowledge for Emet, one way or another, but that's still going to be true if he just knows how to drive the thing and not how to actually build it in the first place.

Ultimately his background is a historian rather than an engineer, which is why I'm hesitant to say "of course he knows how it works". He might understand the spellcraft side of things but be useless at the mechanical side.

[Riastrad]

Of course not. That's why we have Cid. And we both agree he's stubborn enough to figure it out.



By the by, I edited my previous post while I assume you were making your point. Sorry about that. Don't want to make it seem like I was changing anything after you made your post to put my argument in a "better" (who are we kidding, no one agrees with it) light.