Alexander Questline Question

[GoldStarz]

There is no "first loop" in a story like this. No rewriting. There is just the causal loop that has always happened.

There never needs to be a version of events where the Hotgo group successfully summoned Alexander, just one where Mide thinks they did. Alexander is never overwriting time; it is manipulating events to ensure that a particular sequence plays out.

Causal loops still do have an origin point (ie a first loop), just not one that can be observed. Basically, a first loop where A and B caused C still exists, but all other loops will from there work off of C to cause the chain of events we've experienced.

Personally, I like Cleretic's hypothetical version the best where Alex was summoned and just immediately calculated its best possible path of existence and enacted it. It keeps things pretty clean and it has a good vibe to it.

[Iscah]

Causal loops still do have an origin point (ie a first loop)

The whole point of a causal loop is that it only plays out once neatly in a single pass through time. No repeating, no variants – the same person might end up at the same point in spacetime for the second time in their life, but that isn't the same as reliving the original experience.

Events can be manipulated but it basically depends on exploiting gaps in knowledge. If Alexander comes to life with no understanding of why the goblins summoned it and immediately starts devising how to set up the chain of events leading to its summoning, that "becomes" the summoners' reason... but at the same time it was always the reason.

If Mide summoned Alexander three years ago AND we travelled back in time to three years ago, you would have two Alexanders there, which is not what happened.

On a side note, despite Mide's conviction from the beginning that Dayan is trapped inside Alexander, he actually isn't until the point where we travel back in time, because that's when he is pulled into present-day Alexander's core.