|
Although unaware of it now, these individuals will not only save the world, but change it forever.
|
|
Invite friend
Five Years Gone - A Problem?
|
|
||||||||||
Time travel as a conceit in writing and plot development is not new. However, the writers often take liberties in how they implement the time travel and very few try to make causality work in any definite way. Often it is left up to the reader or viewer to "make up" a way where causal relationships still hold true. Heroes started off very promising with a time travel character, Hiro, who seems to be bound by strict rules of causality and what I will refer to as Linear Time Travel. Last night's episode - where Hiro travels to a dark future and witnesses some troubling events - may throw a monkey wrench in which type of travel device is being used. As I see it, there are three main types of time travel devices used in literature: 1. Linear Time Travel Linear Time Travel is probably the most rigid of the time travel conceits. In this model, the plot travels in one timeline in which the time travelers are able to move forward and backwards to various points along the timeline. The past can't be changed, but looks like it can be altered simply due to the fact that as viewers we lack sufficient information to know what exactly occurred in the past. The future can be thought of as a series of probabilities which, when the time traveler visits and physically observes, collapse into one solution/event. Any instance in time the time traveller goes to and observes is then collapsed into a definite future.
Up until this episode, the linear time travel system works in Heroes. If the future is a series of probabilities, then when someone lives/physically observes the future, the probability curves collapse into one reality. When Hiro visits the future (right before the explosion), he finds Isaac with his head cut open and brain missing. This does come to fruition in the series, and it makes sense that it must be so since Hiro didn't just psychicly see Isaac dead, he physically saw it. However, since our Hiro (2007 version) goes to the future and witnesses the events in "Five Years Gone", this future must either exist in his future (which is doubtful since the show would have difficulty retaining audience if the characters develop into what is shown in the episode), or alternate futures are possible. 2. Forked / Alternate Universes In this scenario, the universe splits into two or more universes based on the various outcomes of each probability curve collapsing. For every possible event that can occur, the universe splits. Thus a universe for every possibility exists and if time travellers can also move between universes, then they can jump from one possible future to another (or for that matter, one possible past to another).
This also only works if the characters in the alternate universe (future A) do not have a full understanding that when they alter the timeline, their fork continues to exist and they will not be changing their own fate. To me, this is not a very satisfying model since it feels like the authors or writers didn't think out these repercussions when they conceived the time travel aspects of the story. 3. Fragmented Universes Fragments of time and space exists on their own as little pockets of collapsed probability curves (independant of the main timeline). These fragments are not directly tied to the present or past (although initially they seem to share the same past), but exist separately for the purposes of acting as causal agents for things that occur in the main timeline.
At the end of all of this, I realize that time travel in Heroes could still be any of these possibilities, but it's looking less and less likely that it is Linear Time Travel. The Fragmented Universe model fits the best for what we expect to happen in the future episodes (unless they plan on going through with the events shown in "Five Years Gone"). If they manage to "save the world", then they messed up a great opportunity to do time travel in a structured and intelligent manner.
|
|||||||||||
Share this Link
|
|
Join this Spot
It's interesting to see how the various scenarios you present change the nature of Hiro's powers. The latter 2 scenarios really open up his powers a lot more -- especially the 3rd scenario. I do think that this will create the potential for creative abuses with the plotline, though the writers have been fairly disciplined so far.
So the question is: do the producers plan on wrapping up the show in less than five years, or will they pull a "Battlestar Galactica" at some point and just jump forward in the story to where the events in "Five Years Later" is the present?
I'll try to avoid the quantum physics, probability curves and collapsings, and so on and try to explain it in a way most people can understand.
The first two models have thier own issues in this scenario.
In the first model, Fixed Linear Timeline, time travel (at least time travel to the past) is impossible. This is becuase, at any point in time the universe has a fixed mass. Even if the mass changes from moment to moment at any one moment it has only one mass. Therefore a time traveller travelling to the past either has to increase the mass of the universe at the point he travels to or absorb enough matter to create his own body. Both cases will change the past and therefore the timeline will not be rigid. The only way the timeline can remain rigid is to prevent any incursions into it from the future.
A clearer example, assume in the past, at the point our time traveller wants to travel to, there is a rickety table, which weighs exactly the same as our time travller but can't support much any weight. If our time traveller travels there, there will be two possibilities:
either he appears on top of the table and the table breaks (in which case the past has changed) or he appears by reforming the table into himself so the table no longer exists (still changed). Of course he could appear beside the table, but what about whatever was already there, a chair, some water, or even air! Most people overlook the fact that even empty spaces contain air. And if a butterfly flapping it's wings could change the course of a tornado on the other side of the world, think what the appearance of a comparatively massive person will change.
As for the multiple braches theory (a favourite of many Sci fi staples) where everything that can happen does. It's flaw is that (before the timetraveller arrives) only one thing can happen!
This is where most people will disagree, quoting the popular favourite "Unpredictable choice". In order to not get bogged down in an old arguement let's start with events we can agree on, events that don't include choice.
A rock rolls of a cliff (assume there are no living creatures around) once the rock start falling, there is only one place it can land! Remember, the landscape, wind direction and motion of anything else that can interfere with it is already fixed! There is only one possible outcome and as such only one possible result! All apparent randomness comes from the fact that it's practically impossible to repeat anything perfectly with all the initial conditions the same e.g. flipping coin with exactly the same angular velocity, wind speed, height from the ground, vibrations in your fingers (e.g. due to blood pumping), etc. But at the point the coin leaves your finger, it CAN only land on ONE SIDE. There can be no alternate future where it lands on the other side! and as such, no branching reality.
As for probability curves that collapse to different values (yes, i know I said I wouldn't mention it but I'm sure someone else would have) those only exist in our MODELS of the universe. They serve to help us account for effects we don't fully understand or don't have enough information to predict. It's basically statistics for physicists! The same way a the third child of an average family with 2.4 kids doesn't magically appear or dissapear when you observe him neither do those subatomic particles! Observing him simply gives you the knowledge necessary to adjust your model so it is a better representation of reality.
The third one is closer to the most likely one (if you assume time travel is possibly which heroes already has). With a small change, the 'fragment' isn't an independent floating alternate reality, it is a direct result of a shared pst and fragments at the point that the timetraveller arrives and changes it!
Using the example of the ricketty table from the earlier. A past exists where this table lives a long uneventful life and is eventually sold as an antique and put in a museum. Our careless timetraveller decides to go to the past and see the table in it's original glory. However, his arrival destroys said table!
Once the table is destroyed the whole future where the table was in the museum ceases to exist, becuase the events that led up to it no longer happend! Events now flow down a different route changing the tables future, even though it is the time travellers past! The old futre becomes a fragment that no longer exists, and the new future becomes the only real future, until another time traveller changes it.
Of course, this model has it's own side effects. For instance;
if the time traveller destroys the table...
then he would see it in the museum...
so he would never travel to the past...
then he would never destroy the table...
then he would see it in the museum...
then he would travel to the past...
then he would destroys the table...
and on and on
This is the infamous time loop. However, one thing is usually ignored in these examples and that is that, the timetraveller cannot changes only one thing. Each time through the loop the flow of events will change slightly, and it will keep on changing until it reaches a set of events where the loop can be avoided and it will continue to flow down that course.
This leads to the conclusion that, a time traveller cannot perform an act in the past that will prevent him from performing that act in the past. Performing that act will begin a time loop until a set of events is achieved where that act did not occur! A self correcting, flexible, but linear timeline.
As a result of this (back to the movie) Hiro could not save the girl in the cafe from Sylar. Everytime he suceeded, he would create a future where he never travelled to the past, which would mean he didn't save her, which would mean he would travel to the past, on and on until he ends up with a future where she died, he travelled to the past, but couldn't save her! These would be the limits of his powers and woud create all sorts of interesting (but not deus ex machina like) possibilities.
I know they are still some issues I haven't covered fully (e.g. I never did talk about the choice thing) but I realise this post is already long, and if I haven't bored you yet, I don't want to try :) . Besides, it's the middle of the night and I have to go to work tommorow.
laters
Well i think that it is a linear time frame, and we will, in five years return to the same point in five years on. and from there, the story will either end, or more likely keep on going for another year or two to wrap everything up!
So that means we will know exactly what happens at the end of five years on, in five years.
if they do that, i think it would be pretty cool!
First, nothing contradicts a linear time travel model except, as was pointed out, the apparent problems of writing a TV show for five years when certain plot elements are "predestined". Personally, I don't think that presents an insurmountable problem - in fact, the show has worked that way since very early on. We've "known" that the bomb was or is coming, that Claire needed to and would be saved, that Peter would die saving her, that Isaac would be killed by Sylar, and on and on. Seeing five years into the future told us a bit more about the future in a linear model, but not so much that the story line couldn't continue to be interesting. We know that Sylar killed Nathan, D.L and Candice. We know that Parkman works for Nathan/Sylar. We know Micah died in the explosion. We know a bit about the future of Primatech Paper. But we know very little about what happened to Peter, Hiro, Niki, Mohinder, Sylar or the Haitian to bring them to where they are. How has Sylar avoided being "outed" by the Haitian? What happened to Linderman? What about all these attacks by Hiro and others? These may not be interesting enough questions to sustain five years if the universe is definitely linear, but I submit that the linear universe isn't definitively closed off. What's more, if I were forced to wager I'd bet the writers allow the bomb to happen, but in a slightly different way than has been predicted, leaving open the possibility of a linear or "semi-linear" universe (like the one in "Sliding Doors", where details may change but certain key facts are predestined). I think that some certainty in the structure of time is key to the integrity of the story - something has to constrain Hiro from running willy-nilly throughout time. But that problem could also be solved by this idea of a potential "rift," whatever it means.
When Hiro goes back in time to talk to Peter, he makes a statement that saying too much would risk a rift in the space-time continuum. first, that statement seems to contradict a multiple universes theory, in which universes "rift" naturally whenever Hiro travels in time. Maybe this is evidence for the fragmented universe theory, and Hiro needs to be certain that his jump alters the main universe without tearing off the changed portion as a fragment? That structure for spacetime would also constrain Hiro's use of his time travel powers.
I also noticed that, in episode two, it looks as though Isaac had been killed on the day of the nuclear explosion and he doesn't seem to have been killed in the same spot on the floor or in exactly the same method. Mistake by the directors or hint that Heroes embraces multiple universes?
In any case, I just wanted to point out the little bit of evidence I've noticed as an encouragement for others to dig up more and to talk about what we do know and have observed as evidence of this or other theories about how spacetime works in the Heroes universe.
Your observation about episode two and Isaac's death was very interesting. I'm thinking it was an oversight by the writers/directors.
Even if this isn't good physics, is this where the show is going anyway? New York is not really going to explode? Someone is going to rise above what is mathematically probable for their character to do and change what is destined to happen.
I wonder if the three models for time travel suggested in the original article here are really the only three. It seems to me that time travel, being such a fascinating plot device in science fiction, must have more types of application that just three. Admittedly I can't come up with any, so I'll accept that these are it until someone else comes up with one (as equally well explained as the three here, and sufficiently different).
In any case, I think that trying to decide which model Heroes is working off of, or which is most desirable, most likely, is in some ways besides the point. Which point? the point of time travel. In any of these models, there are some fundamental paradoxes and assumptions which impede our full comprehension of the workings of time travel (meaning they show to us that time travel is impossible). And clearly, in fiction it can be possible, but there is not necessarily anything to show us that the Heroes universe is sufficiently different from the "real" universe in order to solve these problems.
But these questions about time travel are also questions about the nature of time. So far, mentions in the show about the "space-time continuum" suggest that the writers are going for a conception of time as another dimension to the composition of the universe, where everything in the universe is defined by its position in the dimensions of space and time. By this, there is nothing which has no space (not just no volume, but no atomic composition - or whatever else they decide it is) and nothing which has no time. Time travel just means that a person, Hiro in this case, has a dimension in time, and changes that dimension. But then there are still problems of the mass of the universe and all that, because this is clearly all fictional.
Just thinking about it, in the show, Isaac draws the comic book "Hiro in Future" which shows Hiro killing Sylar and (he tells Sylar) saving the world. He does this before "Five Years Gone", where Hiro sees the future in which what the comic book shows clearly didn't happen. Previously, Isaac's visions had been pretty accurate; I can't remember one which didn't come true, and now both Peter and Sylar, using the power, have been coming up with the same results (New York explodes, etc). It seems to me that Isaac drawing "Hiro in the Future" is what really contradicts the "Five Years Gone" view of what happened and also Hiro's time-traveling ability. Isaac's power and Hiro's are very much against one another in coming to some unified concept of what time is like in Heroes.
Also, in "Five Years Gone", future Hiro had gone back to give Peter the message to save Claire, (it's sill unclear to me why he had to say "the cheerleader" instead of her name - but more fun for the writers and audience that way) but it was never clear if future Peter had a memory of that meeting. In any case, it does present a problem for memory formation, if this future Hiro was the one who traveled back, and the "future" that he had experienced was unchanged. A lot of things would not have happened if future Hiro hadn't told Peter that, so clearly it would change the "future" (or change which future it was) even it didn't avert the disaster. And if not, if the event of Hiro traveling back to warn Peter was already part of the timeline of which future Hire was a part, then he wouldn't have needed to spend all that time working out when and what message to bring back (with his string lines in Isaac's loft). So contradictions there.
Anyways, I'm getting kind of incoherent, but I really think that analysing a show like this, while interesting, is besides the point of enjoying it. Hopefully everyone writing posts here is enjoying the show more than they are thinking about it? And it was nice to see in "Five Years Gone" the actors stepping out of their regular roles and getting to have a little fun doing something different with the characters. Sorry this was so long. I do agree that it would be satisfying to have a really tight plot on Heroes, but with so many writers, so many chracters/storylines and all the pressures of network television, it's not like they (the writers and creators) have full "creative license" anyways.
Sign In or join Fanpop to add your comment