The Ceasures

Post by **Prince of Amber** » Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:00 pm

Spoiler

I really, really hope that SRD knows what he's doing with this time travel thing - I've seen so many real cock-ups when it comes to time travel and paradox (Back to the Future, Star Trek etc.,,,) maybe my mind is just too small to work it all out, but -

I HATE TIME TRAVEL STORIES!!

Post by **Revan** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 9:56 am

I hope so too... Time Travel does seem lame most of the time.

Post by **Prince of Amber** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 1:43 pm

Spoiler

You see on the one hand we are to believe that the ceasures started 100 years ago in the Land (3 months to us - when Linden gave Joan her ring back) but on the other they were around 3500 years ago in the Land when Anele lost the staff - already my brain hurts....

Post by **Revan** » Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:00 pm

Well... I think this is the reason why:

Ceasures are very rare, that we know. But all the Ceasures that do exist, exist in Linden's time... and each one goes to one different place at one different time...

So the Ceasure that was around 3500 ago was the only one in that time... So it was so rare that the Haruchai didn't notice it.

Post by **Prince of Amber** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 10:42 am

Oh O.K I guess that may explain it -
Its probably clear by now that I have a downer on this type of story line. And I guess I should actually finish Runes before I comment - or have faith and finish all of the last chronicles before I judge, but its the paradox of time travel that usually baffles me.
Time will tell. (see what I did there?)

Post by **Revan** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 11:49 am

Prince of Amber wrote:Oh O.K I guess that may explain it -
Its probably clear by now that I have a downer on this type of story line. And I guess I should actually finish Runes before I comment - or have faith and finish all of the last chronicles before I judge, but its the paradox of time travel that usually baffles me.

Yeah... I hope SRD doesn't mess this up... It is a risky thing to do.

Prince of Amber wrote:Time will tell. (see what I did there?)

LOL!

Very clever

Post by **CovenantJr** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 9:46 pm

Yeah, that thing about when they originated had me baffled too. But I trust SRD. If anyone can make time travel work, it's him. Especially since he's had twenty years to ruminate on the idea.

Post by **Bullfrog** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:53 pm

Q: What do you get when a time-traveling tornado chews up a bit of the One Forest?

A: A Ceasure salad!

The time travel stuff bothers me too. Once you allow that others times exist in a way that can be traveled to, the idea of past, present, and future are just perceptions of people living in one instant. To the reader its a mess. Either there is one time stream that you can envision, where the outcome is set and freewill is an illusion. Or, there are an infinite number of streams branching off from every instant; an infinite number of successes and failures, so who cares?

(Incidentally, the one time stream idea meshes well will the time loop discussions elsewhere.)

If it wasn't complicated enough...

I think when Linden entered the Ceasure for the first time, it read that they exist in every moment in time. So, wouldn't Ceasures be a problem in all the Land's ages. Obviously, they weren't.

How much change to you have to make to break the Law of Time? It seems like Esmer thought going back to get the Staff was a violation but helping Linden get it was OK. Remember the Simpsons when Homer goes back and sneezes on a dinosaur?

I'm sure we'll see evidence that the realm of the Dead is timeless. Whatever that means.

Post by **A Gunslinger** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:06 pm

Bullfrog wrote:Q: What do you get when a time-traveling tornado chews up a bit of the One Forest?

A: A Ceasure salad!

*wipes vomit from chin*

That was BAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDD!

Post by **CovenantJr** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:13 pm

Bullfrog wrote:I think when Linden entered the Ceasure for the first time, it read that they exist in every moment in time. So, wouldn't Ceasures be a problem in all the Land's ages. Obviously, they weren't.

They contain every instant since the came into existence.

And yes, the joke was appallingly badly good.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 2:17 am

Prince of Amber wrote:Time will tell. (see what I did there?)

ROFL!!!

Seriously, I'm crackin' up! I'm giving you 5K for that one.

I was going to say something about the time-travel too. In general, I truly hate such stories. And I was annoyed at the apparent inconsistency you brought up. Maybe Darth's right about it. I thought not, because the explanation gave me the impression that, wherever the caesure was, all points of time in that place existed, or at least could be accessed, at once. Which should mean that any place that ever had a caesure pass through it would always have a caesure in it. Which is obviously not possible, or they'd be in many many many many many places all the time. So...

Oy!!

Another thing I didn't like is this: *deep breath*
There was no record (memory/evidence/etc) of the Staff being used between the times when Anele lost it (ie, first got caught in a caesure) and Stave's time. So they can't go back to a point after Anele lost it, find it, then use it; nor go back and find it, go forward again to a point before Linden originally arrived in the Land, and use it. Either way, they'd be rewriting history. That's easy enough.

But what if someone 500 years before Stave's time got the same idea?? They could go back, find the Staff, return to their own time, and use it. As far as they're concerned, they would not have rewritten anything. But Stave would disagree.

Which means that the people 500 years in Stave's future might see history being rewritten by Linden! AARRGGHH!!!! How can Linden possibly think that the point she arrived at is at the end of the timestream, and that it's safe to change things there (then)?!?!

(Anybody ever read Thrice Upon a Time?)

"(see what I did there?)

"

Website · Post by **Eryne** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:09 am

Fist and Faith wrote:Another thing I didn't like is this: *deep breath*
There was no record (memory/evidence/etc) of the Staff being used between the times when Anele lost it (ie, first got caught in a caesure) and Stave's time. So they can't go back to a point after Anele lost it, find it, then use it; nor go back and find it, go forward again to a point before Linden originally arrived in the Land, and use it. Either way, they'd be rewriting history. That's easy enough.

But what if someone 500 years before Stave's time got the same idea?? They could go back, find the Staff, return to their own time, and use it. As far as they're concerned, they would not have rewritten anything. But Stave would disagree.

Which means that the people 500 years in Stave's future might see history being rewritten by Linden! AARRGGHH!!!! How can Linden possibly think that the point she arrived at is at the end of the timestream, and that it's safe to change things there (then)?!?!

I think she means to correct the mishaps of the present. By doing that, she'll get rid of the caesures and therefore get rid of any possibility to change Time, so technically she WOULD be at the end of the Time Stream.

....am I making any sense? I re-read what i wrote and it just sounds funny...

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:17 am

It's certainly possible that that's what she meant. Damned time-travel stories!!!

Hey, does heart wither the darkness?

Website · Post by **Eryne** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:22 am

Fist and Faith wrote:Hey, does heart wither the darkness?

...ok, the first thing that came to my mind reading that was Captain Planet. "Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! Darkness go away!!"

oi...

Post by **burgs** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 3:46 am

Prince of Amber wrote:You see on the one hand we are to believe that the ceasures started 100 years ago in the Land (3 months to us - when Linden gave Joan her ring back) but on the other they were around 3500 years ago in the Land when Anele lost the staff - already my brain hurts....

If Linden can ride a caesure back in time, and if the Demondim can access the Illearth Stone through a caesure to a time when it existed (I think that's the explanation, right?), then we already have two instances where caesures are being used to hop back a few spaces. In that event, it's likely that these aren't the only two that did such a thing. Anele was likely caught up in a caesure that did not exist in his time, but was made to exist in his time. In other words, someone/thing created a caesure, rode it back, and grabbed him. Whether it was accidental or incidental remains to be seen.

I don't have the timelines at the forefront of my mind, but is it possible that the caesure that Linden created is the one that brought Anele forward? I know that creates all kinds of headaches...

Post by **CovenantJr** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:23 am

Eryne wrote:
Fist and Faith wrote:Hey, does heart wither the darkness?
...ok, the first thing that came to my mind reading that was Captain Planet. "Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! Darkness go away!!"

oi...

Post by **CovenantJr** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 9:29 am

burgs66 wrote:Anele was likely caught up in a caesure that did not exist in his time, but was made to exist in his time. In other words, someone/thing created a caesure, rode it back, and grabbed him.

That bothers me about the caesures. When SRD was describing them, I took it to mean they contain a string of instants in each place they visited after their creation. I'm perfectly happy with Anele and the ur-viles travelling to the future that way, but I really don't get how Linden could create a caesure now, then use it to travel back to a time when it didn't exist - unless creating a caesure in the present causes it to have a whole history as well, but how in the hell would that work?! I can see I'll have to ask SRD at the signing...

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:49 pm

Way too complicated, and the reason I generally hate such stories. (Star Trek's Assignment Earth, with Gary 7, and City on the Edge of Forever are good exceptions. But I like them for reasons other than the time-travel aspects.) The ur-viles went into a caesure centuries before Anele did. Will both of those caesures turn out to be created by Linden so that she can get the help that she knows she got?

The book I mentioned, Thrice Upon a Time, is about a guy who invents a way to send tiny bits of information back in time. At first, only 10 digits typed into the computer, and only a minute back. The first time we see it work, he turns on the computer, a piece of paper comes out, he asks a guy to type 10 digits and hit Enter, then shows them the piece of paper, which has the same digits that were just typed. Eventually, they can send more info - maybe up to 100 digits iirc - back farther - maybe a few hours, again iirc.

They come to the conclusion that the timeline is rewritten each time info is sent back. If there was what they call a "superobserver" watching, someting outside of time, it would see events move along through time, then see the info sent back in time, then see events happen differently from the point where the info arrived.

It was possible for them to change history in such a way that the message was not sent back the second time around, but that fact did not erase the changes made because of its having been sent back in the original timeline. CONFUSED??? LOL!!! For example, a guy accidentally knocked a jar off the table. They quickly sent back a message that said something like careful jar. When they received it a minute in the past, the guy who was about to knock it off caught himself, and saved the jar. And in this new timeline, they did not send back a message saying careful jar. There was no need, since they did NOT break it this time around. Yet they had received a message.

Time-travel really bites!

I don't believe it can happen at all, but I guess it makes for some interesting stories.

Post by **ur-bane** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:59 pm

What I find most interesting about the caesures is the fact that they "run forward."
That their normal flow of time is forward, and that Linden had to exert an effort to "reverse" the caesure to get into the past.

Now, follow me here...this is confusing me even as I write it... apparently the caesures' appearance coincided with Linden returning Joan's ring.
(About 100 years according to Stave). Now, if that indeed were true, and the exit of a caesure is always in a future time from the entrance, (except when altered by an interdiction of power by one within it) it should not be possible for Anele to have gained the time in which he is living when Linden entered the Land.
People from a hundred years ago may be able to go into a future of the Land that hasn't even taken place yet..........but prior to that, no travel should have been possible.
Which leads me to another thought........if the caesures truly do encompass all moments of time simultaneously, but they flow forward, then SRD is telling us that although we have not entered it, the future is already played out, and the results of the actions of the present are already known in the future.

Following that, why not simply enter a caesure, travel a thousand, two thousand, or even three thousand years into the future, and see what it has to offer. If Foul was defeated, find out how, and then do it.
If he was not, find out what went wrong, and then try to alter it.

But that's not all. The "travelers" had to be very careful not to alter the past while questing for the Staff of Law, else the future would be affected, and therefore the present they left would not be the same. And yet, isn't taking the Staff itself an alteration of the past? Wouldn't the future present be altered due to the fact that the Staff no longer was hidden for 3,000 years?(In that particular present? ) After all, getting deeper into the time thing, not only would all moments be present in a caesure, but all possible moments would also have to be present, else changing the past would not be a concern.

But I have written enough on a subject in literature that I too, rarely enjoy. Hopefully, SRD finds a way to do it better than before. (After all, his explanations within his works are usually detailed and at least believable, if not truly possible.)

Post by **Bullfrog** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:16 pm

ur-bane wrote:the exit of a caesure is always in a future time from the entrance, (except when altered by an interdiction of power by one within it) it should not be possible for Anele to have gained the time in which he is living when Linden entered the Land.

Maybe in later books someone will reverse a caesure to go get Anele from his original time (but not bring him all the way back to that someone's "present".)

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

The Ceasures

The Ceasures