The Ceasures

[dlbpharmd]

There is an awesome Q&A in today's GI that really explains alot about ceasures - be warned, it is spoiler type material.

[drew]

Thanks DLB, that's pretty much the way I imagined them to work.
I'm glad though, that we're going to get a further explanation in Revenment.
It's pretty cool the way He talks about FR, it's like, "Yeah, We're gonna see it soon!"

[Ken Socrates]

Unfortunately, this explanation is going to lead to all sorts of issues with alternate timelines/dimensions within the Land. Everytime a caesure affects the past it should alter the present or create an alternate timeline within the Land. So...is it possible to have alternate dimensions inside the Arch of Time? I guess SRD will tell us at some point.

I accept his explanation of how Anele and the ur-viles were transported to the future but it seems implausible that the Haruchai are unaware of caesures before the 100 year time period. They are sensitive to power and we now know of at least 4 caesures that existed thousands of years into the past.

Methinks SRD may regret writing that the Falls "run forward". Isn't time travel wonderful/infuriating?

[High Lord Tolkien]

I don't get the problem people are having with the Ceasures.
And yes I did read the latest from the GI and yes SRD you did make me more confused than before after reading it.

Joan breaking stones? WTF was that all about anyway?
(and no, there's no way that's a spoiler so don't black me out! )
BUT:
I don't see how anyone from the Present that goes back into the Past can damage the Arch unless they change the Pasts Future.
Right?
Liand and company can interact with the Old Lords and New Lords all they want if they can keep their indentities secret.
Even the new Staff of Law if fundamentally different from the Old.
The Old Lords might just keep their mouths shut about whatever they suspect.
Their interactions in the past might be nessesary even to preserve the Arch since in the Present what they did in the past is already the Land's History.
But, if they stop the Ritual of Desecration or prevent the Illearth Stone from being found then the Arch is toast.

What are the issues people here have with time travel?
Are they thinking Star Trek stuff?
Or Multiple Universe theory?
Or past and future selves can't meet or exist at the same time ala Time Cop?
All that doesn't have to apply in a world built on the back of a Worm.
I'm being funny but if the Arch of Time is self healing then it blows all the alternate timeline ideas out the window.
And why would the Haruchai be aware of Ceasaures anyway?
They only entered the Land during the time of Kevin and then they were in exile for a time after the Desecration and then they left the Land again for a few 1000 years after TC defeated Foul.

There are huge windows of time where the Haruchai are no where to be found.
And even with the Haruchai in the Land one of them needs to be near the Ceasure to get any sense of it.
And they might not have any idea what it is anyway because of the following:

SRD tells us that the Caesures are severly limited in affecting people before the the Law of Life and Death were broken.
Only beings of power ie: Demondim could see the caesure and use their powers to manipulate it.
So using SRD's example, a ceasure could open up in Mithil Stonedown during the Age of Kevin but no one could see it and the people would be protected from it because the intact Laws of Life and Death would be healing the rip in time. The New Lords might even be blind to them.

Good freaking God! I REALLY HOPE SRD BRINGS BACK THE OLD LORDS THAT WERE AMBUSHED BY FOUL AND 'KILLED" AT TRECHER'S GOURGE!!
They would have the power to recognize the ceasure for what it was and have the power to use it to save themselves I bet! The Demondim did.
(Can you tell what I'll really hoping to see happen?)

[I'm Murrin]

SRds explanation really does make sense in the context of other things he has said. Sticking with his analogy of the broken cliff, it explains what he said about the caesures being less likely to affect times before the breaking of the laws - most of the caesures are made by chipping away at pieces of Time already damaged by the breaking of those laws; the moments that occured after the Laws were broken. And even if it is more difficult for her, it must still be possible to damage the remaining cliff - the solid structure of the Arch before it's laws began to crumble is harder for her to touch, but not impossible.

[Jerico]

The breaking of the laws of life and death are what made the Caesures possible (the way I read SRD's explanation). The rubble of the the broken cliff Linden sees is the result of that breaking of those laws. It shattered the Arch, but not all the way. Each time Joan creates a Caesure one of those small pieces of rubble is destroyed. That has 'no' effect on the other pieces of rubble. So when a Caesure is created by Joan it has a starting point in the past and runs forward through to the present.
But and this is a big but. What Linden did was the reverse, thus the hazzard to the Arch because if anyone changed what happened the Arch would completely break.
So far only minor players have been taken out of the past (as far as we know). If anyone went back and interacted with someone from the past it might be the end of everything. The Arch is not circular, it is linear. SRD made this clearer in his statement. I don't think we will see anyone traveling to the past to become Berek, nor do I believe that any of the old lords will be brought forward unless they were not missed in the time from which they came (ala Lord Prothal who rode off into the sunset after the Quest for the Staff). Like the Demondin they can't have been missed.
So following that train of thought I do not believe the TC riding up to Revelstone at the end is from the Past either.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I agree with your post except for this part.

If anyone went back and interacted with someone from the past it might be the end of everything.

Why?
I don't see it.
(I also don't see why they would need to but that's another thread)
I know you used the word "might" but it seems to be a common belief at the Watch.

Say Linden, Liand and Stave visit Kevin as he's on the way to enact the Ritual. Say they have to ask him a question.
Those 3 *know* that if they alter time the Arch is ruined.
Isn't it possible that they can interact with Kevin in a way that changes NOTHING in the Land's know history?
But gives us some great insight or reveals much about the past that we all want to see at the same time fulfilling whatever quest Linden has?

(everytime I write something like this I keep remembering that SRD DOESN'T want to write about the past. I hope he's just misleading us!)

[IVB]

I agree with your post except for this part.

If anyone went back and interacted with someone from the past it might be the end of everything.

Why?
I don't see it.
(I also don't see why they would need to but that's another thread)
I know you used the word "might" but it seems to be a common belief at the Watch.

Say Linden, Liand and Stave visit Kevin as he's on the way to enact the Ritual. Say they have to ask him a question.
Those 3 *know* that if they alter time the Arch is ruined.
Isn't it possible that they can interact with Kevin in a way that changes NOTHING in the Land's know history?
But gives us some great insight or reveals much about the past that we all want to see at the same time fulfilling whatever quest Linden has?

(everytime I write something like this I keep remembering that SRD DOESN'T want to write about the past. I hope he's just misleading us!)

Under the rules SRD seems to be using, you can go back and interact with people in the past with out breaking the Arch. It only matters that history is not "generally" changed. You can ask Kevin 20 qestions, so long as he shows up at the right time for the Ritual. I am basing this on SRD's answer to my GI question. Way too much potential for abuse here. I am still going to reserve judgment until FR is out, but right now the Lame factor is pretty high... One thing I have noticed is that SRD's anwer's remain vauge. IIRC, he does not plainly say that Linden changed the past so there is potential for her actions to have always been a part of history. But then logic say's that her free will is violated (which he says can not be done with out reducing her mentally).

[Jerico]

I was thinking about this and maybe this is how it works for SRD.
He says that the cliff is broken (Arch) and that everytime Joan creates a caesure it destroys that piece of the cliff. So maybe no matter who you would interact with nothing would change. I mean the pieces are broken time. So he could mean that they aren't connected anymore. That could open up the possibility for just about anything. If time we're not connected in the broken parts of the cliff you could almost do anything. Say there is a 'rock' that contains the time period of the Giants on their way back to Andelain with the new staff of law after Linden has healed the Land. They enter that Caesure grab the Staff and the Giants and return to the proper time. Now that 'rock' that they entered was not connected to the next 'rock' in which the Giants gave the new staff to Sunder, and That does not change. The Giants are still in that 'rock' and are still able to give the Staff to Sunder. Time does not change because the sequence of events are broken already and until Joan breaks the 'rock' that contains that event, or someone goes back and changes that 'rock' it is always the same.
Does that make any sense? SRD says he's not writing SF so he doesn't have to have it make sense.

[Charles Timewaster]

Here's my best guess: SRD's using the same set-up as in John Varley's "Millenium" novel...you can make a small change to the past, and the time-stream will try to repair the minor discrepencies and return history back to normal. But if you make a big change, then the time-stream can't repair itself and falls apart because of the paradox.

So in the original timeline, Anele took the rites of Unfettering, and lived the rest of his life without really affecting anyone else and then after he died the mice ate his research notes. After Joan came to the Land, she created the caesure that removed Anele from the past, but this was a small enough change that the Arch of Time could repair itself.

Probably a random caesure is only capable of making small changes. But if Linden or Esmer is controlling a caesure, then they can make major changes and potentially break the Arch.

I think the breaking point will occur if a change in the past has ramifications that reach all the way into the present.

[Ken Socrates]

Those are some really good points. If an Unfettered One who spent his days alone in the mountains communing with rocks was removed from the timestream, no damage is done. The same with the ur-viles, the last little band of a dead race. If, on the other hand, Foamfollower is removed before he can resummon TC in TPTP, major changes will occur and bye-bye Arch.

[IVB]

Those are some really good points. If an Unfettered One who spent his days alone in the mountains communing with rocks was removed from the timestream, no damage is done. The same with the ur-viles, the last little band of a dead race. If, on the other hand, Foamfollower is removed before he can resummon TC in TPTP, major changes will occur and bye-bye Arch.

There is a big thread on the problems with time travel in this forum. Basically, in order for SRD's time travel plot to work you have to ignore a large number of ugly complications some of the most notable being:

• The vacuum effect/Chaos theory
  Temporal incrementing
  Absolute Time
  Predestination

The vacuum effect is simply the assumption that someone or something does not interact with much else. Consider Anele's research notes from above. How many generations of mice benefited from them. How many generations of predators benefited from the extra mice around. The smallest interaction can have huge results given 3500 years to propagate.

Temporal incrementing, Time A Anele enters fall leaving staff behind. Time B Linden shows up takes the staff returns to the future. Time C Linden enters the Land and travels to the past. Time D Linden arrives from the past. Now that was increment one. Consider point B, Linden has just departed.... you wait 3500 years and Linden decides to go back to the past, So now we have Linden1 and Linden2 showing up at the same time...

SRD says that the Arch is a work in progress built bas a set of processes driven by the events and choices people make. That is fine but who decides at what point in time the past is decided on. Is it Linden's point of view? She feels free to go back to muck with the past, but what if someone (an Elohim for example) in her future decides to stop her. Consider, Linden f's up and rouses the Worm. The instant before the Earth is destroyed Chant risks a trip to the past to stop her. He is trying to preserve his Wurd, the Earth is toast regardless so what does he have to loose. Linden's experiences are all a part of his past. So who/what is the absolute time keeper? It could be said that all of the Land's past has occurred to somebody, so that implies that all choices have been made and history is fixed leading us to the next topic.

Predestination. Unless history is mutable (SRD implies it is) actions in the past are fixed. So Linden's actions were always a part of history and she has no true free will (which SRD insists she has). Also, Linden's actions in the present are history in the future, so given SRD's linear time model, every choice has been made and all the players are characters in a story... Oh wait...

My impression of SRD's rules is the the Law of Time is resilient and evidently reactive, while perhaps not sentient it is capable of self preservation to some degree and will prune out the conditions that could lead to paradox such as compounded affects of small changes or temporal incrementing. So we can ignore all the complexities that bug people like me who do not have ice fishing gear and thus have nothing better to do but nit pick.

Time travel plots suck.

[MrKABC]

Here's my best guess: SRD's using the same set-up as in John Varley's "Millenium" novel...you can make a small change to the past, and the time-stream will try to repair the minor discrepencies and return history back to normal. But if you make a big change, then the time-stream can't repair itself and falls apart because of the paradox.

You have read "Millennium" ? That book ROCKS!

My favorite quote: "That meant that the shit had really hit the fan, and the only reason we were still here was because we couldn't smell it yet..."

[Jerico]

I don't know I read what SRD says this way.
There is a broken part of the arch caused by the breaking of the Law's of Life and Death. This break is not a complete break, but a partial one and everything between the breaking of the Law of death and the present is rubble. That is the cliff that SRD mentions.
That rubble is seperate pieces of time. Each time Joan creates a ceasure she destroys that piece of rubble 'time'. So those pieces of rubble 'time' are not connected.
Ceasures are random and the chances of them picking the same person from 'near' the same time are millions to one.

If for example A ceasure picked up Sunder as he was walking alone for a breath of fresh air after Aneles third birthday party, and then dumped him near Revelstone present day. The past isn't changed. Sunder is still there taking his walk because the second step of his walk is in a diffrent piece of rubble (time).

What is interesting with the way he explains it, is that a piece of Time is destroyed for each ceasure Joan creates. So pieces of time can be destroyed and the Arch still stands. ??

[IVB]

If for example A ceasure picked up Sunder as he was walking alone for a breath of fresh air after Aneles third birthday party, and then dumped him near Revelstone present day. The past isn't changed. Sunder is still there taking his walk because the second step of his walk is in a diffrent piece of rubble (time).

So Anele still lived his life in the past, just one instance of him was transported to to future? There is a problem with that. History says Anele vanished and the staff was lost. If what you say is true, Anele would have gone back to his cave and took up the staff again. If the Waynhim had got there first, don't you think they would have turned it over to the rightfull hier once they realized he was still around? Do you not think he Anele would have gone to the Haruchia for help in the search. But they have no memory of Anele other than his name.

I look at the Fred Flinstone Slate Quarry model of time as this: The breaking of the Laws of Life and Death "disorganized" time to create the rublble: i.e. loosened its structure and made it more accessable. When Joan blasts a piece she breaks its connection, severs that instant from the rest of time. the result is a Fall appearing in that time. and everything sort of skips over it like a scratch on a record.

[Jerico]

But who knows what happened to Anele on his next step. We know the Ceasure took him outside the cave, but what happened next? Did he fall down the hillside and break his neck? The possibilities are endless. SRD explains it and it still isn't adding up. There are no split realities. Time can be destroyed (at least in little bits). The Arch heals itself. You can take important artifacts and people out of time and it's okay?

[IVB]

But who knows what happened to Anele on his next step. We know the Ceasure took him outside the cave, but what happened next? Did he fall down the hillside and break his neck? The possibilities are endless.

yea, but we have been down this thead before..

SRD explains it and it still isn't adding up. There are no split realities.

Think about it for a second. Your Sunder example is a split reality at least from Sunder's frame of reference. In one realty Sunder continued on his way and in the other he shows up at Revelstone 3500 years in the future.

Time can be destroyed (at least in little bits). The Arch heals itself. You can take important artifacts and people out of time and it's okay?

I think OK is too easy of a word. I would use dangerous or costly. It can be done but the results of it are yet to be seen.

[Jerico]

Yes but SRD's explanation is that there are not split realities, or that they don't matter. It's a fantasy story not SF so he need not have it make sense? All I'm saying is that the door is wide open to do anything he wants and there are no ramifications that we know of

[drew]

I like that idea.The Ceasures are ceasures, they started 90 years ago, but got Anele and the Demondim from farther back--SRD is the creator, his rules go!
It's funny how there's so much arguing going on about how these time traveling rips in time work-but we all think that being transported to a fantasy world is normal!

[finn]

Whether it's Sci Fi or Fantasy, the laws have to be obeyed once established. I simply do not see a scenario where SRD would compromise what will be his life work by taking short cuts and using the genre to either justify or excuse his a poorly planned plot.

There are too many works out there that invent curious anomolies, or contrivances to side-step obstacles in their plots. The reason these books are so popular is that they are consistent within the established laws of their environment. There is magic but it is used within a set of laws that remain consistent. There is wild magic, but even that has a set of guidelines, ie, TC does not (cannot?) reach out with wild magic and kill foul in his Creche from Revelstone.

I for one do not want to see some previously unknown use of Hurtloam, or Gravelling, or even Earthpower to make SRDs life easy! He will get my dollar and yours, but he must earn it and if he does, he'll get our respect and thanks as well.