Alexander Questline Question

[Iscah]

The first goblin summoning would need to have been done without the journal. And the first Aura summoning would still need to fail in a vacuum without the time travel.

I think you're missing a very key concept of a stable time loop like this: there is no "first version" before the loop is established. There is just a single version of events, some of which happen prior to the events that caused them in the first place.

Everyone in the story only lives through the events of the story once. There are no repeat cycles, just a timeline that does some squiggles and loops before continuing on as usual.

[GoldStarz]

I think you're missing a very key concept of a stable time loop like this: there is no "first version" before the loop is established. There is just a single version of events, some of which happen prior to the events that caused them in the first place.

Everyone in the story only lives through the events of the story once. There are no repeat cycles, just a timeline that does some squiggles and loops before continuing on as usual.

That's not actually a stable/closed time loop, it runs headfirst into the bootstrap paradox wherein the time loop causes itself to exist without a real point of origin, which itself means the time loop shouldn't actually happen.

[Cilia]

That's not actually a stable/closed time loop, it runs headfirst into the bootstrap paradox wherein the time loop causes itself to exist without a real point of origin, which itself means the time loop shouldn't actually happen.

Thus necessitating the existence of a hypothetical "Zeroth Loop" (or "first version") that set it all in motion. Unfortunately because we are a part of perpetuating the loop, that lies outside of our ability to observe.

Again, don't think about it too hard. You're just going to end up with more questions than answers.

[Iscah]

That's not actually a stable/closed time loop, it runs headfirst into the bootstrap paradox wherein the time loop causes itself to exist without a real point of origin, which itself means the time loop shouldn't actually happen.

It is a stable loop, or at least what I have always understood to be the meaning of a stable loop.

A stable loop needs to be an open loop in terms of physical things going in and out of it, because a thing actually, physically trapped in the loop will degrade over time. Information can be passed around the loop but it needs to be via speech or memory or rewritten into a new physical book. You can't send the same thing around again.

The sort of exception is Mide and Dayan, who don't actually go around the loop infinitely themselves, but are ultimately transported into the past to become their own ancestors, write the codex and set up the events of the loop without actually reliving it themselves. It's kept stable because young Mide doesn't know any of this history.

It's a bootstrap paradox, certainly – though Wikipedia tells me the correct term is a causal loop and it should be differentiated from a time loop because "causal loops are unchanging and self-originating, whereas time loops are constantly resetting".

So it's definitely a causal loop, not a time loop. One solid sequence of events, no resets or repeats. It's a paradox in that there's no real origin to the whole thing and there's no triggering event, but given that it has come into existence somehow, there are no events in it that contradict each other or "don't add up".

If you need an explanation for it, it's possible that Alexander calculated the scheme and set it in motion "from the middle" – that if a being capable of time travel plans to go back in time and do a thing, that plan is enough for those past events to have already happened and their outcomes are already in motion.

[Cleretic]

For a useful reference with Alexander's story: Time travel in that story works basically on Bill and Ted rules. If someone will go back in time to do something via time travel, then they have already done it. This makes stopping Quickthinx difficult as an individual, because he has the ability to have already won, all he needs to do is remember to go back in time and set up the conditions of his own victory.

It makes internal sense as a time travel story; because time travel does not exist in real life, we can't apply real-life logic to it, so internal logic is the only logic that applies.


And as for the old chestnut of 'why did the Warrior of Light not simply perform indiscriminate murder': like every single time this comes up, it's because the situation is more complicated than that, and the Warrior of Light was paying more attention than the person who asked. Quickthinx is smart, he's inordinately prepared for every single eventuality (because time travel, but at the time that's not known). The conclusion cutscene for the very first of the raids shows that he was already prepared for a sucker-punch shot from Mide. Do you really think he didn't also have contingencies for the WoL fight-idioting at them? No; you have to watch for a better opening than that. Especially when what you think is an opening is a situation with a number of innocents that Quickthinx could very easily turn fire on instead; Biggs, Wedge, and Roundrox are pretty easy targets for retaliation, which Quickthinx would very happily do.

The problem here is the same you see from a lot of people who don't understand Superman; classic drama around Superman is very rarely about threatening him, and every bit about threatening the significantly less invincible people he cares about.

[Zohar_Lahar]

I'm guessing the first loop was Mide & company summoning Alexander without interference. Alexander proceeds to use its mainframe to calculate timelines, and quickly learns that every possible worldline has him causing the Eighth Umbral Calamity, except one: where the future is entrusted to the Warrior of Light. It is possible that Alexander's time travel could rewind events like when we wipe and start over a fight. Thus Alexander engineers the stable loop by overwriting the events of his initial summoning leading to Dayan getting absorbed and the cat and journal falling into Quickthinx hands, who summons him a few years later. This way, he can provide players with raid loot test the Warrior of Light's worthiness of safeguarding the future.

Or something like that.

[Cleretic]

I'm guessing the first loop was Mide & company summoning Alexander without interference. Alexander proceeds to use its mainframe to calculate timelines, and quickly learns that every possible worldline has him causing the Eighth Umbral Calamity, except one: where the future is entrusted to the Warrior of Light. It is possible that Alexander's time travel could rewind events like when we wipe and start over a fight. Thus Alexander engineers the stable loop by overwriting the events of his initial summoning leading to Dayan getting absorbed and the cat and journal falling into Quickthinx hands, who summons him a few years later. This way, he can provide players with raid loot test the Warrior of Light's worthiness of safeguarding the future.

Or something like that.

I have a different theory on this one, that I always liked:

Alexander saw that the greatest possible future for the world isn't one where it doesn't exist, but one where it exists briefly, only to be defeated. So it's not just about making sure it can't cause a Calamity, thus bringing the whole thing to a net zero in good vs. bad; something positive has to have happened as a result of its defeat. I think that Alexander saw further than the simple math of 'if I live in full a Calamity happens'; after all, if this is a machine that can see every possible future, reasonably it could've read further than the direct consequences. It saw the further consequences of its brief existence years on, and saw good that could only happen if it did in fact exist.

Alexander didn't just see that it had to avoid becoming the Eighth Umbral Calamity itself. It saw that the only way to avoid the Eighth Umbral Calamity from ever happening was to make sure the right people saw how to avert it.

It saw the Tycoon.

[Iscah]

I'm guessing the first loop was ...

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.

[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.