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

[Tedronai]

Since the stated purpose of any focus is to improve precision and fine control, I would think that a focus as impressive as Little Chicago would drastically decrease Harry's sloppiness.  This is yet again an indication of Cowl's fundamental might and ability.

Harry is often nearly as sloppy in his methodology as he is in his execution.
A poorly formulated but well controlled spell remains poorly formulated.

[blackstaff67]

It's probably not a violation, but looking back far enough at a particular subject (say, White Council matters) might get the Wardens knocking on your door, mumbling something 'bout things better left unknown. 

That said, the Ventori Umbria will definitely be interested in you, depending on how far back you look.

[Mrmdubois]

If it was a violation then people with the minor magical talent of psycometry would be in trouble a lot.

The Gatekeeper possibly sends messages to himself from the future and nobody asks him if he's breaking any laws.  Doesn't even ruffle feathers as long as he keeps his use of that knowledge subtle.

Wizards develop visions of the future if they live long enough which is arguably information traveling backwards.  They can't even help it, as it's just a natural development rather than an end sought after by spell work.

And as has been pointed out, the knowledge is out there already, either in books, the Akashic record, witnesses in the form of long lived entities, etc.

So yeah, scrying into the past is pretty unlikely to break any laws.

If Cold Days is right then it's damn near impossible to break that law anyways, probably harder the further back you go.

[toturi]

I am curious as to how difficult it is to scry back into the past to a specific event. How difficult is it to look back into the recent past or for that matter the beginning of time?

[LordBorsti]

I am curious as to how difficult it is to scry back into the past to a specific event. How difficult is it to look back into the recent past or for that matter the beginning of time?

I would start with a base difficulty of 4 or 5 (or higher if you want to perceive a lot of details) and add a number of Shifts according to the time increment table.

Example: What happened yesterday in that room?
Starting from "instant" to "a day" this would sum up to base difficulty + 10 Shifts.

@all:
Since some of you asked for specifics and to keep the discussion on topic here is a short description of the situation.

The group got into a situation where they were pressured by a powerful organisation to kill the son of a white court vampire. In order to appeal to both parties (wcv and the organisation) they staged a dramatic scene were the young wcv would jump off a building commiting suicide. They used illusion magic to fake the scene but they involved the young wcv to actually play his own part. Caused by some compels the whole thing went terribly wrong. The young wcv was shot by an unknown sniper located in an apartment tower but nobody except the group actually noticed his "real" death because the illusions they used did their job.

So we have a dead white court vampire and his father believing him to be only "faked dead" and the group under time pressure to find the real murderer.

On of the characters wants to get infos about the identity of the murderer. Some ideas of our discussion involved magical 3D crime reconstruction á la Tony Stark/Iron Man 3 or time travel/looking backwards in time. So I startet this topic.

[Crazy Wilhelm]

For a beautiful example of this Ouroborous, I refer you to Marvel Comics "The Starbrand."

Did you hear that they brought the Starbrand back this year?

[Taran]

Use the bullet as a link to the guy, obviously.

Have the scene play in reverse, starting when the wcv get shot, going further back in time to the point when the bullet is loaded into the gun.  Have it all played out from the bullets point of view.  They'll see who loaded it and possibly where this guy lives.

You're taking the memory of the bullet and watching it.  It's not really going back in time, I'd say. 

[Quantus]

That makes sense to me.  Id further alter its difficulty based on location and thaumaturgical Link type aid.  So it would be easier to say "show me this room yesterday" than "Show me this room ten years ago."  Similarly it would be easier to say "show me the last time this gun was fired" than it would be to say "show me this mummy when he was alive."  And it would be easier to say "Show me this room Yesterday" than it would to say "show me that villain's lair across town yesterday" but if you had an object that was in said lair yesterday, it would make it easier.  So it might be pretty easier comparatively to say "show me when this gun was fired in this room in the last year" and perhaps even easier to say "show me when this gun killed somebody in this room in the last year" since a murder would probably leave a stronger imprint.  And if you were scrying a particular object and it "moved" further away geographically as you look back, you may run the risk of loosing track of it. 

Thus the easiest thing to scry would be a metaphysically significant event that happened recently in your current location, while using an object involved in that event as the focus; a good example being investigating the scene of a recent murder with the bloody murder weapon on hand.  At the other end of the spectrum would be trying to scry for a clear image of a thousand year old meeting on the other side of the planet where nothing metaphysically significant happened (which would probably require a ley line or better to fuel).


So Shifts based on Time Increment, Distance, the Energy Imprint strength of the event in question, and Thaumaturgical (psychometric) object link. 

[Mr. Death]

I would start with a base difficulty of 4 or 5 (or higher if you want to perceive a lot of details) and add a number of Shifts according to the time increment table.

Example: What happened yesterday in that room?
Starting from "instant" to "a day" this would sum up to base difficulty + 10 Shifts.

...So that's how that chart is supposed to work? Wish I'd known that before.

As for the main topic, I don't really see how just looking back in time would be a violation. Getting knowledge from the past is, well, pretty much what everyone's doing constantly. I think the law of magic is about affecting the past.

[LordBorsti]

...So that's how that chart is supposed to work? Wish I'd known that before.

I wouldn't consider my ruling as official rules. But the time increment table is used troughout the book when time is important. For example Harry's Tracking Spell utilizes the time increment table to determine its duration.

[madvogon]

Did you hear that they brought the Starbrand back this year?

Seriously?  Any other New Universe titles coming back too?  Please say DP7.  Actually, this could be dangerous.  The New Universe got me collecting again after a 5 year hiatus and eventually lead to a $100 a week habit.  I don't think my wife would tolerate that again.

[LordBorsti]

@Crazy Wilhelm and madvogon:

Please do your offtopic conversation via PM.

[GryMor]

...So that's how that chart is supposed to work? Wish I'd known that before.

As for the main topic, I don't really see how just looking back in time would be a violation. Getting knowledge from the past is, well, pretty much what everyone's doing constantly. I think the law of magic is about affecting the past.

Technically, everyone is 'getting knowledge' from the present, and inferring things about the past, even to the extent that their memories themselves are embedded within the substrate of the present. I suspect that to actually look at the past directly via thaumaturgy rather than infer it from the present inherently involves chronomancy and thus, knowledge (and temptation?) of how to go about violating the 6th law.

[Mrmdubois]

Except there are plenty of ways to make those inferences already without using magic, so why would using magic to do it and cut out the middle man be disallowed?  Its not really that different than watching security footage of the event in question.

Anyways, I think the discussion has gone on long enough to drop this.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,36777.0.html

[Tedronai]

Except there are plenty of ways to make those inferences already without using magic, so why would using magic to do it and cut out the middle man be disallowed?  Its not really that different than watching security footage of the event in question.

Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but your argument is terrible.  There are plenty of mundane ways to kill people, too.  That doesn't put a stop to the 1st Law.