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Post by Andrew Tatro on Jan 28, 2010 18:58:20 GMT
I've been thinking about interactivity between time travellers, specifically Time Lords of course. It's entirely possible given the nature of time travel to have a series of nonlinear encounters with normal people, and when interacting with other Time Lords it seems inevitable. Obviously in terms of the BBC filming the series they have real-world filiming constraints in this regard. But a game of course has no such restrictions.
What is there to prevent me from setting up an adventure where, for example, the Matt Smith Doctor encounters the Roger Delgado Master?
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Post by Curufea on Jan 28, 2010 20:04:03 GMT
Only the possible confusion of the players. Otherwise, nothing
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Post by Null and Void on Jan 28, 2010 20:20:46 GMT
Time Lords seemed to have the same sort of restrictions as Gallifrey had. Gallifrey adventures always occured in linear time, and Time Lords encountered each other in linear time.
This was done by the BBC largely for a convienience factor, but it seems to have come into popular consciousness as one of the Laws of Time.
Now, mind you, with Gallifrey gone, time in flux, The Time Lock, and the scars of the Time War everywhere, there is nothing preventing you from simply 'rewriting' this rule.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 28, 2010 22:44:21 GMT
Hullo, Curufea, Only the possible confusion of the players. Otherwise, nothing hehe
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Post by JohnK on Jan 28, 2010 22:48:45 GMT
Hullo, Null and Void, Time Lords seemed to have the same sort of restrictions as Gallifrey had. Gallifrey adventures always occured in linear time, and Time Lords encountered each other in linear time. This was done by the BBC largely for a convienience factor, but it seems to have come into popular consciousness as one of the Laws of Time. Now, mind you, with Gallifrey gone, time in flux, The Time Lock, and the scars of the Time War everywhere, there is nothing preventing you from simply 'rewriting' this rule. Actually, I don't agree with your reasoning in terms of the Classic Who. The Laws of Time seem to indicate more a taboo about crossing one's own time stream, not that of another Time Lord. After all, the Doctor in the form of some of his third through fifth incarnations has gone far into the future. What is to prevent Roger Delgado's Master from having travelled up to this same far future and encounter the Doctor in later incarnations? The Beeb was limited, for obvious reasons, by the untimely death of Roger Delgado, but in the game one is not. But I guess this just represents differences in how various folks are going to run the game. Which is a good thing.
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Post by Curufea on Jan 28, 2010 23:23:50 GMT
I do think, with his love of time-based plots, that we will see something similar to this in the Moffat years.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 29, 2010 0:18:17 GMT
I suspect that while it is possible to cross timelines on purpose, some aspect of time travel (perhaps TARDISes, more likely the Vortex) means that you can only do it if you intend to. Otherwise you always arrive somewhere after the last time you were there (in terms of specific time/location frames e.g. 'Elizabethan England', '21st Century London', '43rd Century Cantastephallobos 3') and meet people (especially other time travellers) after the last time you met them. It's why Rose always returned home after the time where she'd been 'missing' for a year, and why the Master and the Doctor are always in synch (barring 18 month periods of trap-laying). Crossing timelines is strictly forbidden... except for cheap tricks. They are against the laws of time (i.e. they are a really bad idea unless you are being really careful) and this goes double for Gallifrey; messing up the timeline of the première time travel society would be major bad news. So you simply can't. Or at least really, really shouldn't try. Now, with only the Doctor around (and some AITAS characters ) it's much less of an issue than it was. And the laws of time RE: Gallifrey keep you from meeting any Time Lord from your personal past as well i.e. any Time Lord pre- or during the Time War. Maybe I should post my 'Vortex Time' theory some time...
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evildrpuma
2nd Incarnation
Cosmic Force For Apathy
Posts: 28
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Post by evildrpuma on Jan 29, 2010 3:52:58 GMT
I suspect that while it is possible to cross timelines on purpose, some aspect of time travel (perhaps TARDISes, more likely the Vortex) means that you can only do it if you intend to. Otherwise you always arrive somewhere after the last time you were there (in terms of specific time/location frames e.g. 'Elizabethan England', '21st Century London', '43rd Century Cantastephallobos 3') and meet people (especially other time travellers) after the last time you met them. Things usually seem to work this way, but there have been exceptions. Recall that the Doctor had no idea why Queen Elizabeth was so upset with him in "The Shakespeare Code;" an "earlier" encounter with Queen Bess lay in the future of his personal timeline (and is briefly mentioned in "End of Time").
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Post by doc on Jan 29, 2010 4:00:57 GMT
Once you meet someone you become part of each other's timeline and so stay relative to each other in time, generally speaking.
Or so it should be.
Things have become a bit more complex in recent years since the Time War as the Time Lords once monitored travellers to avoid crossing their timelines with others.
There was a system in place called the Panedra Harmonic, a kind of -how do I put this- a kind of resonant temporal frequency that spreads through the vortex - throughout all time and space.
It marked timelines with their temporal constants - a specific and unique resonant frequency for each timeline. If timelines crossed - they would literally hear the effects on the monitoring station on Gallifrey as a kind of dissonance – and investigate.
Of course, it’s not there anymore but sometimes I swear I can hear the harmonic echoing around the universe…
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Post by Curufea on Jan 29, 2010 4:23:55 GMT
I would regard it as biodata. The specific linking of a person to the Web of time. When people meet it's a bit like a FOAF network - a social network: biodata is tagged with each other's encounter, forming a link.
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Post by Corone on Jan 29, 2010 14:37:10 GMT
This is rather a problem with all Who cosmology. They say 'you can't ever do this' in one episode and them do it in the next.
I've just finished a lot of words on time travel for one of the next supplements (not sure I can say what but its on the way) so we're going into lots more detail later on.
I think its only when you are trying to stop an enemy or they are a fellow time traveler you have to 'remain relative in the causal nexus'. as long as the other person is stuck (weary traveler like) in a linear time frame they ground your movement and make it ok.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 29, 2010 15:24:13 GMT
Hullo, Rel Fexive, While I see your argument about this, mate, part of the problem is that we see this in the series strictly from the viewpoint of the Doctor in his own "present", and not from the pov of the various other people and Time Lords that he meets. To each their own, I suppose. Though I suspect that when there is a game supplement for DW: AiTaS dealing with time travel and the like, we'll probably learn more about the "official" view on this.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 29, 2010 15:37:20 GMT
Hullo, Corone, This is rather a problem with all Who cosmology. They say 'you can't ever do this' in one episode and them do it in the next. Ain't it the truth! I don't know whether it was more of a problem in Classic Who than it is in New Who, but to be honest, this is just a symptom of not policing their own temporal continuity on the series. Of course, with the sheer number of Doctor Who episodes, producers, script editors, etc., this may have been impossible to do over the years. "The script today takes precedence over yesterday's continuity" and all that. I've just finished a lot of words on time travel for one of the next supplements (not sure I can say what but its on the way) so we're going into lots more detail later on. Now you've got me really curious and all! That said, I'm just looking forward to new product for the game at this point, and while I want the Aliens and Adversaries stuff, the UNIT boxed set has me drooling already (and it's still two to three months away)!
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 30, 2010 1:14:54 GMT
Things usually seem to work this way, but there have been exceptions. Recall that the Doctor had no idea why Queen Elizabeth was so upset with him in "The Shakespeare Code;" an "earlier" encounter with Queen Bess lay in the future of his personal timeline (and is briefly mentioned in "End of Time"). Of course - there are always exceptions! Hullo, Rel Fexive, While I see your argument about this, mate, part of the problem is that we see this in the series strictly from the viewpoint of the Doctor in his own "present", and not from the pov of the various other people and Time Lords that he meets. To each their own, I suppose. Though I suspect that when there is a game supplement for DW: AiTaS dealing with time travel and the like, we'll probably learn more about the "official" view on this. Oh, of course! The only perspective to work with is the one we have - which, fortunately, is one that reflects the perspective we are mainly trying to describe, if you see what I mean. This is all just theory - an attempt to explain the underlying principles behind what we see in the series. We can infer things from the interactions between the Doctor and Gallifrey, and other time travellers, and 'strictly linear people and places', and try and construct a "usable" framework from those inferences. The main thing, though, is that it needn't be applied to the actual TV series either partly or in its entirety - it can be loosely connected to it but only work as a way of 'controlling' PC time travelling with regards to crossing timelines. It's good for explaining why you can't (or at least really really shouldn't try to) meet Time Lords from the "absolute past" of Gallifrey, and why the PCs always go to places after the last time they were there. The TV series continuity is so patchy that it's pretty much impossible to tie it all up neatly anyway. It's best just to describe things with broad brush strokes that fit the general form of it and don't look at it too closely! ADDENDUM - maybe I should drag out the full theory I put on RPG.net, tidy it up a bit and post it...
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Post by n01h3r3 on Jan 30, 2010 14:54:09 GMT
All this talk has tempted me to start a session where the characters arrive in a particular time, only to be accosted by someone they've not met yet, who drags them off saying "Don't wander off like that; we've got a crisis on our hands".
The NPC already met the PCs... about an hour ago. And somehow, the players have ended up in a chain of events that they will be part of again at some point in the near future, finding their future selves are always one step ahead of them.
And then, some sessions later, after some other stories, run the same adventure again but slightly different, further along their own personal timeline, trying to avoid their past selves bumping into them (they have to remain one step ahead of themselves, otherwise they'll meet, and a paradox will ensue) while still saving the day.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 30, 2010 15:25:05 GMT
Hullo, Rel Fexive, While I see your argument about this, mate, part of the problem is that we see this in the series strictly from the viewpoint of the Doctor in his own "present", and not from the pov of the various other people and Time Lords that he meets. To each their own, I suppose. Though I suspect that when there is a game supplement for DW: AiTaS dealing with time travel and the like, we'll probably learn more about the "official" view on this. Oh, of course! The only perspective to work with is the one we have - which, fortunately, is one that reflects the perspective we are mainly trying to describe, if you see what I mean. This is all just theory - an attempt to explain the underlying principles behind what we see in the series. We can infer things from the interactions between the Doctor and Gallifrey, and other time travellers, and 'strictly linear people and places', and try and construct a "usable" framework from those inferences. The linear nature of the Doctor's lives as we see them have only been violated in the tv series a couple of times ("The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors"). Ironically, the Colin and Troughton Doctors never met in "The Two Doctors" iirc (as I've not seen that story recently). That said, I think that each GM is going to have to create their own framework for this business, given that the series itself doesn't have a good deal of continuity in this regard. The main thing, though, is that it needn't be applied to the actual TV series either partly or in its entirety - it can be loosely connected to it but only work as a way of 'controlling' PC time travelling with regards to crossing timelines. It's good for explaining why you can't (or at least really really shouldn't try to) meet Time Lords from the "absolute past" of Gallifrey, and why the PCs always go to places after the last time they were there. The TV series continuity is so patchy that it's pretty much impossible to tie it all up neatly anyway. It's best just to describe things with broad brush strokes that fit the general form of it and don't look at it too closely! ADDENDUM - maybe I should drag out the full theory I put on RPG.net, tidy it up a bit and post it... Perhaps you should. It would make interesting reading, if nothing else, and allow us to pass the time in discussion of it while we wait for the supplement with the actual time travel rules and thoughts on this subject and others.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 30, 2010 16:47:07 GMT
Okay... would you like it here or in its own thread?
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Jan 30, 2010 17:36:56 GMT
All this talk has tempted me to start a session where the characters arrive in a particular time, only to be accosted by someone they've not met yet, who drags them off saying "Don't wander off like that; we've got a crisis on our hands". The NPC already met the PCs... about an hour ago. And somehow, the players have ended up in a chain of events that they will be part of again at some point in the near future, finding their future selves are always one step ahead of them. And then, some sessions later, after some other stories, run the same adventure again but slightly different, further along their own personal timeline, trying to avoid their past selves bumping into them (they have to remain one step ahead of themselves, otherwise they'll meet, and a paradox will ensue) while still saving the day. Perfectly possible (Steven Moffat's writing the episode, anyway!) and could be a lot of fun. Take thee this karma!
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Post by JohnK on Jan 30, 2010 22:22:42 GMT
Hullo, Rel Fexive, Okay... would you like it here or in its own thread? I suspect that a separate thread would be a better idea, perhaps with a link back to this original thread where the whole concept first got discussed?
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 0:05:29 GMT
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Post by n01h3r3 on Jan 31, 2010 1:26:23 GMT
Perfectly possible (Steven Moffat's writing the episode, anyway!) and could be a lot of fun. Take thee this karma! Thank you kindly, sir. I'm glad the out-pourings of my brain could be of interest.
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