Timey-Wimey Ball: Difference between revisions

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Excepting [[The Slow Path|mundane travel from the past to the future at a rate of one second per second]]<ref>For all you physics buffs out there, yes, this does imply that [[Time Travel]] is unitless.</ref>, no human has ever experienced [[Time Travel]] first hand. Indeed, we don't know if it's even possible<ref>Albert Einstein's mathematics show it is achievable by [[Time Dilation]] through accelerating to high speeds, but only towards the future and without a way back. We also know that gravity slows down time, meaning that you if you are in space your one second per second would be negligibly faster than on earth. Possibly exempting astronauts who, having been whirling around the earth at high speeds, have travelled a few seconds or minutes into the future depending on how long they have been in space.</ref>. So debating [[Our Time Travel Is Different|which time travel]] [[Temporal Mutability|theory is right]] is much like trying to find the best flavor of Kool-Aid. Fans [[Bellisario's Maxim|are aware and accepting of this]], just like no one minds when [[Our Monsters Are Different|our monsters are different]], or two different series have [[Functional Magic|different rules for magic,]] so long as the series' [[Magic A Is Magic A|own internal rules are consistent.]]

Despite the similar images the name might conjure, this is unrelated to [[Swirly Energy Thingy]] (although a [[Swirly Energy Thingy]] might very well have Timey Wimey effects). Likewise, a [[Continuity Snarl]] is not necessarily related, though the presence of [[Time Travel]] induced [[Retcon|retcons]] can certainly make a character's past ''seem'' like a tangled up ball of yarn.

 

 

'''Warning: High chance of spoilers.'''

 

== Fanfiction ==

* In [[My Immortal]], the main character Ebony travels back in time to teach a young Voldemort about love. But when she does, the plot really starts to get strange. A few examples are that characters in the past know what will happen in the present, that items will not work in time-periods where its not invented yet and that people can't die outside their native time-period.

* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]'', the time turners are used much more frequently, which leads to this when two or more are involved. Dumbledore and Snape have to resort to charts.

* ''Ben10 Race Against Time'' includes a bit of this. [[Big Bad|Eon]] seeks to use the Hands Of Armageddon to bring his [[Dying Race]] to Earth to repopulate, but traveling through time so much has weakened him to the point where he's unable to use the Hands. His plan is to use the Omnitrix to turn Ben into himself (a second Eon), so that ''he'' can activate the device and end the reign of humans on Earth. The movie is pretty vague about how it works, but at first glance, it seems as though Eon may actually ''be'' Ben, corrupted by himself in his own past.

** On top of that, when Eon succeeds in implanting himself in the Omnitrix, he declares that "two cannot exist at once", disappearing into a different point in the time stream.

* The film version of ''A Sound of Thunder'' (if not [[A Sound of Thunder|the book]]) uses hilariously inconsistent rules of time travel (and those rules don't make much sense ''before'' they start breaking them). It's a crucial plot point that the characters keep returning to the exact same point in time, but never run into previous versions of themselves (no explanation for that is given) ... until the time they do (no explanation for that either). Plants smash through the walls of a building because the past was changed in such a way as to cause plants to grow larger and more aggressively (no explanation is given as to why someone decided to build the building in the spot where, in the new timeline, a giant tree has been growing for ages - not to mention why the tree that's always been there smashes through the floor while people watch instead of just appearing as it if had always been there). At one point, the characters are unable to travel back to the point in time they want to reach because there's a time disturbance between the present and their destination in the past; the solution? Travel back to an ''even earlier'' point and then go forward (if you guessed that no explanation is given as to why the time disturbance is somehow not blocking that too, you've been paying attention).

** There were explanations - that the changes come in waves, changing things in fits and starts, not all as a whole. As for having to travel further back, that's easy to explain. Think of it as trying to get into a house, but the front door has something pressed against it stopping you from opening it. What do you do? Go in through the back door and then walk through the house to the front door to remove the blockage. Simples!

** In one episode, Chris is taken 20 years into the future as a prisoner by a bunch of evil dudes. Before he leaves, he manages to slip in a comment about the "creaky floorboard". The witches take the hint and brew a potion for him to use as a weapon, which they hide under said floorboard. The camera goes back and forth, showing what is happening in the future (Chris facing the bad guys) and the present (the girls hurrying to finish the potion). It's strongly implied that, had they not gotten the potion ready in time (i.e. before Chris in the future is shown looking under the floorboard), Chris would have found nothing. In actual fact though, the girls could have relaxed and spent hours making the potion, it would still have been there 20 years into the future, provided it was never removed from under the floorboard at a later time. Speaking of which, I'm quite sure the writers assumed the potion would be gone after the episode, rather than continually being under that floorboard for the next 20 years.

** In another episode, a demon steals little 3-year-old Wyatt's magic powers. Next thing, 20-year-old Wyatt and his brother come time-travelling from the future, saying "We were fighting demons when Wyatt suddenly lost his powers, so we thought we'd come to the point in time where the change occurred and see what happened". This makes no sense in any form of time travel. If 3-year-old Wyatt lost his powers, then 4-year-old and 5-year-old Wyatt wouldn't have had any powers either, all the way up to 20-year-old Wyatt. It would make no sense for him to loose his powers only suddenly at the age of twenty. Not to mention, once they fixed the problem in the present, 20-year-old Wyatt should have never lost his powers in his time at all.

** When the 10th and 5th Doctors meet up during a Children in Need Special "Time Crash" the 10th is in shocked disbelief to be seeing his former self, then goes on to use memories he picked up as the 5th meeting his future self to defuse the situation. When the illogic of this is brought up (not to mention the violation of multi-doctor meet up [[Canon]] established from the other 3 times this has happened), ''both'' Doctors mumble something about "Timey Wimey" and move on.

** In "The Fires of Pompeii", a companion asks why the Doctor will thwart aliens but not stop a particular historical catastrophe, and the Doctor replies that some points in time are fixed, while others are in flux. His being a Time Lord allows him to perceive which is which, and act accordingly; even against his nobler instincts.

*** The Doctor has also stated in the past that his knowledge of history is "perfect"; this may mean that he knows exactly what he may or may not change.

** The whole of ''The Big Bang'' is built on this trope {{spoiler|-- The Doctor saving the day and escaping from the Pandorica is built on an ontological paradox -- he shows up already escaped to enlist Auton!Rory in effecting his escape.}} The Doctor even explains that this would normally cause drastic side effects for the universe, but luckily {{spoiler|the universe had already been destroyed.}}

** ''A Christmas Carol'' also features this heavily. {{spoiler|It starts with the Doctor showing a video Karzan made as a boy to the older him - and traveling back in time to when he made it, leaving Karzan watching a video of the Doctor interfering in his past as his own memories change to reflect that this had happened. It ends with the Doctor showing the [[Future Me Scares Me|younger Karzan the man he turns into]], leading to the older one having a change of heart partly brought on by realizing he's turned into his father, and partly by him being retroactively altered by the experience of being horrified at seeing his older self as a boy.}} ''Ow.'' It's implied this method is far from perfect, as {{spoiler|Karzan's own mind-reading controls no longer recognizes him, despite the fact that it should logically have been programmed for the Karzan that existed in the current timeline.}} I think it's that the Doctor {{spoiler|changed the boy as well as the man. Hypothetically, Boy Karzan went through all the stuff that Scrooge Karzan did, but had the additional factor of seeing Scrooge Karzan and never wanted to become like he was.}} Presto Change-O and immediate echoes into the future... {{spoiler|his brain waves change - creating a new Karzan who both experienced Abigail ''and'' Scrooge Karzan and ''also'' maybe even at one point of the new history we didn't see ''rejected his father'' (so no actual mind control for him was made .}} Who knows? It is a [[Timey-Wimey Ball|timey-wimey ball]] after all

*** Simple enough: Their meetings are mostly random, and any given time the two meet up may be synchronized, but -overall- they're moving in opposite directions.

*** Father's Day summed it up pretty well. Pete Tyler being alive created a paradox, and anything else would make it worse. So yeah, interacting with one's past self makes sparks, and a paradox fills the air with gas fumes(sort of. Not really at all, but if that helps just think of it like that).

** [[Sarcasm Mode|And just because the DW section for this trope needs to be larger,]] used extensively in the episode "The Girl Who Waited". The TARDIS crew happens upon the 'Two Streams' health centre. They take people who have contracted fatal illnesses, and place them in the 'fast' stream, symbolised by a red water-fall. They can live their whole life and age normally in only a day. Meanwhile, their loved ones are in the slow stream, symbolised by a green anchor, and can watch their lover/family/friend have a fruitful life. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong when {{spoiler|Amy gets trapped in the fast stream. Eventually Rory manages to break in to save her, but 39 years have passed, leaving his wife old and bitter. He can jump back in time to save younger Amy, but can only do so with older!Amy's help. Except she doesn't want to be re-written and stop existing. Eventually they decide to save both of them by breaking the laws of causality; at the last minute the Doctor reveals this is actually a paradox and leaves Old!Amy behind to die.}}

* ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]'' can't decide if they are going for Static Time Travelling or a Dynamic Time Travelling. And that's the least problematic thing.

** Strangely, it seems the farther into the future they see, the more pliable time becomes. For example, if Hiro tries to fix something close to the present, for example, saving Charlie's life, or capturing Usutsu, it's impossible. Can't change it no matter how hard they try. However, the apocalyptic future they inevitably go to in every single season so far, they always find a way to avert that. Well, usually, that seems to be changing for season three, and even before that, some things were constant across all the alternate futures. Peter's scar, and Hiro being [[Badass]] with a sword.

*** The Charlie issue was kind of resolved in a "she's already dying" way rather than "time travel won't let me save her" way; this is more or less repeated with his father in the next season (only "it's his time" this time, instead of the already dying thing). As for the random jumps through time... he spends the rest of the season learning to control his ability; it turns out he just needed to get back the self-confidence which he had lost since he realized he couldn't save Charlie. The time jumps are a bit convenient, and that Hiro's explanation makes no sense doesn't help. Not to mention that nothing else they've done with time travel has made any sense. They don't even try to be consistent, it seems. Very comic booky... which is probably the point. Still makes for bad headaches, point or no.

*** However, The Heroes novel '''Saving Charlie''' took the opposite tactic, implying that Time/God wouldn't let Hiro save Charlie because [[You Can't Fight Fate]]. Over the course of the story, Hiro lost control of his powers several times in the past while he was trying to romance Charlie and wound up "jumping" to key locations relating to his quest to save Claire Bennet. Eventually, Charlie figures out what is going on, tells Hiro he must face his destiny even if it doesn't involve her and the two lose their virginity together the evening before Charlie goes into work, meets Hiro for the first time and then gets killed by Sylar.

{{quote| '''Lister:''' Hey, it hasn't happened, has it? It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't actually ''happened'' happened yet, [[Funetik Aksent|hactually.]]<br />

'''Rimmer:''' Poppycock! [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future.]] Simple as that. Your bucket's been kicked, baby. }}

* ''[[Supernatural (TV)|Supernatural]]'': "In The Beginning," established that while time travelers can make small changes, they will ultimately lead to the same result because destiny cannot be changed. This is ultimately proven true when Dean's attempt to protect his family from the Yellow-Eyed Demon ends up causing his mother to make the deal with him that eventually kills her. "My Heart Will Go On" blatantly contradicts this by having an angel go back in time and stop the Titanic from ever sinking, preventing anyone on board from dying and leading to hundreds of their descendents who originally never existed appearing in the present. "Frontierland" circles back to no major changes, but it's a little unclear whether Sam and Dean's actions are a [[Stable Time Loop]] or [[You Already Changed the Past]].

 

 

== Video Games ==

** Also [[Endgame Plus]]. If you try to play again, the storyline is rewound to the point before the confrontation with the [[Final Boss]], but the adventurers still have the reward for beating him.

* Completely [[Averted Trope|averted]] in the upcoming indie RTS ''[[Achron]]''. The time travel is completely consistent, despite the game handing the players tools to: change the rate time flows around them, give orders to units in the past, ''send'' units into the past using time travel, and create [[Grandfather Paradox|time paradoxes]]... in competitive multiplayer. Bonus points for the system still managing to be fairly easy to learn.

* While ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'' was generally consistent about how its time travel worked, there were a few odd instances. Like how Marle [[Temporal Paradox|paradoxed]] herself out of existence, despite time travelers not being directly affected by any other changes they'd made during the game. For instance, you can save Lucca's mom, but Lucca still remembers when she was crippled instead of having all her memories changed. Or when the future Robo came from was ''erased from existence'' without affecting him.

** ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' tries to patch things up by using [[Hand Wave|parallel realities]] as the ultimate outcome of fiddling about with temporal mechanics, and then showing the physical effect of a catastrophic temporal paradox via the [[Time Crash]] (wherein a time experiment pulled a city borne from the "good" future into the "bad" future, thereby destroying it, after which it froze and was pulled back to the game's present when the laboratory conducting the experiment, and its opposite number from ''another'' alternate reality, were ripped from their native timelines.)

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]].'' Time-travel, paradoxes, [[Decoy Getaway|Decoy Getaways]], and so much more! It would take an entire page on its own to list everything... but you can always see for yourself at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ other wiki].

** Then there's the Song Of Storms. Link learns to play it on his ocarina from the Windmill Guy, who's ticked because "some Ocarina kid" came 7 years ago and played it, messing up the windmill. Guessed who the Ocarina kid is? And how ''he'' learned the song? That's right, from Windmill Guy, [[Stable Time Loop|7 years in the future]]. [[Your Head Asplode|Gah!]]

*** The "creation" of the Song Of Storms out of thin void is what [[The Other Wiki]] describes as an Ontological Paradox. A very common hazard of [[Stable Time Loop|Stable Time Loops]].

** This utter disregard for consistency is all worth it for the scene where Cortez is stuck in a vault with security systems trying to kill him, which the player plays through several times, thanks to the Stable Time Loops, and Even gives himself the password, seemingly picking it out of thin air.

* ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'', despite its Chariot and Wheel of Fortune Tarots, averts this entirely. Although {{spoiler|the World Tarot lets you relive the other chapter paths, thus opening up the possibility for a Timey Wimey Ball, the final events in Coda suggest that this is not time travel, but merely Denam's imagination.}}

** And then there is the novel trilogy ''War of the Ancients''. Despite some dramatic changes (such as saving an entire race that originally went extinct), its apparently okay to mess with time as long as the end result is roughly the same. Of course, it also helps explaining why said race appears rather plentiful in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' after having been said to be extinct in an earlier novel...

** And in patch 4.3, players get to travel back again, via the Caverns of Time, to the events in the ''War of the Ancients'', to retrieve a [[MacGuffin|magical artifact]]. However, the events of another novel are centered around said artifact, meaning they logically would be [[Retcon|Ret Conned]]. Given that the events of that novel are what indirectly led to the rise of Deathwing, who is the main reason for recovering the artifact in the first place...confusing doesn't even begin to describe it.

* ''[[Back to The Future]]: The Game'' confuses the series' time travel mechanics even further, {{spoiler|when Marty and Doc inadvertently create a timeline where Emmett Brown never creates the time machine in the first place (and in fact never becomes "Doc" Brown). While Marty is unaffected by the changes in the timeline (so long as it doesn't result in his erasure from existence, as usual), Doc actually disappears from the De Lorean once they land in 1985.}} To make matters even more confusing, {{spoiler|the De Lorean doesn't disappear even though the time machine was never created.}}

** {{spoiler|That particular De Lorean actually did start to disappear once Marty managed to get the 1931 timeline mostly straightened out, but only after another Doc Brown travelled back from 1986 to pick up Marty, and it took days for the thing to finally vanish.}}

 

== Webcomics ==

** {{spoiler|The ending however, suggest a stable time-loop, as it ends with a suggestion from a time-travelling ghost of Zero telling Wily to not activate him so he won't kill everyone. Then they all fake their death and move to Acapulco to prevent a temporal paradox}}.

** There is a very good reason why "I hate Time Travel," is one of the more common [[Catch Phrases]] of the comic.

* ''[http://lfgcomic.com/ LookingForGroup]'' has a big fat temporal loop in the Kethenecia arc in Book 3, but really the arc underlies the whole story so far. It's still uncertain if the protagonists can actually change the timeline should they chose to, since so far they did their best to fulfill the prophecies.

* Three words: ''[[Dresden Codak|Dresden fucking Codak]]''. This is what happens when [[Dada Comics]] undergo [[Cerebus Syndrome]]; [[Mind Screw|leave your sanity at the door]].

* ''Melonpool'' used copious amounts of time travel and past-self and future-self meetings and going back in time to solve problems caused by previous time travel excursions. Eventually their universe began falling apart from all the time travel problems.

* ''[[Earthsong]]'' has a bit of timey-wimey-ball action, since character are pulled together to one time, and then returned back to the moment they left after an indeterminate amount of time.

* ''[[Narbonic]]'' features an extended time-travel subplot which establishes that it is difficult, but not impossible, to change your own history. Physical time-travel takes all the energy that exists in the Universe {{spoiler|or, as it turns out, in some other universe that's just out of luck}}, but it's possible to transfer your consciousness back or forward in time into your own body, and you can undergo changes as a result of altered behavior. For instance, Dave never smoked. At several points, the question of paradoxes comes up, and it is immediately dismissed by pointing out that thinking about it could cause it to happen, so it's better not to.

** The same storyline provides an example of inconsistent time travel effects within a single sub-plot. Dave didn't cease to have ever smoked until after the time travel; however, {{spoiler|Caliban's demotion}}, though also caused by the time travel, was established backstory before the time travel occured.

** However, [[Magic A Is Magic A]] applies heavily and every form of time travel is internally consistent. The problem arises when there are at least ''four'' different forms of time travel, and possibly even more, all of which abide different rules

*** Heroes of Time have two options. Either A) They change destiny and cause a branch timeline, or B) [[You Already Changed the Past]]. They naturally have some intuition about what changes cause what. Time magic practiced by the Felt is more loose, and can be used for pretty much any form of [[Time Travel]]. And then there's the weird stuff, like the Furthest Ring distorting space and time, potentially causing someone to meet their past selves by traveling in a straight line and Skaian portals.

* Done [[So Bad It's Good|hilariously badly]] in the abandoned indy RPG ''[[Zybourne Clock]]'':

{{quote| [[Memetic Mutation|Imagine four balls on the edge of a cliff.]] Say a direct copy of the ball nearest the cliff is sent to the back of the line of balls and takes the place of the first ball. The formerly first ball becomes the second, the second becomes the third, and the fourth falls off the cliff. Time works the same way.}}

 

== Web Original ==

** Since the "Yellow Church" claimed his plan to solve the Sidewinder crisis "seemed like such a good idea at the time", it could be safe to speculate Sister/Yellow Church is there due to a further loop leading back to Sidewinder.

** The series later attempts to explain all this earlier time-travel nonsense during the "Recollections" trilogy of seasons by {{spoiler|explaining that the Red and Blue soldiers are actually simulation troopers meant to test Freelancer troops against a myriad of mad situations and everything they were subjected to in Blood Gulch was in fact a controlled situation they weren't meant to understand.}}

*** Then again, if Timmy wasn't present to wish what had caused Crocker such misery, Cosmo likely wouldn't have had the opportunity to travel back in time and screw up Crocker's childhood.

** The first time they time-travel also brings up a lot of questions. The Time Scooter and Laser Eyes still frequently make an appearance whenever Timmy needs wishes that he never unwished. But that entire episode contradicts everything else, such as Cosmo and Wanda being Bill Gates's Godparents (at the time, they should have been Crocker's parents) and the appearance of Timmy's Dad. Depending on the version, Mr Turner either met Dinkleberg when they were children, or didn't even know about the couple until they moved next door.

* ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' has Kowalski try to stop two paradoxes that he created at the same time. While it's eventually resolved with a stable time loop, the second/third Kowalski couldn't have existed without having it's own paradox. It's... confusing. And the paradoxes effect time is only a few hours.

* In an episode of ''[[South Park]]'', Cartman freezes himself and is thawed out 500 years in the future. He then makes repeated calls to Kyle via a phone that reaches back through time, which makes changes to his time. He and everyone else 500 years from now only know the world the way it is after the changes. However, when he makes one more change at the end that ''hugely'' impacts history, he only remembers what the world was like ''before'' the change, while from everyone else's point of view it's always been that way.

 

== Real Life ==

** The Kelly brothers have this literally, since they are ''both'' astronauts. Captain Mark Kelly is slightly older than his brother Captain Scott Kelly, since he has spent 54 days in space as compared to 180 days. But the difference in their ages is only ''about a ten-thousandth of a second''.

** General Relativity adds a whole new layer of complexity to the whole spacetime thing. For example spacetime gets really warped close to extremely compact objects. It becomes several orders of magnitude more complex when there is more than one such object. Put two black holes in close proximity and even top astrophysicists will struggle. (And the math shows that spacetime does indeed behave in strange ways in such situations, such as loops forming around the black holes such that you could travel to your own past.)

**** If only! The Gödel metric manages to have closed timelike loops in a universe that has ''no singularities'' and is even topologically ''simply connected''. No, I cannot visualize that either.

* [http://reason.com/blog/2009/10/14/they-say-you-cant-fight-the-fu The Higgs-Boson, according to some people.]

** Fortunately, Git preserves even changes to history (perhaps in a form of [[San Dimas Time]]), so you can revert your edits to history.

*** Unfortunately, unlike saner [[DVC Ses]], it then voluntarily discards some parts of the history just before you want to look it up (if you merge two branches and later split them again, you have little chances to know what was originally where after a month or so)

[[Category:This Index Is Not an Example]]

[[Category:Timey Wimey Ball]]