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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 0:03:40 GMT
Prompted by discussions in this thread, and paraphrased and expanded on from several posts on RPG.net: This so-called 'Vortex Time' idea came about right after I read the campaign idea "The Last Doctor", a bit before the RPG was released ( here on this forum; original site). The part that really got me thinking about it was this one: That didn't make sense to me. Every time the Doctor goes anywhere he has to double-check there are no past Time Lords around? How would he then ever stumble on the Master's schemes if he avoided all Time Lords? This prompted the idea that, in essence, the Vortex itself imposes a linear timeline on all travellers that use it, ensuring that they encounter each other (and those who live a strictly linear life) after the last time they met - unless (a) particular effort is made to cross timelines, or (b) some exception and/or accident occurs to make it happen. This means that the Time Lord 'present day' (initially the same as the 'present day' of Gallifrey) is coterminous (def: being the same in extent; coextensive in range or scope) with all of time. It's why, after the Time War, no one sees Time Lords any more (except the Doctor) because from that point on in that present there's no one around to go anywhen in time to be seen, and why people from both the 21st century (Sontarans) and the year five billion (Jabe of the Forest Of Cheem) can know that the Time Lords are no more. And before that Time Lords did not, as a rule, cross their own timelines (because they obeyed the Laws of Time, and not because it was not possible) so Time Lords never encountered each other out of sequence, so you can't go somewhen and meet a Time Lord from before the Time War as their present is before the coterminous present day of Gallifrey - or the Vortex, or the Doctor, or whatever we measure it from now. I prefer using the Vortex as the now point as the coterminous-ness and synchronicity of time travellers would seem to be a function of the Vortex specifically and time travel generally. Apparently, the Laws of Time were put in place to forbid Gallifrey's present from dangerously interacting with its past or future as well as to forbid similar meddling in the past, present and future of the rest of the universe. Of course, breaking them can produce effects (paradoxes, spurs, Reapers, and worse) so terrible that the consequences are deterrent enough that no one in their right mind would break the Laws. At least, not in a major way; minor infractions might result in a trial and punishments like, say, exile. More Detail: The Time Lords that appear in the relative future (or present or past) of the universe did so in the past of Gallifrey as determined by the now seen in The End Of Time personified by the Doctor and 'maintained' by the Vortex. Essentially, by being the Lords of Time they made themselves somewhat outside the time/timeline of the universe with their own timeline that is, from an outside perspective, non-linear compared to the rest of the universe. Consider these two linear tracks: Universe --D--A-------B-------C---C-------D----------------------A------B--D------------ Gallifrey ==A===B====C====D====TW~~~tD If you are on Gallifrey at time C, A and B are in your past and D and the Time War (and the Doctor) are in your future. It doesn't matter where A, B or C appear in time in the universe. You can't go from C on Gallifrey to one of the Ds in the universe and meet a future Time Lord as that breaks the Laws of Time pertaining to looking at the future of your personal timeline (and the timeline of Gallifrey). And you're forbidden by the Laws of Time again from going into Gallifrey's past and meeting the past Time Lords at any A or B. So while the Doctor can't (or at least shouldn't) go and watch the defeat of the Racnoss and the Great Vampires in Gallifrey's past he can deal with the survivors of those conflicts, whenever they might be encountered. By the same reasoning, when you pass the Time War there are no more Time Lords to visit the universe to make an E, F, G or whatever. So you still can't (or really shouldn't) go and meet any future Time Lords or any past Time Lords. There's just the Doctor marking out that timeline now, along with the Master, the Daleks and (apparently) any other time traveller. Oh, and any player or NPC Time Lord characters in the RPG, of course Consider Jabe of the Forest of Cheem or the Face of Boe (leaving aside the Harkness factor); they knew the Time Lords were no more, which means they would not expect to see one show up because from the point of view of the universe as a whole the Time Lords are now (very nearly) extinct within their all-of-time coterminous existence. ....Maybe I am really, really overcomplicating things unnecessarily but it seems to be much harder to explain this than it is to just know it as an idea! It's a "simple" way of stopping Time Lords bumping into people from Gallifrey's past or future and (trickery, multi-incarnation events or personal timeline crossing aside) it keeps time travellers meeting each other after the last time they met, as the Doctor and the Master always did. Crossing Timelines: It was Time Lord practice to obey the Laws of Time (which are "legal laws" rather than "physics laws", if you like) so unless you go to the particular effort of crossing a timeline it (probably) won't happen accidentally (barring those previously mentioned exceptions). And of course they tended to be extremely strict on the Laws to the point of (almost) never breaking them with regards to Gallifrey's own past (as far as we know). Take The Three Doctors - it took power, power Gallifrey really didn't have spare at that point, to fold the Doctor's timeline and bring about a multi-incarnation event. Presumably the Time Scoop has the same level of power in The Five Doctors and so do the Time Lords who set the second and sixth Doctors together in The Two Doctors. Perhaps the Vortex, touching all of time and space yet seemingly being the basis of this 'Vortex Time' idea, has a kind of 'current' that keeps your travels synchronous with everyone else who uses it but which you have to overcome to move "against the flow" whether it be forwards or backwards. And this takes extra power and can cause complications (i.e. paradoxes) so it's either never done or done very carefully. Summary: The Vortex imposes a linear timeline on all time travellers (or so it seems to me) which means they always encounter each other after they last time they met, and always return to places after the last time they were there. But it is possible to have these encounters out of sequence (the Master as Mr Saxon; River Song; Queen Elizabeth; visiting Rose before she met the Doctor; folding the Doctor's timeline) by accident or on purpose, but this takes more power and effort (and, hopefully, greater care) than regular travel. It also means you can't encounter Time Lords from the past without making the effort to do so, but this is strictly forbidden by the Laws of Time as it would constitute interfering with the history of Gallifrey. Again, this is all (very lengthy) supposition based on a simple but hard to explain idea for providing a framework to govern time travellers and their journeys and interactions. Discuss! ;D
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Post by n01h3r3 on Jan 31, 2010 1:24:03 GMT
Regarding the Time Lords post-Time War, I always imagined that the very notion of such a cataclysmic war across time would hinder, if not outright prevent, travel to and from the war's past (that is, any point leading up to the objective timeline of the war itself). Similarly, I imagine that the lock on the Last Great Time War is as much a matter of practicality as anything else - the war has raged so fiercely that it is virtually impossible for any time traveller to enter it without crossing his own timeline or the timeline of someone else they're connected to... essentially, time travel through a Time War on that scale becomes increasingly fraught with paradoxes as the war progresses. Consequently, Time Lords and Daleks (and other species entangled in the war) could be seen to vanish from all points in time because the very nature of the war keeps the linear parts of the universe and the parts involved in the Time War distinct - interaction between the two isn't impossible, but it's difficult. The Last Great Time War was, afterall, described as "invisible to lesser races", and I imagine that were you ever to travel post-war to Gallifrey or Skaro during their pre-war history, you'd only find barren and lifeless worlds, their original pasts now impossible to visit. It also covers why The Master would flee from the war by going forward in time - during a temporal conflict, all the best targets are in the past, so the war moves back in time as it rages.
The battles of a Time War would be attempts to change pivotal moments in the history of the enemy - the temporal equivalent of resource denial, really (as each successful change hinders the capabilities of the enemy), with the most significant targets being the origin of the enemy force and the point at which they became time travellers. The ability to keep functioning during the war in spite of your history being rewritten could well be attributed to devices similar to the Paradox Machine that The Master builds from the TARDIS - afterall, without some way to keep changing history from influencing your present, a Time War would be won by whichever side prevented the other from being created in the first place.
When it comes to the apparent linearity of time travel... well, use of a TARDIS is our most frequent point of reference, and I can easily imagine that method having particular failsafes and tendencies built in to reduce the chances of doing something really unpleasant to time. Between a Time Lord's awareness of the 'motion' (for lack of a better term) of space and time, and that of a TARDIS, and the symbiotic psychic link between them, I can imagine that a lot of the fiddly difficulties of time travel are dealt with silently and quite swiftly - between them, a Time Lord and his TARDIS can spot the signs that other time travellers, particularly other versions of themselves, have been through a particular place and period, and may with experience and keen perception learn to identify other time travellers by the trails and disruptions they leave behind while in-flight, allowing those places, times and people to be avoided deftly (or sought out, as desired).
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Post by Kit on Jan 31, 2010 1:31:57 GMT
Fascinating reading. I like it.
In my game, I use the Observer Effect as a reason players cant hop back in the TARDIS and go back to the beginning of an adventure.
In my case, the Observer is the TARDIS itself. Once it has arrived in an event and is Observing the event, it cannot go alter the event.
Now, if you had another TARDIS to use, maybe you could do something. Though this can lead to Reapers and worse...
Again, i think your treatise is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by Stormcrow on Jan 31, 2010 5:10:33 GMT
The effect that you're describing is known in some circles as the Absolute Now: events at the Absolute Now are "real" events, and everything else is either history or future, and not as "real." If you change history (or the future), it is instantly changed for everyone in the Absolute Now, wherever and whenever they are.
Time Lords and other time travelers all seem to operate in a common Absolute Now, and time for any traveler seems to be the same for any other traveler. If the Doctor experiences a year, a year also passes for Gallifrey's Absolute Now.
As you say, there are exceptions, and these are inevitably considered bad or exceptional or draining. So I'd say you've got it right.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 11:52:19 GMT
Regarding the Time Lords post-Time War, I always imagined that the very notion of such a cataclysmic war across time would hinder, if not outright prevent, travel to and from the war's past (that is, any point leading up to the objective timeline of the war itself). Similarly, I imagine that the lock on the Last Great Time War is as much a matter of practicality as anything else - the war has raged so fiercely that it is virtually impossible for any time traveller to enter it without crossing his own timeline or the timeline of someone else they're connected to... essentially, time travel through a Time War on that scale becomes increasingly fraught with paradoxes as the war progresses. Consequently, Time Lords and Daleks (and other species entangled in the war) could be seen to vanish from all points in time because the very nature of the war keeps the linear parts of the universe and the parts involved in the Time War distinct - interaction between the two isn't impossible, but it's difficult. The Last Great Time War was, afterall, described as "invisible to lesser races", and I imagine that were you ever to travel post-war to Gallifrey or Skaro during their pre-war history, you'd only find barren and lifeless worlds, their original pasts now impossible to visit. It also covers why The Master would flee from the war by going forward in time - during a temporal conflict, all the best targets are in the past, so the war moves back in time as it rages. The battles of a Time War would be attempts to change pivotal moments in the history of the enemy - the temporal equivalent of resource denial, really (as each successful change hinders the capabilities of the enemy), with the most significant targets being the origin of the enemy force and the point at which they became time travellers. The ability to keep functioning during the war in spite of your history being rewritten could well be attributed to devices similar to the Paradox Machine that The Master builds from the TARDIS - afterall, without some way to keep changing history from influencing your present, a Time War would be won by whichever side prevented the other from being created in the first place. When it comes to the apparent linearity of time travel... well, use of a TARDIS is our most frequent point of reference, and I can easily imagine that method having particular failsafes and tendencies built in to reduce the chances of doing something really unpleasant to time. Between a Time Lord's awareness of the 'motion' (for lack of a better term) of space and time, and that of a TARDIS, and the symbiotic psychic link between them, I can imagine that a lot of the fiddly difficulties of time travel are dealt with silently and quite swiftly - between them, a Time Lord and his TARDIS can spot the signs that other time travellers, particularly other versions of themselves, have been through a particular place and period, and may with experience and keen perception learn to identify other time travellers by the trails and disruptions they leave behind while in-flight, allowing those places, times and people to be avoided deftly (or sought out, as desired). I like the idea of the headquarters of each side of the Time War being built around a Paradox Machine, protecting it from change while their timelines twist and turn and change as the enemy rewrites history to deny them the resources to fight the war and their side works to counteract those alterations. I also like your "barren and lifeless worlds, their original pasts now impossible to visit" idea too The reason why I didn't use the TARDIS as the basis of the theory is that it also seems to apply to all time travellers - although many of the accidental breakages of the Laws of Time are caused by non-TARDIS users (such as meeting River Song out of sequence, or Jack's triple crossing of his own timeline) which could explain it. But that doesn't stop TARDISes being particularly good at following the Laws - in fact, they'd have to be, wouldn't they? The effect that you're describing is known in some circles as the Absolute Now: events at the Absolute Now are "real" events, and everything else is either history or future, and not as "real." If you change history (or the future), it is instantly changed for everyone in the Absolute Now, wherever and whenever they are. Time Lords and other time travelers all seem to operate in a common Absolute Now, and time for any traveler seems to be the same for any other traveler. If the Doctor experiences a year, a year also passes for Gallifrey's Absolute Now. As you say, there are exceptions, and these are inevitably considered bad or exceptional or draining. So I'd say you've got it right. Yeah, that's pretty much it As I think I said, explaining it seems to take more effort than just knowing it because it seems to be difficult to put the idea across - your explanation is the easier one!
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Post by n01h3r3 on Jan 31, 2010 12:35:35 GMT
The reason why I didn't use the TARDIS as the basis of the theory is that it also seems to apply to all time travellers - although many of the accidental breakages of the Laws of Time are caused by non-TARDIS users (such as meeting River Song out of sequence, or Jack's triple crossing of his own timeline) which could explain it. But that doesn't stop TARDISes being particularly good at following the Laws - in fact, they'd have to be, wouldn't they? Well, it stands to reason that TARDISes would be designed to follow the Laws of Time where possible - after all, the civilisation that created them would have wanted a form of time travel that caused as little disruption as possible, given their policy of non-interference. But then we get to the other methods seen... and nothing else seems quite so careful. Certainly, I can't imagine the Daleks being too concerned about changing history... indeed, I imagine that's one of the reasons why they travel through time, to change the histories of their enemies and conquer them/render them extinct without difficulty. Humans lack the same awareness of time and space that a Time Lord possesses, which means that even with advanced technology, their efforts at time travel are fairly clumsy... and so on with the various other methods of time travel that have been demonstrated over the years.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 13:42:45 GMT
Interestingly, in (I think) Remembrance Of The Daleks the Doctor states that even the Daleks wouldn't risk changing history. Obviously by the time they are bobble-deep in the Time War they don't really care any more - and still don't care afterwards either as the Cult Of Skaro are desperate enough to attempt to change history at every turn, whether it be at Canary Wharf, in Manhattan or by moving the Earth to the Medusa Cascade. Of course, in that last one they were going to destroy REALITY! ITSELF! so altering history was not really a concern at that point.
it's worth noting that the Time War put the Daleks in the same "independent of the linear timeline of the universe" state as the Time Lords, as they would have to be to prosecute the War. Call it "time free" or "time loose" if you like.
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Post by renegadetimelord on Jan 31, 2010 14:20:59 GMT
Gah, the complexity of it!
Only thoughts - anyone who visits Gallifrey somehow becomes linked into their linear timeline. Once you've been there, you can't travel back before you arrived, and your future interactions with Gallifrey always occur in Gallifrey's Now.
Also, perhaps The Moment possessed by The Doctor is the 'beginning'. That moment when both Time Lords and Daleks came to exist - or perhaps that point 'outside time' that allowed them to continue the War? Maybe, he stole that paradoxical period that allowed them to continue fighting the War despite the constant undoing of past events. Feels a little like The Eleven Day Empire of Faction Paradox.
Finally, it occurs to me that no free-roaming Time Lords exist after the end of the Time War, aside from The Doctor, because I should imagine the Time Lords enacted a sort of draft. Faced with such an enemy and the ultimate dissolution of their existence, the Time Lords draft all time travelling Gallifreyans to return home and fight. In certain instances this actually meant breaking the laws of linear time and returning Time Lords like Rassilon (though, I'm sure they would not have gone so far as to consider drafting Omega given his madness seemed to exceed Rassilon's by several orders of magnitude).
Just some random thoughts...
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 14:56:38 GMT
It's way too complex isn't it? Simple to use, hard to explain. I like the idea that The Moment is like the ultimate Absolute Now or an absolute Observer Effect point - in that Moment one can see the whole of the Time War and with it comes the power to decide how the War will end. Once the decision is made it can not be unmade - leading to the Time Lock.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 31, 2010 15:15:06 GMT
Hullo, Rel Fexive,
Wow!! I'm still digesting the material that you've posted to open this thread, but have to say that it's given me a lot to think about.
However, I seem to recall this theory of time travel and crossing timelines and all, and believe it is called Absolute Now, In many ways, I think you've gotten it right here. That said, we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the official game product comes out with more info on time travel and crossing timelines in the Doctor Who universe.
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Post by JohnK on Jan 31, 2010 15:17:34 GMT
Hullo, Stormcrow, David!! Great to see you here!! How you doing? Still running CONTINUUM: ROLEPLAYING IN THE YET these days? :) The effect that you're describing is known in some circles as the Absolute Now: events at the Absolute Now are "real" events, and everything else is either history or future, and not as "real." If you change history (or the future), it is instantly changed for everyone in the Absolute Now, wherever and whenever they are. Time Lords and other time travelers all seem to operate in a common Absolute Now, and time for any traveler seems to be the same for any other traveler. If the Doctor experiences a year, a year also passes for Gallifrey's Absolute Now. As you say, there are exceptions, and these are inevitably considered bad or exceptional or draining. So I'd say you've got it right. Thanks for explaining this somewhat, as I was at a bit of a loss as to how to put it into words at this point. (Long night and writing stuff for other things has...dulled the brain somewhat.) So, are you planning to run a DW: AiTaS game any time in the future?
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Post by Stormcrow on Jan 31, 2010 16:13:48 GMT
Hullo, Stormcrow, David!! Great to see you here!! How you doing? Still running CONTINUUM: ROLEPLAYING IN THE YET these days? :) Not recently. Sustaining interest in it is difficult. It's a distinct possibility. No promises!
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Post by n01h3r3 on Jan 31, 2010 16:54:21 GMT
Interestingly, in (I think) Remembrance Of The Daleks the Doctor states that even the Daleks wouldn't risk changing history. I think there's a sliding scale of significance where changing history is concerned. Afterall, while The Waters of Mars shows that the Daleks won't change something as significant as the death of Adelaide Brooke, there are plenty of variable points in time to interfere with, as the Doctor demonstrates at times (just as often, he ends up ensuring that history happens the way it's supposed to happen - the notion is very subjective, so the line between the two acts is blurry at best). I suppose there's changing history, and then there's changing history. That's mentioned in either Bad Wolf or The Parting of the Ways, IIRC - Jack mentions being aware of the Daleks, knowing of them as a threat... and then the entire civilisation vanishing 'overnight'. As he later mentions knowing of the Time War only as a legend, this 'vanishing' is likely to be the point at which the Daleks entered the war. Oddly, in spite of being a time traveller himself, Jack not knowing about the war suggests that humans never really push past their natural (linear) perceptions of the universe, in spite of apparently inventing/acquiring the means to time travel by the 51st century and losing it again at various points (it doesn't seem to exist in the year 200,000, nor is there any sign of it in the year 5,000,000,000 or the decades that followed, and it's mentioned as something long-since-lost by Professor Yana).
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Post by allivingstone on Jan 31, 2010 17:39:09 GMT
I'm still (slowly) digesting everything in this thread. However, has anyone addressed Time Crash as an event that straddles both ends of the Time War? I'm not sure how widely available this mini-episode is outside the UK, but I think it's canonical (insofar as any DW can be said to be so). BTW If you haven't seen it, do so somehow. It is truly Fantastic!
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Post by allivingstone on Jan 31, 2010 17:45:49 GMT
it's worth noting that the Time War put the Daleks in the same "independent of the linear timeline of the universe" state as the Time Lords, as they would have to be to prosecute the War. Call it "time free" or "time loose" if you like. I call it 'Advanced Time Faring' - Technology Level 9 in game-speak. Classic Series Daleks were only TL8, of course.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 17:47:04 GMT
Interestingly, in (I think) Remembrance Of The Daleks the Doctor states that even the Daleks wouldn't risk changing history. I think there's a sliding scale of significance where changing history is concerned. Afterall, while The Waters of Mars shows that the Daleks won't change something as significant as the death of Adelaide Brooke, there are plenty of variable points in time to interfere with, as the Doctor demonstrates at times (just as often, he ends up ensuring that history happens the way it's supposed to happen - the notion is very subjective, so the line between the two acts is blurry at best). I suppose there's changing history, and then there's changing history. You're probably right - some things can certainly be changed more easily than others. That's mentioned in either Bad Wolf or The Parting of the Ways, IIRC - Jack mentions being aware of the Daleks, knowing of them as a threat... and then the entire civilisation vanishing 'overnight'. As he later mentions knowing of the Time War only as a legend, this 'vanishing' is likely to be the point at which the Daleks entered the war. Oddly, in spite of being a time traveller himself, Jack not knowing about the war suggests that humans never really push past their natural (linear) perceptions of the universe, in spite of apparently inventing/acquiring the means to time travel by the 51st century and losing it again at various points (it doesn't seem to exist in the year 200,000, nor is there any sign of it in the year 5,000,000,000 or the decades that followed, and it's mentioned as something long-since-lost by Professor Yana). Yeah, there are some things you can't think too much about or your head starts hurting I'm still (slowly) digesting everything in this thread. However, has anyone addressed Time Crash as an event that straddles both ends of the Time War? I'm not sure how widely available this mini-episode is outside the UK, but I think it's canonical (insofar as any DW can be said to be so). BTW If you haven't seen it, do so somehow. It is truly Fantastic! Oh... um... because it involves the Doctor's timeline, which started before the War and continues after it, his timeline can still be folded (accidentally in this case) around the War without touching it? Or something? Now, if he was 'connecting' with a previous self from during the War period, well, that'd be another story! *runs for the hills*
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Post by Null and Void on Jan 31, 2010 18:19:29 GMT
I'm still (slowly) digesting everything in this thread. However, has anyone addressed Time Crash as an event that straddles both ends of the Time War? I'm not sure how widely available this mini-episode is outside the UK, but I think it's canonical (insofar as any DW can be said to be so). BTW If you haven't seen it, do so somehow. It is truly Fantastic! As with you, I'm trying to digest things as written here. However, as far as Time Crash goes, it involves the Doctor in two different incarnations. As his most recent form is beyond the 'lock' on the Time War, it would stand to reason that his whole timeline is likewise exempt from the lock. As far as how the energy required for the two meeting each other was produced, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps the energy released from one TARDIS meeting itself allowed for it. I keep turning my head back to something from the Faction Paradox books... I know, not Dr Who, but close enough in many ways. In that, the Great Houses (Time Lords) actually established what we come to know as 'History' through the act known as 'Anchoring the Thread'. This is essentially the creation of the Eye of Harmony... the first 'fixed' end of history. By creating the timeline which we all consider to be 'established history', the Time Lords have a vested interest in protecting the viability of that thread. It makes sense then that the 'Laws' they have governing time, and time travel are in a sense BOTH physical laws AND legal laws. Consider also that most Time Lord technology, like TARDISes, are semi-sentient. What this then means is that History itself is semi-sentient, and capable of policing itself, to an extent. This explains a number of things. For one, it explains the statement in Genesis of the Daleks where the Time Lords state they are sending the Doctor to impede or halt the development of the Daleks because they have 'forseen a timeline in which the Daleks become the supreme form of life in the Universe.' Obviously, this threatens their own position, because it threatens to overwrite the timeline that the Time Lords themselves have established. It also explains why the Time Lords under normal circumstances don't want to intervene in the timeline, and why they keep their own past so secretive. So what does this mean in terms of Time and the Time War? One end of the timeline is free floating... the end in the far Future. When the Time War occured, it was essentially the same as what happened during the Anchoring of the Thread. Now there are two fixed moments... the Anchoring and the Time War, and a NEW thread of history is waving from the new anchor. But everything between those two anchor points is locked. The connecting point between the old timeline and the new one is The Doctor and the Vortex itself... The things the Doctor experienced happened, but he is the only one monitoring it now, rather than, the whole of the Time Lords. The Vortex (and by extension, Time itself) also has a few preprogrammed ideas about how history works, but there is a limited repair function anymore with the Time Lords gone. This is why history is 'in flux'. The Time Line of the Time Lords *ends* at the time war, UNLESS there is a connection to one of the tings that survived the Time War... The Doctor, The Master, The Vortex... or if there is a link outside of normal time, such as The Cult of Skaro. Where am I going with all this? I'm not entirely sure myself, I'm just 'thinking out loud' as it were. Traveling back to a point between the original Anchoring of the Thread, and the second anchor, would probably require tremendous energy. Imagine it like going back in time before the Big Bang. Pardon my babble.
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Post by Rel Fexive on Jan 31, 2010 18:39:21 GMT
Yup. All good
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Post by Kit on Jan 31, 2010 20:00:40 GMT
I think there's a sliding scale of significance where changing history is concerned. Afterall, while The Waters of Mars shows that the Daleks won't change something as significant as the death of Adelaide Brooke, there are plenty of variable points in time to interfere with, as the Doctor demonstrates at times (just as often, he ends up ensuring that history happens the way it's supposed to happen - the notion is very subjective, so the line between the two acts is blurry at best). I suppose there's changing history, and then there's changing history. There is something bizarre about the Dalek not killing Brooke due to her significance. It was in that time period on a mission to destroy reality. Had Davros' scheme worked, Brooke would have died then and not when she was supposed to. Weird.
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Post by Curufea on Jan 31, 2010 21:20:06 GMT
I'll just add a little Faction mythos to the mix - that the Vortex itself is a sentient entity (that they call The Spirits or the Vodoo equivalent of Loa) which may go towards the Vortex being self regulating and/or a narrative force on how time travellers meet.
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Post by Null and Void on Jan 31, 2010 22:07:04 GMT
I'll just add a little Faction mythos to the mix - that the Vortex itself is a sentient entity (that they call The Spirits or the Vodoo equivalent of Loa) which may go towards the Vortex being self regulating and/or a narrative force on how time travellers meet. Yeah, I was sort of trying to get at that. Time and the Vortex being synonymous in my rather disjointed speculations. The Vortex itself may limit some of the travel, based on limitations built into it by the Time Lords. In this way, the Vortex could essentially become a trap for the War Era Time Lords, as they can't escape from the protocols they themselves built into the Vortex as a safeguard. Timelines for the Time Lords may be fixed because the Vortex itself will not let them cross over, and in the instances they might meet out of order, such as the Three, Five, or Two Doctors, require the Time Lords to 'turn off' the safeties... or at least override them for awhile.
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Post by Curufea on Jan 31, 2010 23:14:18 GMT
Timelines for the Time Lords may be fixed because the Vortex itself will not let them cross over, and in the instances they might meet out of order, such as the Three, Five, or Two Doctors, require the Time Lords to 'turn off' the safeties... or at least override them for awhile. That makes sense to me - I've always thought there were Faction rituals that did this as well - the temporary suspension of laws - otherwise Godfather Sabbaths (or any Godfather) hunt could not have been possible (the murder of your ancestors before they procreate).
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Post by JohnK on Feb 1, 2010 2:44:37 GMT
Hullo, Stormcrow, Hullo, Stormcrow, David!! Great to see you here!! How you doing? Still running CONTINUUM: ROLEPLAYING IN THE YET these days? :) Not recently. Sustaining interest in it is difficult. Tell me about it! :( That said, with the new DW: AiTaS rpg out, there is a more "fun way" for most people to get their time travel rpg fix now. Some people, including several of my players, just don't like the hard science approach of CONTINUUM. Sad, but true. :( So, are you planning to run a DW: AiTaS game any time in the future? It's a distinct possibility. No promises! Well, if you do, I fully expect you to post some scenario reports and the like. :)
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Post by Marnal on Feb 3, 2010 3:31:33 GMT
You guys have pretty much said everything I was going to mention but (just cuz I'm a know-it-all) here are the Laws of Time according to the Who EU.... THE LAWS OF TIME (And the Rules Governing Time Lords) from the Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey The Laws of Time give the Time Lords the divine purpose of serving Time itself by maintaining the continuity/history of the fabric of the space-time continuum and the causality of the Universe. They claim that this service is their right because they were first humanoid culture to naturally evolve and see this as providing justice to all species. The Time Lords consider their Constitution to be the Mother of Democracy. I. No being shall distort History as he knows it. You can't alter the Past. This is the most important Law of the Time Lords. This is a moral as well as legal law. A. No being shall interact with his own personal history or causal nexus by traversing their time streams. 1. No being shall murder their past self. This is the ultimate violation of the Laws of Time. 2. No being may come into contact with his past self. The Temporal Disturbances caused when this occurs require tremendous amounts of temporal energy to repair. 3. No Gallifreyan shall meet another Time Lord whose incarnations is out of sync with there own timestream. This prevents damage to space time. 4. Investing vast sums money in the past and collecting the profit in the future is a minor violation of the first law of time. 5. Sending notes to your past self to give them advice (even if you remember receiving the note) is forbidden. *Note: Interacting with a person who knows your future isn’t technically breaking the law as long as you don’t take advantage of the person’s knowledge. Limited communications with another Time Lord out of sequence is also not specifically prohibited. B. (Also known as the Doctrine of Non-Intervention or the "Golden Rule") No being on Gallifrey or on any other planet shall interfere with the Web of Time (intergalactic history), as it is currently known, no violations of established and predicted quantal events. Observation from within the micro-universe of a TT Capsule or Gallifrey is all that is permited. 1. The History of any person or planet, as it recorded or predicted in the Matrix, can not be chronoformed (the deliberate rewriting/distorting of history) to alter its destiny. This is defined as changing any part of the Web of Time by not less then fifty-three millistates. (this is also covered under Timeline Interferance Resolution 861) 2. All Time Lords shall follow a Doctrine of Non-Interference with Time Unaware races. 3. All Time Lords shall work to prevent Time Aware Races from aquiring Gallifreyan Technology. No alien shall be allowed to spy on Time Lord activities (this is also known as the Golden Rule:). 4. All Time Lords shall work to prevent Time Active Races from damaging the Web of Time. Disturbances of .4 or higher on the Bocca Scale must be prevented. 5. It is forbidden for Gallifreyans and Lesser Species to interbreed. 6. All Time Lords are pledged to prevent alien aggression by Time Active Races, but only when such agression is deemed to threaten the indigenous population of a particular time zone. This includes preventing the Reapers from destorying an entire world because of a temporal paradox. 7. A Time Lord who destroys an entire species forfeits his remaining lives - and thus his title of Time Lord. *Note: Article 7 was created not to preserve life but to prevent the massive damage to History that genocide would cause. II. No being shall participate in the creation of a Temporal Paradox A. No Time Lord shall use the Power of Creation 1. No Time Lords shall use the Power on a scale that would corrupt Time. B. No being shall create us a TARDIS to create a Vortex Crisis C. No being shall create a Grandfather Paradox D. No being shall cause a Dimensional Paradox by transporting sentient beings from one version of History to another. E. Timelooping planets is forbidden. III. The Protocols of Linearity: No Time Lord shall travel into Gallifrey's past. *Note: This prevents anyone from traveling into Gallifrey’s past, and ensures that a Time Lord's personal time is always synchronized with Gallifrey’s time. It also ensures that the Time Lords who encounter each other outside of Gallifrey always meed meet each other in a linear progression along their relative time-streams. Though impossible to travel into the past, it is possible to collect and transport objects from the past to the present. These protocols are not physical laws per say, but rather engineered by powerful Temporal Baffels, Backtime Field Buffers, Temporal Locks and Governing Circuits built into all their time travel technology. A side effect of this law is that other time zones observed by a traveling Time Lord becomes linked with Gallifrey’s time. It should be noted that in Lungbarrow the Doctor took a 3 day side trip from events and returned minutes later. This might be a power all Lord Presidents have. Robert Scarrit will also do this during the war but he has to keep it a secret to avoid punishment. IV. No Time Lord shall travel into Gallifrey’s future. To do so would be a theoretical absurdity. V. Whilst there are any number of Futures beyond the Time Lord Time Parameters (defined by their noosphere) none maybe deliberatly shaped by a Time Lord. Travel beyond the Time Parameters is forbidden - due to psychological affect of watching the heat death of the universe and to avoid the temptation of studying the next universe. The Time Parameters reach from around 3500 years after Event 0 (the Big Bang) to 10,000,000 AD and cover most of Space. VI. Unauthorized use of a TARDIS carries a mandatory Death Penalty (This might mean they only take one life). A. It is forbidden to allow non-Time Lords into a TARDIS. VII. Protocols of Observation: No Time Lord shall interact with his own future. A. No being may come into contact with his future self. *Note: It is impossible for a being to see his own future in his own biodata. An attempt to do so will cause the observation to collapse, making the knowledge useless. Losing one's virginity makes it much more difficult (if not impossible) for Gallifreyan technology to read ancestral memories from the subjects biodata. VIII. No Time Lord shall use time travel for their personal convenience. *Note: This law of time isn't really enforced and most renegades view it as a trivial. A. No use of Short-Hops to shorten his personal perception of time. (the Blinovitch Limitation Effect helps prevent violations of this law) B. No use of Temporal Orbits or “Vortex Drifting” to elongating his personal perception of time. C. It is forbidden to use time travel to live the same day twice. D. No using time travel to win at the lottery. 1-6. various etiquettes. Rassilon created the Laws of Time during the Time of Legend and insured that they were hard wired into the structure of the Web of Time when the Eye of Harmony was first created. The Kingmaker is the Keeper of the Laws of Time. The Time Lords teach these Laws as Scientific Laws and most (including almost all the Oldbloods) believe them to be such. They learn these laws by rote. These Laws are based on Mason and Aaron Blinovitch's early work in Temporal Physics. There are over 15,000 Laws of Time. Time Lords consider the preservation of History to be far more important than the preservation of life. Some Time Lords realize that the Laws of Time will let you get away with virtually anything if you do it subtly enough. It is technically possible for these Laws to be overturned or revoked, but to do so would destroy Time Lord culture and power. - Marnal Gate "I was told by the producer that the guiding principle was to make the scripts complex enough to keep the Kids interested and simple enough for the Adults to understand!" -Douglas Adams on writing Doctor Who For Everything about the TARDIS check out www.whoniverse.net/tardis/For all things Gallifreyan check out meshyfish.com/~roo/index.html
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Post by Rel Fexive on Feb 3, 2010 22:33:26 GMT
Whoa.
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Post by Curufea on Feb 4, 2010 2:34:55 GMT
Some of that is from fairly dubious sources though - such as Death Comes to Time.
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Post by Marnal on Feb 17, 2010 17:39:41 GMT
The only bits from "Death Comes to Time" is one of the sub-sections of the Second Law of Time...
"A. No Time Lord shall use the Power of Creation 1. No Time Lords shall use the Power on a scale that would corrupt Time. "
-Marnal Gate
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Post by Curufea on Feb 17, 2010 22:53:06 GMT
Yeah - I liked the show, especially the intro and the bad guy - but was annoyed with how it messed with the setting.
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