Feedback: Feeling disappointed by 6.55's narrative, and thus unsure about Dawntrail

[Iscah]

Except we did try ... and failed. We were supposed NOT to try to do anything to alter the timeline and simply was on a fact finding mission. But when pressed by Venat after she discovered our "secret", the WoL pondered and (probably against better judgement) decided to reveal the future anyway. But that's exactly lead to the whole Elpis shenanigan. By the end of the Elpis arc, I think both our WoL and Venat had deduced any further attempt to alter the future is futile. Whether it's due to writing inconsistency, or simply due to the travel method, our version of time travel is not the same of the one employed by G'raha. G'raha managed to split the time line, while our followed the law of casual paradox.

*causal (as in one thing causing another to happen), not casual. But anyway.

My long-running theory on this is that there is no contradiction between how time travel works in Shadowbringers versus Endwalker -- or rather, at the time I developed it, Shadowbringers versus Alexander, and then Endwalker seemed to follow the same rules I had figured for the earlier stories.

In short, as I figure it, time "prefers" to keep to a single timeline and will naturally incorporate any actions from a time traveller into the one and only version of events at the place-and-time they have journeyed to, so much as that is possible.

The only way to potentially overcome this is (1) for the time traveller to have come from the future with detailed knowledge of events at their destination, and (2) then cause changes which make the world incompatible with the future that they came from, at which point the timeline splits in two to prevent a "grandfather paradox" situation. The original timeline continues to exist because the time traveller's existence relies on it, while the second timeline carries the changed version of events.

G'raha's preventing of the Flood of Light is the only example we have which meets both of those criteria. He came prepared with very specific knowledge of what would happen -- "the Flood of Light will be triggered by the Garleans using Black Rose at the battle of Ghimlyt Dark, which causes the Light-soaked First to rejoin", probably with an exact date attached -- and he took actions that defused the situation in the First so that exact scenario could not happen.

All the time travel instances which resulted in stable time loops do not fill those two requirements:

• When we travelled to "three years ago" in Alexander, we had no opportunity to act and change things, or else our actions inadvertently made things happen as they always had; additionally, we were reliant on Mide's incomplete understanding of the situation. That doesn't rule out the possibility that we could have changed things if we took different actions.

• During the same incident, the Illuminati have the detailed knowledge they could hypothetically use to thwart the chain of events, but they are acting on the belief that they need to fulfil the events described by the book.

• When Alexander sends us back to "save ourselves" from its earlier attack, we of course succeed in doing so and thus help to create the same event we previously experienced.

• And finally, in Elpis, we have no knowledge at all about what happened to cause the Final Days, so there is nothing we can act on to prevent it. We know "something" happened, but you can't prevent "something"; if you try to prevent one something then it will just turn out that a different something was the actual cause.

Honestly if the story never had the WoL become solid and instead stay as a tiny time ghost through all of Elpis and it still played out the same way I would have been fine with that as well. Instead they become solid and say nothing until it's forced out of them which is probably the worst way to do it imo.

On the contrary, given that our purpose was to observe the situation as it was, and gain an understanding of what happened in the past, it should have been really important to observe things and not give the people of the past any future knowledge at all.

I take it as a necessity that we needed to be able to interact with people and the world for that part of the story, because delivering that much exposition through only observations would be difficult.

So, our choices are to tell everything and risk them altering their course because of that future knowledge, or to keep silent on the subject and observe until we see the unknown and undefined clue we are looking for that tells us why the Final Days happened.

It could have been handled tactfully, once Venat deduced we were from the future, by explaining to them that "I've come from a point in the future where we are facing a grave threat to the star, and we understand that at this point in the past you faced a similar threat and somehow overcame it, so I want to observe things here and see how it begins."

If it was handled like this, I could see the ancients being of the opinion that it seems fair to not risk altering events and causing a paradox, and so they will not ask you for information about what happens in their future. They could even proceed on the logic that it's fine for you to hang around and interact with people while you're here because your presence will just be part of the timeline as it always was.

[Raven2014]

My long-running theory on this is that there is no contradiction between how time travel works in Shadowbringers versus Endwalker -- or rather, at the time I developed it, Shadowbringers versus Alexander, and then Endwalker seemed to follow the same rules I had figured for the earlier stories.

That's why I said either or. Both version have been know to used before in other work, it's just usually a setting will pick and stick with one version instead of multiple. But hey it's fiction, there is no rule saying you have to stick with one. G'ahara didn't change the past, he "splits" it. In his original time line, the flood of light still happened, the WoL is still death, and Eorza is still messed up. It's just due to the effort of coming together and finish the tower project, people find new source of hope and inspiration to move forward. In both case, neither of us managed to change our past.

That's why I also said even if people argue that the WoL and Venat should have tried to done more to save the ancient, at best we can split another timeline where the Ancient survive, but that will do nothing for the Ancient of our time line. In this universe it seems the law of causal paradox is pretty much absolute, it's just the writers also allow the concept of multi-verse so we can explore different possibility, but so far no one have manage to circumvent the actual time paradox in the same universe.


Another of my theory (based on some other works) for the difference is that G'ahara time travel was more complete. He was sent back in a "literal" time machine as a whole package and able to insert himself as a proper entity in the new timeline, and thus granted permission to change it. Think about as if the time mechanism has an authentication process that will only allow entity it recognize as the "original" to impact change upon it, and G'ahara passed that authentication. Whether in our case, Elidiburg only hastily send a "mirage" of the WoL to the past meant to only be able to observe, that's how we arrived at Elpis. Only thanks to Emer-Setch that our mirage was solidified and thus give us some mean of interaction, but that's probably not enough to pass the time mechanism's authentication process. Thus we were never recognized as a proper original entity in the time line and do no possess the ability to dictate its course.

Well, at least that's how I see some other works where they allow both change and no change in the same universe depending on the method.

[Turtledeluxe]

That's why I said either or. Both version have been know to used before in other work, it's just usually a setting will pick and stick with one version instead of multiple. But hey it's fiction, there is no rule saying you have to stick with one. G'ahara didn't change the past, he "splits" it. In his original time line, the flood of light still happened, the WoL is still death, and Eorza is still messed up. It's just due to the effort of coming together and finish the tower project, people find new source of hope and inspiration to move forward. In both case, neither of us managed to change our past.

That's why I also said even if people argue that the WoL and Venat should have tried to done more to save the ancient, at best we can split another timeline where the Ancient survive, but that will do nothing for the Ancient of our time line. In this universe it seems the law of causal paradox is pretty much absolute, it's just the writers also allow the concept of multi-verse so we can explore different possibility, but so far no one have manage to circumvent the actual time paradox in the same universe.


Another of my theory (based on some other works) for the difference is that G'ahara time travel was more complete. He was sent back in a "literal" time machine as a whole package and able to insert himself as a proper entity in the new timeline, and thus granted permission to change it. Think about as if the time mechanism has an authentication process that will only allow entity it recognize as the "original" to impact change upon it, and G'ahara passed that authentication. Whether in our case, Elidiburg only hastily send a "mirage" of the WoL to the past meant to only be able to observe, that's how we arrived at Elpis. Only thanks to Emer-Setch that our mirage was solidified and thus give us some mean of interaction, but that's probably not enough to pass the time mechanism's authentication process. Thus we were never recognized as a proper original entity in the time line and do no possess the ability to dictate its course.

G'raha did not strictly time travel-- he cross Rift traveled to a point in time. I don't think it's so much permission as much as it is that all time in XIV is already written, and his traversal is a part of what was always meant to happen in that timeline. This is a general thing for all time in FFXIV. The "true timeline" is just whatever Yoshi P wants.

And the main reason I say this, is because SHB features an Echo where the Echo is used to see an immutable future. Plus, Elidibus alludes to this in EW. Although choices, divergences, etc can happen-- nothing is going to forestall the fate that is bound to happen.

[Xirean]

No. G'raha straight up time travelled. To suggest he rift traveled would suggest that his destination was still in existence which it wasn't. That was kinda the point.

[Iscah]

No. G'raha straight up time travelled. To suggest he rift traveled would suggest that his destination was still in existence which it wasn't. That was kinda the point.

Who is suggesting that he rift-travelled instead of time-travelling?

In any case, it was both. Backwards in time to "before the calamity"; sideways through the rift (which separates the shards within a single timeline) to reach the First.

Then forwards with the normal flow of time, initially along the same timeline he originally arrived from, but attempting and eventually succeeding in forging a new path that diverges from the original.

[Turtledeluxe]

Who is suggesting that he rift-travelled instead of time-travelling?

In any case, it was both. Backwards in time to "before the calamity"; sideways through the rift (which separates the shards within a single timeline) to reach the First.

Then forwards with the normal flow of time, initially along the same timeline he originally arrived from, but attempting and eventually succeeding in forging a new path that diverges from the original.

Yes, I thought my post indicated that it's both. It's not just that he time traveled, but rift traveled to a point in time (which necessitates time travel as well), which helps to resolve the contradiction that is occurring with his stopping of his own future.

Like, why exactly do all of his actions split causality in this way? There are other instances in the game where this cannot happen, at least not in the universe we are in with our Source and all its reflections.

[Iscah]

Yes, I thought my post indicated that it's both. It's not just that he time traveled, but rift traveled to a point in time (which necessitates time travel as well), which helps to resolve the contradiction that is occurring with his stopping of his own future.

Oh right, I have most of the frequently-negative posters blocked at this point and didn't notice your previous post.

As for "rift travelling through time", that seems like mixed terms. My understanding (though I could be wrong) is that time travel is Alexander's domain while Omega has the ability to manipulate the dimensional rift, and between them they provided the basis for what the time machine needed to be capable of.

When we time-travel with Alexander it isn't shown to resemble the rift when we use it. The only time that time travel looks like the rift is when Elidibus somehow altered the Ocular portal into a time-portal, and we haven't seen another use of that type of time travel. It's possible that Elidibus devised a further method incorporating both beings' abilities.

Additionally, the Exarch's boast-speech to Emet seemed to list them as two separate things. I don't have the exact quote but it was along the lines of "we tamed the wings of time and grasped the true nature of the rift". One part for Alexander and one part for Omega. It's still somewhat ambiguous maybe, if I've got the words right, but still that's how I took it. Probably also based on the notes in the Twinning.