Temporal Paradox: Difference between revisions

A contradiction of causality within the timeline brought about by [[Time Travel]]. Theorized to be [[Time Crash|dangerous to the fabric of reality]], and known to be [[Your Head Asplode|dangerous to the brains]] of anyone who tries to get their head around them. [[Bellisario's Maxim|So don't]]. It's usually what [[The Professor]] worries about during a [[Time Travel]] story.

 

 

This is all fictional, of course. In reality, a confirmed paradox would disallow time travel to work ''at all''. You see, a logical paradox is not a ''thing''. It is a sign in a human-created model that either you have attempted something impossible or that you have incomplete understanding of how something works. Here's the thing: all our notions of causality are based on the fact that time only moves in the one direction and a paradox exploits this cause and effect relationship. Once you throw [[Time Travel]] into the equation and have time to move in a different way, it's really anyone's guess what will happen. Not that this prevents authors from abusing the concept as a sort of universe-wide [[Logic Bomb]].

** However, the effects of time travel are ''different'' in the various movies. For instance: in the first movie, Marty's accidental stopping his parents getting together was starting to delete him from existence; in the second movie, Biff interferes with his past, and the changed present has Biff saying he sent Marty to a school in Switzerland, yet this never affects the time-travelling Marty.

** [[Fanon]] has [[Justified Trope|justified]] this in various ways; for example, saying the time traveller is only affected by his own changes to the timeline, or by saying that he will be unaffected as long as there's somewhere in the timeline for him to "slot in" - changes to his situation in the new timeline are shrugged off, as long as he exists ''somewhere''.

* ''The Lake House'' is a story about a mailbox that delivers letters from Kate to Alex ''two years ago'' and vice versa. {{spoiler|Alex dies in a car accident on Valentines Day. Two years later, when Kate realizes that, she sends a message to Alex two years ago telling him not to be there, and he survives.}} It should be noted that the Korean movie this movie is based on dealt with the paradox differently: {{spoiler|The female character sends the warning back in time, but the male character remains dead. Meanwhile, the insertion of the warning splits off an alternate universe where the male character survives, and the movie ends with the male character meeting the female character, just as the female character is moving into the house, before she's even gotten the first letter. It's okay, though. The guy has quite a story to tell her. Since the movie ends there, by the way, it's unknown whether the female character would have ever started the letter-exchanging if the guy hadn't...ugh, it's all sort of vague, really.}}

* The horror film ''[[Triangle]]'' has loads upon loads. How it works, nobody knows, as even [[Phelous]] can tell you.

* Time travel is forbidden in [[The Dresden Files]] because it might end up destroying the fabric of reality. Characters capable of seeing the future can't be specific about their visions for the same reason.

** The Gatekeeper, specifically, has a vision of something major in the Dresdenverse, and alerts Harry to it, in the most vague, roundabout way. Bob later explains he did this to avoid the entire universe going kaput. He also mentions that no one has ever caused a temporal paradox before, and you can tell by the way the universe keeps existing.

* In ''The Anubis Gates'' by Tim Powers, main character Brendon Doyle, a modern expert on the poet William Ashbless, ends up back in the 1800's during Ashbless' lifetime. When {{spoiler|Doyle ends up BECOMING Ashbless thanks to a [[Freaky Friday Flip|body-snatching werewolf]] (don't ask), he publishes the poems from memory}}--which leaves us with the problem of how the poems were written in the first place. In fact, it actually freaks ''Doyle'' out, but he concludes that {{spoiler|as long as the poems exist, history will continue in its proper order, so he shouldn't sweat too much over it.}}

* Distilled to its purest form in [[Fredric Brown]]'s short story ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29948/29948-h/29948-h.htm Experiment]''.

== Live Action TV ==

* In ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', it appears that Sam is affected by the changes he makes to history only after he leaps, and this has some bearing on his occasional manifestation of [[Suddenly Always Knew That|previously unmentioned skills]] (and previously unmentioned/nonexistent family members). Al, on the other hand, seems to be affected instantly, but only when probability of a new event becomes sufficiently high. (In one episode, Sam assures Al's untimely death. When the probability reaches 100%, Al is replaced by another character, but he reappears when Sam reduces the probability.)

*** The earlier example was retconned in the later one with a [[Hand Wave]] by the Doctor saying that when the Time Lords were still alive they prevented this sort of thing from happening.

*** Although there's the recurring concept of fixed events as opposed to unfixed ones - events that must happen in a specific way, as opposed to ones that could happen any way. The Doctor, of course, has the inherent ability to tell them apart. And, of course, no one else does. Usually.

** Also, in the old series Gallifrey had the [[Deus Ex Machina|Eye of Harmony]], a modified black hole that acted as an unlimited power source, universe-wide navigational beacon, and the mother of all temporal stabilizers. Thus even if they screwed up, the Time Lords had access to enough energy to maintain the desired timeline by brute force if necessary (as seen in The Five Doctors). In the new series, the Eye of Harmony has been destroyed, so The Doctor has less to work with.

*** And that's ''before'' you enter the [[Eldritch Location|Eleven-Day Empire]], a place ''literally'' made of nonexistant time. Or the [[Humanoid Abomination|Grandfather]] [[Grandfather Paradox|Paradox]], the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of [[Future Me Scares Me|all potential evil and despair]] in the Universe. Or the part where Gallifrey's history is repeteadly raped into oblivion.

*** And ''then'' the Doctor brings the past version of Scrooge--er, Kazran, to visit his ''future self.''

*** Attempts to follow this seriously may lead to [[Your Head Asplode|your head asploding.]]

** But then the Grand Moff (who wrote Blink, Christmas Carol, and other [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Timey-Wimey]] eps like the Big Bang and The Girl in the Fireplace) is becoming quite known for his confuddling paradoxes. I mean, look at the contributions to Comic Relief! (Both of which written by him.)

* In ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', in one episode, Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Walowitz buy the original time machine prop. Events in the episode lead to Sheldon and Leonard trying to decide if Leonard could have gone back in time to stop himself from buying the time machine, leading Sheldon to say, basically, "No."

* ''[[Lost]]'': Subverted when Sayid attempted to {{spoiler|kill Ben}}, which simply caused him to grow up into the man he already was.

**** And, in a more immediate matter, she {{spoiler|1=is also capable of piloting the WiG, while Naked Snake is not. If she's killed, Snake cannot escape after completing Operation Snake Eater.}} As such, she has to make it through to the end of the game.

** The "CO from the future" part is actually a joke that is, for lack of a better way of saying it, lost in translation. In the original Japanese language track, the voice actor who plays this character is ''also'' the voice actor who does the Japanese dub of ''Doc Brown'' in [[Back to The Future]].

** However, in one way to kill off Beatrice {{spoiler|picking her up while she's frozen and having her break into bite-sized pieces}}, you get a slightly different [[Have a Nice Death]] message.

* ''Infinity'' series:

** Cue the second game, 7 years later. {{spoiler|The Prince is informed by some old dude that he should have died during the first game, but cocked it up through messing round with the time continuum and is now hunted by the Dahaka, a guardian of the sands, which seeks to kill him and restore the balance. To stop this, the Prince decides to travel to the Island of Time to stop the sands ever being created by travelling back through time to kill the Empress of Time. He rescues a woman, Kaileena, and sets about trying to get to the Empress whilst dodging the Dahaka and a strange wraith-like figure seemingly out to get him. Whilst travelling to the Throne room he is confronted by both, but escapes when the Dahaka kills the wraith and buggers off. Kaileena reveals herself to be the Empress, the Prince kills her and travels back to the present, only to be confronted by the Dahaka again, since the sands turned out to have been created by the act of killing the Empress. He almost gives up hope when he discovers the mask of the Sand Wraith, which allows him to co-exist with himself in the same time-line. He then goes back in time, revealing himself to be the strange wraith-like figure, who wasn't trying to kill the prince but in fact save him. When confronting his past self with the Dahaka outside the throne room he dodges the Dahaka, allowing it to kill his old self, which reverts him back to the Prince. Confused yet? He then proceeds to confront the Empress again, but this time throw her through a portal into the present, planning to kill her here, thus still creating the sands, but not in a time frame that would allow them to be found by his father. Then the Dahaka shows up again, now trying to kill the Empress, but together they manage to defeat it and set sail for Babylon, the Prince's home. }}

** Which takes us to the third game. {{spoiler|Arriving at Babylon they find the place ransacked because by retconning his past the vizier of course never died, got hold of the dagger, and proceeded to attack it, looking for the Sands of Time. Kaileena is captured, but when the Prince tries to rescue her the vizier stabs himself with the dagger, turning into a sand god or something, killing Kaileena and infecting the Prince with the sands. Princey manages to swipe the dagger though, escape, and sets about to kill the vizier again. Along the way he bumps into Farah, who had been captured way back when the vizier got the dagger, and discovers that the sands have manifested within him as the Dark prince; a seperate personality that tries to convince him to look out only for himself. He catches up with the vizier, is soundly beaten and thrown into a well, finds his father, who is dead again, and has a crisis moment where the Dark Prince tries to take over. He resists, fights the vizier again, kills him with the dagger, Kaileena appears and cleanses him of the sands, and all seems well. Then the Dark prince pulls him into his own mind, tries to screw it all up but he resists, gets rid of him too and gets the girl. Alls well that ends well. Aside from the dead father and ruined city.}}

* According to [[Word of God]], there's an active paradox known as the [http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Split_Timeline_Theory Split Timeline Theory] in the [[The Legend of Zelda|Zelda universe]]. Basically, when Link defeats Ganon at the end of [[The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time|Ocarina of Time]] and Ganondorf gets sealed away by the sages, Zelda sends Link back into the past where he warns the king of Hyrule of Ganondorf's intentions [[The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask|and then leaves Hyrule]]. Now, this doesn't negate the need for time travel; instead that [[Bad Future]] remains, but without Link since he's back in the past. Much later in that future, Ganon escapes, and the events of [[The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker (Video Game)|Wind Waker]] happen, hence the "The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. / ...But the hero did not appear." in the prologue.

 

* In an episode of [[Wizards of Waverly Place]], Harper travels back in time from the future. At the end of the episode, present Harper sees a hat that future Harper is wearing. She asks where she got it, and future Harper gives present Harper the hat. But then you begin to wonder where the hat came from in the first place.

* As of the season 3 finale of [[Fringe]] it is revealed that {{spoiler|the machine left by the first people actually came to be scattered in the past by a future Walter Bishop who sent his machine back through a wormhole leading to the paleolithic era}}. This means that {{spoiler|the machine}} both came from nowhere and is infinitely old.

** Then, there's the comic relief special Time Crash: the Tenth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor meet. Ten knows what to do about a certain problem because when he was Five, he had experienced these events and watched his future self do it. When ''one of the Doctors'' points out how that makes no effing sense, they both say "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" and move on.

* In ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]],'' Kryten's last words (in a timeline that is eventually undone) are the words he knew he would say because he saw his future self die earlier in the episode. Somehow, though he only said it because he knew he was going to, "enig" turns out to be ''important,'' short for "enigma." Of course, ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]'' is hardly anyone's idea of "hard SF."

* In ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]] and the Time Paradox'', {{spoiler|Opal Koboi from the past travels to the present, and possesses Artemis' mother, making her appear ill. This forces present day Artemis to travel back in time to get the cure from the past Artemis. Opal then uses Artemis returning to the present to return to a few days before the present to make Artemis' mother ill in the first place. Ironically, this is all so she can aquire the secret of time travel.}}

** Not to mention, {{spoiler|Artemis had foggy memories of the past. When he went back in time, he left a note for Mulch to open the trunk Artemis and Holly were locked in. Also, the Mulch and Artemis of the past had their minds wiped, and since Artemis' wipe was a blanket wipe, there were still several remaining facts about fairies. By travelling back in time, Artemis caused himself to discover the fairy race. Whoa.}}

** But by the nature of the series, couldn't someone just enter [[HG Wells]]'s novel and bring out a working time machine?

* In [[Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban]], {{spoiler|Harry and Hermione travel back in time for a number of reasons. During this time travel, Harry manages to save himself from dementors using an Expecto Patronum charm. The event is noted to have happened earlier in the book with Harry only glimpsing his mysterious saviour and thinking it looked a lot like his dad.}}

* Played with in ''[[Primer]]''. As one of the characters says, "The ''last'' revision is apparently the one that counts." We find characters gradually losing their worries about causality; they wind up going back in time to relive the events of that same week in their original place -- apparently intending to do everything ''right'' this time. It appears that causing a paradox causes some kind of mild brain trauma to the time traveler involved. But then there's that other version of yourself that you drugged up and locked in the basement so you could replace him...

* ''[[Deja Vu (Film)|Deja Vu]]'' contradicted itself on terms of [[Temporal Paradox]]. First, it is implied that anything changed in past changes the present, as Doug causes the death of his partner, that was thought caused by the ferry explosion. Later, it is implied that the past has already been changed, as {{spoiler|the message "U CAN SAVE HER" in Claire's house was written by him}}, but in the end, it is contradicted, because {{spoiler|if he prevented the explosion, he could never have been assigned to the case, and thus could never do the time travelling, and so on...}}

* ''[[Austin Powers]]: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' shows Austin briefly attempting to reason why no time paradox has occurred due to he and Dr. Evil time traveling to a date where they logically shouldn't be. Basil Exposition puts his mind at ease

{{quote| Basil "I advise that you not worry about that sort of thing and.. just enjoy yourself [[Aside Glance|(faces audience)]] that goes for you all too."<br />

** Similarly, the expansion sourcebook (currently trapped in [[Development Hell]]) ''Narcissist'' has a different take on this -- the original time traveler entered the "main" timeline's past and introduced time travel sometime around 14000 BC. Said time travel directly resulted in a [[The Singularity|singularity]] around 2500 AD, which then used its super-powerful minds and infinite resources to make ''sure'' that said time traveler never leaves our timeline (which would require a portal made out of X number of Temporal Paradoxes), and that time travelers don't cause the timeline to deviate from the history that led to the singularity. In alternate timelines away from "the swarm" -- agents of the Singularity, named that because there's a lot of them, but they're disorganized idiots -- paradoxes ''don't exist'': "frag" exists in the main timeline specifically due to the singularity's agents constantly trying to time-[[Mind Rape]] anyone attempting to change history.

* Time Travel is rare in ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)|Warhammer 40000]]'', but the Warp does strange things sometimes, like sending ships off to answer their own distress signals. In another example, one Ork Warboss was sent back through time via warp-storm, met up with his past self, and [[Insane Troll Logic|killed his temporal doppelganger so he could have two copies of his favorite gun]]. The resulting confusion stopped the Waaagh! in its tracks.

* The ''[[GURPS (Tabletop Game)|GURPS]]'' Sourcebook ''GURPS Infinite Worlds'' includes a chapter exploring time travel and paradoxes.

 

 

== Web Comics ==

* [http://www.cheercomic.com/?date=2008-01-31 This is confusing.] How is a flashback to the childhoods of the ''[[The Wotch|Cheer!]]'' girls even possible? Weren't they, you know, ''boys''? Just how much of the past did Miranda rewrite to cover up Anne's mistakes? Is it like what happens when a [[Misfile]] occurs? Argh...maybe it's best to pretend this isn't canon, especially seeing as there are [http://thewotch.com/index.php?epDate=2005-10-11 lots of] [http://thewotch.com/index.php?epDate=2005-10-19 people] [http://www.cheercomic.com/?date=2006-05-30 who still remember.]

** Well, three of the girls do not remember ever being anything ''but'' girls, so presumably their memories were altered. [[Plot Hole|As for Jo...]]

[[Category:Self Demonstrating Article]]

[[Category:Temporal Paradox]]