Time Travel in the Dresden Files

[morriswalters]

Time travel to change an event breaks cause and effect and thus creates a paradox.  Bob in PG and Vadderung in Cold days. Bobs specific example is.

Bob sighed. “Okay. Temporal studies 101. Let’s say that he hears about your car being stolen. He comes back to warn you, and as a result, you keep your car.”
“Sounds good so far.”
“But if your car never got stolen,” Bob said, “then how did he know to come back and warn you?”

Vadderung states in Cold Days that time has inertia, and events that have happened have a tendency not to change. And that attempting to change them instead creates a new branch. Vadderung's example is if Harry goes back to kill Eb, either he fails or he succeeds in which case he is never born.
Vadderung says that it is far easier to shape the future than to change the past.

So the rules are these.
1. The past can be changed but only at the risk of the Butterfly Effect.
2. Paradox causes reality to branch at the point of Paradox.

And the future can be modeled statistically in the Dresden Files.  This is established at the end of Small Favor with the Archive.
Any comments? Additions?

[didymos]

We know Merlin did it to create the wards on Demonreach:

“Merlin didn’t build the prison five times,” Bob said. “He built it once. In five different times. All at the same time.”
I felt my brows knit. “Uh. He was in the same place, doing the same thing, in five different times at once?”
 “Exactly.”

Butcher, Jim. Cold Days (The Dresden Files, Book 14) (p. 173). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 No idea how he pulled it off.

[g33k]

We know Merlin did it to create the wards on Demonreach:
 No idea how he pulled it off.

n.b. FIVE times.  5 = penta.

It's not just a ward, it's a temporal pentacle.

He did a sort of "bilocation" thing, except 5X as a "pentalocation," and he didn't pentalocate across space but across time.

So he did it "once", but he did it "simultaneously" in five different times.

Except of course English has no way to SAY something like that, so my prior sentence was literal nonsense.
 

[morriswalters]

We know Merlin did it to create the wards on Demonreach:
 No idea how he pulled it off.

Think about the tree limbs coming from the ceiling of the room where Harry wakes up 1000 or so feet beneath Lake Michigan.  The prison doesn't exist in reality.

Now think of a helical spring with a pentagram tipped so that each point of the star touches a different point on the spring.  The star would have to be stretched but when looked at from above would form the ideal pentagram.  As you walk along the spring you move through time.  The spring is helical in time.

Here's how it works in a spooky horror novel.  You ride up to a tower on your horse.  There is a door.  As you enter, there is a hallway, you go right and take a walk around the tower till you come back to the door.   When you exit the door the horse is dead from starvation.  A month has passed.  The tower is in all times at the same time.  But every time you walk around the tower you are moving through time.  Is that clear as mud?

That's one way to picture it.

[Yuillegan]

Are we just establishing what we know so far?

If so that about covers it, although I think it is worth also mentioning the WOJ about the multiverse.

I.e. that EVERY time a choice is made (by a mortal), a split (exactly like the branches created at the creation of a paradox) is made diverging into two timelines: one where the choice was made, one where it wasn't made.

So one imagines that plays into how I person COULD potentially alter their own timeline. From my limited understanding of physics, in the many-world theory, a person who went back to change their own timeline (for example like Bob's example of the person who warns another of their car being stolen) wouldn't cease to exist as such. Rather the person would continue in one timeline where they had succeeded in warning the person so their car wasn't stolen, and one where they failed and the car was still stolen. But in the first branch they would still have to go back in time, which would either create a time-loop or they would no longer be in sync with their own timeline. They would effectively be inhabiting someone else's universe. Which gets really depressing when you think about the fact all the people they had known would be in their old universe, and while these people would be effectively the same they wouldn't ACTUALLY be the same (unless I miss the mark, or Jim has another explanation).

Dark is a reasonable tv show about time travel from a physics POV although it has it's own issues, but it is closer than most.

I like your explanation Morris about how Merlin was able to be in five times at once.

The thing to remember is that while we like to separate time and space, from a physics perspective they are incredibly linked and so often we say space-time as the overarching phenomena. To my mind, Merlin Emrys was in the same physical spot. But that spot was made up of five different "layers". Looking at it from anyone Time Point it would merely appear he was in the one spot. But were you able to see all five Time Points, you would see him in all of them at once, making the exact same movements (rather than going to each time separately and working magic). In fact I think this would be the only way to do what he achieved.

Interestingly, it is the state of being I think the Angels of the Dresden Files exist one (to varying degrees - I am unsure of how Denarians experience reality hampered as they are). Uriel doesn't necessarily need one million bodies/avatars (although I suppose he could do it that way) to be in one million different spots in space-time. He could potentially just exist in enough dimensions that it wouldn't be possible to measure him in all those places, limited as we are to 3 (or 4...there is debate). Jim sort of confirms this when he talks about how the Angels only show up as a whispered presence so they don't squish the sandbox, only inserting a tiny part of themselves into a point in reality. Which is probably the case with Ferrovax and the higher immortals, although who knows.

But I am getting off topic here, apologies.

[toodeep]

n.b. FIVE times.  5 = penta.

It's not just a ward, it's a temporal pentacle.

A pentacle is in only two dimensions.  Demonreaches' wards are constructed out of pentacles in at least three dimension - which means it is constructed like a 12 sided die where each face is a pentacle.

[morriswalters]

What I'm trying to establish are the rules.  What both Bob and Vadderung describe as paradox is actually the breaking of cause and effect.

[toodeep]

Interestingly, it is the state of being I think the Angels of the Dresden Files exist one (to varying degrees - I am unsure of how Denarians experience reality hampered as they are). Uriel doesn't necessarily need one million bodies/avatars (although I suppose he could do it that way) to be in one million different spots in space-time. He could potentially just exist in enough dimensions that it wouldn't be possible to measure him in all those places, limited as we are to 3 (or 4...there is debate). Jim sort of confirms this when he talks about how the Angels only show up as a whispered presence so they don't squish the sandbox, only inserting a tiny part of themselves into a point in reality. Which is probably the case with Ferrovax and the higher immortals, although who knows.

I think it is interesting to note that powerful beings like Mab warp impact the real world with their presence here, and thus often try to limit their presence on it.  More powerful beings like the Mothers really mess with the fabric of reality, making it dangerous for them to be here.  But maybe really, really powerful beings like Uriel don't seem to have that problem, because they only project the exact amount of power they need to, to this reality, to accomplish their current goal.  Dresden hasn't noted any of the reality warping around Uriel like he did around the Skinwalker, for example.

[Yuillegan]

toodeep - I suspect Uriel's very delicate presence is probably due to him having the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. I think Angels of all tiers seem to have a unique understanding of reality, similar to the Agents in the Matrix. Without the deja vu stuff though. It's a reasonable comparison, with the Architect being TWG, Neo being the Son, Smith being the Devil and the Oracle being...something (Holy Spirit maybe if you like Catholic parallels). Jim himself even made a matrix reference when talking about what Ferrovax meant when he would "crush this pathetic gathering of monkey houses". Jim said what he meant was that he is so big reality has trouble containing him, that when he coughs reality bends around him like Neo.

I guess you could say that the really clued in beings don't see the illusion of the world, but the foundation behind it. Like the kid says "The spoon doesn't bend, you do. There is no spoon" or something like that (been a while since I saw the movie).

Uriel has been described as an Executive VP of Creation, and he himself seems to say that the "normal" rules don't really apply to him. Thresholds and circles have no effect on him, nor does time really. I think about it in the same way Dresden is highly unrefined with his magic, as opposed to the sheer brilliance and effectiveness of Merlin (in comparing something like the Naagloshii to an Angel - different scales in my book, but not different books altogether...those Angels might have nuked Grey after all).

Morris - I think we've covered most of them. Time is so fundamental to reality it does tie in with some high level stuff though. Jim once said if you have enough magic and a strong enough will, you could rewrite reality. All of the limits previously mentioned could be overcome then, if you had the juice and the will. Obviously humans are not in that order of course. My belief is that Dresden will have to change his mindset a bit in order to do some real Time Travel stuff, especially if he intends to change the past. In saying that, Vadderung may be hinting in Cold Days that future him will Time Travel.

Also I think as the pentacle was done if at least 4 dimensions, it would be more like a 16 sided die wouldn't it? Unless I miss your metaphor.

[toodeep]

Also I think as the pentacle was done if at least 4 dimensions, it would be more like a 16 sided die wouldn't it? Unless I miss your metaphor.

I barely have the math skills to add and subtract dimensions when using circular coordinates. I have no idea how to do it with pentagons as the base units.  I was just saying that if you make a 3 dimensional form with pentagons it looks like a 12 sided die.  That might be want the magical "area" of demonreach looks like in our dimension.

As for the time travel bit, isn't there a WoJ out there that some of the slip ups in continuity aren't, which most have taken to be an indication of time travel changes - the thing I remember is the issue with Morty's house.  In the first book with him he's in the stucco house, then he's in a condo, then he's back in the stucco house.  That apparently is not a writing mistake.

I think Harry will time travel by going to "astral form" like he was in ghost story.  That way mass isn't a problem.  Then he will create a body in the time he goes to or do some other work around to make changes in the past that we've already observed.  Why do you think Mab was willing to wait for years for him - he had given her the heads up.

[g33k]

... Also I think as the pentacle was done if at least 4 dimensions, it would be more like a 16 sided die wouldn't it? Unless I miss your metaphor.

The 12-sided Platonic solid (the "d12" of role-playing games) has a pentagon(ed:TYVM for pointing out my incorrect term!) for each face of the die.
https://www.awesomedice.com/products/pq1206?variant=20334799454296

That's still only a 3d object with no temporal shenanigans, of course...

[Kindler]

Man, where's Raidem when you need him?

[raidem]

I'm here. I've taken some time off.  Thanks for the comment.

[Yuillegan]

Pentagrams not pentacles, technically. But who's keeping track eh?

Raidem - Would love to hear your ideas on TT and how it functions in the Dresdenverse.

[Bad Alias]

What's the difference? A friend was on a kick about "upside down stars are evil," so I was researching where that came from. Basically it's pretty recent nonsense. During that research pentagram and pentacle were repeatedly used to refer to a five pointed star.

As an interesting aside, the five pointed star was at one point a symbol of the five senses and/or the wounds of Christ.