Is looking back in time a violation of the 6th Law?

[PirateJack]

Couple of points:

Firstly, you can kill with a gun. This doesn't mean spells that kill are Kosher. For that same reason, using time magic to look back in time isn't kosher just because psychics can do it, or there are other ways to do it. Psychic powers are not the same as magic, no matter how much it may seem like it.
Secondly, like all magic, IT DEPENDS ON THE METHOD.

Basicly, it all boils down to the method. Look at the casters preferred methods for doing things. Are they being indirect about it? Are they physically going back in time? Are they temporarily giving themselves psychic powers? It all depends on the proposed method.

Well, that's a matter of perspective. I doubt it would matter much to a being that exists at multiple points in a given timeline (as some oracles are supposed to), but the White Council doesn't differentiate much when it comes to things like this. Harry's view of the Alphas (that they're all just doing a very specific brand of magic) is almost certainly the same as the White Council's view. So if someone broke the Sixth Law with a 'psychic power' I can't see the Council approving of it any more than if a Wizard did it.

Given that psychometry doesn't break the Sixth Law in the RPG, I'd say getting information from the past is fine no matter what method you use. Sending messages back (as long as they're subtle, as Bob says in Proven Guilty) would be toeing the line. Affecting the past in a grandfather's paradox-esque manner would be breaking the Law with universal consequences.

[cold_breaker]

Well, that's a matter of perspective. I doubt it would matter much to a being that exists at multiple points in a given timeline (as some oracles are supposed to), but the White Council doesn't differentiate much when it comes to things like this. Harry's view of the Alphas (that they're all just doing a very specific brand of magic) is almost certainly the same as the White Council's view. So if someone broke the Sixth Law with a 'psychic power' I can't see the Council approving of it any more than if a Wizard did it.

Given that psychometry doesn't break the Sixth Law in the RPG, I'd say getting information from the past is fine no matter what method you use. Sending messages back (as long as they're subtle, as Bob says in Proven Guilty) would be toeing the line. Affecting the past in a grandfather's paradox-esque manner would be breaking the Law with universal consequences.

No, you miss the point. Psychic powers are not magic. They're out of the domain of the white council. They're not going to kill people for looking through time with psychic powers any more than they're going to execute people for using guns. It's perhaps a bad idea, but not their domain. And the council is nothing if not bureaucratic.

I'd rule something like giving yourself psychic powers to look into the past as being akin to enchanting a sword and executing people with it: it's walking a fine line, but not actually breaking the rules.

As for the original question: I think people in this thread are looking for ways to make it work, while the author is looking for ways to make it interesting. I'd personally rule that depending on their method, as long as they didn't alter the past in any way, they're not looking at a lawbreaker tick. The council on the other hand would see it as skirting the rules and might even use it as an excuse to keep a close on those involved... in other words, fodder for your story.

[Tedronai]

No, you miss the point. Psychic powers are not magic. They're out of the domain of the white council. They're not going to kill people for looking through time with psychic powers

Given Harry's perspective on the Alphas (who also insist that they're not using some sort of specialized spellcasting, regardless of what Harry might think) and the Council's historical hard-line policies regarding the Laws, I'm not sure that they'd agree with you.

[GryMor]

There is the added bit that Psychometry is a bad example since it treats object as (difficult to view) recorders of the events they have been present for. It is, explicitly, observing the echoes of the past in objects. Detection of divination would only twig if it covered the object being read in the present. The sort of thing that might violate the 6th law would be looking on a past event without benefit of something that may have incidentally recorded that past. Only when the actual target is the past event do we run into the concern of the observation itself being detectable in the past.

[vultur]

The sort of thing that might violate the 6th law would be looking on a past event without benefit of something that may have incidentally recorded that past. Only when the actual target is the past event do we run into the concern of the observation itself being detectable in the past.

Yeah, this would probably be questionable/gray area. I'm not sure why you would do it, though, since unlike some other black magic time magic seems to be really hard in the DV, so you could probably find another way to achieve the same result at least as easily. (Especially since Lea talks about the memory of the universe in GS, so you might not need a physical object at all.)

[jybil178]

Had 2 cents I wanted to throw in. This could mean nothing, or could be seen in a few different ways.

Now first off, we may have an idea of just how difficult to near impossible it may be to try and look back in time. In Turn Coat, we have a Senior Council member trying to determine exactly what had happened in the murder of one of their own. Even through all his prowess, through all his attempts, and use of magic even he was a bit skeptical of, they where never able to verify exactly what had happened. Either such a thing was too difficult for him to manage, or it was simply completely outside of his realm of expertise. Note, even Harry had to do that himself the good old fashioned way, and it had to partially be confessed by one of the parties involved (note, I'm tired and it has been a while since I've read this particular book. I may not be remembering some of the finer details). Player characters can always be resourceful, they can always eventually out shine most of your NPCs. However, our Senior Council members, I would assume, should be considered as the absolute elite, the true authority of magic in most  scenarios. If one of them couldn't do it, well...

Now, this could potentially be looked at another way.  The Council member may have been trying to do everything he could, EXCEPT looking back in time. Through all the tools he had, he was unable to bring enough evidence to bear to verify exactly what had happened. If this is the case, than it may not be the idea that it is necessarily too difficult to look back in time, but that even this potentially minor act of chronomancy would be considered to be in violation of the 6th Law. If this was a gray area, the envolope may have been pushed. If it was not something considered to be breaking the Laws, than ALL avenues would have been pursued in attempts to verify exactly what had happened.

Now as I said, I'm tired, so I may be rambling a bit. But from my speculation at least, it could be assumed from that point in the books we may be able to assume we simply have an A) or B). That even this kind of divination or time magic is either very difficult to impossible to perform to a very definitive detail, or it is considered to be against the 6th Law, whether it would break it or not. My 2 cents to the conversation.

[UmbraLux]

That even this kind of divination or time magic is either very difficult to impossible to perform to a very definitive detail

Probably true...I can't think of a good symbolic link to a specific point in time.  Anything physical has existence across some chunk of time, you'd probably get confusing visions mixed together from its whole existence.

[GryMor]

For this sort of targeting, you can get the symbolic link you need by bootstrapping. Start with one of the traditional 'echo in the present' based methods, but aimed before what you failed to observe via safe methods. Use that echo of the past as the symbolic link for the past itself and use the past itself crossed with your present as a symbolic link for the next 'moment' up your timeline. Hope your timeline already encompasses a stable time loop where you did these observations and they don't matter to the interval between the past event up to your present.

That said, a similar safe method of bootstrapping is also possible, using echoes you do have to find other echoes in the present you need to get closer to echos of your target event, but I'm generally assuming that once you are to this point, the echoes of the event itself were wiped or have been otherwise disrupted or outright fabricated (see Minority Report for a future looking version)