Time Travel & Linden's choices-Warning:Unblackened Spoil

[Rick Stuckwisch]

Someone commented on the "real" (original) Staff of Law. It wasn't just lost when Elena summoned Dead Kevin and ended up battling him to her own death. She reappeared later, with the Staff, and it was destroyed at the Colossus in defense of TC when the Raver and company had captured him. Bannor took the metal heals of the Staff back to Revelstone, and those were used by Vain in making the new Staff. At least, that's how I remember it.

Regarding the caesures (or Falls), I still think there is a discrepancy -- or an apparent discrepancy -- which either needs to be clarified or corrected. If the caesures began to appear about a hundred years ago, then it really doesn't add up or make sense that Anele and others entered a caesure to move forward thousands of years into the future. Especially since it has been established that the caesures only move people forward (normally). None of the theories expressed thus far explain how it is that everyone was ignorant of the caesures prior to the point at which they first began to appear. The only real answer will be the one that SRD will, presumably, provide at some point in the course of the Last Chronicles.

It doesn't seem quite right to me, either, to speak of the caesures as containing all of time for a particular place. Rather, don't the caesures exist apart from any and all time, like a gap ripped between two discrete moments in time, and thereby removing any chronological "distance" between the past and the present at that particular geographical point where the caesure happens to be. From the moment the caesure appears and then begins to move across the Land, it tears whatever enters it at one point (time & place) out of temporal existence; and those who are earthpowerful enough to break out of the caesure re-emerge at whatever future time and place the caesure may "be" moving at that point of departure.

Within the caesure, as I have thus far grasped it (or not!), there simply is no time. But the caesure itself exists, externally speaking, both temporally and geographically; that is to say, it occupies and moves through time and space. And as it passes through the Land geographically, it removes the temporal/historical distance between the present and all subsequent time in that place, because it simply removes that place from the sequence of time itself. Thus, the caesures gradually chip away at the moorings of the earth within the arch of time. . . .

Or, so I've gathered, pending further and greater enlightment from others (and hopefully from SRD).

[bhoywonder]

Remember folks that SRD is a big DR WHO fan (Colin Baker is one of his best pals): the Caesures are his TARDIS and he uses them in the same way the Doctor was able to move around various times and places, because Time (And Relative Dimensions in Space) can, at least in the science of Dr Who, be transversed and 'visited'. Remember that time is a vector rather than a strictly linear measurement - it has direction also - and Einstein has already proven that there is a relationship ('Relativity') between Time and other vector measurements, such as velocity (i.e. time slows down the faster you travel).
I'm no scientist and someone with a grounding in the 'science' of Dr Who (rather than the 'real stuff' like Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov) would be immensely welcome at this juncture!

Murrin - I welcome your philosophy because it's well thought out and seems to make sense. However, I do think it's a point of view, rather than a definitive position, and I don't think we're actually that far away in our thinking.

The idea is that free will is not as 'free' as it seems. Choice is an illusion, since all our responses are dictated by our character

This isn't true - it may hold fast MOST of the time, but I felt like having a Mars bar this morning, and instead had cereal - this wasn't due to my character, or experiences, but because I had the choice to do whatever the hell I like, within certain parameters.

Coming back to the story: Foul knows that free choice exists - but by manipulation he restricts those choices to such an extent that there seems only one possible outcome - the one he has striven to influence - the one where he wins.
However it is precisely because free choice exists - Linden and Covenant always have the power to defeat him by not following the 'set path' that Foul has come to be brought about - that he is defeated. The outcomes of both previous trilogies show that free choice and the ability to shake off the inevitability of our actions eventually win through: i.e. free choice is NOT an illusion.

Anyway, I don't care which theory he goes with as long as SRD is consistent: Free choice exists, and therefore the ending is unsure, or free choice is an illusion, and Despite (and probably Esmer too) know the outcome (and would Foul strive so hard if he knew that he was to be defeated???)
Perhaps it's both theories- the ultimate paradox?

[I'm Murrin]

but because I had the choice to do whatever the hell I like, within certain parameters.

Parameters you set for yourself. Anyway, just because of what I said about free will it doesn't mean that Foul knows exactly what'll happen - no person can understand someone else so well that everything they do can be predicted, and there's also a small amount of random chance in there to throw things out. Foul cannot know what every person, at anypoint in this will do; thus, he can never be completely certian of how events will transpire.

[Jerico]

Why did the Kresh attack Linden and company? Because she made the choice of direction that Foul didn't suspect.
She made the choice to go back and get the Staff also. Her reasoning was flawed, but she still made a choice. Free will was not dimished in the series to me because she made that choice. It ended up costing her because of the Demondin, but I place that on Esmer.

[IVB]

What if she decided not to do it at all? One of the central points of the previous 6 books is free will. Time travel and paradoxes (paradoxi?) wreak ahvoc on free will issues, because viewing the effects of a cause you WILL effect in the past, necessitates a series of actions you HAVE to take in the future.

I think you are correct with this point. Throughout all the chronicles we are repeatedly told about the necessity of the freedom of choice as a requirement to be an effective power inside the Arch of Time. So what does the Law of Time mean? I think it is more to SRD’s concept of it than the Law that just keeps everything from happening at once. The Law of Time is founded on freedom to make choices about your future. Linden HAD to travel to the past because she already did. Cause proceeds effect and The Law is violated and with it Linden’s freedom to choose in that instance.

Here is an interesting thought… Are summonings violations of the Law of Time? When a person is summoned from outside the Arch into the Land, events happen to put them in the same physical condition when they leave as when they arrive. Are the summoned truly free?

[Jerico]

Linden made that choice on the assumtion that she had already made 'that' choice. Either way she made the choice. It wasn't taken from her!
Where did 'the law of time is founded on freedom to make choices about your future' come from?
The Book states that the Law of time, which requires that events transpire in sequence, and that one action leads to another. It says nothing about knowledge of future events, or how those may have a bearing on your choices. Time travel is new to the series, but knowledge of future events is not. The Elohim, and Ranyhyn both 'see' future events and make decisions based on them.

[IVB]

Linden made that choice on the assumtion that she had already made 'that' choice. Either way she made the choice. It wasn't taken from her!
Where did 'the law of time is founded on freedom to make choices about your future' come from?
The Book states that the Law of time, which requires that events transpire in sequence, and that one action leads to another. It says nothing about knowledge of future events, or how those may have a bearing on your choices. Time travel is new to the series, but knowledge of future events is not. The Elohim, and Ranyhyn both 'see' future events and make decisions based on them.

Perhaps I should have said that freedom of choice only results from a healthy Law of Time. In the One Tree (read the Questsimoon chapter) TC explains that free will and the Arch of Time are intricately related. One cannot undo the past or pick what happens to them, but they can choose how to respond. If the Law of Time was simply events transpiring in sequence, and that one action leads to another then the history of the Earth is mapped out start to finish then no one is free.. Each plays their scripted part.

Free will is what drives one action to the next.

And I would argue that the Elohim and Ranyhyn are not free at a fundamental level as a result of their ability. The decisions that they make are the only ones that they can. With the staff, it was the same for Linden. She knew in the future that she would go get the staff so she was not free to make another choice.

[Jerico]

I think you hit on one there. The Law of time is 'not ' healthy. But SRD says it is flexable. SRD also says that TC has something to learn in the new series (although not what?). One cannot undo the past? That is what Linden did when she went back to get the Staff. So maybe TC doesn't know it all, or maybe he is wrong in his assumtion. I said in the begining of this thread that I thought Linden did act by free choice both times (at least I think it was this thread, there are to many to go back). It is a paradox of time in that instance. We don't know if the Staff was missing, or if it was missing because of her 'future' actions.
The Elohim read the future in the rawedge rim and make actions on what they read there. TC imposed silence etc.

[Jerico]

From WGW chapter 6 **Freedom doesn't mean you get to choose what happens to you. But you do get to choose how you react to it. And that's what the whole struggle against Foul hinges on. In order to be effective agains or for him we have to make our own decisions. That's why he doesn't just posses us. Take the ring by force. He has to take the risk we might choose against him. And so does the Creator. That's the paradox of the Arch of Time. And White Gold. Power depends on choice. The necissity of freedom. If Foul just concours us, if we're under his control, the ring won't give him the power to break out. And the same for the Creator.**


IVB, this is the chapter you mentioned. How do you get that free will and the Arch are intricately related out of that? It says Power depends on choice. And what Linden did was her choice no one else made it for her. Whether it was herself in the future or not, it was still a choice that she made.
What I find interesting though is that if the Future isn't all mapped out? where was the Staff? When Linden got to the Land it was gone. That means her future self had already went back to get it? Sounds mapped out to me. I think that SRD will have to answer this in the series. I asked him on the GI today but that may take a while.

[IVB]

IVB, this is the chapter you mentioned. How do you get that free will and the Arch are intricately related out of that? It says Power depends on choice. And what Linden did was her choice no one else made it for her. Whether it was herself in the future or not, it was still a choice that she made.
What I find interesting though is that if the Future isn't all mapped out? where was the Staff? When Linden got to the Land it was gone. That means her future self had already went back to get it? Sounds mapped out to me. I think that SRD will have to answer this in the series. I asked him on the GI today but that may take a while.

This is how I see the link between free will and the Arch.
Power requires choice.
Choice = Free Will
Free Will = A non-deterministic Law of Time

If your history is mapped out you have no free will. Your fate is sealed. You just do not know it.

Linden had no choice but to go back in time to get the staff because she already had done it. Her “choice” was nothing but a rationalization for her actions. In my opinion, the lack of free will is the essence of a violation of a non-deterministic Law of Time.

[drew]

What I still want to know is, Where was the staff in the present, BEFORE Linden went to the past to get it?
There was a staff, albiet missing, in the year 3500, instead of lookin for it Linden goes to get it from the year 200, what happened to the staff in year 3500? and Where was it?

[Jerico]

But we don't know that Linden went back to get it do we? For all we know it could have been someone else who took it 'out of time'. Linden makes an assumtion that she went back to get it.
We don't know what TC was turned into when WGW ended. SRD has said that he didn't die. He was transformed into something 'like' Hile Troy. The avatar of the Arch of Time? Maybe he went back and got the staff and took it so Linden would make that assumtion. Then his warning to her just before she entered the Fall would make sense, 'be wary of me, remember i'm dead'. I believe that TC was attached to the Staff, maybe because it was the only thing left that he could still 'feel' Linden in. She did create it.
The point is SRD is good at misdirection, and the Find Me part has me going down many paths of reasoning.

This is how I see the Link between free will and the Power to destroy the Arch of Time.
Power requires choice
Choice= free will
Free will= any choice made without foreknowledge

In this instance SRD is explaining the Paradox of the 'Arch of Time' with relation to its destruction. He has not explained the effect of free will and the 'Law of Time'

[IVB]

But we don't know that Linden went back to get it do we? For all we know it could have been someone else who took it 'out of time'. Linden makes an assumtion that she went back to get it.
We don't know what TC was turned into when WGW ended. SRD has said that he didn't die. He was transformed into something 'like' Hile Troy. The avatar of the Arch of Time? Maybe he went back and got the staff and took it so Linden would make that assumtion. Then his warning to her just before she entered the Fall would make sense, 'be wary of me, remember i'm dead'. I believe that TC was attached to the Staff, maybe because it was the only thing left that he could still 'feel' Linden in. She did create it.
The point is SRD is good at misdirection, and the Find Me part has me going down many paths of reasoning.

This is how I see the Link between free will and the Power to destroy the Arch of Time.
Power requires choice
Choice= free will
Free will= any choice made without foreknowledge

In this instance SRD is explaining the Paradox of the 'Arch of Time' with relation to its destruction. He has not explained the effect of free will and the 'Law of Time'

OK, so the illusion of free will is all that is required for Power? TC was destined to save the land, he had no other choice, the Creator picked him because he knew that he would stop whining eventually and beat LF? There was no risk and TC was ever the Creator's tool. This contradicts everything we have been told so far.

This is the problem with a linear deterministic Law of Time, all points on the line exist and you can fast forward or rewind Dark Helmet's Mr. Video to any point in history. All your choices are made. You have NO free will, you just do not realize it until you are the one with the remote.

Again, it is my contention that the Law of Time is non-deterministic, it has to be if free will is to exist in SRD's universe as described. And we do know that Linden took the SoL in the past, because she did it. This is my point all along. Going back in time to take the Staff of Law was a fundamental violation of the LoT and consequently, free will. Evidently it is a violation the Arch can withstand..

I too wondered about the “be wary” comment. I took it to be a reiteration of Hamako's (they stonedowner adopted by the Waynhim in TWL) observation that the answers of the Dead can rebound on the Living. This thread got me think about the Dead and the Elohim. Perhaps what they see is the probability of the future. The Elohim and Great Horses catch glimpses while the Dead see all possible outcomes?

Now here is a thought... TC did indeed die with a knife of wild magic in his chest, but in doing so he became an “Avatar of the Arch of Time” and burned the venom form him. Perhaps the violation of the LoT undid his transformation and since the Law of Life was broken he materialized in Kiril Threndor. LF, waiting patently for him to show up, proceeded to mock him for a while in a long winded speech with a few “groveler” comments thrown in. He then gave TC Linden's boy for some dark purpose and sent him on his merry way.

[Jerico]

Again I say that Linden assumed that she was the one who took the Staff out of time to begin with. If she was then free will was stripped from her, and the future is 'set'. I don't belive it. I do believe as you said that the Dead, Elohim, and others with the power can see 'possible' futures.

IVB, it's like we're arguing the same point. SRD wouldn't violate the Law of Time. I'm not sure the Law could stand it. So there could be another explantion? What that is I'm not sure? For all we know Esmer went back and removed it. All I'm saying is that there are plenty of ways that SRD can work this where Linden was mistaken about what she thought her future self did.

Like your thoughts on the 'undoing' of TC status. It could have happened when the Caesures started? He has to come back some way, and that makes a kind of sense when you look at everything that happened when the Law of Death, and Life were broken.

[bhoywonder]

Spot on, Jerico; precisely my point in the first place.

Those with the power can surely only see possible/probable outcomes, not definitives, else the future is entirely predetermined and free will to influence outcomes does not exist.

So we work on the premise that free will does exist (since that is one of SRD's central themes throughout the first two trilogies).
With this in mind, the logic that Linden thought that she would be successful in obtaining the SoL precisely because it must have been her that moved it by travelling back in time, is too problematical/paradoxical, surely?

She could simply have decided not to go back in time. The SoL would have to be where Anele left it (or where the Waynhim moved it to, more like, which wasn't that far). There would be none of the nasty after-effects (which are still to be fully manifest/explored IMO) of removing it out of the Land for several thousand years.

Kevin's Dirt presumably would not be there.
Despite would not be as strong.
OK the Waynhim would have been lost, but c'est la vie...

Anyone from the Dr Who school of time travel out there at all?

[Aleksandr]

Re: And I would argue that the Elohim and Ranyhyn are not free at a fundamental level as a result of their ability. The decisions that they make are the only ones that they can.

In regards to the Ranyhyn, their loss of freedom is the result of their choice to submit themselves to a rider and to always answer his call. This would be just as true if no foresight or magical talent was involved at all, and the rider had to send a message the mundane way summoning his Ranyhyn and the horse then had to set out after receiving the summons. The odd question here is whether the summoner's feeedom is affected since the Ranhyn has set out before he has chosen to make the call.

Linden had no choice but to go back in time to get the staff because she already had done it.

Well, we don’t know that the Staff was missing because Linden took it. It may simply have been missing the same way it was missing for the millennium after the Ritual of Dececration untill Drool Rockworm found it. (And this is one reason I wish SRD would have had Linden mount a quest for the Staff in the present rather than doing the time travel thing. Hopefully we will find out a reason later why time travel wwas essential to the plot other than the Staff’s retrieval.)

[I'm Murrin]

Well, we don’t know that the Staff was missing because Linden took it.

Now that we've read how the book turns out, we do. The Staff went missing sometime in the past. What happened in the past had already gone by - it was unchangeable, because it had already happened. The Staff must therefore have always been missing because Linden went back for it.

[IVB]

Again I say that Linden assumed that she was the one who took the Staff out of time to begin with. If she was then free will was stripped from her, and the future is 'set'. I don't belive it. I do believe as you said that the Dead, Elohim, and others with the power can see 'possible' futures.

IVB, it's like we're arguing the same point. SRD wouldn't violate the Law of Time. I'm not sure the Law could stand it. So there could be another explantion? What that is I'm not sure? For all we know Esmer went back and removed it. All I'm saying is that there are plenty of ways that SRD can work this where Linden was mistaken about what she thought her future self did.

Like your thoughts on the 'undoing' of TC status. It could have happened when the Caesures started? He has to come back some way, and that makes a kind of sense when you look at everything that happened when the Law of Death, and Life were broken.

Actually, I think SRD will violate the Law of Time. In each of the chronicles we see a fundamental law broken in the battle against Despite. Little by little Foul’s enemies destroy the thing that imprisons him, the Law and its ultimate representation: the Arch of Time. When it happens it will be spectacular I am sure.

If Linden was not predestined to take then Staff then she violated the Law of Time in a major way by removing a critical support of Law for 3500 years. Can the Arch withstand that?

If Esmer removed it from time then the same paradox applies to him, do you have less of a problem with Esmer lacking free will?

If TC came back when the ceasures started he would be about 3200 older than Linden. If he was no longer Dead, could he still possess Anele? I am betting on Linden’s actions being the catalyst. I guess we will have to wait…

[IVB]

In regards to the Ranyhyn, their loss of freedom is the result of their choice to submit themselves to a rider and to always answer his call. This would be just as true if no foresight or magical talent was involved at all, and the rider had to send a message the mundane way summoning his Ranyhyn and the horse then had to set out after receiving the summons. The odd question here is whether the summoner's feeedom is affected since the Ranhyn has set out before he has chosen to make the call.

The only way the caller’s free will could be preserved is if “false starts” were permitted. For example a Ranyhyn stallion sets off a few weeks before a perceived call of his chosen Bloodguard, but at the last minute, just before he crests the hill, the caller changes his mind, deciding not to go to Foul’s Creach (because it is a silly place). The Ranyhyn returns to the plains of Ra wondering why he was “saddled” with such an idiot…

Well, we don’t know that the Staff was missing because Linden took it. It may simply have been missing the same way it was missing for the millennium after the Ritual of Dececration untill Drool Rockworm found it. (And this is one reason I wish SRD would have had Linden mount a quest for the Staff in the present rather than doing the time travel thing. Hopefully we will find out a reason later why time travel wwas essential to the plot other than the Staff’s retrieval.)

The only way that this could be true is if SRD subscribes to a many-worlds implementation of the Law of Time. Simply put: Every choice (quantum probability) results is a fork of an observed worldline. You can travel to the past and kill your grandfather because your original worldline is fine, you are no longer following it instead you follow the fork where you showed up and killed your grandfather. Free will is preserved, but for the purposes of the story not very interesting as there are a nearly infinite number of universes with various outcomes.

SRD seems to be handling time in a linear fashion. If Linden was not predestined to get the staff but someone else concealed it then she changed the Earth’s history, destroying a worldline where the SoL was hidden from sight for 3500 years. Those 3500 years never existed, the world she returned to was not the one she left. Can the AoT withstand that kind of abuse? If she was predestined to get the staff in a Star Trek like temporal loop then she had no free will and causality is violated.

Other than the violation of free will (which a lot of people seem to have trouble accepting) the problem with a linear loop is it leads to an infinite regression. Imagine yourself to be a waynhim guarding the SoL, you see Linden show up and take it. Time passes, 3500 years latter Linden makes the choice to get the staff, now the waynhim observes 2 Lindens show up… Does you head hurt yet?

[High Lord Tolkien]

The only way that this could be true is if SRD subscribes to a many-worlds implementation of the Law of Time. Simply put: Every choice (quantum probability) results is a fork of an observed worldline. You can travel to the past and kill your grandfather because your original worldline is fine, you are no longer following it instead you follow the fork where you showed up and killed your grandfather. Free will is preserved, but for the purposes of the story not very interesting as there are a nearly infinite number of universes with various outcomes.

SRD seems to be handling time in a linear fashion. If Linden was not predestined to get the staff but someone else concealed it then she changed the Earth’s history, destroying a worldline where the SoL was hidden from sight for 3500 years. Those 3500 years never existed, the world she returned to was not the one she left. Can the AoT withstand that kind of abuse? If she was predestined to get the staff in a Star Trek like temporal loop then she had no free will and causality is violated.

Other than the violation of free will (which a lot of people seem to have trouble accepting) the problem with a linear loop is it leads to an infinite regression. Imagine yourself to be a waynhim guarding the SoL, you see Linden show up and take it. Time passes, 3500 years latter Linden makes the choice to get the staff, now the waynhim observes 2 Lindens show up… Does you head hurt yet?

I just suffered a cerebral hemorrhage!