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Post by senko on Nov 8, 2019 8:18:15 GMT
I was thinking about the whole "fixed" points of time can't be changed from the show but lets say event A in the waters of mars special is a fixed point and I go back to a non-fixed one like the gelth invasion say and prevent the Doctor stopping them from taking over then the waters of mars one would have to change as humanity has been taken over in the past. Your thoughts?
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Post by Stormcrow on Nov 8, 2019 15:14:27 GMT
My thoughts are that it's just a plot device to restrict what the Doctor from being able to solve all problems by making them never exist in the first place, and that you shouldn't think too hard about it. But okay, suppose it comes up in play. Yes, if you completely wipe out an entire section of history, the fixed points within that section go with it. Think of a fixed point as something that is required to keep history looking like it does. If you try to change a fixed point, the forces of history will work against you to keep history on track. (The Doctor tries to save Adelaide Brooke, whose death is a fixed point, but after saving her she kills herself.) But if history itself changes, then those fixed points no longer exist. (New ones will, though.) You have to attack history at a non-fixed point with a great deal of historical inertia before you can do this.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Nov 11, 2019 12:59:00 GMT
Yeah, plot device is my take. In Pyramids of Mars Doc4 showed SJ the blasted ruins of a potential future Earth, which kinda means all the futureward "fixed points" are suddenly unfixed.
If you want a more technobabble basis the I'd suggest something along the lines of variable quantum plasticity of time. At some locations the flow of time may be wide and shallow*, allowing for relatively easy minor alternations to "reality" but ones that have little futureward consequences. Other locations are narrower, deeper and faster flowing parts of the timestream where it's difficult to alter events at all, but if you do manage it things tend to flood outwards and change reality greatly
My take is: (and you're perfectly free to incorporate these concepts)The "nothing" of the vacuum of space actually consists of subatomic space-time turbulence at extremely small distances measurable at the Planck scale, the length at which the structure of space-time is dominated by quantum gravity. At this scale, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows energy to briefly decay into particles and anti-particles, thereby producing “something” from “nothing.” And nothing is unstable. (just try tearing toilet paper)
One could argue that for time travel to be possible there must be a level of quantum uncertainty within normal space-time; because events are "fuzzy" there is the possibility for matter and energy to to be displaced.
However if the level of uncertainty is itself variable (sometimes unpredictably so) then there are potential problems with time travel; repeated attempts to travel to a certain location in space-time alters the level of useful local uncertainty and hence makes it more difficult for others to appear there.
- The Limelight Effect: Well known historical events are difficult to access, due to quantum effects caused by large numbers of efforts to travel there. They repel time travel efforts.
Time travellers tend to ‘blend in’, despite not actually looking normal for the location, because there is a degree of quantum “haze” about them, part of being out of their natural place in the timeflow. It's down to the artron energy....
- Temporal Invisibility: they’re not ‘invisible’ just unnoticed, for example perception filtering or the SEP field.
While time isn't exactly alive, sentient or sapient† it's a sufficiently complex phenomena that, rather like the Gaia Hypothesis‡, it does have certain characteristics of a living system. Hence there are situations when "time" finds it easier to interfere , sometimes violently, with a time traveller’s actions in order to preserve the "normal flow" of time. Among seasoned temporal voyagers (those who've experiences and [more importantly] survived this phenomena with their personal reality reasonably intact) this is referred to this as "getting clockhammered" or (sigh) "clock-blocking". It can be unpleasant, irritating or fatal.
- Chockhammering: when Time is trying to send you a message.
[Side note] Some time travellers of a mystical bent attempt to avoid this unpleasantness by proving Time with an easier way than, say, causing them to be hit by a passing meteorite whose passage through the skull strangely resembles a .32 bullet, to pass them a message. They have a set of dice or random number generator or comm app that they use. For example; "If all six of these dice show zero I'll change my plans". The theory is that altering the probability is "easier" for Time than other methods of deterring them from tamerpi9ng with something they shouldn't. This may or may not actually work; it certainly doesn't work if the person doesn't believe and intend to adhere to the belief sincerely.
- It's an interesting quirk for a time traveller; rolls dice before important decisions.
What is artron energy? Well objects have a certain natural level of chronons, depending on their natural position in space-time and it's ambient chronon level; elsewhen in the universe this is different from the ambient level and may be detectable§. In extreme cases objects, especially living beings with their great quantum potential (from the myriad of potential futures they can select from) can interact disastrously with objects from very different periods. Meeting yourself, as your artron signatures will be very similar but different in intensity, is a particularly bad idea, the Limitation Effect.
You might find one of your selves (the one displaced from their 'natural' period usually) sufferer effects such as: - Temporary or permanent neural damage, loss of memories, phobias
- Prophetic dreams (usually effects the 'earlier' self)
- Death
- Temporal duplication, with a copy of the 'later' self dragged in from an adjacent universe to further complicate matters.
- Temporal displacement, with the 'later' self (usually) thrown elsewhen in time.
- Temporary or permanent insubstantiality or invisibility
- Temporary artron energy surge effects, including being surrounded by a slight glowing aura, frequent electrical discharges, feeling unusually hot or cold to touch
- Being repulsive to the temporally aware (Feel the Turn of the Universe)
- Fortean Flickers (see below)
More subtle effects are possible
The more you know, the less you can do. Observing an event reduces the ambient uncertainty and hence makes it more difficult to change the event. So if one time traveller sees her companion fall off a cliff she may not run over to see the impact because that make it more difficult for her future self to pop back and save their life. If she wanted the companion plummet down and small themselves on the rock below and doesn't see (say) her differently dressed self grabbing him a few metres below the edge using a contragrav saucer and tractor beam then it becomes much more difficult to save them in this may in the future.
- Observer Effect: The better an event is known or studied the more difficult it is to alter it. Sometimes ignorance is good.
This naturally (or at least as naturally as anything to do with something as fundamentally unnatural as time travel) leads to Causal Substitution. This refers to altering an observed event without actually altering the event as observed by making changes out of the view of any observers, to reduce the paradoxical impact. I refer you to certain events on the Plain of Sighs in Utah for an interesting example. Never throw away a useful duplicate, be it clone, shapeshifting robot or anything else.
A far more dangerous attempt at this is the Saving Appearance; where a time traveller comes to the aid of their earlier or later self via time travel. This is rather dangerous at best and really, really, dangerous at worse. Though there are ways to mitigate the Limitation Effect (for example living for a long period in the past to allow one's artron signature to alter to match the ambient) including technological solutions; a wise traveller is a wary traveller. A more subtle variation is the Ace in the Clock; using a device, information, or intervention organised by a future self to fix a problem, or escape from a situation.
Within this quantum temporal framework the concept of the Jonbar Hinge becomes one of a point in space-time where the potentials are reduced drastically; instead of a multitude of fairly similar possible outcomes from a certain action there are only a few, classically two, and they are very different. The probability wave is, if not collapsed, highly constrained. Time travel in general, and the more dangerous techniques especially, are notorious for creating Fortean Flickers, odd effects caused by permanent alterations to space-time at a quantum level. These could be places where a radio picks up transmission from other periods, places or universes; rooms that are not where they should be (i.e. a door in an outside wall that leads to a room that's obviously not there); a spot of a couple of square metres where it's always raining, or the weather is that of three hours in the future; a door that, when opened with one particular key, leads to a different room from than the other keys.
These can also be artefacts in their own right; a coin that always lands heads up, except when tossed by a time traveller; a power-strip that delivers power even when not plugged in; a water bottle that looks and feels empty but when opened is full et cetera.
Then there's the Ontological Artefact; something that has no creation, i.e. an object that is part of a causal loop or a stable, standing flicker. Always slightly odd, often quite powerful and always beacons of artron energy. Such an artefact may be a person of course (e.g. Gandalf Grey).
Finally there is Fating and Time Twisting. The latter is a common irritation for time travellers, encountering people out of the 'natural' sequence from the perspective of one or another. It can be amusing, annoying, horrifying or fatal. Fating is more subtle; Time doesn't wast major changes and something (or someone) that already has a destined place in future events shouldn't be moved in time. At the most subtle level this can mean that someone avoids meeting a time traveller due to minor coincidences, at the major end of the scale it can be fatal for a time traveller to meddle. Such an object might, by the desperate, deranged or arrogant, be used as a shield of some sort.
* To use the traditional aquatic metaphor for the flow of time.
† This may or may not be actually true. In the EU time does have a personification. But then that might be quantum magic... Or something really weird.
‡ The Aoin Hypothesis.
§ Something time travellers should remember and be wary of. It's important to pay attention to odd feelings and effects, such as a companion forgetting part of their history, or receiving a shock from an object in an antique shop.
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Post by senko on Nov 12, 2019 0:49:52 GMT
Interesting thoughts there and I think I may adopt some of them if you don't mind?
Some of it also fits in with my Time Psychosis theory was the older TARDIS'S (and possibly modern ones) aren't fully shielded from Vortex energy and can over prolonged exposure make a Dark incarnation with the personality twisted e.g. The Valeyard (Timelord Triumphant is a modern glimpse at this), the modern Rassilon vs the one we see in the classic series, the prison mentioned in one of the future adventure ideas.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Nov 12, 2019 10:39:04 GMT
Interesting thoughts there and I think I may adopt some of them if you don't mind? Feel free. Speculations and ideas from my merging various time travel concepts and games.Some of it also fits in with my Time Psychosis theory was the older TARDIS'S (and possibly modern ones) aren't fully shielded from Vortex energy and can over prolonged exposure make a Dark incarnation with the personality twisted e.g. The Valeyard (Timelord Triumphant is a modern glimpse at this), the modern Rassilon vs the one we see in the classic series, the prison mentioned in one of the future adventure ideas.
It's quite possible that older TARDISes weren't intended for long term use without frequent maintenance; they were intended for wither ceremonial visits to 'lesser powers' or covert interventions. Time Lords weren't supposed to live in them long term.
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Post by senko on Nov 12, 2019 12:22:52 GMT
Does fit with the minimalist nature of them in the early day's no bedrooms, food dispenser, white empty rooms, control room as the only way in/out. Would also explain the events of Dalek's in Manhattan they've gone mad with their time in the void and the emergency temporal shift. Their battle vehicles didn't protect them and they decided pigmen and dalek/human hybrids were the way to go.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Nov 12, 2019 12:57:10 GMT
Does fit with the minimalist nature of them in the early day's no bedrooms, food dispenser, white empty rooms, control room as the only way in/out. Would also explain the events of Dalek's in Manhattan they've gone mad with their time in the void and the emergency temporal shift. Their battle vehicles didn't protect them and they decided pigmen and dalek/human hybrids were the way to go. Well Dalek drones are expendable. I doubt the Time Lords are quite that unfeeling about their own but it's somewhat analogous to someone stealing an obsolete sailboat and heading off onto the great oceans in search of adventure. They may end up with scurvy and and some interesting psychological problems.
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