The Time Loop Trilogy 425 members · 6 stories
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I've moved the timeline to

http://www.fimfiction.net/group/199133/the-time-loop-trilogy/thread/87711/hard-reset-2-timeline

It got too big for a single Fimfiction post, so I've reserved lots more space there for it to expand.

Awesome! I'll be doing some final touchups on the markdown version, add appropriate links, and then this will be mirrored on GitHub. You added color. Hmm I can't do that with markdown... Will see what I can do to match that. I'll send you another PM when it's ready for review.

DAYUM man. Just incredible. Seeing many things I never saw in the first place.

2701695
I want to say something like "This project is 120% Time Loop Approved," except that's Eakin's phrase to bestow. So … hm. This is 144% Time Loopier Approved?

Like with 2703633's GitHub project, in order to keep from negating all your hard work by stomping it with author confirmation, I will limit myself to pointing out direct contradictions with Story As Written, and places where your conclusions reflect errors or inadequacies in my story (which I will endeavour to fix).

So if I'm silent, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you. On the contrary, effort like this fills me with glee, because not only does it mean someone's engaging with my story at this depth — the highest compliment I can imagine — it also confirms that what I've written stands up to this level of scrutiny. I'm doing a lot of nodding as I read, saying to myself, "Yep, that's how it went in my head," and that means everyone wins. :yay:

Just two things stand out:

C: Twilight casts the spell that initiates her timeloop, beginning the events of Eakin's Hard Reset.
C: Twilight experiences several hundred loops during this time, in which she discovers the changeling invasion and the imminent destruction of Equestria by the Elements of Harmony, and attempts to stop them.

I thought there were more loops in Hard Reset than there were. I've seen numbers as high as 700 tossed around in comments to HR2, and I said or implied "several hundred" myself, but this paragraph in Hard Reset makes me wonder if the actual number of canon loops is closer to 100:

“Girls, I am so glad to see you. You have no idea. But we don’t have time to talk or for me to answer all your questions, we need to get to the palace. So...” I take a deep breath. “A time loop, three hours, whenever I die, changelings, Chrysalis, I think about a month, somewhere around a hundred, yes, yes, no, 5:57, all of them, yes even the squirrels, Spike’s fine, no just me, you don’t want to know, the Elements of Harmony, I don’t know, yes, no, yes, and three tea kettles. Those are the answers, in order, to the questions you were going to ask.”

If it is, I'll edit my story accordingly. (I should stop being lazy and send Eakin a PM to confirm.)

C: Celestia casts an unknown magic spell.
Q: What spell did Celestia cast? It doesn't appear to be unicorn magic, as it requires a vocal component and doesn't use her horn. Whatever it is, it looks pretty powerful. We know that Celestia is already a timelooper, and presumably has her timeloop spell and her anchor already set up, so it doesn't seem like this spell is needed for her timeloop.

C: Twilight goes to Celestia and recites the phrase 'Preengaged blackout deharmonizes antihunting dissertation' as Celestia requested. The phrase activates some kind of spell in Celestia, but the spell turns out to have an effect which paralyses the person who activated it - in this case, Twilight.
Q: What does this phrase do? Celestia later suggests that the phrase unlocks some memories inside her that she had hidden from herself. What are they, and why are they hidden? And if Celestia now has access to these memories, why doesn't she tell Twilight what they are?

There's not meant to be much more to this spell than what is shown. (I wrote out a few explanations which got cut for being too expositiony.) The point of it is as a honeypot for neuromancers and verification for loopers; that she locks away knowledge of what the spell does (but not knowledge of its power) is meant to make it tempting to anyone picking through her mind. Once cast, it simply explains itself to her and paralyzes anyone around her (as you've already documented). There are no time-magic effects.

What she does in the first loop before giving Twilight the code word is simply disable it. The spell has to trigger to, essentially, harmlessly self-destruct; that's what you see.

Best,

H

2703633

I felt this really needed colour, so that you can clearly see where the gaps in the story are. :) It still uses the letter code, so hopefully that should be enough for Github. I don't think there's much else we can do about that.

I'm going to be updating this semi-regularly though, so this is going to keep going out of sync with the Github version. It might be a bit of an effort to update it each time, unless you're using Git diff to catch the differences in each version. In any case, I'll update the date each time I edit it.

2704982

I want to say something like "This project is 120% Time Loop Approved," except that's Eakin's phrase to bestow. So … hm. This is 144% Time Loopier Approved?

That makes me very happy. ^^

Like with >> RampantArcana's GitHub project, in order to keep from negating all your hard work by stomping it with author confirmation, I will limit myself to pointing out direct contradictions with Story As Written

That's completely fine, anything else would be cheating! :)

As I was compiling this timeline, I found myself continually flabbergasted at the contortions you must have had to go through to even be able to come up with the concept, let alone write it. It's an absolutely inspired piece of work.

There's not meant to be much more to this spell than what is shown. (I wrote out a few explanations which got cut for being too expositiony.) The point of it is as a honeypot for neuromancers and verification for loopers; that she locks away knowledge of what the spell does (but not knowledge of its power) is meant to make it tempting to anyone picking through her mind. Once cast, it simply explains itself to her and paralyzes anyone around her (as you've already documented). There are no time-magic effects.

What she does in the first loop before giving Twilight the code word is simply disable it. The spell has to trigger to, essentially, harmlessly self-destruct; that's what you see.

I had considered both of these things (I originally had it as being 'a contingency plan for a timeloop situation'). The clue is that Celestia somehow knows immediately that this is something to do with a timeloop, which shouldn't be obvious from simply saying the phrase alone.

2705084
When does Celestia immediately know that this is something to do with a time loop? When she gives Twilight the passphrase, it's in response to Twilight's claim of looping. When Twilight says the phrase without the safeword, Celestia says before killing her that she hopes Twilight really is looping rather than picking through her brain. When Twilight says the phrase with the safeword (which we don't see), assuming a time loop is logically correct[1] because the safeword itself is encrypted within the information that's unlocked by the spell.

--
[1] The safeword is technically hackable without time magic, but the mind mage would need to: 1) Know, or guess, of the existence of a safeword, and 2) randomly guess it correctly on the first try due to Celestia's kill rule, which makes the probability arbitrarily low depending on the complexity of the safeword phrase[2]. (Or, they'd need to defeat the encryption in Celestia's brain, but if they're that good then they've already owned her so thoroughly that there's no effective way for her to stop them.)

[2] :twistnerd: Considering that her trigger phrase is known to have at least 30 bits of security, it would be reasonable for an attacker to assume similar authentication complexity, which means the chances of a successful guess (assuming they even know enough to make the guess!) are less than 1 in 1,000,000,000.[3][4]

[3] Of course, without knowing in advance the method of validation, it could be literally anything; she chose to make it verbal, but she could just as easily have said "if you're a time looper, then recite the phrase while standing on one hoof and crossing your eyes." How do you calculate odds from there?

[4] This is all my analysis. Not necessarily Celestia's. Most likely she just said "Given that I'm building a spell for a deadly serious but exceptionally remote contingency, I need to come up with a trigger that nobody would ever, ever, ever randomly say in my presence." Ironically, the password security on her anti-neuromancy trigger is orders of magnitude more complex than her Euthanatos trigger, because the consequences of her dying are trivial in comparison (relive some fraction of the current day), and because an overly complex Euthanatos trigger reduces its utility to her.

2706898

When does Celestia immediately know that this is something to do with a time loop? When she gives Twilight the passphrase, it's in response to Twilight's claim of looping. When Twilight says the phrase without the safeword, Celestia says before killing her that she hopes Twilight really is looping rather than picking through her brain.

It's here. In the loop where Twilight says the phrase without the safeword, she doesn't mention being in a timeloop. From Chapter 1:

"No time for apologies. Chrysalis is …" I've gotten so good at putting my brain on autopilot and repeating my actions from loop to loop that I almost forget. "Hang on. You told me to tell you: 'Preengaged blackout deharmonizes antihunting dissertation.'"

As I finish speaking the trigger, a wave of energy bursts out from her. Pain lances through my head, and my muscles lock up. I can feel my horn spark with magical feedback and my body go numb. The world goes grey around me, and as I topple to the floor, I hear two muffled thumps out in the hallway.

Celestia — who is still moving — steps forward. She looks at me dispassionately. I feel a vague pressure on my chin as she caresses my muzzle in her hornglow.

"I hope that you weren't manipulating my mind, Twilight," she says, "and that you truly are in a time loop, so that next time you can add the safeword 'coruscating' right before the trigger."

I missed those muffled thumps the first time, which indicates the range of this spell. ^^ The first time I read this, I assumed that the passphrase had to be created specifically for a timeloop situation, as Celestia doesn't need any information to come to that conclusion.

2707611
Ah, good catch. I'll sneak in "Last loop" right before "you told me to tell you …". Thanks! :twilightsmile:

Updated with some clarification. Still need to add chapter 4 - that's coming soon.

Eakin
Group Admin

2704982
Re: Number of loops in Hard Reset, as Twi says 'I think about a month.' So I'd put the number at 200-300

Added chapters 4 and 5.

2766037
It remains awesome to see the work that goes into this. :twilightsmile: A few minor points I hope are helpful:

[T-0 C-0]
It can't be done any other way because of the instability of the Elements - moving them has always set them off in previous loops and made them explode early.

> "Something about Chrysalis' current plans is making them unusually volatile," Celestia says.

T-24, C-4
C: Twilight manages to pull off her plan, which gets her to the changelings much more quickly, allowing her to get the information from the Rarity changeling. She finds out where her friends are on the train, and goes to rescue them, but forgets about the imminent derailing of the train, which kills her.

The time savings is in bypassing the interrogation itself through rapid dominance. Note that fake Rarity breaks after a single action and a single sentence.

S: We think there might be a mistake here. Chrysalis seems to be utterly triumphant at having finally disposed of the invisibility cloak, but it then appears that she dies several times after that - meaning that Chrysalis has already figured out how to dispose of the cloak several loops ago by the time that she finally succeeds in killing Twilight. She shouldn't be so triumphant by the time that Twilight encounters her.

I'll break my promise for a moment and engage in self-analysis because I don't feel this is a mistake. Remember that a looper can only ensure identical results with identical input. If she ditched the triumphant crowing on subsequent loops, the change in dialogue might be enough to change Twilight's attack patterns. If her goal is to subdue a presumed non-looper as quickly as possible, she wants to repeat her own actions perfectly in order to keep her opponent perfectly predictable.

Best,

H

2783904

I'll break my promise for a moment and engage in self-analysis because I don't feel this is a mistake. Remember that a looper can only ensure identical results with identical input. If she ditched the triumphant crowing on subsequent loops, the change in dialogue might be enough to change Twilight's attack patterns. If her goal is to subdue a presumed non-looper as quickly as possible, she wants to repeat her own actions perfectly in order to keep her opponent perfectly predictable.

I see! I'm clearly underestimating Chrysalis - she seems so savage and animalistic whenever she appears that I didn't envision her going to those lengths. I retract my accusation. :)

2789464
My intention wasn't to write Chrysalis as especially smart or self-reflective, so don't feel the need to revise her upward. I guess in my mind the notion of "you have to do things exactly the same to make them exactly predictable" is super fundamental stuff. From the very first time you repeat your day, you'll notice that things you do in the exact same way result in the same external response, and things that you change result in changes in external response.

That principle governs the way that all non-loopers interacts with you, and — let's not forget — at the time of the fight, all evidence points to Chrysalis not yet realizing that Twilight is a looper.

I notice you've reset and started a new post to fix the character limit problem. I'd suggest writing a note on the top post linking to the new one.

I was sidetracked by car problems this whole week so I'm very behind schedule for putting up your guide on Github (I also spent way too much time trying to get my solution for colors to work but I'm going to revert those and update).

2815421

Welcome back! I've been meaning to catch up with you. :) Message me later and we can compare notes. I still don't want you to do all the work of converting something that I'm going to keep changing (in fact, this is exactly why I should be using Git as you suggested), so let me know what you have planned and I can figure out a way to convert to your format.

Finally got something at least workable up on the repo master branch. Take a glance after skimming this.

I haven't found an easy way to do everything a way I'd like it, so the front page links directly to your forum post now, but the markdown file is my quick hack together. Just look at Github flavored markdown for a quick syntax rundown if you want to maintain it yourself.

Quick hints from my quick hack:
- I'm using a quick replace for "C:" and "S:" etc. into "- C:" and "- S:" to make things show up in a bullet list. This messes with your quote blocks so that needs to be manually overwritten (Celestia: occasionally turns into Celesti- A: if i'm not careful with case matching).

- I've been adding headings and a short preface to explain why the version currently on Github is more than likely going to be out of date. Also added a comment saying yours will probably look prettier for now.

- Clipboard does not preserve your line breaks so those may have to be added manually.

- Markdown is picky about preserving a newline. Hit enter twice? It will show up exactly how you expect. Hit enter once? Not enough. Need to add two [SPACE] characters at the end of a line for a single newline to be preserved. This is important for headings, death counters, quote blocks, etc.

Example - Raw file here:
This is the first line.
This is on a new line.

Will be rendered
This is the first line.This is on a new line.

You need to add two spaces after the period of First Line for it to be rendered correctly.

Edit: A discreet markdown editor is now doing me wonders. No more extra commits because I can't check the rendering from Notepad++! Markdownpad is nice for Windows (no need to buy it, free version works fine).

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