Temporal Inertia questions

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

But even for someone born with the advantage, there's a time before he "gets it". Would you say that that character is similarly vulnerable to changes that prevent him from being born in the new timeline?

EXACTLY! Thank you! "Preventing him from getting TI" if he got it when he was born (or conceived, or whatever) is as easy as playing a little grandfather paradox game. Which violates what the advantage is meant to do in the first place.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

No, and for the same reasons. If there was a time when the character didn't have TI, then changing history before that pivotal point can mean he never gets it, and thus is vulnerable to reality shifts. I don't think that that applies in general, but just to specific changes to prevent him from getting the advantage. Again, though, the muddied view of time flow that results suggests to me an imperative to keep TI as an advantage that can only be had at character creation, not gained during play.

If a character did not always exist (i.e., he was conceived / born, or just "popped" into existence at some point not at the beginning of time), then he did not always have TI. The "pivotal point" at which he got the advantage was his origin, how he came to exist in the first place. If that was conception, then wouldn't simply stopping him from being conceived wipe out the character? If that were true, it would violate the way TI works, which is immunity to temporal paradoxes.

So saying it can't be gained during play isn't a solution. Anything that can be gained during play can be gained at some point in the past before character creation, but not at the beginning of (but outside) time itself. And then the same problem applies.

[vicky_molokh]

IMO there should be lots of TI people with no origin. Like, he came out of nowhere, he either has no memory of the past, or remembers an alternate timeline. Babies found in forests who aren't technically human (because they have no ancestors in this timeline) etc.
"Where did all you zombies come from?"

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Molokh

IMO there should be lots of TI people with no origin. Like, he came out of nowhere, he either has no memory of the past, or remembers an alternate timeline. Babies found in forests who aren't technically human (because they have no ancestors in this timeline) etc.
"Where did all you zombies come from?"

That sounds like a combo of Temporal Inertia and Unique.

TI by itself could adjust things so that you are descended from different people, even if the resulting "you" is not quite the same genetically (as in the THE LATHE OF HEAVEN film where the past is changed to make everyone racially mixed and everyone is suddenly grey-skinned). This would raise the question of how different "you" can get and still be "you" rather than someone else, and if there can be a functional "you" in an extinct humanity timeline.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

But even for someone born with the advantage, there's a time before he "gets it". Would you say that that character is similarly vulnerable to changes that prevent him from being born in the new timeline?

There is not a time when he existed without the advantage, which is the key distinction, IMO. The character who is born with Temporal Inertia could be considered as being "Destined to exist", so that they are protected from history 'rewrites', reality shifts, etc. The posited character who acquired TI later would have that protection only in general, but not for his personal timeline, which would still be vulnerable (from the point before he got the ad, and earlier) to tampering.

The above is what makes sense to me. Temporal Inertia is conceptually tricky by itself. The implications of allowing it to be gained in play make it even messier, and thus, something I'd advise to avoid... but, shoot, if someone wants to rule that Afflicted TI works exactly the same as TI bought at character creation and is willing to deal with the potential for paradoxes, more power to 'em :)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

EXACTLY! Thank you! "Preventing him from getting TI" if he got it when he was born (or conceived, or whatever) is as easy as playing a little grandfather paradox game. Which violates what the advantage is meant to do in the first place.

This is essentially what I mean by requiring a preferred frame. TI enforces a kind of causality, which either requires one time, when all the campaigns TIs "happen", to be special, or makes time travel (well OK time travel that does anything that would cause any changes whatsoever) impossible. An even simpler way to see the problem with lacking such a furthest futureward Absolute Now reference time is to consider beginning the game with TI in a campaign without one. In this case you must already remember all the changes that will result from your PCs actions, anything the GM failed to tell you about before the campaign started cannot be caused by the PCs (or for that matter used in any future campaign plots) without violating the terms of your advantage. And vice versa. Your characters really have no free will, the success or failure of all your missions is predetermined by whether (or not) the GM mentioned your memories of the alternate outcome before the game started.

[vicky_molokh]

This thread was a great help for planning a one-shot time travel session my players want to see, but it's still not enough. Here's the technical details:

The setting contains Temporal Inertia (Limited) generators. As in, you get into a sealed suit, turn on the power, and get TI for as long as the suit stays sealed (it comes with a Cosmically Hardened Ablative Force Field, if it matters). The setting also has time travel (. It also features a 'slow' propagation of changes from the PoV of TI characters (see below). The limitations are as follows:

If a change prevented the character from donning/turning on the suit, the suit doesn't protect.

If the point of the change-maker's departure (in the future/present) and the change-maker's point of arrival (in the past, where the change occurs), both fall within the period the suit was on, and the PC keeps the suit functioning until the 'Wipe Point' - calculated as (T_departure_future-T_arrival_past)/RippleSpeed* units of time, then the PC remembers the Unaltered/Original Timeline until the Wipe Point, and suddenly finds him/her/itself in the Altered Timeline, and goes from there.

It should be noted that between T_arrival_past and Wipe_Point, there exists another 'copy' of the suited PC, who acts in accordance with the events in the Altered Timeline. It's just that this copy-PC spontaneously jumps into nowhere at the Wipe Point - literally wiped forever. Likewise, the Original Timeline is wiped from existence past this point.

Note that if the character's location differs between the immediate pre-Wipepoint moment Altered Timeline, and immediate pre-Wipepoint moment in the Original Timeline, the character's location in the post-Wipe-point Altered Timeline will match the Original location. This will look as a spontaneous teleportation for the suitless! Also, if the place is dangerous, or occupied with dense matter, the suit will sustain damage, or at least lose some shields pushing stuff away.

Does that sound like a more playable version of TI?

* == RippleSpeed in my intended short module is intended to be 60 (aka 60 seconds per second, or 1 minute per second, or whatever other units you prefer). Read my other Time Travel thread if you want more details.

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

1) Afflict Bob with Temporal Inertia.
2) Go back in time 30 minutes and make changes that affect a sequence events that include Bob. One big change you make is that you ensure that your past self never afflicts him Temporal Inertia.

Temporal Inertia includes that "if history changes, you remember both versions". Will Bob remember the original timeline in the above example? If so, when will he remember it? At the point when you jump into the past and start make alterations, or at the exact point that you afflicted him with Temporal Inertia in the original timeline? Would he even have Temporal Inertia at all?

Ugh. I hated that level in Braid.

Okay, but seriously: this depends on whether you see TI as an advantage that can be affected by changes in time, or as a "meta-temporal" advantage.

If the former, then since you stopped yourself from giving him TI, he never had it after all. This interpretation is simple to adjudicate, and boring, and seems to violate the spirit of the advantage.

If the latter, then you can't change the fact that Bob gains TI because he has TI after he gains it and is therefore immune to your pitiful time-meddling at that point. In your new, altered timeline, different things would happen to Bob up until the time that he originally gained TI, at which point reality would coincidentally or miraculously warp in order to preserve future Bob as he will be. He would remember both timelines, but perhaps be confused by the fact that the one he thinks is the "alternate" is the one he's still in.

Would your answer change if, instead of getting Temporal Inertia as the result of an Affliction, Bob got it as a proper Advantage gained in-game? And would it change if Bob always had it?

No, and not really; if Bob always had TI, then your meddling would have little or no effect on him at any point, instead of affecting him and then suddenly not affecting him, but the end result is much the same.

And, if Bob always had it, what would the possibility of the time traveller being able to use Affliction (Negated Advantage: Temporal Inertia) at whatever duration (including permanent extended durations) do to change things, if anything?

Presumably anything that can negate TI actually does so, and therefore having TI wouldn't prevent your TI from being negated. So, for the duration of the effect, Bob would not have TI, and can therefore be meddled with. But if the anti-TI is temporary, then when it ends, reality would coincidentally or miraculously warp in order to ensure that the existence of the future Bob, which still has TI, is changed as little as possible.

My greatest reluctance to endorse this reading of TI is that it seems to grant nigh-immunity to timeline shifts, even to the point of granting immortality; you can't even kill past-Bob to get rid of future-Bob, because he just comes back somehow! But then, that's what the advantage is for.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

No, and for the same reasons. If there was a time when the character didn't have TI, then changing history before that pivotal point can mean he never gets it, and thus is vulnerable to reality shifts. I don't think that that applies in general, but just to specific changes to prevent him from getting the advantage. Again, though, the muddied view of time flow that results suggests to me an imperative to keep TI as an advantage that can only be had at character creation, not gained during play.

If using those groundrules, then anything that prevented your birth would still wipe you out, making it a useless advantage.

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If using those groundrules, then anything that prevented your birth would still wipe you out, making it a useless advantage.

Yep. I view Temporal Inertia as a line in the sand, except it's one that the tide never wipes out no matter how often it washes over it. If someone get's TI via equipment then they have it so long as it's on, but turning it off could lead to them to spontaneously disappearing (you can assume that time ripple's are waiting on the edge of the device, ready to strike). I recall a Voyager episode with something like this. One of the antagonists had put a lock of hair in some for of temporal stasis, and so it still existed despite the fact the owner didn't. When the device get's broken towards the end of the episode the lock of hair disappears.

That may not even be the only immutable thing. I'm poking at time travel, and one the things I decided is that there's no causal connection between the two ends of time jump. That is, preventing someone from making a time jump is pointless if they've already done it. Though in addition to that I have it that a person can never be in two places at once due to time travel. A new arrival always replaces the current one.