I have a suggestion, maybe sorta dumb but here goes. Time, to me, is like a series of "frames" that, if manipulated turn out a total different "movie" now if a person were to go back to a descision and and change what happened here, the origional movie would dissapear, so if this person found a mental way to project himself into one of these "frames" then he could just skim from descision to descison untill he found the one where he wanted to send his yunger self back in...
Sorta dumb but u said u were oen to suggestions

Time travel is not necessarily impossible; We don't really know yet. There are many theories that suggest time travel is possible.

Quite often time travel stories are based on existing theories. Star Trek is a good example. Event Horizon is another (the film). It may be worth your while doing some research on the arrow of time and general relativity and that sort of thing. Get some ideas from these theories to explain the time travel in your story.

[edited by - TheBigJ on January 14, 2004 10:16:18 PM]

time travel, eh?

There are plenty of ways to explain it, but among them the only one I truly hate is "magic." This is the lamest excuse for time travel ever. evar.

no matter how it is done, some simple, basic rules must apply:


1: A person in the past is not affected by what happens to him in the future. A person who kills his grandfather (a commonly misunderstood paradox) does not vanish out of existence. When a person leaves his time and enters another, he is isolated from the effects of what occurs as consequences of his actions unless it effects him while he is doing it.

2: Time travel is secret. If the word got out that time travel was possible, we would have suffered through futuristic wars and brutal dictators and stuff. Evil people would take over stuff in the past.

3: Time travel is not infinite. A person should not be able to transport endlessly or instantly to different times at the slightest whim. Just wouldn''t be cool.

Anyways thats about it.

If you read any reputable science magazine, such as Science News, or speak to any reputable scientist or physicist, all of them will say that mathematically and physically, time travel is impossible, at least to go back in time. But time travel into the future isn''t necessarily impossible. You can slow time down if you travel near the speed of light, which we cannot do yet.

quote:Original post by Chokki
1: A person in the past is not affected by what happens to him in the future. A person who kills his grandfather (a commonly misunderstood paradox) does not vanish out of existence. When a person leaves his time and enters another, he is isolated from the effects of what occurs as consequences of his actions unless it effects him while he is doing it.

I prefer an alternative theory where it''s impossible to change events that have happened. You can''t kill your grandfather before he makes your grandmother pregnant, for example, because by proxy you wouldn''t exist to kill him. But if your grandfather was killed some time after your parent was born, you could in theory be the person to kill him by travelling back in time and doing the deed. In the same way, you can go back in time and meet yourself - but you would have already had to have met your future self. If you went back in time and didn''t meet your past self, then you wouldn''t have met your future self in the first place. It brings up all sorts of philosophical questions like determinism, predestination and such, quite effectively summed up in the Matrix films: "You''ve already chosen the path..."

As far as gameplay is concerned, this means that if your character goes back in time, certain plot-critical events must have occurred, and certain plot-critical events must not. For example, if someone is assassinated in the past, you can''t prevent it by going back in time, but you can witness it. If you''re the one who assassinates them, you can''t baulk out of it... which includes dying in the process, unfortunately (you really have to sort that problem out ). If you saw yourself in the past you''ll see yourself again. If you never met yourself you can still go back in time and *observe* your past self without being spotted. Or maybe you saw some mysterious person take out all the guards around you then run away - you later realise that this was your future self hiding in the bushes, when you visit this scene later on in the game. Another nice touch might be that in the "future" time zones you might be able to read about certain events (in newspapers, libraries or archives) that seem irrelevant at the time. You later go back in time and visit the places that the article was about. When you return and read the articles again, you realise that you actually had things to do with the little irrelevant things.

Note that this all requires that the game constrains what you can and what you can''t do. This isn''t really a problem, considering that it''s no more constrained than 99% of the games out there already. It just means that you''re forced to do certain things and preveted from doing other things.

Also, remember that just by being made out of matter we''re bending time around us. It''s not a linear thing, it''s just our perception of it that it.

Right. I''m off down the pub.

[teamonkey]

quote:Original post by Nahoopii
Im curious if anyone has some input on how to explain time travel..

The concept is simplier than people make it. The faster you move the slower in time you move until ultimately you move backward in time. The slower you move, the faster in time you move until ultimately you move forward in time.

The breaking point is the speed of light and zero velocity. That''s why if electrons travel faster than the speed of light, they arrive sooner than they left.

It kind of explains how electrons seem to teleport in an electron cloud.