With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Mr Zoat · Sep 16, 2021

Darko said:
'and notices'

Thank you, corrected.

'himself or'

That might be grammatically better, but it isn't what the character said.

'fruit is' or 'fruits are'

No, that's correct.

Bud-E · Sep 16, 2021

Can the Time Trapper Paul go around and fix all the What If episodes? Most of them end terribly for no reason.

Queshire · Sep 16, 2021

There's a fanfic I read called Kyon Big Damned Hero that goes into something similar like this with paradoxes. I love the difference between perception and truth. That said, faking it seems safer than mind magic and he's enough of a wizard that it shouldn't be substantially more difficult.

Handlewithcare · Sep 16, 2021

I never really got this supposed Grandfather paradoxon in timetravel stories.

It doesn't matter if your past is altered, since to you it already happened.

If you travel somewhere and the street gets removed behind you you don't suddenly stop being where you are.

Sockmonkey · Sep 16, 2021

It's nice to see a story finally fully exploit that time travel paradox loophole in a temporal system that makes logical sense.
As long as the changes you make don't alter the course of events until your own present, you can make whatever changes you like.
The SNES game Chrono Trigger used the same "swap in a fake at the moment of death" trick to bring the main character back to life.

Chojin Patriarch · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
When If?

Universe-199998

13th February 2019

Interesting. An alternate Paul who has had a very odd path to where he is now. Hopefully he can lay down some sage advice to the rookie time-traveller. Like, 'don't try to rewrite the entire timeline, you dolt.'

"The lost books…"

I look around from my position halfway up the ridiculous bookcase pillars as a somewhat weathered man in a suit walks slowly into the library. The ill-fitting amulet around his neck…

Yes, that's never a good sign. Especially in a clearly magical library.

Time manipulation.

I can hardly complain about O'Bengh asking me to substitute for him while he takes a holiday, but that's a subject I'm either… No, I am the best person to answer questions about it. I just hoped that I could avoid it from now on. Returning to China didn't quite… Nothing was going to return me to anything approaching normal, but I'd been able to put being Time Trapper behind me.

Ah, Mandated Paul. I'd thought he got sent home, but evidently not.

I float down, smiling at the prospective researcher as he looks up an notices me.

"Hello, there."

Always fun when you can channel Obi-wan Kenobi.

"Aah, hello." He give me a mild frown as I land a short distance away. "Are you..? Cagliostro?"

"No, I'm the substitute librarian. I've no idea where Cagliostro him or indeed herself is, and O'Bengh the Librarian is taking a holiday. I'm Orange Lantern, holiday temp."

That's one way of putting it. Not having seen 'What If?', I rather suspect I',m missing some details on who's who. Evidently there's some differences.

He looks around, taking the place in.

"Strange."

"Oh, we're using made-up names?"

I nod.

"Yes, the whole 'introduce yourself by your codename' thing breaks down in cultures where pseudonyms aren't common. Unfortunately, that-."

Though in Maul's case, he really can't introduce himself using his real name...

He squints. "No, I-. My name. Stephen Strange. Doctor Stephen Strange."

"Ah. Well, pleased to meet you, Doctor Strange." I offer him my right hand, and after a moment of awkward hesitation he takes it. "What can I do for you?"

So, not injured by a car accident? I take it that was the divergence involved? <reads ahead.> Okay, yes.

"I'm… Hoping you can show me the books on time travel."

"Ah… I haven't taken an inventory, I'm-" I glance back at the books stacks, shaking my head. Being a wizard is no reason to abandon sound design principles. "-afraid. Though if it's any consolation, I used to be an atemporal being. There's not a lot about temporal manipulation that I don't understand, and I'm happy to answer your questions."

And as the Ancient One would tell you, time is not something to be played with.

He looks at me askance.

"If you were atemporal, then surely some version of you still is."

"Oh, well spotted. But no. A version of the being I used to be is still atemporal, though since they lack my particularity they have no particular reason to help me or.. you."

Ah, yes, one of the places where English breaks down so easily... Temporal Mechanics...

He nods. "Orange… Lantern, was it?"

I take my personal lantern out of subspace. "A symbol of office and a power source. For a maltusian, it's like introducing yourself as a police officer."

Not that the rookie sorcerer would recognise the name. Given that unless this is some form of Amalgam universe, Maltus did not exist here...

"Well, Orange Lantern, perhaps you can help. I need a way to change an absolute point-" I wince. "-in time. Cagliostro was rumoured to have found a way-."

"There's no such thing." I shake my head. "That's not how time works. Even here."

Especially after you got through with it...

He scowls. "I've got a certain amount of experimental data that says it is."

"Then you're misinterpreting it." I pull a couple of chairs and a table over to us and take a seat. "Tea?"

Good. Always better to explain things with a cup of something warm in your hands. If only so you can't throw a punch as easily.

He takes a deep breath and huffs. "Look, I can find it myself-."

"Why rush?" I lean back in my chair as I take a tea service out of subspace. "You didn't come here for a way to travel in time, so presumably that thing around your neck already has that covered. Which means that it doesn't matter how long it takes. And it sounds like you are in need of background information"

Unless he thinks things work by Bill & Ted rules or similar, where time passes concurrently whenever you are.

He looks up at the stack, then down at the table. "Fine." He pulls out his chair and sits, leaning forward with his forearms on the table. "What do you mean 'there's no such thing'."

"Exactly what I said. Time is a process. It's not a person; it can't care about anything. Nothing is just… Randomly designated as being more important than anything else. While the precise mechanism changes from parallel reality to parallel reality, it's usually just a matter of the availability and application of energy, due to-."

I mean, certainly there might be an anthropomorphic embodiment of the concept, but they generally play no central part in the actual functioning of it.

"So I need to get stronger."

"So you need to stop interrupting." I pour him a cup, then reach out and pull a book from a nearby shelf. 'What I Did In My Holidays' by Twoflower. "Could you lift this?"

When all you have is an infinity stone, everything looks like a glove... Also, nice Discworld reference.

He regards me with mild irritation for a moment before nodding. "Yes."

"If you were much stronger, could you-" I point. "-lift that bookshelf?"

Assuming it isn't bolted to the floor or something of the like, I suppose... Might prove necessary for some of the more lively books...

"Yes."

"Is there a level of strength you could arrive at where you could pick yourself up by your own feet and carry yourself around?"

...Does copying yourself count?

Never underestimate the craftiness (or foolishness) of a desperate man.

That puts him off his stride, eyes moving away from me as he tries to puzzle it out.

"The human mind is designed to keep us safe from hungry tigers; it isn't easy to talk about temporal mechanics in a language originally designed for telling the other monkeys where the ripe fruit are."

Truer words have never been spoken...

"Oh-kay."

I think he's trying some sort of breathing exercise, though with limited success.

Not an uncommon reaction when dealing with any empowered Paul...

"So then explain it to me like I'm a monkey."

"Events cause other events, and are in turn-."

"Ook, do thing, other thing happen..."

"I already had this talk."

"Why are you here? Hm? What went so badly wrong that you feel the need to rewrite time?"

Excellent, getting right to the heart of the matter. Or would it be a matter of the heart?

"I don't want to.. rewrite all time, I just.. want to save one woman."

"There's your problem. You-."

Now, when you say 'save', be precise. There;s no room for ambiguity in these things.

"Her death set me on this path. I can't go back and save her because if I did then I wouldn't exist."

"Nearly. Your perception of her death set you on this path."

At least Strange is smart enough to recognise the bootstrap paradox he would be invoking...

And now I have his attention.

"What do you mean?"

Reality is merely a state of mind. Change a mind, you change their reality...

"If she died and you didn't know about it, your behaviour would be unaltered. If she was replaced by a gynoid programmed to mimic her, or a shapeshifter, your behaviour would be unaltered. On the other hand, if you believed that she died…"

"I-. Would still have done everything to bring her back. Whether she was actually dead to or not."

Or even replace her at the moment of her fatal injury with a perfect quantum replica cadaver. Bam, person saved, dead body left behind. Though it leads to all other manner of complications...

"You tried to brute force it, didn't you? That can't work. Where I'm from, causation violations can upend the entire timeline like-" I click the thumb and middle fingers of my right hand. "-that. It took me an immeasurable amount of time to recreate my own timeline. Here, things are different. Time works -mechanically works- to minimise changes, sucking energy out of the universe every time. It's easy for something like a person dying; there are all sorts of ways to die, and it's more energy efficient to do that than... Than to try and maintain a paradox as part of history? I don't even want to think about how much energy that would-."

Honestly, that works as one reason why so many 'What If?' tales in the comics ended up with lots of dead characters...

Oh.

"No, I've got it. If you moved her to a universe with a different temporal system then the two of you would be alright, it's just that the universe you left would collapse."

...Okay, let's step back a bit here, Mr former Time Trapper... Deleting universes should be a last resort, not the first.

"Let's leave that for plan D. So what-"

"Yes, let's."

"-you're saying is, as long as I can exist in the resulting timeline, I can save her?"

Good to see Maul has learnt his lesson about these things.

"Yes. Your problem was confirmation bias. Once you heard an answer you didn't like, you didn't consider alternate hypotheses."

"So, what, I need to fake a car crash. Get a realistic fake body. Difficult, but-."

Well, yes, I suppose you could. But that's rather a lot of work.

"Or you could just fake your memories."

"Excuse me?"

...What?

"Go back in time, explain things to whoever she is and your past self. Change his memories so that he remembers what you remember happening, and… Carry on."

He frowns. "She wouldn't see me for two years."

Well, if future you is taking her with you...

"Better than being dead. Or you could partition your mind so you could see her for a few days each month. I don't know how good you are at mind altering magic."

"I can get good very fast. And you're sure that will work?"

I shrug. "It should. Of course, there's an easy way to check, considering the nature of time travel. Are there any mental partitions in your mind at the moment?"

Well, there weren't before you suggested this...

I guess things work out for the best, then? The joy of not being able to keep up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe now... But from the sound of things, all he needed was someone to say, "Stop. Think about what you're planning to do. This is how it won't work." And he got that in this timeline...

Vaermina · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
When If?

Universe-199998

13th February 2019

Here we have a Paul that doesn't actually understand the rules of Time Travel in the Marvel verse trying to pretend that he does.

Hint, there's no cheating an MCU fixed point.

Queshire · Sep 16, 2021

Handlewithcare said:
I never really got this supposed Grandfather paradoxon in timetravel stories.

It doesn't matter if your past is altered, since to you it already happened.

If you travel somewhere and the street gets removed behind you you don't suddenly stop being where you are.

Instead of a street think of it like a bridge. If the bridge behind you gets moved so that it's pointing in a different direction then that'll cause all the rest of the bridge to swing over as well. At that point your only choice is to move along with the bridge or go for a swim when suddenly there's nothing underneath you.

Darko · Sep 16, 2021

Chojin Patriarch said:
Ah, Mandated Paul. I'd thought he got sent home, but evidently not.

He did get sent home.

I think this is just his future.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Ah, yes, one of the places where English breaks down so easily... Temporal Mechanics...

Most languages would break down trying to explain this.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Does copying yourself count? Never underestimate the craftiness (or foolishness) of a desperate man.

Mandated Paul would know that.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Or even replace her at the moment of her fatal injury with a perfect quantum replica cadaver. Bam, person saved, dead body left behind. Though it leads to all other manner of complications...

Like legal complications, as well as her family and friends thinking she's dead.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Honestly, that works as one reason why so many 'What If?' tales in the comics ended up with lots of dead characters...

The same is true in the animated series.

Lots of dark endings.

Chojin Patriarch said:
Good to see Maul has learnt his lesson about these things.

Even a Paul is able to learn.

It's rare, but it happens.

Signaller · Sep 16, 2021

Vaermina said:
Hint, there's no cheating an MCU fixed point.

Ir depends on whether the fixed point is the death or the perception of the death.

Vaermina · Sep 16, 2021

Signaller said:
Ir depends on whether the fixed point is the death or the perception of the death.

It was confirmed by the Ancient One and Watcher to be her actual death.

Even the universe itself confirmed it by falling apart the moment she was brought back, instead of the moment the Doctor Strange in the car regained consciousnesses and realized she was dead.

So yea, either that Paul's just flat out wrong, or this is a massive AU that has no real connection to the MCU.

Doccer · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
"So, what, I need to fake a car crash. Get a realistic fake body. Difficult, but-."

So in this universe he had someone in the car with him?

Rebu · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
"Go back in time, explain things to whoever she is and your past self. Change his memories so that he remembers what you remember happening, and… Carry on."

He frowns. "She wouldn't see me for two years."

"Better than being dead. Or you could partition your mind so you could see her for a few days each month. I don't know how good you are at mind altering magic."

I just like the idea that Christine's been killing time by training with the Ancient One alongside Strange this whole time, but his self-induced mental blindspot keeps him from seeing her.

And now I'm wondering what her sorceress outfit would look like.

Cuchulin · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
He squints. "No, I-. My name. Stephen Strange. Doctor Stephen Strange."

I'd have responded by calling him Hugo and followed that with "What's up Doc?". Mostly because I'd find both amusing and who wouldn't take the chance to channel Bugs Bunny?

NightmareWarden · Sep 16, 2021

Ahhhh, mental partitions! I like when stories use those. Best examples I've seen are in Pokemon: Origin of Species (not everyone's cup of tea, that) and Alchemical Solutions (Worm/Exalted setting fusion(ish) Quest). The webcomic Namesake had something along those lines too, but we didn't get a ton of detail.

So! Paul is managing a magical/supernatural library (thank goodness this Paul isn't in the SCP universe!). I wonder if anyone will discover a "lost section" of the library during Paul's stay.

DrThoth · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
"Exactly what I said. Time is a process. It's not a person; it can't care about anything. Nothing is just… Randomly designated as being more important than anything else.

Is there a Paul in Doctor Who? Zoat's probably answered this at some point but I haven't come across it.
I know Paragon or maybe another Paul talked about time being a process, not a person, back in the DC multiverse, but I'm assuming he was partially incorrect since Sandman/Vertigo stuff is canon and Time is actually a guy and the father of the Endless. Again, this was probably brought up before during all the time travel episodes, but I don't really reread those episodes because of the temporal stuff I struggle to wrap my head around.
In the MCU or the comics Marvel multiverse, I'm not sure if Time has a personification, unless it's Infinity or Eternity.

Someguy Somewhere · Sep 16, 2021

Handlewithcare said:
I never really got this supposed Grandfather paradoxon in timetravel stories.

It doesn't matter if your past is altered, since to you it already happened.

If you travel somewhere and the street gets removed behind you you don't suddenly stop being where you are.

That's because you're operating on a flawed premise that you stop being part of your universe at some point when you time travel.

In fiction You already changed the past infers that there is only one time line and any time travel that occurs has already happened and always will happen. Branching Timelines effectively operates as a multiverse, with each change branching into a whole new reality, the previous one continuing on as you left it while you exist in the altered version. The former shuffles you around within your reality, while the latter removes you from one reality and places you in another. The former violates the conservation of matter and energy LOCALLY, but doesn't violate it overall, as it averages out over the sum total of all existence. The Latter says 'screw you' to conservation for singular universes, but the net for the greater multiverse goes unchanged.

The issue in the real world is that due to the observed properties of the universe around us, time travel backwards is impossible under our understanding of physics. While you can alter the effective rate of change relative to an observer, the math for stopping time, or rewinding it simply stops working. Not only with objects with mass, but also with anything without mass that would allow information to pass from one frame of reference to an earlier point.

But here's the thing with what we know looking at hypothetical time travel. At no point do you 'leave' the known universe. You can't 'pick yourself up' from reality, move to some place 'beyond time' and then go back and put yourself back into the universe at some other point in the timeline.

While you can twist and squish space time, you can't cut a chunk of it out.

There is no break in your continuity because you can't break it. You don't exist IN the Universe as a discrete element. Your past, present and future are a functional structure OF the Universe as a whole. Your existence is part of what Defines what the Universe IS in the first place.

Simply put the speed of light in vacuum ( C ) is a constant in ALL frames of reference, and thus any attempt to violate light speed fail. Current physics that would suggest that approaching that limit time would slow relative to an outside observer. However as you accelerate you need more and more energy. At equal to the speed of light you would need Infinite Energy (and interestingly you would also have Infinite Mass too). Needless to say you'd require more energy then what exists in the universe to even try. Oddly the numbers, once you get past lightspeed start working somewhat sanely, in that they aren't infinite anymore, they're just backwards. Due to that factoid, a lot of folks try to come up with crackpot ways to either bypass the point where you need to hit C, or redefine the shape of the universe itself to try and get around it.

Which is where things get crazy with ideas for 'wormholes', 'negative mass' and 'virtual particles' get really interesting. And Complicated. Head Hurtingly complicated.

Even without relativistic stuff, removing matter from the universe and adding it to either that universe at a different point in existence (or an alternate universe completely) messes with the laws of thermodynamics. You've effectively Created and Destroyed Matter and Energy. That might not seem like a huge thing to you, 'it's just one more human being' after all, but if time travel is possible you've opened reality up to huge violations of entropy on a macro scale. (for the gamers reading this, you've discovered the mother of all dupe glitches).

Mr Zoat · Sep 16, 2021

DrThoth said:
Is there a Paul in Doctor Who?

No.

Zoat's probably answered this at some point but I haven't come across it.

If so, he doesn't remember doing it.

I know Paragon or maybe another Paul talked about time being a process, not a person, back in the DC multiverse, but I'm assuming he was partially incorrect since Sandman/Vertigo stuff is canon and Time is actually a guy and the father of the Endless. Again, this was probably brought up before during all the time travel episodes, but I don't really reread those episodes because of the temporal stuff I struggle to wrap my head around.
In the MCU or the comics Marvel multiverse, I'm not sure if Time has a personification, unless it's Infinity or Eternity.

I did not know that.

Austin Pharos · Sep 16, 2021

Nah this should work. The Ancient One only said her death was a fixed point because of its impact on Strange. As long as the impact and resulting consequences are there, her death shouldn't be necessary.

Specifically, the Ancient One said that the paradox is caused by Strange removing his motivation to become a sorcerer. If we consider the need for that motivation to be the Fixed Point, then faking her death should be perfectly fine.

It'd probably work more reliably if someone else faked it for Strange, but I have no idea how it's complicated by Stranger's twin anyways. The twin was split off before the crash, so Strange would still have to convince his twin that faking her death is okay. But since faking her death shouldn't end the world, twin-Strange shouldn't have any reason to see the world disintegrating and need to stop Strange anyways...

Ciber · Sep 16, 2021

Someguy Somewhere said:
Even without relativistic stuff, removing matter from the universe and adding it to either that universe at a different point in existence (or an alternate universe completely) messes with the laws of thermodynamics. You've effectively Created and Destroyed Matter and Energy. That might not seem like a huge thing to you, 'it's just one more human being' after all, but if time travel is possible you've opened reality up to huge violations of entropy on a macro scale. (for the gamers reading this, you've discovered the mother of all dupe glitches).

I don't agree with this argument. By definition "The Universe" is everything that exists. If you "leave the universe" then it just turns out that what you thought was the universe is actually just a single plane of existence within a larger universe. Conservation laws deal with closed systems. If you don't live in a closed system...

Mquz · Sep 16, 2021

I was assuming Paul would jump to necromancy as a resolution to the fixed point, considering his history. Dr. Strange has to believe she died - in at least one of the timelines the episode shows it looks like she died of a heart attack while dancing. He's a freaking neurosurgeon - why can't he he just resuscitate her later? or make it look like a heart attack when in reality it was just her getting drugged with something that made her look dead? Or in the extreme case just go to the spirit world and get her soul back or something?

Handlewithcare · Sep 16, 2021

Queshire said:
snip

But you aren't on that bridge. You already crossed it.

Someguy Somewhere said:
snip

What? Of course you can just say your time machine leaves the ubiverse. It's all fictional after all.

And of course you can violate thermodynamics in fiction.

Wivk · Sep 16, 2021

Yeah that whole episode could have been avoided if he had seen Stein's:Gate.

Mquz · Sep 16, 2021

Zoat, part of your explanation doesn't work. In the original movie, and early in the episode we see Strange battle dormamu in a universe with different rules of how time works. However, his original universe isn't destroyed, despite him clearly leaving it.

nobodez · Sep 16, 2021

Bud-E said:
Can the Time Trapper Paul go around and fix all the What If episodes? Most of them end terribly for no reason.

Some of them are bad because we haven't seen all of the episodes, since we know from trailers that there is going to be crossover between the 'If's.

Mr Zoat · Sep 16, 2021

Mquz said:
Zoat, part of your explanation doesn't work. In the original movie, and early in the episode we see Strange battle dormamu in a universe with different rules of how time works. However, his original universe isn't destroyed, despite him clearly leaving it.

Because he hadn't changed the past of the universe he left in a way which created a paradox.

Khornelius · Sep 16, 2021

This was a fun chapter. One of my D&D campaigns dealt a lot with time travel and time loops. My wizard Wulfric and I got really good at causing and undoing these kinda things. Hell, this exact situation actually occurred to my character and I even resolved it in the same manner.

Sadly & funnily Wulfric developed a phobia to anything time travel related. Every time it comes up now, he'll drink himself into a stupor to deal with the stress.

Stsword · Sep 16, 2021

I had the exact same reaction to that what if episode.

The Ancient One even said the problem was the paradox. So no paradox, no problem.

Strange was treating the symptom and not the underlying condition.

sagemo · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
I shrug. "It should. Of course, there's an easy way to check, considering the nature of time travel. Are there any mental partitions in your mind at the moment?"

Loved this!

Tenet actually explores time travel pretty well. The Temporal Pincer Attack is a very novel interesting mechanism. Your sentence brought that to mind.

Dur'id the Druid · Sep 16, 2021

Mr Zoat said:
I shrug. "It should. Of course, there's an easy way to check, considering the nature of time travel. Are there any mental partitions in your mind at the moment?"

Haha. Reminds me of the little used theory of time travel from Gargoyles. Time cannot be altered as it tends to correct itself when people try, BUT stable time loops that alter perception can and do happen. The Archmagnus apparently died twice and had two of himself running around for awhile because his future self rescued his past self, then past AM became the future who rescues himself.

With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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