Stupid time paradox's

[OrinMaxden]

Ok can someone tell me what the Paradox would be or how to get around it?

Ex: There is a powerful artifact and the only people who can use it are all killed. So a god destroys it so that it can't be used for evil. Well someone who can use it survives. Now they need it and they go back in time to get it right before it's destroyed and bring it back to the present. When they go back in time the god gives it to him right before he would have destroyed it.

The artifact still wouldn't exist between when it was destroyed and when it arrives in the future/present. I know that as soon as you start messing with time usually something won't add up right. or when time comes back around something won't make sense. so what is it? and whats the best way to get around it?

Thanks for any thoughts and info.

[Red Dragon]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Replicas

People took the artifact and God actually destroyed a replica.

[Ryner]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Ex: There is a powerful artifact and the only people who can use it are all killed. So a god destroys it so that it can't be used for evil. Well someone who can use it survives. Now they need it and they go back in time to get it right before it's destroyed and bring it back to the present. When they go back in time the god gives it to him right before he would have destroyed it.

I would rework your plot if I were you, as this passage is completely nonsensical.

[jvrlopez]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Watch Back to the Future II.

Christopher Lloyd breaks it down to laymen's terms.

[Loki]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

I don't understand the question. PLus there are logic problems. 1. If there are no people left who can use the thing why does God destroy it? 2. If one person who can use it does survive why does God give it to him when there is now cause to destroy it?

[Red Dragon]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

I think he was using an example. Not really a thought out plan for his RPG... I could be wrong though.

[Loki]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

It sounds like an example from his game.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Did anybody actually see the god destroy the artifact, or did everyone assume that it was destroyed? Theoretically, the truth may be that some guy from the future came along and took it instead.

[Crythania]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Ok can someone tell me what the Paradox would be or how to get around it?

Ex: There is a powerful artifact and the only people who can use it are all killed. So a god destroys it so that it can't be used for evil. Well someone who can use it survives. Now they need it and they go back in time to get it right before it's destroyed and bring it back to the present. When they go back in time the god gives it to him right before he would have destroyed it.

Okay, let's work this. Umm...

The only people who can use this thing... let's give it a name. I'll call it "The Chalice of Life". So the only people who are capable of using this thing are all dead. A god destroys the chalice so it can't be used for evil.

Umm...

You just lost me there. The only people who can use the chalice are all dead. No one could use it for evil. This god must be a moron. He's not very smart.

But wait! Behold! Someone who can use it did survive after all. They're not all dead! Whoa! The god should know this (he's a god, after all; if he doesn't know everything that's going on in the world, then he shouldn't be called a "god"). So Mr. God Dude destroys the chalice so this one last guy can't use it for evil. This begs the question: why didn't Mr. God Dude destroy it earlier while all the guys who can use it were alive? For that matter, why does this chalice exist in the first place? I can't stand it when powerful artifacts that can make or break the world exist for some reason. It's like the hydrogen bomb. Okay, it's not. It's like... the nuclear bomb. Powerful artifact that can be used for good (MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction) or evil (AD: Assured Destruction).

So the "Chalice of Life" is like a nuclear warhead, with a handful of scientists who actually understand how to operate it. They all got wiped out, but one of them survived. So Mr. God Dude destroyed the chalice so that this one guy can't start World War 3.

Now "they" need it. "They" is someone... someone who needs it. Okay. So "they" go back in time and steal it right before Mr. God Dude destroys it. Umm... How would they pull this off? We're talking about a god here. He's supposed to be pretty sharp. This is an impossible mission that even Tom Cruise would balk at.

Nevertheless, our IMF team does find a way to pull the wool over Mr. God Dude's eyes and abscond with the chalice right before he's gonna demolish it. Now unless Mr. God Dude is in a coma, he's probably gonna notice that the chalice is missing. "Hey, I was just gonna destroy that. Where'd it go? Oh, I see. Tom Cruise took it to the future. That guy has a lot of nerve."

Oh, I see. I just read your next line. Tom Cruise doesn't steal it from Mr. God Dude. Mr. God Dude gives it to Tom Cruise. That's pretty generous of him, considering that he was going to destroy it. Tom Cruise must be planning on using it for the cause of good.

The artifact still wouldn't exist between when it was destroyed and when it arrives in the future/present.

This makes absolutely no sense. The chalice was never destroyed. Mr. God Dude decided to give it to to Tom Cruise, then Tom Cruise took it to the future. What you've got going on here is: the chalice doesn't exist between the time that Mr. God Dude gave it to Tom Cruise and when Tom Cruise arrived in the future. And this makes perfect sense because the chalice was merely transported from the past to the future. There's no paradox here. The only thing going on is a period of time during which the chalice is nowhere to be seen.

There's not even an opportunity for a paradox here. The chalice exists, then it is given to someone, who transports it to the future. There's no opportunity for someone to use the chalice or even find it between the time it was given to Tom Cruise and when Tom Cruise arrived in the future (because it doesn't exist during that time period). One way to create a paradox here is if Tom Cruise arrives in the future, loses the chalice, and... he still needs it, so he travels even further into the past and steals it before Mr. God Dude gave it to him. That would create a contradictory situation where the chalice is stolen before it was given to him, but it was stolen because it was given to him.

My personal feeling about this story is that it should have a happy ending where Tom Cruise gets killed (and stays dead this time).

[OrinMaxden]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Okay, sorry, i was being as vague as possible for a few reasons. 1. didn't want to type out my whole story 2. didn't want to give much of my story away.

The gods in my world are powerful but not all konwing. Think of them (there are 6) as new born gods, not the all powerful all knowing god of Christianity. So they have lots of power but can make mistakes. Also the family guarding the artifact is killed but maybe someone had something going on, on the side . Also there are more people than the guardians that can use it, so its destroy.

Everyone has free will even the "gods". so they can do good things or bad things.

When the world was first made the gods made something sentient that grew in power over time and became a threat to them. they then made this non sentient artifact and gave it to "good" people (the guardians) to get rid of the problem. This worked until the guardians of the artifact where killed. So its destroyed.

In the future something again gets out of hand. The only thing that can save them is the artifact.

It would be destroyed until someone goes back into the past. Your right in saying that it would have never been destroyed because they change the past, but up until that point when they actually go back, it is destroyed. I don't want a Paradox so that is good if there isn't one. So if the loop can keep going where it keeps getting brought into the future without there being a problem that's a good thing. The only problem i can work out in my head is this:

Like I said they go back get it and come back to the future (their present) and fix the problem. Yay. BUT... the past will become the present and the problem will happen again. So again they will have to go back into the past and get the thing again, but its already been taken from the past the first time. So each time would they have to keep going back a little earlier then the time before? (not sure if that makes sense)

Hope this helps i will try and make things clearer if this doesn't make sense. Thanks for all your thoughts so far

[DYRE]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Ok can someone tell me what the Paradox would be or how to get around it?

Ex: There is a powerful artifact and the only people who can use it are all killed. So a god destroys it so that it can't be used for evil. Well someone who can use it survives. Now they need it and they go back in time to get it right before it's destroyed and bring it back to the present. When they go back in time the god gives it to him right before he would have destroyed it.

The artifact still wouldn't exist between when it was destroyed and when it arrives in the future/present. I know that as soon as you start messing with time usually something won't add up right. or when time comes back around something won't make sense. so what is it? and whats the best way to get around it?

Thanks for any thoughts and info.

Why doesn't the god just make a new one. If he made one, another wouldn't be too hard, right?

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Orin, first off, it's past, not passed. Passed is the past tense of pass, to go by or to accept a rule/law. Second, you're way overcomplicating things. Who's to say that it was a rumor that the artifact was destroyed when in truth some guy from the future came and took it? And why would they have to constantly go into the past to retrieve it when they've already brought it from the future? And the past becomes the present? I'm pretty sure the past stays the past. Time Kompression is just something they put in FF8 to confuse everybody and make them think they knew what they were doing.

[Crythania]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

It would be destroyed until someone goes back into the passed. Your right in saying that it would have never been destroyed because they change the passed, but up until that point when they actually go back, it is destroyed.

You're not understanding time correctly. Now I realize there are many different interpretations of time. Some believe it's immutable and you can't change the past. Others believe you can change the past. Regardless of which school of thought you subscribe to, you're just not understanding how time works.

The artifact was going to be destroyed. But some time travelers showed up before it was destroyed, and the god gave it to them. This changes everything. From this point forward, history should logically record that the artifact was not destroyed; it was given to the time travelers (or if no one knows about the fact that it was given to the time travelers, then history would record that the artifact disappeared). There should not be any historical records that say that the artifact was destroyed. The reason for this is because it never WAS destroyed.

You have a situation here where someone travels into the past and makes a change. That changes everything from that point onward. The past has already happened. The event in the past where the god gives the artifact to the time travelers happened long before the time travelers went back in time. If what you're trying to say here is that the time travelers went back in time to get the artifact before it's destroyed, that makes no sense to me. The artifact was never destroyed, therefore they have no knowledge of it having been destroyed. Rather, what they should know is that the artifact disappeared (because it was given to them in the past, and then they transported it into the future).

In the beginning of your story, our heroes should know that the artifact disappeared at a certain point during the past. They travel back to that time period and discover that the reason why the artifact disappeared is because the god gave it to them. The god gives it to them, then they transport it into the future.

There is no "up until the that point when they actually go back in time, the artifact was considered destroyed". The past has already happened, and it affects everyting in the future. What happened in the past here is that the heroes showed up out of nowhere and the god gave them the artifact. You see what I'm saying here? There's no opportunity here for the existence of knowledge that the artifact was destroyed.

You know what I just realized? I think I subscribe to the "time can't be changed" school of thought. As I'm understanding this, there really isn't a change happening. There are not two contradictory situations here. There's one situation where the artifact is given to the heroes. There is no situation where the artifact was destroyed. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The artifact was either destroyed, or it wasn't. And it wasn't.

What I would do here is give the heroes knowledge that the artifact disappeared a long time ago, because that is was happened from the point of view of a casual observer. They didn't travel into the past to prevent the artifact from being destroyed. They traveled into the past to find out what happened to it and why it disappeared.

Like I said they go back get it and come back to the future (their present) and fix the problem. Yay. BUT... the passed will become the present and the problem will happen again. So again they will have to go back into the passed and get the thing again, but its already been taken from the passed the first time. So each time would they have to keep going back a little earlier then the time before? (not sure if that makes sense)

You're not understanding time correctly. Everything only happened once. They traveled into the past, where the artifact was given to them, and they traveled back to the future. Time does not happen multiple times. It only happened once.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

It can be considered destroyed if people knew it was going to be destroyed and didn't know that someone from the future came along and took it instead. It could even be the official word that it was destroyed to cover up the fact that in truth it was taken to the future.

(I also subscribe to the thought that the past can't be changed.)

[Crythania]

Re: Stupid time paradox's

Great point, Draygone. The story would start out with our heroes knowing that the artifact was destroyed. They travel back in time to prevent it from being destroyed, but they discover what really happened to it. Mr. God Dude gave it to them, and they transported it to the future. This wouldn't conflict with common knowledge that the "rabbit's foot" was destroyed.

Tom Cruise arrives in the future, and he has to give the rabbit's foot to Owen Davian, who is threatening to kill his wife. Tom beats up Owen and gets the rabbit's foot back. Then he faces a truly impossible mission. He has to tell his wife that he's been lying to her about his job all this time while keeping his marriage together.