DR in perspective? theory

[morriswalters]

My math days are over.  It's a visualization aid, no more or less.

[Mira]

My math days are over.  It's a visualization aid, no more or less.

You are not alone, you will notice other than the bit about the meaning of "12" verses "13" I haven't said much on the matter..  I did read the bit in Cold Days when Bob was trying explain using cinematic visual aids, Merlin in the guise of Gandalf to Harry, Alfred's explanation as to how the prison was formed in all it's dimensions, the only "visual" I get in my head is a star on top of a Christmas tree and I know that cannot be right..  The other take away is it cannot be an accident that the shape Merlin is making over and over again at the same time in four or more dimensions is a pentacle and that is what Harry wears around his neck.  Just a WAG, but there has got to be a connection there beyond what Harry as always said, a symbol of magic/faith. 

[morriswalters]

It really doesn't matter how he proposes to do the mechanics of time travel,  He's said he is going to do it. But he isn't going to do it in any time frame that means anything to me. So for my personal finish I borrowed from Heinlein.

Heinlein did time travel in a book called The Door Into Summer. The title is about a cat that makes his owner go to every door in a house to be let out in the winter, looking for a door into summer. Heinlein evidently wanted to avoid the bootstrap paradox where cause and effect just get thrown out. 

He has his protagonist go into the future in cold sleep only to discover that he has been screwed over and lost everything.  He then goes to the past to set up the outcome he wants in the future and then goes into cold sleep again to get back to the future.  Everything that that he went back to set up was there when he woke the first time, but he had to get back to make sure it happened. 

This is one of the thousand or so time travel stories I've read and I imagined how the story might end using this device if Jim ever got there. There's token support for the idea in Cold Days. There is a one possible time travel device for going into the past introduced in Changes. However this shouldn't be dignified as even a WAG.


From the book A Door Into Summer

Philosophically, just one line of ink can make a different universe as surely as having the continent of Europe missing. Is the old “branching time streams” and “multiple universes” notion correct? Did I bounce into a different universe, different because I had monkeyed with the setup? Even though I found Ricky and Pete in it? Is there another universe somewhere (or somewhen) in which Pete yowled until he despaired, then wandered off to fend for himself, deserted? And in which Ricky never managed to flee with her grandmother but had to suffer the vindictive wrath of Belle?

[Mira]

  Or in the manner of the Time Lord Himself, DR Who, he travels through time, space, other planets, and dimensions as well in his TARDIS.  There are rules he cannot break, and there are rules he severely bends.. 

[The_Sibelis]

  Or in the manner of the Time Lord Himself, DR Who, he travels through time, space, other planets, and dimensions as well in his TARDIS.  There are rules he cannot break, and there are rules he severely bends..

can you elaborate on those rules and how he bends which of them? I've never had the pleasure to get into Dr Who properly.

[Griffyn612]

I think the easiest hand wave for the Dresdenverse will be for time to be a woven cord or tapestry. Butcher can relate it to the Fates, and introduce the idea of a time traveler making a loop of their thread into a point earlier in the cord/tapestry.

There's only so much time that can pass before the weave becomes too tight to be manipulated, so Harry can't just leap centuries into the past. Maybe a quick jaunt back a few years at most.

And Merlin doing his Demonreach thing would take Major Power to enable him to effectively cut a small segment of his thread, leaving a thin stand at the original time and then taking four pieces and inserting them into other times. Possibly all in the future of his own time, just floating out there until the time comes for them to be inserted.

But that's predominantly a method to explain a singular timeline, and not one with common branches.

[The_Sibelis]

Idk, I've always likened what I see in time travel to a tree. Merlin I think entwined the original trunk of timelines and they branch from there, specifically, when someone steps of the tracks of their fate and makes a free will choice. There are a few allusions to it, the mother's about new future's unfolding, Uriel and co enabling choice.
That's important, they're not preserving choice, they specifically enable it. Promoting new future's. Mmm, in a way, that makes the KotC vs Denarians battle about tilling the metaphorical soil and planting new seeds new possibilities.
I like the idea of a B2tF timeline where you have to go back to before the choice in order to effect it, taking Odin saying the effects of TT are twinned universes it makes sense combined with the multiversal precepts in place.
The current timeline very likely being one already having time travel effects.. but, it also seems to be very closed loopish, with things fluctuating in the story based on his memory of the event changing. That's an indicator to me to, if it's a past tense first person narrative then he has to be away of the changes of in some way have his memory buffered from it. The Occam's razor to me, is it's because he's directly involved in it in some way.
@griff, perhaps he wouldn't have to cut? I'm not on top of my weaving methods but I think crotchet for instance maybe? I was thinking, it's more like five already slightly different versions of Merlin went back on the timeline to some point before their divergence and tied them together, like crocheting a dreamcatcher, using tension from the different angles to give it structure.

[Mira]

can you elaborate on those rules and how he bends which of them? I've never had the pleasure to get into Dr Who properly.

If you can stream Britbox you can catch up on the episodes it is one of the most successful science fiction series in the history of television.. 

[morriswalters]

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/cult/a870656/doctor-who-time-travel-rules-explained-changing-history/

[The_Sibelis]

Interesting..  reminds me of the new what if episode.. though, that actually reminded me of The time Machine itself. Can't change what makes you need to make the journey. In the DF you can change the details of that journey still though? Mmm, that would seem to imply whatever is the catalyst for Harry going back, unless you subscribe to the he did it cause he always did it which I don't think matches the given themes so far.

[morriswalters]

Whatever Harry might change, it must justify the book that it happens in. He also must know that he has to do it.

Heinlein did this by having the traveler find evidence that he had done something in the past that he hadn't done yet in his present. In the story he discovers a patent in his name for a machine he had thought about but hadn't yet built.

[Mira]

Whatever Harry might change, it must justify the book that it happens in. He also must know that he has to do it.

Heinlein did this by having the traveler find evidence that he had done something in the past that he hadn't done yet in his present. In the story he discovers a patent in his name for a machine he had thought about but hadn't yet built.

That is where Dr Who is different, the Doctor travels through time in his TARDIS, but most of the time it isn't personal.  He travels to study and learn, though yeah, in the end he does change things, that is what got him into trouble in the first place.  Though from time to time he is given a mission, like finding the Key to Time...