Why cant you go forward to meet yourself?

Lets say that the Doctor drops Eose back to the point she left, that means she would be around in 2016. So could visit herself if the Rose from 2006 travelled to 2015?

No, cos she left again in 2006!

Yeah, but we don't know she didn't go back to 2006. All we know is that she didn't go back to 2006 in the 30 seconds immedietely after she left.

Yes . that is my point. The only example I can use is Tegan, she was in the show for , 3 years??? Anyway if memory serves me correctly her car breaks down and she enters the TARDIS, 3 years later the Doctor takes her back to the point her car broke down. She she never actually left 1983 (or whatever year it was) but in our time she had been gone 3 years.

So in theory if the Doctor had taken her back seconds before the time she entered the TARDIS she would of met herself about to enter it.

Tegan entered the TARDIS in 1981 (Logopolis) and left in 1984 (Resurrection of the Daleks) so she in fact lost three years of time on Earth.

You might be getting confused when Tegan left very briefly at the end of Time-Flight which was set in 1981.

But wasnt her final scene back where she started on that road? Im going purely from memory and its a LONG time back

I think time travel is much more complex than this.

The reason Rose couldn't go and meet her future self is because it was not yet known that she would return. Every time the Doctor takes her away in his TARDIS, she is "removed" from the fixed timline - ie, the future changes to reflect her being a time traveller, and not someone who is stationary, so to speak.

We know that the future can change, because if Rose hadn't gone with the Doctor the first time, then she wouldn't have been missing for a year. So even if Rose was "destined" to do certain things in 2016, because she is time travelling these things aren't done, until she returns. If she goes travelling again, she doesn't do these things again, and so on.

This is just another theory. If it isn't 100% clear then apologies - I'll read it again in the morning, and see if it does make sense. If it doesn't, I'll change it accordingly. I'm just a bit :sleep: at the moment!!!!

:: Pulls anorak out of closet, dusts it off, shakes out moths and puts it on ::

Time-Travel into the past (since we're all surfing time into the future) is a dangerous thing. It's like playing 3-dimensional Tetris from all sides and trying to keep some layers intact while collapsing others and still not making the structure too big.

According to the established 'facts', a time-traveler cannot contradict their own time-line (without help). So you can't go to someplace you're already at and you can't go back and undo something that you know happened. The future is open, the past is closed. The loophole is that if it's the future to you, it's still open, even if it's the past.

Now, with help or other circumstances, it is entirely possible to change things, as the Time Lords and other agencies have done. The Doctor couldn't go back to the same place and time during any given event he's been to on his own (he couldn't park the TARDIS next to the past version of itself, for example) but he could appear on the other side of the planet if it wasn't a global issue, or he could appear on another planet at that time. If the Time Lords gave him an assist, he could be made to put down next to his past self, but then there's danger of paradox, which is really just another way of saying tear or bubble in the fabric of the continuum, and according to the show, it uses a huge amount of power to double up like that, increasing steadily as you keep doing it.

But why? How?

It's how the universe (at least the universe of Doctor Who) is built.

The universe is expanding like a balloon or soap-bubble. The expansion of the universe is perceived as time. The universe has a 'surface tension' (really it's a distributed energy state in equilibrium with entropy) which tries to smooth out the shape and keep things from bunching up in one place. Try to put The Doctor too close to his other self and he'll be bounced away before he can materialize. Use a cosmic loophole or brute force like the Time Lords do, and you can stick him there anyway. However, the universe has to 'stretch and fold' to accommodate the doubled presence of The Doctor, and if he were to try to get too close to his other self's corner of the continuum, the pressure would increase to try and shunt him away (first come, first served, of course) or smooth out the continuity which might eventually cause a rip or bubble to appear. Think of a balloon that's inflating; if you try to pinch off part of it so the sides of it touch, you'll have to use more and more strength the more the balloon inflates. Eventually, you'll either not have enough strength or you'll pop the balloon. But the universe is really more like a soap bubble. But if it's a soap bubble, you have to use force to keep the bubble from bursting or splitting into multiple bubbles as well as to defeat the expansion pressure.

Causality can be defeated by folding the universe, but if you shift the causal waveform too much (like pinching and pulling off a bit of a soap bubble), you collapse the continuum into a steadier state which would eliminate the paradox (you get a little bubble stuck to the big bubble or floating off away from it). Susan was left in such a bubble when the events leading to the post-Dalek-invasion Earth she was left on were changed. Is she eliminated from the continuum? Not entirely, although she's isolated from the Primary Continuum by the causal paradox. She's in an alternate continuum where her timeline continues. But to those who were in the Primary Continuum, she's just gone. This is possible because of the TARDIS being used to transport her there. If she'd stayed on Earth (or in the Primary Continuum) then she'd have been swept into the revised paradigm by her causal link to it. The TARDIS is already a bubble separate from the continuum (only part of the causal equation when it has materialized in the Primary Continuum), and so causality is suspended (the state of "Temporal Grace" that The Doctor has mentioned for things inside the TARDIS.) When Susan moved to the reality that had Earth invaded via the TARDIS, she was able to be left in that orphaned reality because there was no causal connection to yank her to the new form of the continuum.

So where does that leave Rose?

By moving into the Future and living through the invasion in 2006, where Rose had been missing for a year, she may be able to be returned to 2005, but she'd never be able to contact her mum or Mickey (unless they had their memories wiped of her previous visit, along with everyone else, or they acted like she was missing when she wasn't), because her causal progression (personal history) says so. In fact, The TARDIS wouldn't be able to materialize if it would create the paradox unless it wrestled the continuum into submission first, which it's not supposed to be able to do. In another fact, that may be why they missed 2005 in the first place (she may have been involved in something important in 2005 elsewhere nearby and The TARDIS got bumped to the next stable coordinate). If someone were to force the issue too much, the Universe will realign to the path of least resistance and she'll be put into the new pattern of existence or pulled into her own paradox bubble, whichever. Could she go to 2012 again and meet her older self, assuming she lives through her adventures and The Doctor returns her to sometime in the general timeframe of 2005/6? Absolutely, if there's no causal conflict with another event. Could she meet her younger self? No. That waveform has been fixed and did not include her older self, so she'd need a big bit of help and possibly make a mess of the continuum.

So how did The Doctor end up the only Time Lord? Since The TARDIS is only part of the Primary Continuum when it is materialized, he must have been at least partially materialized when he (and it would have to have been him) did what he did to undo the Time War. He may have had to erect a time barrier around his TARDIS, too. He would have also had to have been the only Time Lord and TARDIS in the continuum at the time he did the deed. Presumably, he was pushed to it by all the time-traveling making so many paradoxes that the universe was otherwise going to pop. Since the Time Lords erected a barrier which is supposed to have removed the planet from causal responsibility (the Time Barrier that shifts Gallifrey into another bubble and makes them accessible only via TARDIS), perhaps the Daleks managed to get to Gallifrey by stealing a TARDIS or with the assistance of a Time Lord. Or perhaps the barrier got taken down and the Daleks used the moment to try to destroy Gallifrey in the far past (Remember Gallifrey is supposed to be an extremely old planet, having formed early in the Universe.. or at least that's the suggested history) and The Doctor had to use The Hand Of Omega or its like to take them out but took out Gallifrey, too. No matter now. What does matter is that any other TARDIS that was outside of the continuum might have survived as well. It might not be able to navigate to the current Primary Continuum, but it could be out there. Any other TARDIS that had traveled back to that time or before and been hovering might still be around, too. The bubble Gallifrey is in could be popped, floating off into the Vortex or just stuck there in a paradox, waiting for someone to unravel it and let it rejoin the Primary Continuum. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

:: Takes off anorak ::

Mind you, I'm quite mad, so this could be nowhere near what the show will establish.

Also, I think I'm going to burn that anorak.
Last edited by LordGrotesk : 03-05-2005 at 03:57

Sorry, but I you lost me after the second paragraph

I assume you were totally bored at half-past three in the morning when you wrote that ?

Oh, and don't burn that anorak. It's well deseved

I couldn't understand a word of that.

Trying to think this through. The reality non-time travellers are living through is the ultimate reality whereas time travellers can change what is the utlimate reality. But there is only one ultimate reality. For example you could go back in time and clump Lee Harvey Oswald on the head so he doesn't kill Kennedy. That would mean the reality with Kennedy dead would cease to be and we would only know the single ultimate reality where Kennedy completes his term as President. Now, if Kennedy starts a nuclear war ( remember Red Dwarf ) then it is possible for someone to go back and clump the man who would clump Oswald on the back of the neck and a third new reality would come in to fruition. It is not the same ultimate reality as the first but rectifies the calmity raised from the second one but the only people who would know it was different would be the two time travellers.
Can you see another version of yourself - maybe. There would be some rules though. It you travelled from 2012 and visited your 2006 self then if you made contact then you would remember it and then you have self-determined your future - ie you know you will live until 2012 and you know you will travel back in time at a certain date. That would propell your life to that date. It would be interesting to purposely try and miss that date knowing you travelled there and see how nature would force you to travel there and then.
One major reason for not interfering with the past is that it could mess you up. By preventing an accident in the past you could cause an accident to a direct relative which could ultimately lead to you not being born which means you cannot prevent the accident which means that you get born to try and prevent the accident...and you could get caught on a pointless loop. That is the reason you can't affect anything that will directly affect you or your dircect ancestors.
I think all that makes sense.
But in answer to the question Rose can travel back and see herself in that time but it's best not to make contact nor cause anything that will change time because that can change her destiny and prevent her going back in time and she'll return to a frankly similar original utlimate reality.
I think !!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polly_Perkins
Mmmm ok. So in the film the Daleks invade Earth in 2150 AD, yet in 2012 the last Dalek is supposedly killed.

So if that were the case would that mean that 2150 doesnt happen?

The Peter Cushing films are not considered to be part of Doctor Who "canon".

Hmmm to make a little easier reading, I belive in the first episode of tis series the Doctor said the Daleks didn't invade untill 2150.

Tegan met the Doctor on the Barnet By Pass when her car broke down and left after the defeat of the Daleks in 1984. She watched the TARDIS dematerialise inside a warehouse down near Tower Bridge.

Hope that helps.

Now anorak-free, I can mention that apparently the writers of the current show say that if it's new to you, it's the future, so you can do what you like. This apparently includes contradicting one's own timeline.
They veer off of the 'The universe fixes itself' path a bit
but it's more dramatic the way they do it.

So yeah, one would suppose that If she went to a time she was already in, Rose could do any of the time-folding things you'd think she could. (Hey, now! Stop thinking that!) But The TARDIS isn't supposed to occupy the same area of time as itself, otherwise The Doctor wouldn't be the only Time Lord, right? He'd be lots of Time Lords!



...But remember! Things that are put in The TARDIS (or any TARDIS) are in a state of 'Temporal Grace' because the inside of a TARDIS isn't part of the real world. Which means paradox would be negated (you could survive killing your parents, for example) but you'd be orphaned from your home chronology.

On the plus side, you could buy something really snazzy that everyone has in your own timeline and get it on the cheap, then go back in time and burn down the factory and still have the thing that you bought. Think of the collector's value that would have!

(Whoa! Back, anorak! Down!)

BTW, I am a bit hurt by the "I didn't understand a word" comments, but I blame it on the anorak's evil influence.
...And the fact that I take my absinthe diluted.
...With laudanum.
Last edited by LordGrotesk : 04-05-2005 at 03:07

What is the big deal with billie piper anyway she is a good sidekick

Looks like part of this diuscussion will be revealed next week.

Seems Rose goes back in time and saves her father and changes the entire time line.

If you go back in time and meet yourself when you were (say) ten years old, you have in effect created two versions of yourself. One met a future version of themselves when they were ten, one did not.

Otherwise, say you go back, meet yourself and cut them on the leg. Does that mean a scar will suddenly appear on your own leg? I reckon not. If things you do to the young version of you affects yourself simultaneously then the following could happen:

10 year old you meets older version and thinks "I don't like this experience, I'm not going to grow up to be a person who travels back in time to freak out younger versions of me". Then POOF!, the older version disappears!
Last edited by Andy Ryan : 08-05-2005 at 11:24

I think the solution is either that there is only a single timeline in which case the 10 year old that met the future self is the only version that ever existed, and it is impossible to make any changes at all because they already happened, or that there are multiple timelines, and by travelling back you move onto a different timeline. Therefore if you cut the leg off your 10 year old self, he would grow up without a leg and have a very different life, but your own past is unaffected (This is what Jogn Titor claims).

Not sure where Dr Who is going though.

I think the problem with understanding time travel is that because we don't know how to do it (yet) other than linearly travelling forward at the rate we are, we don't know the consequences.
There is also the queston of whether there is only one type of time travel (not be confused with thinking this is asking if there is more than one way of time travel.

Next week we should have a breif explination of a time paradox and how this affects the Doctor Who universe and we should hopefully find out a bit more about time travel ing eneral in the Doctor Who universe.

From this, we should just accept what ever we are told to be true. I'm sure it will be easy come next Saturday night and Sunday things like "But tht is not right" or" But what if this happens", in way we shouldn't be saying that what we are tiold next week is wrong and that it doesn't fit in with our understanding of time travel.

This is because no one can, as yet, truely undetsand time travel and no one can say what is or isn't the truth. We will just have to accpet that what ever we are told is the truth for the type of time travel the Doctor does and it's consequences are the truth for that type of time travel.

Well Greg the former theory makes no sense for exactly the reason you say - if you cut off your younger self's leg then you'd have changed the timeline. If you remember in your earlier years being visited by yourself, well then you could just decide NOT to visit yourself, or visit yourself wearing a different hat! Multiple timelines is the only theory that makes any sense.

Personally I tend to favour the first theory, because it pretty much renders backwards time travel an impossibility

If it were true, it throws up lots of potentially challenging questions about the nature of free will.

But then it all depends which timeline you perceeve(sp?) things in and whether you who is respnsible for the change actually is immune to the change or not.

You could go back and change thepast: which universe would the viewers then see? Is it the one where the changed event follows through to the point where the changer travelled from? Is it the changers orignal timeline? A mixture of both? Can you travel between thee different time lines without the need for changing any time?

Nah, I don't think time travel can question the nature of free will in so much that you can consider you already made the choices in the future...you just haven't experienced then yet.

You can take the point of view that at the start of the universe the entirety of time was created in a split second, all events all choices everything from particles, to trees, to humans would ever make were made by them at the very start. It's just that each individual thing (particle/person etc) is taking time to experience these choices ....one could argue that this is not free will, but thinking of it this way, everyone makes their own choices at the start of the universe...it's only that you don't 'experience' the choices you make straight away.

In away, the entire history of the universe was carried out in it's first instance of existance and we are all just moving forwards through it at our own speed....time travellers are just going through it at different speeds and can go both forwards and back.

as was so perfectly put by one Captain Janeway "I hated Temporal Mechanics at the acadamey"

Deleks have been known to have time travel access before.


No, we saw what happened in Father's Day when Rose "saved" her father from death, which, too, creates a paradox.