Time traveling and a certain pair of goggles.

[Enkidoh]

The Echo is not time travel though at all (that instance with the pistol in the 1.0 Limsan storyline was merely a plot hole that SE appears to have since quietly ignored for the sake of consistancy), it's simply accessing and changing another's memories of an event. Us appearing in an Echo vision of when Cid defected to Eorzea to give Cid his goggles was merely a visual metaphor for us restoring his lost memories, it was a symbol of his past, and wasn't an actual event that really took place (because the Echo can also alter a person's memories to reflect that).

This is after all why SE also changed how the Echo was depicted in ARR from how it was in 1.0 where an Echo user could no longer "use it at will" but would instead randomly and uncontrollaby activate, as how it was originally shown in 1.0 where the player's character learned how to control it and use it at will (under Minfilia's urging no less!), meant it had... disturbing implications, which SE are now probably trying to get away from.

[Riastrad]

The Echo is not time travel though at all (that instance with the pistol in the 1.0 Limsan storyline was merely a plot hole that SE appears to have since quietly ignored for the sake of consistancy), it's simply accessing and changing another's memories of an event. Us appearing in an Echo vision of when Cid defected to Eorzea to give Cid his goggles was merely a visual metaphor for us restoring his lost memories, it was a symbol of his past, and wasn't an actual event that really took place (because the Echo can also alter a person's memories to reflect that).

This is after all why SE also changed how the Echo was depicted in ARR from how it was in 1.0 where an Echo user could no longer "use it at will" but would instead randomly and uncontrollaby activate, as how it was originally shown in 1.0 where the player's character learned how to control it and use it at will (under Minfilia's urging no less!), meant it had... disturbing implications, which SE are now probably trying to get away from.

Except we did effect certain events and actively took items from the past into then present 1.0. During the 1.0 quests "Flowers for all" and Court in the Sands" we are tasked with taking a Velodyna Cosmos to the Goldsmithing (or was it Alchemist?) guild as it was a rare flower that was from then Garlean occupied territory of Ala Mhigo. We take it to the guild in question and are about to sell it to an excited merchant when the echo takes hold and we slip back into the past and sell it for a pittance as it is not "rare" in the current time. We receive said flower from the Parade in Ul'dah in the year 1562. Roughly 10 years before the setting of 1.0.

My point being that time travel was the foundation of this game. The current story seems to be going back to it as well.

A snippet from my favorite song in this game "Locus":

"Falling back right into the system of
Falling back on all that's erased
When fighting back right out of this system
Means falling back right into this space

Yes, falling back right in with the system
Who'll see you falling back to the end
When falling back is better than simply
Falling back into pieces again"

This was Alexander telling us that time is a loop. No way to change it and if you try it will only cause problems down the road, as the reason for trying to change the past is contingent on the future event taking place. Even something as simple as a flower or a pair of goggles.

I just think it's worth remembering given the state of Shadowbringers at the moment.

"Two-toned echoes tumbling through time" indeed.

[Enkidoh]

Except we did affect certain events and actively took items from the past into then present 1.0. During the 1.0 quests "Flowers for all" and Court in the Sands" we are tasked with taking a Velodyna Cosmos to the Goldsmithing (or was it Alchemist?) guild as it was a rare flower that was from then Garlean occupied territory of Ala Mhigo. We take it to the guild in question and are about to sell it to an excited merchant when the echo takes hold and we slip back into the past and sell it for a pittance as it is not "rare" in the current time. We receive said flower from the Parade in Ul'dah in the year 1562. Roughly 15 years before the setting of 1.0.

Except that was already explained by Ferne back on the old 1.0 forum that the original starting nation storylines in 1.0 were almost entirelly taking place within Echo visions. Most of the beginning of 1.0 you were not living those events as they happened, they had actually occured about 10 years prior when the Archons first arrived in the citystates, but you were bouncing about in and out of other people's memories with the Echo out of chronological order so it all ended up a confusing mess (the item you get in each of the citystates may have appeared within your inventory even outside of the Echo, but that was simply gameplay pragmatisim as it was needed to flag the next part of the storyline to execute and is not something deeper.). In 1.0's starting city story entering the Echo was almost undetectable, merely signified by a subtle 'gong' and woosh effect, so a player would not have even picked up on it at the time if they were not already knowing what to look for.

There was certainily no indiciation anywhere in 1.0 of literal time travel being an aspect of the story - the scene with Cid's goggles as I mentioned was not time travel back to the Sixth Astral Era, but the player's character 'hacking' Cid's mind in a way and lifiting the veil of amnesia that clouded him, restoring his memories, which was symbolized by the player's character handing him his goggles within his memory - it was for all intents an purposes, a delusion, in that it never literally happened.

[Iscah]

This was Alexander telling us that time is a loop. No way to change it and if you try it will only cause problems down the road, as the reason for trying to change the past is contingent on the future event taking place. Even something as simple as a flower or a pair of goggles.

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.

[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.

[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.