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“Anything that happens, happens.
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.
Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.
It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though.”
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Twilight and Minuette discuss Starlight Glimmer's timeline disruptions.
Twilight just wishes the conversation had happened in chronological order.
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A fun look at the science of time travel through ponies, though I admit that it did feel a bit, well... misguided, I guess? I mean, between the movies and the comics, there are already documented cases of Equestria interacting with parallel timelines. Still, a very fun presentatio of canon Minuette as a chronomancer. I've seen very few of those.
Holy moly i love this kind of stuff! Time travel stories are my absolute favorite
inb4 Steven Hawking
This is one amazing discussion of time travel theory. Well done!
Oohoohoo! A fic going in depth about time travel and it's nuances! I love tales like these!
Like Minuette, apparently I have a good head for this sort of thing, because I've noticed I can more readily follow along to discussions such as this than most others on average. For example, the moment Minuette asked about whether or not the race actually had happened in the normal timeline, it immediately clicked where she was going with this.
Anyway, excellent explanation for the temporal mechanics of "The Cutie Re-Mark"...although it does start to break down a little when you consider MLP's visitation of parallel universes, which then brings up the questions of how such parallel universes come about if not through divergences in time (unless the self-consistency principle still permits for the existence of parallel universes that I don't know about, but I had always been under the impression the principle ruled such things out), and does kind of cheapen the episode for downgrading it all down to what is basically a shared hallucination.
But still a fun read, and that's what's important.
And I like the idea that Minuette's career/talent of choice is basically the study of time and the travel through it thereof.
"Actually… no,”"
Missing opening quotation mark?
"is, that if I do end up going back to that time, that what"
Is that one too many thats? I'm not sure.
"Twilight, Spike and Starlight"
I know that this can be a matter of style, but, just in case, did you mean to omit the Oxford Comma there?
"to do it though"
"it, though"?
A nice and interesting story. :)
7018463
7018983
I'm generally of the opinion that stuff that happens in the comics can be used or ignored as necessary for a story.
I'd argue though that the type of interdimensional travel in the movies isn't the same type my story disallows. It's travel between splitting/changing timelines as seen in The Cutie Re-mark that I'm disallowing. For my purposes, Equestria+EqGirls would count as a single timeline, and there would have presumably been a changed EqGirls world as well within the new timelines we saw when Starlight altered their own past.
Admittedly, there isn't anything in the story itself making that distinction, so it's my own fault that didn't come through.
I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway.
7019438
Thanks for the corrections. I'm not sure how I missed that opening quotation mark, but the other suggestions are either already correct or allowable variations. Glad you liked it though.
7020233
I am of similar opinion with the comics, helped by the fact that Hasbro's own approach to the comics is that they're completely canon...until the show says otherwise, meaning that the show will always take precedence. But I've found that, where possible, it helps to take it all into consideration when writing fanfics, as it generally results in a stronger portrayal of the universe, at least in the eyes of the readers, and that was largely why I personally brought it up. I wasn't actually going to hold you to it, though.
That said, though, if at least the EqG "realm," we'll call it, is no alternate timeline, at least for the confines of this fic, then one must wonder just what it is then, and more importantly, how it came to exist with such close ties to the pony "realm". Just waving it aside as "interdimensional" doesn't really fly for me, especially as using the term "interdimensional" is technically a misnomer as it's really supposed to refer to principles of depth or width, e.g. 2D vs. 3D space, and not so much what is popularly portrayed as parallel universes. I guess the long and short of it is that if it can't be a parallel universe or alternate timeline, then how did it come to exist? How could it exist?
But then again maybe it would really just be easier to assume that, for the purposes of this fanfic, EqG doesn't exist. Which works for me, as I spend most of my time assuming that myself (the first film was okay, but the two that have since followed have been rather meh at best).
7020233
You're welcome. And yeah, I thought that they might be, hence part of the reason for the question marks, but better to check, I think.
Well, that gave me a lot to think about - time travel is always so hard to pin down in fiction, there's always something that doesn't make intuitive sense.
A particular scenario I'm wondering about: If spoofing Starlight Glimmer's temporal excursion was a good idea and worked as expected, why don't the Mane 6 go back and spoof every major disaster they've encountered? Say, Tirek never actually escaped from Tartarus - it was all faked retroactively. You could un-do all the destruction his rampage caused!
Anyway, love the Asimov reference. And it's funny to see Twilight struggling to grasp a concept while Minuette is the one trying to teach her.
7021800
Twilight's good at a lot of things, but she doesn't seem that used to thinking about time travel in the episodes it happens. It does rather make a change to have someone else be the expert lecturing her though.
The problem with spoofing something like Tirek's rampage is that under the system in this story, you still can't actually change anything that happened in the past.
What that means, in effect, is that to spoof Tirek's rampage, every pony who remembers encountering him has to have their memories changed to reflect that, everything destroyed by Tirek has to be either actually destroyed or the memories of ponies altered so that they remember it being destroyed and rebuilt... and so on.
It rapidly becomes a huge project affecting huge numbers of ponies, which might require months worth of memory alterations if something particularly big needs to be rebuilt (a lot more morally questionable than a few hours worth as in this case) or still destroying everything that got destroyed (negating much of the point), it doesn't remove any psychological effects on the ponies in question from remembering something vs. actually experiencing it, etc.
Starlight Glimmer, Spike and Twilight, by contrast, were the only ones who actually experienced the events being spoofed in this story. Not only that, but since the action took place elsewhere (elsewhen?), there are no physical reminders of them. Only the memories of the three exist as evidence that they took place at all. It's a much smaller task to spoof.
In addition, the reason Minuette was so keen on doing it at all was that the story told by Twilight contradicted the way she thought time worked, in a way that might turn out to be dangerous for the whole world at a later date.
Since everything had already worked out for the best, Minuette was much less interested in the actual battle itself, and much more interested in spoofing what happened so that the way she thought time worked could continue to be correct. Spoofing Tirek's escape or not wouldn't change that one way or the other.
People assume that time is a straight line from cause to effect but actually from a non linear nonsubjective viewpoint it's more like big ball of Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey stuff. According to the Doctor at least.
That was a nice little read.
If I wanted to listen to two nerds discuss time travel theory, I'd go to my local comic shop. At least then I could maybe play a card game at the same time or something. :/
After reading this story a second time, I now understand the rock-principal a little better. But only a little.
7178322
It is a pretty confusing idea. It's called the Polchinski Paradox, and you could read a little more here if you were interested.
7179591 Thank you! I love time travel, and have been thinking about different types/ways it could work. Personally, I prefer the alternate timelines version, but all types are fascinating!
As a buffoon once so elegantly put it: "Time travel. It's a cornucopia of disturbing concepts."
FWIW, I always thought that the spell scroll was a Heisenberg Compensator that prevented any of the changes to the time-line from affecting anyone immediately around it. Literally a paradox shield. I also suspect that the start of each loop was Twilight returning to the original point where Starlight had just arrived and was attempting to alter the time-line.
7212333 I pretty much had to view it that way or go mad from the nonsense.
7020519
Incorporating IDW Comics as canon does not result in a stronger portrayal of the universe, because the comics introduce inconsistencies which cannot be reconciled with the animated show.
How could the EQG world even be an alternate timeline? They're not even ponies!
As for how it can exist, the eternal inflation theory already answers that question.
Your opinion of the EQG movies is the exact opposite of almost the entirety of informed opinion. I'm not rendering judgement, I'm just letting you know.
7212406
How could it not be? Pony or not, the EqG realm has numerous parallels with it's pony-based cousin and is very interrelated, what with similar people, characteristics, naming, even the odd historical event. That suggests to me the two are somehow interconnected (albeit distantly) in order to cause such strong parallels. It's clearly more parallel universe to the Ponyverse than anything else. And it could easily be an alternate timeline, as such timelines are, as the theory goes, created when an event causes a single timeline to "branch" off where one timeline has one event taking place, but the other has a different event, or the event did not take place at all. Thus, theoretically, EqG could be explained as being created when some event early in the "father" timeline's history sparked a branch in the evolutionary history resulting in one timeline that created the pony body-type, and the other created the more human body-type, and resulted in the respective universes as they stand now.
Yes and no. The eternal inflation multiverse predicts universes that have formed separate and independent of its neighbors. This means it would not have to be dictated by the same sort of rules as our universe would be and could be ruled on a set of physics entirely unique from it. In fact, the odds suggest that would probably happen more often than not, and assuming such a universe could even be built to support life (at least as we understand it), the odds of it having any parallels with a neighboring universe, especially as many as EqG has with the Ponyverse, starts becoming increasingly slimmer. It is still theoretically possible, yes, but in reading up on the theory, I'm finding the odds of it don't support it quite as well as a traditional parallel universe/alternate timeline would, nor quite as easily. It would make the instance of two universes having that much in common with each other that much more astounding. For storytelling reasons, I would find sticking with the alternate timeline explanation a little more plausible and a little simpler to justify.
Either way, the author of the story didn't really write the story with consideration of EqG as a separate anything anyway:
...so in some ways going into this sort of depth about the nature of EqG in relation to this particular fanfic is a bit of a moot point, really. The only reason it got brought up at all was because I found the details the fanfic presented could potentially break down when one considered the inclusion of EqG, and I was really inquiring as to how the author fit it into the puzzle. The above quote was basically my answer, which basically is saying to not worry about how EqG fits into the matter; it's not really relevant to the story, and it really isn't when you get right down to it. Just added details that were fun to consider for a little while after the fact. The only reason the discussion is still continuing is because I already opened the can of worms, and once you pop, you just can't stop, I suppose.
That would be why it's a personal opinion. I certainly wasn't speaking for the whole of the fanbase when I said that, just for myself.
And anyway, I'm finding there seems to be an increasingly growing number of bronies that are becoming increasingly more and more disenchanted with it the further it goes on, to the point that I'd say it's more half and half right now. One side is still for it, the other is less optimistic about it and it's future. Either way, assuming this pattern continues, it's clear to me that EqG as a whole is probably going to run out of steam before too much longer unless Hasbro finds a way to breathe new life into the idea, and only time will tell on that. If they do, I'm certainly not so closed-minded to not be open to reassessing it.
7212723 Just glancing at this thread I'm reminded of a text-based RPG I played in high school where we constantly derailed our gameplay with discussions on quantum physics.
7213350
Sounds like any time me and my family at home sit and watch a movie (doesn't matter which one) in which most of the time we spend watching it, we're pointing out various technical problems, logical fallacies, or speculating about unspoken motives or what might have happened had the story gone a different direction.
My theory was that basically time travel has to eventually stabilize, even if it takes multiple loops like in Cutie Remark, because all the ones where it doesn't have already died off and/or God prevents it, but this is consistent too.
I actually had an idea for a story in which Twilight recruits a lot of her friends from the alternate timelines to help her stop Starlight, and when they succeed they all pop up in the main timeline along with their canon counterparts. I wonder how Minuette would take that?
7212723
Correlation of this type doesn't imply causation. What I mean is, in order to get to this point where they share city and personal names, life first had to evolve into completely separate sapient species. With a divergence like that, the two worlds are already completely different. Any similarities later on down the road is either coincidence or later influences coming into play.
As an analogy, it's as if an alien thinks oranges and basketballs must have evolved from the same ancestor.
Inflation theory offers infinite universes, in which case having a world with curious convergence is only a matter of probability. And it's no less probable than a world which by dint of probability exactly mirrors our own. In the Vedic oneness of the multiverse, everything you have imagined or can possibly ever imagine, already exists.
As for the "traditional parallel universe/ alternate timeline" interpretation, you are talking about the quantum mechanics many-worlds interpretation which seeks to explain quantum decoherence of a universal wave function. That is fine, but it cannot apply to EQG, because EQG cannot be an "alternate timeline" of Pony Planet. The worlds are completely different; the similarities existing in a local point in time (Canterlot High in MLP seasons 4-5) is worldline convergence rather than common worldline ancestry.
The author's POV does not contradict mine above, hence why I never mentioned him. I assume he already understands what I understand.
Actually, it's saying to not worry about how EQG fits into the matter because of what I said above. Eternal inflation and the MWI are two separate things which are not mutually exclusive.
Actually, bronies loved EQG #2. Even film critics said on record that it's much better than EQG #1. #3 is somewhat acknowledged as not as good as #2 but still way better than #1. There is disagreement on #3, but mainly about whether it matches up to #2.
That's a lot of us here; we're on a fanfic website.
This battle is about SCIENCE!
7214377
I'm starting to wonder if you're not letting yourself consider all the possibilities that could transverse from one or more alternate timeline. Regarding it a little too linearly, see. I mean, we can agree that all a timeline really is, is a set chain of events that take place, one after of another until something stops it. Suppose now that we could go all the way back to the very beginning of a universe's timeline, say at the moment of it's very creation, and change any of the events that could then take place thereafter. The variables are, theoretically, infinite from that point on. And if the possibilities are infinite, and I really don't see how they wouldn't be, then you certainly can get EqG out of it as an alternate timeline.
Hmm...yeah, okay, I see that now, it really doesn't...although that would assume that "time" for one universe is not the same as the "time" of another universe, and that messing with history of one has absolutely no effect, no matter what you do, for the history of the other. Which then begs the question then of how does "time" work on the whole scale of the multiverse, if it's really not still universal for all of the multiverse then? But there's really no way to know until we can actually observe one of these things, assuming they even exist in real life in the first place. It's not really here nor there in the grand scheme of things, though.
Well then, speaking in terms of probability, it'd be the same for "traditional parallel universe/ alternate timeline" because the possibilities are literally just as infinite, so I don't see how it'd be any less likely than the inflation theory with that line of thinking. Theoretically, anything is possible with either one, and thus theoretically either one could produce the specific universes desired, it's just their point of origin that's different. In fact, beyond that, we're really still talking about the same sort of thing in the end, because either way, they're ultimately still parallel universes, are they not?
But in the end, I think the only thing we're really getting established here is that EqG, as presently portrayed at least, is a bit of an oddball, and if we're to truly stick with just the science on the matter, it's hard to use it to completely explain away all the oddities that is EqG. At this point, I'm really getting to the point that we should probably just acknowledge that it's just there, however it came to be, and just leave it at that.
Good for the film critics! But honestly that doesn't mean as much as it once did, back in the day. In this day of the Internet, where anyone has an opinion, it's becoming a common instance where a critic will say one thing about something, but the public consumers will average together to agree on something different. In simple terms, critics could hate a film, but viewers love it in general, or vice versa. Not to say that's the case with EqG, just that it's not necessarily an actual reflection of public opinion anymore. One should still consider the words of the critics, but still keep an open mind, because you might still like what they didn't.
But not all bronies. Not this brony. And I know of plenty of others who didn't either. It appears to depend on what circles in the fanbase one frequents, it seems. But from what I observed is that EqG 1 was fairly well liked in the end, yes. EqG 2, however, was liked by some, but there were others who did not. With EqG 3, the number of those who did not seemed to grow. Basically, I sense a growing and underlying sense of skepticism that is growing in the fanbase in regards to EqG. It's possible I've overestimated it's size, but nonetheless, that reasonably does still suggest a pattern, which if it continues, could mean EqG giving out in the end. It depends on whether or not future EqGs do anything to try and shake up the formula, to try and break the pattern, a possibility that's certainly not out of the running, but for the moment I personally don't see it happening.
My real point on all of this though is that one shouldn't automatically assume it's all sunshine and daisies with EqG universally. There are those that aren't all good with it, and they exist too, and shouldn't be ignored. And it's okay to agree to disagree, too. You clearly liked EqG, and that's fine. I and others are personally more indifferent to it, and that's fine too.
At any rate, we should probably stop flooding this poor fanfic's comments section with discussion on this, because we've reached the point where we're discussing pretty much zilch about the fanfic anymore, which didn't even address the subject of EqG.
7215368
Considering that a wordline's definition is literally causation as defined by time, then yeah, I am "regarding it linearly." Obviously.
But ok, I agree that you can say that EQG-verse could be an alternate worldline of MLP-verse, where it diverged in an ancient epoch and evolution took a different turn. And in that sense, it is a "parallel world". But your reasoning for it has always been the main thing that spurred me to protest.
You reasoned that it should be a "parallel world" because the two share similar contemporary individuals and a city name (nothing else about the city is actually the same). That's not how causation works: If the 2 worldlines had already split so widely, hundreds of millions of years ago, then any similarity now is a matter of coincidence or external influences. It would not be because the 2 worlds used to be the same hundreds of millions of years ago, and therefore now would try to be the same again in places where there are no causation.
Parallel worlds, by definition, are parallel (or share similarities) because of causation. If you visit a parallel world where the Native Americans repelled all European colonists, for example, it may still have smartphones by Apple, but the reason would not be because "Our world has Apple smartphones therefore that world also should." It would be because with or without the USA, humans still already discovered electricity and industrialization, etc.
You're the one who is unclear regarding how parallel universes work, why assume others are similarly confused?
Scientifically this is exactly right, whether we're talking about MWI or inflation multiverse.
Time is not universal, not even for a single universe. Not even between you and me and another person. Causation is the only universal yardstick, but only in this universe and worldline.
Remember I keep saying "unless by external influences"? I don't need theoretical physics to explain EQG's oddities; I can use canon plot devices which are already there.
Don't move goalposts. I'm not here to debate whether critics are king. I'm letting you know that your opinion on the 3 movies are not widely shared. Critics/ reviewers are 1 example, but most EQG fans are of the same opinion. There is no battle between critics and fans, in this case.
Hence why I was speaking in terms of the broader demographic. Maybe you should just check viewership stats and cinema earnings. It's not a matter of "let's agree to disagree". I have seen all the above; you're going by what you "sense".
There is, in fact, a criticism/ observation regarding the direction of EQG. However, it's not for the reasons you think (your opinions on EQG1-3).
About EQG, sure. But why should I stop discussing time and alternate worlds, in a fanfic about time and alternate worlds?
Keep in mind, I'm not giving you my literary opinion/ genre preference. This is theoretical physics (as well as provable physics) as I understand it.
7216277
At this point, it's going to have to be, because we're getting nowhere with this, and I don't want to continue to spam this poor fanfic's comments with an argument that's only getting more heated, and I don't think this is worth that.
7216402
Suit yourself. Unfortunately, I dont think you internalized anything I said, treating it as a contest in sophistry rather than a clarification of reality. You'll just end up making the same mistakes in the future.
As the man says, you previously had my attention. Now you have my interest. Watched, just for that reference.
I wish I could read this now, but it's midnight and time travel hurts my head at this time of night.
7216509
Now, now, don't go abandoning all hope for me just yet, or sell yourself short on your ability to get your points across to me or others. I actually have been reading up on all of the subjects we've discussed throughout our little discussion, and through it have already learned that I wasn't nearly as well versed in theories of cosmic inflation, of any sort, as I had previously thought, so I have learned a fair deal about that at least through all of this. And I am currently in the middle of reviewing many-worlds theories because now you've gotten me wondering if there is some detail to it that I'm misunderstanding or overlooked, and if so, it certainly can't hurt to double check. Basically, my approach to this whole discussion was really because it was initially fun to speculate, and I thought there was something all parties might learn from it.
The real reason I'm cutting it short is that we've reached a point I was no longer confident we could continue to keep it civil and not allow it to get too heated, and I generally make it a point to try and not contribute to the many flame wars that are already so rampant on the internet, and I've found that often the best tactic to take at that point is often to just make a tactical retreat and drop the subject. So that's what I'm doing here.
It was also due to the fact that, as previously stated, I was becoming increasing aware that having this "discussion" here was neither the right time or place for it, and was potentially spoiling it for other readers, and I didn't want that.
7217689
If I wrote a 1-chapter-and-done story speculating on time travel shenanigans, I'd friggin' love it if I had readers start long-form debates about theoretical physics in the comments section. You should attend an Iron Will seminar.
7217714
Yes, I'm happy to see the story generate discussion, and there's no need to worry about annoying me with a civil debate like you've been having here.
If you would change IAT to p 47, it would be cooler because of the joke about 47 being 42 adjusted for inflation:
47
Quite amusing. Have a like.
So what Minuette is saying is, "don't try to make logical facts out of what changes in timelines, as logic is potentially not applicable to processing of such sequence of perception"?..
7353884
More that "cause and effect" doesn't have to line up in a way that common sense suggests it should.
What she's saying doesn't break logic though. It just appears that the "effect" is preceding the "cause" and causing itself to happen in the first place. There's nothing about the procession of events that doesn't proceed logically, but it's still weird that the event wouldn't have happened if it hadn't caused itself to happen.
7353961
Let's call a timeline close enough to original timeline in cutie re-mark A-ish, one close to Nightmare Moon timeline from there B-ish.
For example, if to assume that B-ish Dash and A-ish Dash want to meet.
Given that after solving everything, Twilight returns to one A-ish timeline; maybe it's possible to make a switch in the past that can with significant likelihood make the future similar to A or B.
Then, if Twilight goes from A to the past with A Dash and switches it to B, returns back to the past with B Dash, and switches to A, what happens to those Dash?
Given that A Twilight, who was a passenger in the spell, didn't disappear after Starlight cancelled the rainboom, it's likely that none will disappear. So they can talk there in the past then return to corresponding timelines. A Dash will be a passenger in Starlight's spell just like Twilight and she can even go to B with that.
Looks convenient in theory. Strategically organize switches in the past and enjoy the multiverse... Nevermind how the future blinks in and out of existence each time...
7354125
There are different ways time travel could work, so just to be clear, I'm only speaking here about the way that Minuette thinks of time travel working in this story. Your scenario might be possible in some other versions of time travel, but isn't possible under the conditions seen here.
In this story, Minuette thinks of the timeline as unchangeable - she expects something like the stable time loop Twilight caused the first time she travelled in time to be the only way time travel should work.
She's seriously freaked out by Twilight's story of repeatedly changing the timeline, since she thinks it could lead to disaster. Because of that, she convinces Twilight to help her fake what Twilight saw Starlight doing by going back and making Twilight, Spike and Starlight hallucinate/dream/whatever what they thought they experienced. This doesn't actually change the past, since she's assuming that's already the reason they experienced it in the past (this is where the out of sequence cause and effect stuff comes into play).
Basically, in your scenario, there would only be Dash from the normal timeline, and "Nightmare Moon timeline Dash" would have been a figment of Twilight, Spike and Starlight's shared hallucination/dream/whatever.
Yeah, it's a little complicated. I hope that explanation helped somewhat.
7354394 The Tree of Harmony and/or the map might have been trolling Starlight into thinking that she's changing something by showing lucid illusions of the past... that would explain why it kept bringing up worse worlds despite they were changing just the rainboom episode, and why it destroyed the scroll (otherwise, the scroll could be explained by a spell on it that prevents it from being used again when there's not much magic energy left stored in it). It's better for Equestria if it was an illusion as there's fewer ways to destroy reality by just using one spell with energy of one unicorn.
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Later Reviews #54.
My review can be found here.
7511520
I don't have anything specific to say about that, so I guess I'll just say thanks for taking the time to review it.
I've meant to read this for two years now and finally got around to having read it back then.
It will be just as good as I don't remember.
There shall have been a green thumb.
Fruit loop.
9326721
Heh. I was very tempted to edit a reply to you into a previous comment, so it looked like it had always been there...
I'm glad to hear you will have enjoyed it.
It seems that spoofing the event is only actually important if Minuette is wrong.
If the self-consistency principle is true, then whatever really happened has already really happened, whether they try to spoof it or not. The universe will not be in any less or more danger either way, because the original sequence of events does not change, only their perspective on it. The only purpose this serves is to make Minuette feel better about the whole thing.
It's only if the self-consistency principle is false that spoofing the event might actually change the original sequence of events, replacing the sequence of "personally visiting a series of increasingly unpleasant realities" with "elaborate bad dreams", and potentially disconnecting from those unpleasant realities.
It feels important to recognize that beneath the confident certainty Minuette is basically saying, "I am actually kind of terrified that everything I have ever learned about time travel is wrong please make it go away."