26 replies to this topic

[Wolf O'Donnell]

But time travel is far more complicated than that.

Every time Link travels back, he should cause what you call "a split". In reality, there is no split. All these "splits" existed even before Link went time travelling. They're called Alternate Dimensions, where events happen differently.

Even Single Timeline Theorists cannot dispute the existence of Alternate Dimensions. STTs concern themselves with only the one timeline, but that does not mean there aren't others. Their belief is that all the games exist in the one dimension and that the other dimensions are irrelevant and that no other Zelda game exists in these other dimensions. (This is only a vague generalisation).

There is a possibility that there was a split even before Link was sent back.

If you look at ALttP's backstory, you realise that Ganon entered the Sacred Realm, got the Triforce and then got stuck there. Yet the Triforce did not break apart.

In OoT, he did the same thing, but it broke apart and he managed to escape to cause havoc across Hyrule.

Now, here is what a model of time travel suggests.

This model depends on Quantum Physics. In Quantum physics, when you send an electron along and it arrives at two gates, according to Quantum Physics, it goes through both of them. This is a strange thing to happen. It doesn't choose what to do. It does both.

Some people extrapolate this to all living beings and all objects. When faced with a choice, we don't choose one or another. We choose all and we do all. This doesn't work physically in one dimension, so they suggest that there are multiple dimensions. In one dimension you choose the left door, in another you choose the right. In another you choose the left door and find it locked, in another you choose the left door and manage to open it and so forth. Think of it like a tree.

However, the tree model (the split model) that you are now attempting to champion is an oversimplification.

Now, most physicists agree that if time travel is possible the most likely way of doing it is through black holes or more importantly wormholes. These are thought to connect different Universes.

If Link time travels, he goes from the future of one Universe to the past of another (see Diagram example, black to red), which may be up to that point in time identical to his. Yet he will change it and hence that Universe will have a different timeline to the one he came from.

According to this model, though, Link will never return to his original Dimension (in the case of the diagram, the black one). He will only live in Dimensions that are similar. The Dimension he goes to may have a similar outcome to the one he came from, but it will not be the exact same one.

You may ask, well, if Link travels to the past of the red Dimension, where does the Link from the red Dimension go? Well, if one Link from one dimension is time travelling, what's to stop another Link from another dimension also time travelling? The Link from the Red Dimension may time travel to black or pink or blue, thus leaving a "Link vacuum" for the black Dimension's Link to fill.

It is rather complicated, I know, but I find Multiple Timelines more of a challenge than Single Timelines. With STs you can always come up with some fanfiction to fill in the gaps and yes, it can become more difficult to fill in the gaps. Yet it is the mechanics of the MT that is intellectually difficult and more difficult to grasp.

MT is not an easy way out. It is rather more intellectually difficult to figure out because of all the confusion that time travelling causes.

To say dismissively that either theory is an easy way out merely demonstrates your ignorance of the other theory.

I partially support Chronicle's theory (although technically, nothing any of us Zelda fans suggest are really theories but hypotheses) but I do not agree with his terminology of splits and fusion. There are no splits or fusion. All the dimensions exist already and Link travels from one to another. Though one dimension may have an identical past or future to another, they are not the same and are separate dimensions never to merge.

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[Wolf O'Donnell]

I don't think there are that many splits, the designers didn't need that, since there are only to heads of Zelda.

According to current thought in Physics, there would have been a "split" every time Link went back in time. However, for simplicity, we only concentrate on the major outcomes and the major "splits" as you so like to call it.

Not to mention, Link traveling back in time and grabbing something, or changing something wouldn't necessarilly mean an alternate dimension.

Oh yes it would. It's just that we choose not to concentrate on those Alternate Dimensions, because the major and most important outcome will be more or less the same.

I think that only major changes would result in a large disruption causing a split, I mean, if you think about, Nature likes it simple, so I would want as few different dimensions as possible. This is why I have the two fusiing at the end. The events in both lines lead up to the same character, Link, running around Hyrule in LttP. This, I feel, is the capstone of the games.

Nature likes it simple, huh? Need I explain to you the complicated gene cascade that is thought to be behind myogenesis?

The physics behind my theory states that there are an infinite number of Alternate Dimensions. For simplicity's sake, we only concentrate on the ones that end up with the major changes, the ones that you think should only exist.

What I'm saying is that the Multiple Timeline Theory should state that there are infinite outcomes, but the games only show the major outcomes of Link's time travelling actions. You choose to ignore the minor ones, which is okay in itself, but you must not say that they do not exist.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

What I guess I am saying is that the "little" dimensions don't exsist. Why?

The designers didn't put em in. Until there is a game on one of the timelines, I don't think that it exsists. Like I stated before, this theory is based on a designer point of view. Since no one has time traveled, no one can say that it works one way, or it works another way. Just as you say I cannot say these don't exsist, I bring this to you, How can you say they do? You have no justification, and no one person can accurately describe the effects of time travel without any previous experimentation with time travel.
My point of view is based solely on the need for the designer to break away from the old Hyrule legend and begin anew, in a new timeline.

Yes, I understood you very well. There's no need to get hostile.

All I was saying is that you seemed to be using the Quantum Model and all I was doing was explaining the Quantum Model and saying that for every single time travel action Link made or even any action he made regularly would have resulted in your so-called splits.

However, I agree with you if you're saying that the game developers only focus on the major outcomes of Link's overall actions.

[MikePetersSucks]

I have to agree with Wolf on this one. if any changes to the timeline cause splits, then they all due, and due to Quantum Physics and the Conservitive Law of Energy, then the split and fuse theory is stupid. Where's all the matter going and coming from during those splits and merges? I think history just plain changes, myself, since Link only travelled spiritually.

[MikePetersSucks]

Um...ok, I know exactly how the Time Travel works, thank you. but when he goes back in time, His mind just goes back and takes over his old body -.-; otherwise he would be Adult Link when he went into the past. DOI. and so Nature is made of vibrating strings. that doesn't make it SIMPLE! WHY ARE THEY VIBRATING? WHAT ARE THE STRINGS MADE OF? and if something looks complicated, then it IS complicated, atleast most of the time. I'm assuming your in Middle School or the beginning of High School or something. Otherwise you wouldn't of made such a dumb statement. Nature is one of, if not the most, complicated system in all the world. and Yes, physics do apply to Hyrule. Like GRAVITY! like DAY AND NIGHT! like SOUND WAVES! why should SOME rules apply and not the others? sure magic overrides some, but it doesn't mean those laws AREN'T THERE! besides, chronicle. no one said Physics didn't apply either. and it's implied that physics does.

[MikePetersSucks]

I never tried to insult your intelligence, and if you felt I did, I'm sincerely sorry. I only asked what grade you were in because you made it seem like you were still in the basics of science or something, sorry.

And about your analogy on simplicity, you are completely correct there, but Nature is in no means simple, otherwise it wouldn't be such a difficult field to understand. and three colleges? congradulations! I'm a college senior, and I have a job at an AI Technician laboratory.

[MikePetersSucks]

Even if it is a gaming world, nothing even begins to imply that it has a different set of physics, as any differences from our world is explained by magic. and I made a typo, I must've held 8 down too long and my fourth key stroke didn't register. Lemme fix that please. *edits* there

[MikePetersSucks]

well, even so, there is nothing even hinting that the physics of Hyrule (not counting magic) are different from ours, and if there was, they would of left something to make us think that. and almost all of the rules of Physics intertwine. some of the rules wouldn't even work properly if another was taken out. And yes, I know Time Travel is only theory, but there is no way that two worlds can seperate and then fuse again! I can MAYBE see a world splitting depending on the circumstances, but NO! If these two worlds merge again, how would we explain their TWO SEPERATE HISTORIES? In one, the entire World is flooded, and in another, the World is fine? WTF? don't you think that would mess things up ALITTLE bit? that will probably cause a world-crushing paradox or something. if something like that happened, that world would have no chance of carrying on.

[Doopliss]

thanks for fixing that, I read profiles a lot, and it adds to a person's credibility.

I am not saying physics don't apply, I am saying only select physics apply. The designers can do what they want. As for time travel, those physics are theory, not law, so arguing how a timeline split would happen is pointless. That is why I chose to focus on the designer's perogitaves.

*looks back*
Man, was I grouchy this past week...

I don't think the designers can do whatever they want with the storyline, no one is over the physics laws, no, not even the gods are.

Why does no one write separate correctly?

[Wolf O'Donnell]

I have to agree with Wolf on this one. if any changes to the timeline cause splits, then they all due, and due to Quantum Physics and the Conservitive Law of Energy, then the split and fuse theory is stupid. Where's all the matter going and coming from during those splits and merges? I think history just plain changes, myself, since Link only travelled spiritually.

Okay, I refuse to use this terminology of splits because there's no splitting.

And if history itself merely changes, with only one Single Timeline, you've got the headache of paradoxes.

[MikePetersSucks]

yea, but it's kinda inevidable to have paradoxes when dealing with Time Travel. give me one damn example of paradox free Time Trips. Bulmaro, the gods created the laws of physics. I think they are. Chronicle, your not getting it. the end result doesn't mean a damn thing if they have different histories. how is the world going to explain that in one timeline, the World is flooded or WHATEVER, and in the other, nothing happened like that? it makes no sense! you can't just shove them together into one!

[Wolf O'Donnell]

yea, but it's kinda inevidable to have paradoxes when dealing with Time Travel.

Unless of course, the Multiple Dimension Hypothesis of Time Travel is true and the Multiple Dimension Hypothesis is a respectable hypothesis in physics. It's not a quack pot idea I just came up with off the bat, I actually read about and in a respectable series of books too.

Granted, it was a book for children from the Dorling Kindersley series, but I've checked all the facts stated in it and none of them seem to be wrong.

give me one damn example of paradox free Time Trips.

Well, how can any of us do that when nobody has really travelled backwards in time?

The thing is paradoxes are undesirable. Take OoA, for example. In that game, Link gives a Goron something to eat. The Goron is so grateful, he gives Link a vase, which happened to be his family heirloom.

After Link travels to the past, he comes across the Goron's ancestor. He needs to get a key or something (I can't remember) off that Goron and does so by giving that Goron the vase in exchange. That vase will eventually be passed down through that Goron's family and will end up in the hands of the starving Goron who gave Link the vase in the first place.

Where does the vase come from? Its a paradox that is absolutely undesirable, especially from your point of view if I remember one of your posts correctly...

split and fuse theory is stupid. Where's all the matter going and coming from during those splits and merges?

If you don't like the thought of matter appearing out of nowhere, don't you think that paradoxes are equally as abhorrent?

With the Theory I proposed, there are no paradoxes and even better, there is no matter coming out of nowhere and disappearing into thin air. That is why Multiple Dimensions are much better, because of the elimination of paradoxes.

Granted, the time travel system in OoA will never work, which kinda gives credence to the Nihilist Hypothesis.

Nihilist Hypothesis: There are no timelines and there is no real Hyrulean History. All of the games are merely videogames made by a game designer with little attention paid to Hyrulean history.

[Doopliss]

We can't discuss time-travel's physic laws because, as far as we know, time-travel isn't possible. I don't even think time exists, it's just the way we perceive all what happens, such as the beauty, it's completely propense to interpretation.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

We can't discuss time-travel's physic laws because, as far as we know, time-travel isn't possible. I don't even think time exists, it's just the way we perceive all what happens, such as the beauty, it's completely propense to interpretation.

Correction, it has been proven in theory and more importantly by something in one of Einstein's famous theories. They haven't been proven wrong so far and it would seem the only thing he was wrong about was about God playing dice.

[MikePetersSucks]

Wolf, I never dissagreed with your theory, infact, I've been supporting it this whole time XD I've just been focusing on Chronicle's theory, although he himself seems quite intelligent, this theory has one glaring flaw. If these two worlds do combine, then we have a world with TWO histories! having one event happen in BOTH worlds does not make it combine lickity-split! there's people who were probably born/killed in the different histories, different geographies, different events in time, and of course, the Triforce. the Triforce cannot be destroyed, or so the games imply, so if the two world's fuse, we would have TWO Triforces, which is just messed up. Wolf, I read those books, and they're great I was also asking for an example of Time Travel in FICTION with no paradoxes XD. Bulmaro, we don't believe in Zelda either, but we still argue about it

[Tri-Enforcer]

I'm for the Split Timeline...but not for it coming back together! They could perhaps intersect at one point, but not merge together. For instance, we start with a single line...and another line is spurned or branched from this line perhaps on a slant...both lines continue on there own paths. Later on it could be possible through some sort of rift...a visitor or visitors (like an invading army!!!) from one line can travel to the other line...this will not be time travelling...it is just extradimensional travel. Hey! That wouldn't be a bad idea...both worlds going at it, one trying to take over the other!

[MikePetersSucks]

Yea, that would be a kickass Zelda game, and Good and Evil isn't such an obvious placement, as the final boss was the other Link O.o