The Reason Berek and Covenant are one in the same...

[Zarathustra]

OK, Let's clear up something here,time travel IS possible,however,the OBSERVED time changes The thoery that covers this particular area is string theory within quantum mechanics,special relativity.You can in fact(mathematically) go back and kill your grandfather BUT you will still exist in THAT particular string timeline.You would have a devil of a time returning to your proper string as the strings are infinite.............

That's very interesting. I've done some reading on string theory and time travel, but it's been a while. So my "alternate timeline" idea isn't too far off? If you could provide some links or a list of recommended reading, I'd like to brush up on this stuff.

The most "plausible" time machine I've ever heard physicists talk about is pulling two ends of a wormhole next to each other. It might take using mini-black holes as the "tugboat" to haul the wormhole around. And, if I remember correctly, you have to accelerate one end of the wormhole near the speed of light. Now, if my increasingly shaky memory of this thing is correct, this would only take you into the future due to relativistic effects--the rest of the universe would move by much faster relative to your own time. So even though you'd arrive many centuries later at the other end, you don't really travel through time, you just travel through a much slower "time rate" of personal time than the rest of the universe. But the end result is the same: you go forward many centuries in a few seconds.

Now, could this send you back through time if you went backwards through the wormhole? Gosh, I forgot. I think moving backwards through time isn't really possible according to present day physics.

[Nom vs. Vain]

Spiral time would make this much more plain... to anyone who can't travel backwards it would appear to be linear and only those who can by some means control or defy time does a spiral time well work. Think of the ceasures more as an elevator in which those who enter step slightly out of the spiral, and are then able to move vertically up and down the spirals stopping at the threads of time as they came, this would explain why the Land would still be in relatively the same place and you wouldn't be appearing somewhere in outer space. Even the method of wormholes and or Gapping could be explained inthis way such that if time were flexible like a slinky then bending the slinky can acheive a point where times meet much like what a wormhole would be used to do. This would enable everything including overlapping times, which would be more likely as the time spiral began to tighten or starts to get tangled up also much like a slinky as it nears its end. So in the same respect you can look at TC's Real world as a parallel universe which follows an entirely different time spiral and would not necessarily be considered a base point for any one time spiral. For anyone who isn't following this I'm saying Time is out to SCREW us ALL! and the Land will be getting screwed first as its time spiral is starting to wrap itself up.

[PannionDude]

This was a long thread, and I haven't read through to make sure this point hasn't been brought up, but it has to be said in any discussion of this topic.

TC has seen Berek's ghost, when he vanquishes Lord Foul the first time. Berek's ghost is urging the destruction of LF. If TC was Berek then it seems that he would recognize Berek as himself, and also that Berek/olderwiserTC would not demonstrate the incorrect viewpoint of Kevin and the others (Kill Foul with force).

[Adept Zaphod]

Well, that is just plain silly. The concept of making the present and future the actual historic past just isn't going to fly. This isn't Star Trek or Star Gate.

[Buckarama]

Silly? No sillier than alternate timelines or Sprial time. They are all three theories with equal evidence for all. Just because you don't like Star Trek doesn't make them wrong.

[Nom vs. Vain]

I was thinking more along the Lines of Bill and Ted... jk

[Mr. Milton Milquetoast]

Consider for a moment the name of the following book in the line. "Fatal Revenant" This is the most likely indication that Covenant is Berek. For after all, Berek is dead, or is he???

Milton

[The Laughing Man]

hhhmmm, a ceasure could easily account for the Berek being Covenant, but who was who first? if Covenant is Berek, where did the name Berek come in? If Berek is Covenant, where did the name Covenant come from? hhhhmmmm......

[Warmark]

I give up.

[khalgregar]

What did Warmark get banned for?

[Nerdanel]

You know, I'm the person known for crazy, ermh, imaginative theories and I can't for a moment believe that Berek = Covenant. For a marginally plausible similar theory, I suggest that it might not be completely impossible for Lord Tamarantha to be an old future Linden who has learned enough not to mess with the temporal continuum, although she still tries to help Covenant and knows from Covenat's stories when she will die. I don't think this will turn out to be the case, but this is one of the few new character = old character things that have a modicum of plausibility in my mind. For one thing, it doesn't rely on limb regeneration and amnesia (and probably reverse-aging too) on top of time travel.

I have also considered a theory according to which Liand would be a young Anele, but unlike what some might think, I DO have some ability to consider my ideas critically. Nowadays, I'm inclined to think that Liand is Anele's long-lost little brother, but the full reasoning belongs to another thread.

[khalgregar]

I doubt to the highest degree possible that any current character is going to be revealed as a character of 'yore'. It seems cheap to me, and not SRD's style at all. I don't think it's why he's introduced time-travel.

I mean, really. If you asked any amateur hack to write the Last Chronicles and give them time-travel to play with then BINGO!!! - you get Berek/Covenant. Or Tamarantha/Linden. This doesn't mean Berek won't make an appearance, just that I find it utterly out of sync with my idea of SRD's imagination for him to use such a cheap trick.

This isn't Back to the Future folks, it's the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

[Nerdanel]

Don't get me wrong, I think Tamarantha/Linden is only 99% impossible in contrast to Berek/Covenant which due to the limits of my forecasting accuracy rounds up to full 100% impossible.

My theory concerning Liand is rather more likely than this, but it's also a lot more complex and needs a thread for itself and the related matters. I think I'll put that thread on the top of my list of new threads to start.

[dlbpharmd]

From today's GI:

Guy Andrew Hall: Okay, after a thorough search of the gradual interview, I can confidently ask this statement:

It's Berek Halfhand that turns up at the end of TRotE, isn't it?

Or not. However, it would be a nice twist; eliminate the need for a prequel because you have created the possibility of making it a sequel. You added time travel into this, all things are now possible.

Of course, I am basing this statement/question on my memory of the previous books, and we won't go into detail the incidents of past that discredit my recall-that is a long book hopefully never to be written.

I am also aware of the one word used in the last sentence of TRotE: unmistakably. Still, POV and all, I am willing to chance the guess.

Surely you jest? I’ve heard a lot of speculation on the subject, but you’re obviously going for the record. <grin>

(11/06/2006)

[Nom vs. Vain]

That Doesn't sound like a denial to me...

[Fist and Faith]

Nor to me. SRD surely wouldn't admit to it. Not that I think it is, of course.

[Mr. Milton Milquetoast]

I disagree with Nom vs Vain about the time thing. I see it more as a plain of existence, like a page in a book. They are all there, all the time. The ceasures are the equivalent to taking a page and moving it or destroying it all together. That is what is endangering the arch of time. Consider it like a book. You can take a page and put it somewhere else, and the book would still be complete but more confusing. If you do this more and more then the book while complete is unreadable as a book. Those that can traverse the "margins" so to speak can move about time quite rapidly. If they are benign like the Ranyhyn or Sandgorgons, then there is no disturbance in the book, But if Joan shows up and Foul uses her to jumble things up then anything is possible, but it better stop soon. Consider also that there were times when Covenant was physically there but not mentally there. He may have gone back or forward in time and have seen things that he did not share in the first six books.

Berek may be the old lords name for the ring wielder???
The knowledge of the white gold was apparently in the first ward.

The seven words could be:

May the ring wielder strike you dead.


Mike

[Mr. Milton Milquetoast]

I disagree with Nom vs Vain about the time thing. I see it more as a plain of existence, like a page in a book. They are all there, all the time. The ceasures are the equivalent to taking a page and moving it or destroying it all together. That is what is endangering the arch of time. Consider it like a book. You can take a page and put it somewhere else, and the book would still be complete but more confusing. If you do this more and more then the book while complete is unreadable as a book. Those that can traverse the "margins" so to speak can move about time quite rapidly. If they are benign like the Ranyhyn or Sandgorgons, then there is no disturbance in the book, But if Joan shows up and Foul uses her to jumble things up then anything is possible, but it better stop soon. Consider also that there were times when Covenant was physically there but not mentally there. He may have gone back or forward in time and have seen things that he did not share in the first six books.

Berek may be the old lords name for the ring wielder???
The knowledge of the white gold was apparently in the first ward.

The seven words could be:

May the ring wielder strike you dead.


Mike

[Mr. Milton Milquetoast]

I disagree with Nom vs Vain about the time thing. I see it more as a plain of existence, like a page in a book. They are all there, all the time. The ceasures are the equivalent to taking a page and moving it or destroying it all together. That is what is endangering the arch of time. Consider it like a book. You can take a page and put it somewhere else, and the book would still be complete but more confusing. If you do this more and more then the book while complete is unreadable as a book. Those that can traverse the "margins" so to speak can move about time quite rapidly. If they are benign like the Ranyhyn or Sandgorgons, then there is no disturbance in the book, But if Joan shows up and Foul uses her to jumble things up then anything is possible, but it better stop soon. Consider also that there were times when Covenant was physically there but not mentally there. He may have gone back or forward in time and have seen things that he did not share in the first six books.

Berek may be the old lords name for the ring wielder???
The knowledge of the white gold was apparently in the first ward.

The seven words could be:

May the ring wielder strike you dead.


Mike

[Mr. Milton Milquetoast]

I disagree with Nom vs Vain about the time thing. I see it more as a plain of existence, like a page in a book. They are all there, all the time. The ceasures are the equivalent to taking a page and moving it or destroying it all together. That is what is endangering the arch of time. Consider it like a book. You can take a page and put it somewhere else, and the book would still be complete but more confusing. If you do this more and more then the book while complete is unreadable as a book. Those that can traverse the "margins" so to speak can move about time quite rapidly. If they are benign like the Ranyhyn or Sandgorgons, then there is no disturbance in the book, But if Joan shows up and Foul uses her to jumble things up then anything is possible, but it better stop soon. Consider also that there were times when Covenant was physically there but not mentally there. He may have gone back or forward in time and have seen things that he did not share in the first six books.

Berek may be the old lords name for the ring wielder???
The knowledge of the white gold was apparently in the first ward.

The seven words could be:

May the ring wielder strike you dead.


Mike