Temptation

[dragonrider]

Don't know where to put this thread so opted for here.

If you were a dragon rider and timed-forward and the unbelievable happened and your dragon went 'between' but you didn't and but were able to return to your present. Would you be tempted to go to that place at that time in your real-time future to get one last meeting with your beloved?

[Anareth]

I don't even understand the question.

[Eriflor]

Do you mean that the rider stayed on the ground and sent his dragon forward in time, and he didn't come back? That would be a very dangerous experiment, though I suppose there might be some emergency where a dragon and rider might agree to the risk. Or did the rider fall off at the moment of going between?

I think the dragon's non-return would mean he'd got lost between -- no doubt confused by his rider's absence -- so there'd be no place for the rider to go to meet him in the future. Moreta and Leri and their dragons had Marco and Duluth to guide them, and only about a month to wait. Are you assuming that Marco would turn up to bring the dragon out of between to his waiting rider? It's been a while since I read Beyond Between, so I've forgotten what Marco's criteria were.

[GinnyStar]

Originally Posted by Eriflor

Do you mean that the rider stayed on the ground and sent his dragon forward in time, and he didn't come back? That would be a very dangerous experiment, though I suppose there might be some emergency where a dragon and rider might agree to the risk. Or did the rider fall off at the moment of going between?

I think the dragon's non-return would mean he'd got lost between -- no doubt confused by his rider's absence -- so there'd be no place for the rider to go to meet him in the future. Moreta and Leri and their dragons had Marco and Duluth to guide them, and only about a month to wait. Are you assuming that Marco would turn up to bring the dragon out of between to his waiting rider? It's been a while since I read Beyond Between, so I've forgotten what Marco's criteria were.

Even he was unable to tell Moreta how he got back to Pardise River. For they end up in some type of grayness and Marco and Duluth, were there, 'doing rounds' Something about going to the last place entered between.

[Almaron]

I think dragonrider means this:
Picture a scenario where a dragon and their rider leap forward into the future; for example twenty years forward. While there, the dragon goes Between and perishes. However, the rider survives, and somehow (perhaps with the help of another dragon and their rider) manages to get back to his original time.

If you were that rider, and managed to survive for twenty years, would you travel to the place where you and your dragon arrived, and your dragon went Between, in the hopes of seeing your dragon one last time?

Since Time Travel for the Pern series is strictly Stable Time Loop (such as with the Time-Turners in Harry Potter), you would only be able to visit the location if you had done so originally (argh, I've phrased that horribly. Stable Time Loops are hard to describe). That's not to say it couldn't happen; either you'd remember seeing yourself at that time, or you could have hidden in the bushes, meaning your past self wouldn't realise you were there, although your dragon might have felt your presence and felt a bit confused.

[GinnyStar]

Let me think on that one, I just found an audio copy, but its getting too late. Its in a special protected format too, you need a special player to play it,

[ghost8772]

I'm thinking the temptation wouldn't be so much to see/hear/feel the dragon one more time, as to attempt paradox, keep the dragon from passing between permanently in the first place.
Hmmm.... There's a second possibility, being the cause of the problem in the first place, stealing the dragon and hopping forward to a short time after the younger self returns to their own time, dragonless. That would stabilize the time loop concept.

[Rianne]

augh! so confusing!!!!!!

[jube]

I don't find it confusing at all. My reasoning is look at Lessa - okay it was done in reverse but the scenario would be the same going forward. Lessa when she was 10 or so turns old, had a feeling that something was warning her to hide but she didn't know what - the warning probably came from Ramoth except that Lessa felt it came from the watchwher. This was when Lessa went back in time the first time she did it. Then when she brought the weyrs 400 years into the future, she did a bit of time-hopping in the space of 3 days. Think Jaxom also had to do something similiar with jumping 1800 years back and then forwards. You also look at the rider who found himself at what he thought was his weyr but wasn't and had to re-orientate himself to get back to his original time when they were doing the spatial jumps. Jaxom also went 50 years forward to make sure the print-outs were correct so it is possible.

[Anareth]

Jube: What does ANY of that have to do with the original, badly-phrased question? No one is saying you can't get lost between or confused about where/when you are, or that it's disorienting, or that it's not possible to go forward. The question seems to be that somehow the dragon went without the rider (possible but improbable except in odd circumstances), and then the way the question is poorly written makes it unclear...

Okay, I *THINK* I understand. Dragon/rider pair go forward in time. Dragon dies in the future, rider is somehow able to get back to their own time. OP is asking do you as older self go to that place when you take the Long Path (ie natural aging) to reach the point in time you'd leapt to, and see your dragon just before it makes a fatal leap, and your younger self finds some other way back...

Okay, simple then, you can't. Unless you were there the 'first' time (heck, could be your presence that causes your dragon to disappear, that would work.) Anne's Pern seems to operate on stable time loops only. If your older self wasn't there the "first" time, you cannot be there. Notice that in the examples of forward leaps we have, they very carefully NEVER approach their future-selves presumed location. Jaxom and Ruth stay aboard the ship, and in Moreta's case they're in an isolated area and didn't attempt to make contact with any dragons--and stable loop, we know the members of that expedition who lived to that point in time are deliberately NOT going there to avoid creating a paradox.)

So tempted or not, implausible as the OP's scenario would be to happen (how can a dragon die without its rider? How does the rider get to their own time?) it could happen,b ut only if it already had. It's not a question of choice.

[mawra]

Would you be tempted to go back in time to see your dragon one last time if your dragon died. Rather or not you went foreward in time or not.
I would be tempted, but, remember that if you are in more than one time you don't feel right. If you actually met yourself when went back in time you may cause more problems back then.

I wonder if Kylra (not sure it is spelled right) not spent so much time in the future watching herself would she have turned out different? Would the queen still have died?
Would spending that much time forward caused her some mental problems?

[Rianne]

what i've always wondered about is why did lessa bring the weyrs forward? she said that the reason there was only 1 weyr is because she brought the others forward. this means that if she hadn't gone back in time to get them, they would enter that pass with all the weyrs. baisicly, lessa created the problem by trying to solve the problem she had created by solving it. so the whole thing was rather pointless. (I have a feeling this only happened for the sake of plot.)

[Anareth]

Well, when the book begins, the Weyrs are empty. If she DOESN'T go back, they don't come forward, the Weyrs are STILL empty because they are, and they don't get any help.

Pern's time travel is of the Stable Time Loop variety. (Warning: TV Tropes link. Click it and kiss your day good-bye.) Lessa HAS to go back, because she's already done it.

[Rianne]

but,but, but... well, I did spend a ton of time following links on TV tropes, as always, and got even more confused than i was in the first place. i ended up reading about how santa is a space alien. don't ask how I got there from Stable time loops...

But if lessa doesn't go back she hasn't already done it. imagine if someone found some problem with it, or Lessa reilised she could save herself a lot of trouble without doing it, and sent someone to stop her, then she wouldent have already done it.
OR, if she went back, and the oldtimers would'nt come with her. and she came back. that would mean that she never would of had to go back because the oldtimers where already there. witch mean that she would have no reason to go get them.

[Almaron]

Time Loops can be confusing, but the answer boils down to what Anareth said - "Lessa HAS to go back, because she's already done it. "

You're looking at things from the point of view of the person in the story, instead of the larger picture, which is time itself. Chronologically, Lessa has already gone back to the 8th Pass - Lessa would have appeared from seemingly thin air in the 8th Interval, and then left with the five Weyrs. Thus, despite her choices, it was predetermined that in the 9th Pass she would ultimately go back and do this. It would be impossible for anything to prevent Lessa from reaching this point, because her future self had already visited the past.

In an Unstable Time Loop, which is what you're thinking of, people can visit another time frame and change such events. Pern is strictly Stable Time Loop, so if something happens, it happens, and it cannot be changed.

Example Of Stable Time Loop: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Example Of Unstable Time Loop: Back To The Future

(Predestination, by the way, does not prevent free will; it's a matter of perspective. If a time-traveller in a Stable Time Loop visits the future to see one of their friends, then they know what will happen to them, and have predetermined their fate. However, when they return, their friend will still have the free will to make choices up to that day. Consider when you read a book; you can skip ahead to read the end, and thus predetermine the fates of the characters, and yet nothing has changed for the characters; at the start of the book, they still have the free will to make the choices they make that lead up to the end).

I could go on like this - me and a bunch of friends once heavily discussed the mechanics of time-travel, alternate dimensions and the like - but Time Loop discussion is harder on a forum, as opposed to real life, where one can also draw up diagrams quickly and make quick comment.

[mawra]

I am going to take the easy way and say what I say when it ccomes up on tv, she had to go back in time because Anne said so. If she had not gone back in time then the problems caused by the Old Timers would not happen.

[semantre]

Originally Posted by Rianne

what i've always wondered about is why did lessa bring the weyrs forward? she said that the reason there was only 1 weyr is because she brought the others forward. this means that if she hadn't gone back in time to get them, they would enter that pass with all the weyrs. baisicly, lessa created the problem by trying to solve the problem she had created by solving it. so the whole thing was rather pointless. (I have a feeling this only happened for the sake of plot.)

Not necessarily. Lessa suspected that the reason there were no dragons is because she brought them forward, but it could be that if she didn't go to bring them forward they would have independently chosen (through whatever plottish means a writer found viable) to try going forward and failed to arrive because they didn't have Lessa's knowledge of how to time-shift over a long span successfully. So instead of them arriving in the 9th Pass, ready to fight more Thread since they were oh-so-freaking-bored at the end of the 8th Pass, they all get lost between, or possibly arrive too late to be useful, and Pern really is stuck with a handful of dragons against a ton of Thread. Or, something else happened and wiped them all out, and Benden was just lucky.

Huh, that might actually be an interesting fan-fic, written from the POV of the 8th Pass leaders.

Anyhow, Lessa not going into the past cannot magically make the dragons reappear, since it would render her entire timeline invalid, and probably 95% of the 9th Pass people we know and love/hate would never be born because there would be tons of dragons and their supporting populations impacting the Pernese population distribution. People would get Searched who otherwise wouldn't have, and events that resulted from the lack of dragons would occur differently, and as a whole, you end up with a book that is too confusing to be worth reading. Blah. Stable time loops are much, much better.

[Anareth]

Stable time loops are ANNOYING, in that they often create their own paradoxes (my favorite example being the Stable Time Loop plot of "Somewhere In Time": Richard meets a mysterious old woman who gives him a watch and tells him "Come back to me"; he finds out who she was--a famous actress--goes to an old hotel where she once stayed, falls in love with her portrait from eighty-whatever years ago. He goes back in time, taking the watch with him, meets her, they fall in love, he leaves the watch there when he's accidentally propelled back to his own time, she keeps the watch, carries it for eighty-whatever years, until, as a very old woman, she meets Richard and gives him the watch and tells him "Come back to me..." So, where did the watch come from?)

But it's that or wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ball, which makes even LESS sense, that or you get into BTTF scenarios where you can accidentally earse yourself from existence.

From Lessa's perspective: she knows the Weyrs are empty. To reach the point in time at which she exists, the Weyrs MUST be empty for the last 400 years. She theorizes that they are empty because they are coming forward in time, but it must be because someone went and got them, and as she's figured it out, it must be her. Even if it's not--the Weyrs are empty. They went somewhere for some reason. If she goes, she doesn't know what will happen--she knows the Weyrs went somewhere, she doesn't know if they ever arrived. If she DOESN'T go...they vanished for some other reason, because they're gone.

[semantre]

Time travel period is annoying. Why can't people just deal with their own point in time and not screw around with past/future crap?

[Rianne]

All for the sake of plot.

[Dragon Fan]

Actually I beleive Lessa opened and closed the time loop by doing what she did, Which I guess would be called a Closed loop. Not a repeating loop, which the word loop suggests there by making it a stable loop. What ever happened to the Weyr's had lessa not gone back would be a AU or alternate time line.
Besides, If Lessa hadn't gone back and brought the Weyr's forward We wouldn't be having this interesting discussion and this Thread ( no pun intended) wouldn't exist...............or would it?

[Rianne]

hmmmmm...

[Anareth]

If you COULD time travel, why wouldn't you?

It's a stable time loop. Those by their nature are closed. And UNDER THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL ON ANNE'S PERN (as opposed to any other universe's) there is no AU--what has happened, will happen, because it has happened. In fact the ENTIRETY of Pern's history of human occupation is shaped by time travel that must have already happened--without the long intervals, Jaxom never exists to Impress Ruth to go back in time to create the long intervals. Therefore Jaxom has already done it before he's born. There's a permanent loop because if there weren't, the events of the books can't have happened.

(As opposed to, say BTTF, where there was a 1985 where Biff's still a bully, George is still a wuss, and Loraine's and alky, which becomes an alternate timeline from the perspective of Marty the time-traveler with the "real" 1985 being the one where Biff's a mechanic, George is an author, and Loraine's a fit Hot Mom, and there's ANOTHER alternate timeline in which Biff's a gambling tycoon...on Pern, there is only one timeline, created by a time-travel loop similar to Somewhere In Time's.)

[Dragon Fan]

[QUOTE=Anareth;177128]If you COULD time travel, why wouldn't you?

It's a stable time loop. Those by their nature are closed. And UNDER THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL ON ANNE'S PERN (as opposed to any other universe's) there is no AU--what has happened, will happen, because it has happened. In fact the ENTIRETY of Pern's history of human occupation is shaped by time travel that must have already happened--without the long intervals, Jaxom never exists to Impress Ruth to go back in time to create the long intervals. Therefore Jaxom has already done it before he's born. There's a permanent loop because if there weren't, the events of the books can't have happened. QUOTE]



All because Lessa used time travel to Skip over 400 turns Doesn't mean those 400 turns and the people in them, didn't exist, ( she seems to choose not to write about them) I do beleive she has said tha none of her series stories take part in the same Universe.
I also don't think AM wrote her Pern stories with the intent to have all her characters living a life with no free will or the ability to make choices using free will, At the discretion of their future selves.

[Anareth]

Of course people existed in those 400 years and that time happened. But their choices were dictated by the lack of the Weyrs, which were gone because Lessa had already gone back in time. If she hadn't, she couldn't exist to chose to go back or NOT to go back.

Plus, all Pernese history since the first Long Interval happened, too--and that was directly because of Jaxom. Jaxom and Ruth created the long intervals, during which people lived and died in ways they wouldn't have without it, one of the results of which was that Fax came to power in the second long interval and among other things, married Gemma, resulting in Jaxom's birth. Jaxom doesn't exist without the Long Interval, which HE caused. Stable time loop. If he doesn't go back and cause the Long Intervals, the circumstances of his birth don't occur.

The people living in the Long Interval can make all the inconsequential free will choices they like. But the circumstances they're making them in were dictated by actions Lessa and Jaxom performed, without which they would be facing a different set of choices.

[Dragon Fan]

So 2000 turns or so of Pern History was "dictated by actions Lessa and Jaxom performed" ........Two people who as yet didn't exist?

[ghost8772]

Originally Posted by Dragon Fan

So 2000 turns or so of Pern History was "dictated by actions Lessa and Jaxom performed" ........Two people who as yet didn't exist?

Not directly. the 400 years of one weyr was a result of Lessa traveling back in time to have the weyrs come forward. Jaxom skipping a couple teams of Dragons and spaceship engines back in time had only the effect of two long intervals, and some hold entries about a flash visible on the red star.

I haven't read the tropes stuff yet, but I have run across a number of stories with time travel. Some where the compelling argument is "You will because you already have" stable time loops, others where paradoxes abound. I haven't heard if anyone has actually made time travel happen, aside from just waiting to see what the future will bring, but I have a feeling it would be more like the stable time loop than the other sort, or sorts.

The discussion has brought to mind a question. if this hypothetical situation arose, and the rider did take the long road to see/hear beloved dragon again, would (s)he? Lessa and Jaxom have both had incidents when their future self, with dragon, was close enough for contact with the younger self's mind, but there was no mention of a cross link. i.e. older dragon younger rider. There wasn't even an acknowledgement of the younger dragon registering the presence of the older dragon, considering the dragon's telepathy and ability to always know whom they are addressing, there should have been some crossed communications during jaxom's jaunt to retrieve the egg at least.

[Almaron]

Remember, when you deal with Time Travel, you can't really focus on one moment of time, because time travel by nature isn't linear - it goes all over the place.

For time travel to be possible, the different moment of time has to exist somewhere, so every moment in time must exist to some degree simultaneously on a different plane. The fact that somebody wasn't born 2000 years before an event they changed means nothing - when they are born, that's what they will do. Jaxom and Ruth appear in the 4th Interval from the 9th Pass? Just because the 9th Pass hasn't happened yet for the inhabitants of the 4th Interval doesn't mean it won't.

As I said earlier, the fact that something will ultimately happen doesn't mean that a person has no free will up until that point; it's just a matter of perspective.

[Anareth]

Originally Posted by ghost8772

Not directly. the 400 years of one weyr was a result of Lessa traveling back in time to have the weyrs come forward. Jaxom skipping a couple teams of Dragons and spaceship engines back in time had only the effect of two long intervals, and some hold entries about a flash visible on the red star.
.

You aren't grasping the bigger picture. There's a reason that, before Anne & Co. relaxed significantly on fan fic and RP "rules", one major way to make sure you stayed out of Anne's characters and situations was to set up your RP Weyr in a timeline where the Long Intervals never happened. Everything on Pern changes--population numbers are different (more dragons born at different times), Passes happen at different times because the two long gaps are missing, so people would be in different places, meeting different people, riders Impressing from the larger clutches that would have occurred if the Passes stayed on the regular schedule so people in the original timeline who wouldn't have been riders would be, leading to marriages that would have happened not happening--most relevant to the Ninth Pass books, no empty Weyrs, no reduction in numbers at Benden, and very likely no Fax as his military actions were only possible because he didn't think a Pass was coming and there was no pressure to maintain the power status quo. So even if Lessa ends up being born at roughly the same time as in the original, she doesn't wind up a drudge, doesn't get Searched at the last minute for the last queen egg on Pern (because it isn't, if Ramoth's ever even clutched as Jora is not a likely candidate if the respect for the Weyrs is maintained and being Searched is still an honor), and Jaxom either never exists or if he is somehow born, isn't heir to Ruatha.

The *noticeable* effects, ie the ones non-time-travelers are aware of, might be a long interval and a few sparks on the Red Star. The societal consequences were huge.

[ghost8772]

first, I've never written or read fan fiction regarding pern, no interest. Second I also seldom play RPG's, so no experience in those areas. I have read, and pretty much understand the mechanics and effects of time travel on Pern, as written by Ms. McCaffrey. As I see it, there are no alternate realities, paradoxes, or "corrections" of past events, because the past has already happened. Granted there hasn't been a case written that showed a rider trying to change the past, two closest incidents were Jaxom planning to avert Robinton's death, and Mihall's attempt to stop his younger self from taking a course of action.

The time travel is in two viewpoints, the nearly objective line outside of the time traveler, which shows them at each time they were visiting, basically the rider can be represented this way as being inconsistent in existence. The second part is subjective time of the rider this shows a continuous timeline as far as the rider is concerned, constant build of time and experience, seeing the world change by the trips.

The way the time travel here has been written, neither Lessa or Jaxom had any choice in making their trips. by both the previous arguments that has been implied. because if they hadn't made those trips, their very existence could have been void. Therefore since they did exist they had to go back to put into motion the events needed within the society to bring about their current world and personal existence.

I personally prefer the simpler expedient that in this instance there is no changing historical events. too many complications otherwise.
Example. Jaxom goes back and prevents his mother from journeying with Fax to Ruatha. His mother lives, Fax probably still dies, but does Lessa become Weyrwoman? or does Jaxom become Lord of High Reaches, with his mother as regent, and Lessa become Lady of Ruatha? does Ramoth impress a different girl? Does Ramoth impress anyone? Does F'lar still become weyrleader? does anybody go back to retrieve the five weyrs? Are hatchings opened to holders? Any of these changes to the timeline, would affect Jaxom's becoming rider for Ruth, so is he immune to the paradox? if not then the moment he changed an event his existence would have ended, or Ruth's would have. There is also another level of paradox. if you changed an event that you felt so strongly about to go back and change so it didn't happen, how would you have known to go back and change the event that was in your past?

[Almaron]

I once wrote a page on how alternate universes and time travel could work; one part of it dealt with this sort of thing.

To try and put it simply, imagine every moment of time existing simultaneously on different planes - this is required for Time Travel to work. Then, imagine an infinite amount of different versions of each moment - alternate universes which are created from different choices; a bird flies to the left instead of the right, seemingly insignificant, but slowly changing things. Time ends up looking like a probability chart, with different choices spanning off one another endlessly.

With this in mind, a time traveller going to the past would travel further up the tree of possibilities. When they make their change, they have changed the future for them only - the future they came from still exists, along with every other moment of time, but they cannot return to it due to their changes. The best they can hope for is finding a future that is similar to the one they left, which could be difficult, considering just how the butterfly effect can change things.

I don't know if I've explained this well; perhaps I should post my whole essay.

[Anareth]

ghost8772: You still aren't understanding. The RP example does not require you to have played any. The point is, you need to create a Pern with no chance of running into Anne's characters? The easiest way to do it is remove the Long Intervals (which by extension removes Lessa's ride.) Because then, because of the way any history works inclulding the real world, everything is different. You simply cannot say the only effects are a few notes about explosions on the Red Star. No, the "only" effects are the entire history of Pern. Remove the time travel, the history changes--THAT IS BASIC CAUSE AND EFFECT. It is like saying that because the American Civil War ended with the country not splitting up, the "only" change is slavery was illegal. Uh, no, the only change is 600,000 people died in times and places they otherwise would not have. Remove the war, those people live, some people reproduce who didn't, some don't who would have, people move to different places, build different structures, inventions that were made aren't, inventions that weren't made are. Lessa and Jaxom have to do their rides because it's already been done, not because it "only" changed a few things but because they changed EVERYTHING. That does not mean there are AUs, that's Logic 101. You cannot use the argument "durrr, RPGs aren't canon and there aren't AUs in the book" to say that therefore the time travel didn't change anything. It created the entire world and brought it to a point where everyone concerned could be born to go back and change the world.