Temporal Inertia questions

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Any headaches caused by this might be due to the idea of allowing Affliction:Advantage (Temporal Inertia) in the first place ;)

Yeah, I mean, imagine allowing Affliction (Advantage: Temporal Inertia) alongside Jumper (World)… Can you hop out to a world with a Queen Victoria, give her TI, and come back to find a local version of her? What if you left the other PCs behind? Has someone already tried this?

I usually regard TI as more a feature of the setting than the character, like being a landed knight, or often Destiny. It means that somewhere out there, there's an "inertial center", and this character has a Destiny there or something. In that model, using this Affliction on Bob actually changes the stats of someone else, in another timeline, creating them if needed. Sort of like Afflicting a Reputation, except messy.

If you're allowing this as all, it's probably best to assume Bob only has TI thenceforth, and only in timelines that result in him getting it. In a Many-Worlds sense, this can be useful; but it doesn't protect him 30 minutes ago, or 30 years ago.

Still, imagine the PCs are doing something with a 50% chance of killing everyone in town, which the GM assumed they'd think was too dangerous; so they go around TI-ing everyone in town, and then push the button. Have they railroaded the GM? Where are those people in the resulting timeline?

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

It seems like there needs to be a middle ground.

In general, the middle ground seems to be a setting feature. If you're playing GURPS: Back To The Future, everybody's subject to the Ripple Effect. However, TI allows a player who's not down with the time-travel craziness to play in a time-travel game.

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Note, though, there is a little precedent for beings gaining some measure of Temporal Inertia in fiction. The Time Lords of Doctor Who,

Yeah, I wouldn't GM any setting with a TimeyWimeyBall, for roughly this reason. But, you could always have the monkeys show up :P

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

But even for someone born with the advantage, there's a time before he "gets it".

What? No, that makes just as little sense. Again it works better if you think of it as a setting feature, akin to a social advantage, but regarding time physics. The same problem applies to adding TI, removing TI, getting it with XP(except if "she always had it"), or getting it at birth — any change to TI embedded in a timeline.



You could say that once a timeline leads to someone getting TI, they're locked in. That would allow getting it but not losing it; being able to lose it is, in this interpretation, against the spirit of the advantage.

Of course, that means that every time you change the past, or even the present, the future of the new timeline whips around and TIs a bunch of people. The Observer Effect may maintain enough wiggle room to prevent time from being hopelessly pinned by people destined to be born, though.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

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.

How does one tell if they've "already" done it, or if it is the "first" occasion? If there a second, narrative time progression?

Originally Posted by Dinadon

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.

If I travel back in time to the day of my 21st birthday party, but instead of going to the party and getting a tattoo later, I decide to go fishing instead, then return to my present, do I still have the tattoo? Do people still remember me being at the party? And what happens to the fish I caught and brought back with me? Do their molecules vanish from the bodies of the predators or decay organisms that devoured their bodies in the original timeline?

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

How does one tell if they've "already" done it, or if it is the "first" occasion? If there a second, narrative time progression?

This is what is currently giving me headaches. :P

If I travel back in time to the day of my 21st birthday party, but instead of going to the party and getting a tattoo later, I decide to go fishing instead, then return to my present, do I still have the tattoo? Do people still remember me being at the party? And what happens to the fish I caught and brought back with me? Do their molecules vanish from the bodies of the predators or decay organisms that devoured their bodies in the original timeline?

I didn't mention the part where you can't travel to a point in your life before you were a time traveller. (Some just made up mumbo-jumbo: your chronoton stability is too high, now to work out what that means...).

So, assuming you had already done some time travelling before your 21st (what a gap year!), the following happens:

1. Your future self arrives in the past. The local you immediatley disappears. Anyone you were with may freak. Most likely, you appear to teleport.
2. People who see future you will comment on his tattoo.
3. Everyone at the party wonders where you are.
4. Future you returns, whilst some predators catch something else instead.
5. Local you reappears, and wonders why no one thought he was at his party. Local you may reappear in a tattoo parlour with a half done tattoo. The changes dampen out as much as they can.

In general, time travellers need to very aware of arrival points. Having a past self arrive is very dangerous. I haven't yet decided what happens when such a shunt occurs.

EDIT: Or perhaps that should be chronoton polarity. Certainly sounds better.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

This is what is currently giving me headaches. :P

The Observer Effect rule is good. If anyone sees them leave, they can't be stopped; otherwise, fair game.

Originally Posted by Dinadon

In general, time travellers need to very aware of arrival points. Having a past self arrive is very dangerous. I haven't yet decided what happens when such a shunt occurs.

This is especially important if you can't go back before you were a time traveller, because then everyone's first jump would have to be forward, requiring a past self arrival. Unless you can bring passengers?


Also, what happens when one travels to a time when the local you is dead? Will one's body bag or grave or urn implode?

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

The Observer Effect rule is good. If anyone sees them leave, they can't be stopped; otherwise, fair game.

Yeah, that will probably do. Still needs some hammering, and you need some way to be certain it's the most forward form. Jumping back to earlier in a rivals life just to say hi (or that of anyone you know saw you) becomes the next issue after that.

This is especially important if you can't go back before you were a time traveller, because then everyone's first jump would have to be forward, requiring a past self arrival. Unless you can bring passengers?

Your pre-time travelling lifetime is exempt, not the past in general.

Also, what happens when one travels to a time when the local you is dead? Will one's body bag or grave or urn implode?

Distinct changes don't count, so you can visit your corpse. You just may not want to be there if it can be resurrected. Fuzzier distinctions are another, smaller headache.

[Not another shrubbery]

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.

No, it just makes a distinction between the gained in play advantage, and having it from birth (or character creation). Did you see my reply in post #15?

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

No, it just makes a distinction between the gained in play advantage, and having it from birth (or character creation). Did you see my reply in post #15?

Personally, I don't make any distinction between how you got TI. After all, it's entirely plausible to use an Affliction to get rid of someone's TI. All TI does is act as a delay for temporal changes to affect a character, the default being infinite. If someone only has TI temporarily then they will simply be affected when their TI goes down.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Personally, I make any distinction between how you got TI. After all, it's entirely plausible to use an Affliction to get rid of someone's TI. .

Although it wouldn't do any harm unless history changed while their TI was gonw.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

Personally, I make any distinction between how you got TI. After all, it's entirely plausible to use an Affliction to get rid of someone's TI.

AIS early in the thread, I do not think it is a good idea to allow TI to be acquired except at character creation. Likewise, allowing it to be removed (by other than GM fiat, divine intervention, etc.) is probably not worth the potential headaches. YMMV

[vicky_molokh]

Changed 'while' TI was gone? This only works if there is an Absolute Now, a DelayedRippleEffect, or a Meta-Time Timeflow.

Anyway, the way I see it, a character who possesses TI is almost guaranteed to exist as a result of an Ontological Paradox. Said Paradox is the point in time since which TI is 'in place'.