Time Traveling Issues

* See also Quantum_TimeTravel
* See also Infinite BS
* See also Quantum_Hokem
* See also How_To_Do_Quantumz
Time Travel In Storytelling Has Many Problems, And It Can Turn Into A Crutch For Unskilled Writers.
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Contemplate This Kenny&Co (it is a bit late now, though) : 
REAL Infinity is so large that if you take just a fraction (like one millionth of a millionth of a trillionth) of it, THAT teeny-tiny bit of it is still itself basically Infinitely large Carl Sagan talked about huge numbers like a 'googol' which is 10 to the hundreth power (a one followed by a hundred zeros) - a very big number, and then mentions a 'googolplex' which is ten to the power of a 'googol' a one followed by a 'googol' zeros). Compared to 'infinity' these very huge numbers are still basically zero) Its a concept somewhat hard to grasp. So throwing around and calling something 'infinite'/'Infinity' is a rather perilous endevour for storytellers who only pretend they are being 'scientific' (Particularly anyone pretending to do Sci-Fi-like material. You know - the ones who attempt to explain things and only make things worse). It also looks very stupid when elsewhere you show (like in Infinite BS) that 'whatever' is NOT actually 'infinite'.
Maybe better storytelling for the poor Players would have been to NOT have attempted to "explain" the details quite so much ???? PLEASE DO NOT ad nauseum try to make believe you are clever by talking nonsensically about something that you are pretending to be 'scientific' (or to resemble 'science'), but really is just magical fantasy. Definitely DO NOT compensate for Player confusion outside the game by attempting to explain via numerous interviews. THAT actually implies the game writing had a serious deficiency when it could not tell its own story. 
 
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== SO, What's all this Quantums and TimeTravel and DimensionTravel and Bullshit ?? ==
 "Web Of Causality" : 
"Causality" is a basic tenet of Science. Causation is "Things affecting other Things Forward in Time". Those things then affect numerous other things further along in time ( side-effects spreading out like 'ripples on a pond' ) - with increasing changes the further along you go on in time ( changes compounding changes ). 
In a complex system, it often only takes very small changes to things (events) to eventually influence and trigger SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT subsequent happenings in the much larger systems ( ie- potentially the Whole World ), and it increasing as time goes on. Some changes may be insignificant, while others cancel out their future effect, but there will be ones that DO significantly change things ( where small things result in large consequences ). 
This understanding led to CHAOS THEORY. "Chaos Theory" is the idea that very small ( seemingly insignificant ) interaction results can eventually lead to/cause/trigger very large interactions along 'the chains of causality'. A simple demonstrations using fluid turbulence patterns can demonstrate that small influences in one spot can drastically change a much larger active pattern when introduced. 
It is a known effect in 'complex systems. This "small change causing large changes" can be demonstrated simply in whirlpool flow tests, where turbulence patterns develop when very small influences are introduced in a stable/regular system of flowing liquids. Eddies and large turbulace patterns can develop in what was a very regular flow.
Human society is considered a VERY complex system, where the emergence of ideas, technology, politics can have drastic affect (and likewise DISRUPTIONS). Singular changes ( including in time and place and with whom ) can have the effect of creating significant modifications to future happenings (and all of History). ( Example - SO Elizabeth by killing Booker makes sure that Hitler gets The Bomb - Thanks Elizabeth. )
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A Bunch of Quantums ISSUES :
"Ohhhh, its just Time Travel ... DERRRRP !!!" ( a poor story-teller's crutch method ) :
Time Travel - Beware The GrandFather Paradox ( Else 'Whole Lotta Stupid' Will Otherwise Happen ) :
"The Grandfather Paradox" (a classic illustration) refers to you going back in time and killing your own grandfather and thus preventing yourself from ever being born (AND thus preventing you going back in time to kill your grandfather, which then you exist to try to kill your ... )
That is assuming for the sake of argument that Time Travel can even exist : 
* Assume we are referring to a "Timeline" as being defined as one continuum progressing on til the end of time. Likewise being a single string of events moving back in time through ALL the causes which shaped it. (NOTE - That Multiverse thing isn't THIS)
* Assume THAT an action done in Backwards Time Travel (into the Past) would involve/cause subsequent physical "Changes" to happen - emanating forward from that 'before time' (it NOT being Passive Observation). NOTE - Even just being SEEN can precipitate changes.
* "Changes" being defined as any change that affects the Causation of events, and thus potentially ANY subsequent events ad infinitum. According to Chaos Theorygoogle "Chaos Theory" there ARE NO insignificant actions ( though how long it takes BEFORE there are significant resulting effects is a separate issue ). Consider that it is possible for minor changes to lead to entire redirections of world events/outcomes. We are also assuming with such changed events, the whole "Causal Web" of our STORY's universe ( what we are interested in ) is NOT TO BE wholly changed/disrupted/blown-apart ( so as to be unrecognizable ), which can happen. 
You fart in the Past, introducing advanced bacteria ( or just some where it wasn't previously existing ) and subsequently some important people in That Past's Future die, and others which were unknown (to the timetraveler) come to exist (or have totalitarian power, or blow up the world, or were the timetraveler's ancestors, etc...) when they otherwise would not have ... ( and the players world is suddenly changed) . "Unintended Consequences" can be so easily resulting from such minor/seemingly-insignificant interactions/interferences.
* Changes can be of many forms : Ideas/information transmitted in any way to sentient beings, adding/subtracting energy or matter in that past place, diverting/converting/reordering/repositioning of energy/matter in the place. Anything that changes anything AT ALL can wind up being significant enough to bring massive changes subsequently, ( CHANGE what later would have happened later in that timeline ).
* Complete F$%^&ed up messes can be willy-nilly caused by the slightest action made far enough in the Past, making your Time Travel of dubious utility, *OR* to have catastrophic results for YOU or anything you cared about maintaining -- when you return to a world subsequently influenced by your Time Travelling actions. 
* Are You an INDEPENDENT entity in this Timetravel (multiverse or not) so that YOUR current existence is not impacted by changes to a past you lived through ( which has formed your current state from which you go Time Traveling from ) ??? *OR* IF You ARE DEPENDENT, and After you have effected your own Timeline, you maybe subsequently ERODE AWAY painfully ( and maybe slowly enough to make it a living hell ) before you are finally extinguished ? Are YOU even YOU anymore, when by Time Travelling you did something damaging to the Causality which led to YOUR Existence ?
Now Assuming a Multiverse of the Infinite BS Variety :
* With Any/Every other multi-verse you enter, and with that 'Merging' thing ( the game storywriters invention ) - Should YOU be effected or NOT affected ? Why not ? You are supposed to 'merge' when you enter a universe which you also exist in (And what if you don't exist? What does that then do ?? Ack, split between dead and alive - such horrific Memories !!!!) 
It was rather inconsistent the way the Infinite BS game story has things of that sort play out, no ? Booker almost the whole game exists IN THE SAME universe as Comstock. Elizabeth at the end, is at that Baptism with a DOZEN others of herself. But NO MERGING ?? Why Not ?? It is Just another case of "Writer's Convenience", them being contrary/inconsistent with their own definitions of how their Fantasy-world operates in other cases. 
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Backwards Problematicalities :
Severe CHANGES, and you (or whatever you are interested in for your Time Traveling in the first place) may suddenly no longer even exist in the later time you came from ( OR who YOU would be (were) is changed in significant ways, and/or YOU won't fit when you return ). 
What if (Potentially) YOU no longer exist in the current returned-to time (after going back)? How did you ever achieve going back in time (to change things) in the first place. Oops ... If you never went in the first place the Paradox is resolved - it never happened (it was all a dream ...). So maybe time doesn't allow you to interfere with Causality ??? ( Bad for simplistic storytellers so they usually avoid this little complication )
ARE YOU (Conveniently) travelling outside the normal paths of time, so are NOT affected when such disturbances happen ? Is there a sudden jolt as you are ADJUSTED back to your proper time if it is 'changed' ?? (And Not quite that 'Merging' BS from Infinite BS -- Maybe worse ??) 
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Crazy Peeping Tom Paradox :
Forward Time Travel ... After seeing the future (or actions precipitated by anyone ELSE doing similar Time Travel ), that Future you saw might not even exist any more when on returning you do something differently as a result of seeing THAT Future ( and within the interim time period it changes The Future's course ). 
OR is that now part of the fixed Causality ? If its the only Time Travel ever done for all time then there isn't a problem with THAT. But if you can go FORWARD in time yet again TO SOMETIME BEFORE THE OTHER TIME (a previous trip) and interfere ( and make it impossible ), THEN will what you saw happen on the first trip still happen ????? It is easy to show examples where its impossible ( IE- you kill someone you had interactions with BEFOREHAND ). With drastic enough action you should be able to change WHAT YOU HAD SEEN HAPPEN ( that previous future ), and disrupt THAT future -- Make it no longer what you, or anyone else, timetraveling there saw. AND THUS YOU CHANGE *ALL* SUBSEQUENT EVENTS IN ITS FURTHER CAUSALITY CHAIN (beyond that time). Problematic, No ?
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 The "Sideways Uncle Paradox" ( : Term I just made up) - Someone ELSE 'goes back in time' after YOU 'went back in time' and messes things up ...
What happens if multiple Time Travels ( at different times and even overlapping ) are made ( YOU and Other people or robots or you put through bacteria (and your dandruff) and leave it there ) ?? - How does they all get resolved ? 
Someone else changes something (in YOUR past) and ZONK!!! NOW YOU don't exist any more ??? OR YOU are now a Two-headed Clown Vegetarian !!!! (Even better : What YOU DID and all those consequences are NOW gone INCLUDING WHATEVER YOU DID IN YOUR TIMETRAVEL !!!!) 
So there can be Conflicts Upon Conflicts Upon Conflicts ( very possibly for that happy Infinite BS's universe ), possibly including potentially INFINITE multitudes of OTHER unknown meddlings ( ACK!!!! With Infinite universes, doesn't that now mean INFINITE crossover meddlings/changes/mess-ups. with everything being done/undone/redone over and over continuously ???????????????????) 
Nobody ever said that TimeTraveling was simple.
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Goofy Family Paradox :
SO multiple Time-Travel trips ( even by different people ) start interfering with each other, making only the last trip into that future the one that holds in effect -- Itself potentially invalidating all previous observations, and always potentially to be modified by someONE else from someWHEN else). 
 
Thus if Comstock acts on anything he sees in the future, he very well may invalidate the observed future, and thus ruins his prophesies coming true. IF someone else ( or a whole gaggle of time-travelers ) timetravels and messes up HIS observation ( changing from what he saw, making his observation false ) then his prophesy is possibly ruined then also.
That is assuming he actually was able to latch onto a possible future for his OWN timeline ( in the first place ), which without god-like prescient powers is rather a probabilistic impossibility in an Infinite expanse of time and space. Likely his 'prophesy' stuff was just charlatanry showing people Tears, and Comstock selling it as prophesy to the stunned rubes. He might have also murdered people for money and simply made his victims 'disappear'.
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HEH. ALOT MORE COMPLICATED NOW, NO? (Endcases like this are what the Fictionists usually avoid in their nice simple stories if they are smart).
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Having Basic Causality not being operational is OK for Fantasy Magic stories, but it is VERY BAD for anything claimed to be 'Science'. They ( the Infinite BS designers ) originally wanted to do the Infinite game world to be something peculiar like that -- a writer came up with an idea that Columbia floated by constantly reverting back to the same time so to be "fixed" in space, but with that the whole place then was like it was constantly 'Merged' ( and the sick Splicer like effects ), with no normalcy at all ( and that kinda blew their weak 'social relevancy' PC crap into 'NeverNeverLand' - and probably blew their graphics/creativity budget out the window too ).
TO get around problems like this, various fiction writers make up excuse shit like : 'Time Fixes Itself', and 'The Universe Won't let you make any changes that affect the future'. This of course invalidates most of the reason a STORY has Time Traveling ( to learn something and act upon it whether from the future or past - and maybe be shocked by unexpected consequence ). A preventative mechanism like mentioned thus CANNOT be in play in the Infinite BS universe. 
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Still Many Problems With Seeming To Do Time Travel Via Parallel Universes :
A Proposed solution some Sci-Fi authors use : To seem to go Backwards in time, change things and returning to a later time, expecting to see the effect. But Nothing is changed. There is NO time continuum change, its just YOU doing some shit in a parallel universe, and it has no effect on the Universe you return to. 
* It works because The 'Travel' is into a similar enough (recognizable) Parallel Universe (doesn't have to be infinite either) which is simply running in/at a different point in time. After going there, and screwing around, you return home. That other changed parallel universe doesn't affect YOUR original home universe. Anything you saw in that other past may not be what happened in your origin 'dimension'.
* If YOU go Forwards in apparent time ( again it is ANOTHER parallel universe which ran at a different time speed ), what you saw THERE may never happen In YOUR home universe after you return ( Nothing says these parallel universes have to be the same. You still only visited some other parallel universe, and it was NOT your own. )
* And What happens If INFINITE YOUs all Time Travel to the Same Place AND Same Time, do you fill up that space with your bodies - now squished into corpses ( or so much corpse matter causing a black hole to grow there ) ?? So Visiting parallel universes thus still can offer all kinds of hazards.
 
( How this MOVING BETWEEN inter-universe/inter-dimensional travel happens is only assumed. It is NOT part of Quantum Physics. It is generally the provinence of bad-fantasy, to need such an extreme action as a crutch for want of something more imaginative. ))
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UNCERTAINTY Of ANY/ALL 'Time Travel :
Generic NON-Multiverse Time Travel (one Continuum) :
* You start making multiple trips to check/verify things - Maybe you interfered with yourself ( or some 'other' Time Traveler did later ) ??? Was what you tried to change the result of another time-traveled-change -- AND NOW you are undoing that change, and maybe someone else will subsequently come along to change it ?? DO you maybe try again in the future and muddle it all up even more ?? How do you know ? Once the Genie is out of the bottle, it is ALL open to such interference, and THUS your not being able to see the final future at all ( or it NEVER settle because of INFINITE possible meddlings ).
* OOPS, Your involvement sets in motion your own destruction... ( With 'infinite' involved, almost a certainty ). Even if you meddle in the future you CAN cause someone UPTIME to decide to Time Travel back and wipe out YOUR Causality Web. Even alleged experts like Dr Who keep dying, so what hope do YOU have of not !@#$ing yourself ????? 
* Hidden/Unknown Changes - You THINK you changed the Past, then when get back to your origin time and what YOU thought should happen ( via your actions/changes ) ... INSTEAD its ALL WONKY !!! You really CANNOT see what ALL you may have actually changed or predict the WAYS your action will affect things. *AND* YOU DON'T ALWAYS REALLY KNOW WHAT-ALL-HAPPENED/WILL-HAPPEN past the point of your interference. (( Actually, this applies to all such attempted changes - YOU DON'T REALLY KNOW (CANT KNOW) DIDDLY-SQUAT. )) 
* You think you KNOW how things work, and YOU try to predict when making changes?? What a fool you are to be so ignorant ( countless timetravel stories reinforce this happening to so many arrogant timetravelers ). You can see/understand so little, and the world is so large and complicated. You are virtually blind, and really do NOT 'have a clue' as to what's all going on, to be certain of what effect any changes you make will have. 
You may not even be able to judge the results sufficiently when you get back. As time goes on, additional divergences can continue and multiply in significance, bringing greater and greater affect. 
* Complex Systems - The crushed butterfly in "The Sound Of Thunder" ( Bradbury ? short story ) - The simple concept of Unintended Consequences. You think you changed the Future - but HOW can you tell, UNLESS you wait to see what finally happens, and happens (and happens). Unpredictable changes, and maybe YOU GET TRULY F#$%ed !!!
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Paradoxes Usually Faced with True Time-Travel :
* Backwards - At what point do the new spreading changes in Causality destroy what you would be (and then does it then prevent you from ever going back in Time in the first place ( "The Grandfather Paradox" )?
* So you do or do not meet yourself ( "The Other Brother Darryl Paradox" )??? The disruption destroys both of you OR that universe or ALL UNIVERSES. Do you attack each other to steal the better place to return to ? One guy brings a plague the rest don't have immunity to (and if they live to go back, potentially wipe out THEIR entire World ??) Or do you, on separate travels, disrupt whatever changes you made/caused for any other YOU ?
Other people traveling can/will undo anything you change or moreso what you see. ( That's the "Those Other Guys Paradox" ) Everything is subject to revision - If YOU can time travel, so can someone else - possibly LOTS of other people. Such fun confusing scenarios are offered by this.
IT ONLY GETS WORSE WHEN MULTIPLE MEDDLERS in Infinite Universes exsit.
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How Do You Even Get To The Multiverse You Want ?
Time Travel within your typical Multi-verse is somewhat different because you have infinite universes ( every single tiniest interaction is branching a new one ... ). How you pick and choose amongst those is still a problem. NOW that you can only effect the ones you directly visit and their subsequents -- and even when you are THERE, YOU are only in ONE LITTLE STRAND and infinite others spew away that you are no longer part of.
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The Thread of Causality - Easily Disrupted by TimeTravel and Its Complications :
Lets Assume Time Travel along some 'Timeline' is allowed ( assuming that you can identify and select time+location points within it to do so ). 
You can have some difficulties :
Time Travel Interference Type 1 : If you go BACKWARD in Time, and you actively change something, the consequences may make the Time you came from ( later after that earlier time ) no longer exist the same way (or at all ?). Cancellation.
 
Time Travel Interference Type 2: If you go FORWARD to see the future, and then go back to your own time, and then as a consequence of what you observed you do something different, THAT future you visited may be caused to be completely changed (or gone). Nullification.
If you go to the Future to Stay ( and do no more Time Traveling ), then you have REMOVED yourself from every subsequent event where you might have shaped your place in the Timeline, and thus the one you 'go to' could/should/would NOW be somewhat/all changed by your now being OMITTED from all the intermediate history. U R 4Q'd.
Heres a Real Fun One - Many Different people ( it is "infinite", remember ...) Time Travel (every which way), often to the same place, and so interfere with what any/all infinite other timetravelors have changed. This then happens in many dimensions scrambling all their branches with all (infinite) dimensions becoming possibly different. This includes setting into motion ADDITIONALLY infinite OTHER Time Travelers ( Lil Pete The Super Scientist, Cuz Booker/Elizabeth Killed his Dog When he was a Child ... ). Theoretically the amount and number of interferences now would be one INFINITE MESS 
( This is not even accounting for any INFINITE dimensional crossovers which could happen in Infinite BS's MultiUniverse-allowing World Heptoformic lifeform K52342 in Alpha Cygni 3 came up with some bubblegum which with every pop throws time disturbances across every part of the multi-time/multi-space -- It was a short lived popular FAD, but rearranged everything everywhere with the repercussions reverberating - Forever. )
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Such a mess opened by any/all Time Travel will have you popping in and out of existence and changing/unchanging from a Mime every other second. You will be fully conscious and develop a nosebleed like Niagara Falls (or 'Mungo Falls' in some dimensions). The pain won't end, and YOU will never escape - you can't even kill yourself. SO DO YOU really want to be a Time Traveler now ???
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MAYBE (?) You now begin to see why (real) Science Fiction authors largely gave up on 'Time Travel', as being hard to be scientific/logical for any extended story ( even WITHOUT a Multi-verse existing ). There are simply too many problems for it to work as a center of the plot ( except for a story SHOWING it as being uncontrollable/catastrophic ). Most of the old sci-fi Time Travel stories ( when the concept was more novel, three-quarters a century or more ago ) were simple short-stories, and didn't elaborate much. The author being satisfied by just introducing the concept and possibly presenting some interesting 'twist' based on its complications.
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It Is ALL Very Much Simpler When True Time Travel Just Doesn't Happen :
Time Travel in the game's Multiverse ( Infinite Multiverses/alternate universe(s) story contrivance mentioned elsewhere ) might have as its only workable mechanism Something that only LOOKS like Time Travel : "Faux Time Travel" . 
Simply NOT being allowed to make ANY real Time Traveled change(s) resolves/nullifies ALL the hugely bothersome Paradoxes. You simply ALWAYS go to a parallel Universe. 
* You would really step into an alternate universe that is out of sync timewise (offset to past/current/future ), AND it is one with a very similar chain of events to your own. When you return to your own dimension, nothing at home can be affected (them being completely separate dimensions). 
* You can screw around all you want ( shoot up the OTHER place ) because it CANNOT affect YOUR own original timeline (NOR change it to MESS with your existence), and because of that quantum branching thingee (allegedly the mechanism in Infinite BS's case) you'll possibly NEVER go to the same universe twice. It could just be another look alike ( "Infinite" of them ... remember), *OR* if it was part of the 'branches' from the one YOU F@#$&ed-Up, IT STILL WOULD BE A SEPARATE DIMENSION completely independent of your own. 
* When other meddlers possibly are at work, it is merely throwing in more and more modified branches, only the moment you visited (as you saw it) might exist THERE right then. Infinite Alternates, ONE MEASLY QUARK spin difference apart, would still exist for you to find minus all changes.
* If YOU do another "Time Travel" visit for any Time after that -- to find anything you thought you had set on a course to make happen by "Faux Time Traveling", you would need to find a subsequent dimension (branching) of THAT universe ( otherwise you'd go to one of Infinite more YOU never had any affect on ). 
* (( Of course Exactly HOW one picks and chooses alternate universes in Infinite BS is never explained - except for some lame/weak magical dimension god Fantasy garbage used in certain stories )).
BTW, Totally Passive FAUX-Time Travel is as always OK (if possible), cuz you cannot, within that, change anything ( You'd be invisible/non-interactive - So it is more like 'Time Seeing" - 'Time TV Watching', maybe 3D TV ...), and your *POSSIBLY* 'Seeing the Future' becomes just a part of the Web of Causality of YOUR dimension, when you return ) -- THOSE YOU VISITED STAY INTACT. It is all one Continuum ( Across All Dimensions ) an you simply peek in.
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 "Grandfather Paradox" Perils For Time Travel : 
The "Grandfather Paradox" is where BACKWARDS Time Travel modifies/disrupts a Timeline. Actions done during the Time Travel into the past changes the Web of Causation resulting in differences of Event Progressions. The effect would then nullify parts of the travelers original Timeline -- causing the traveler to no longer exist. If the Traveler no longer exists further along that changed Timeline, then HOW can they then TimeTravel back to affect the timeline 'in the first place' ?? AND THUS undo the changed history which had brought their destruction ( and thus enabling the Time Travel again and then again its negating results ... and so on ).
"Indirect Grandfather Paradox " - You go forward in time and interfere with some future backwards timetraveler who interferes in your past. (The complexity +1 indirections go on from there.)
Even Minor (local) changes caused by 'time travel' when coupled with the spreading effects of Chaos Theory would eventually bring increasingly massive changes FORWARDS in time from the point the changes are made. This is the so-called "Butterfly Effect". - A different/missing flap of a butterfly's wings eventually can affect the course of a later hurricane ( and thus everything IT affects ) further in the future - based on demonstratable turbulence-effects upon climate systems. So it does NOT matter how minor a change is, when it is given sufficient time to have effect and cause quite significant differences. 
 
"Chaos Theory" within a 'Quantum Multiverse' coupled with Time Travel thus would cause MASSIVE changes in future events IN INFINITE UNIVERSES -- all for merely changing some single quantum ( given sufficient time for all interactive changes to spread ). CHANGE ANYTHING AND YOU HAVEN'T A CLUE WHAT WILL RESULT ( and sorry no fantasy god-like powers will help you either ).
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Futility Obtaining Future Knowledge ( via your Time Travel gate ) To Try To Change The Future :
 
* With that Multiverse Theory used in the game (infinite branchings), You don't have just one future. YOU split into infinite new universes every tiny fraction of a second. SO exactly WHICH timeline do you follow ?
ASSUMING YOU CAN LOCK-ONTO/TRACE ONE SPECIFIC TIMELINE : 
* Going FORWARD to the future, you will ONLY be there AFTER all the events have played out leading upto THAT Universe's situation ( IN THAT ONE DIMENSION ). How can you know/learn enough detail about all the events which had happened to then predict what events to go back and change to try to shape a different future ( the one 'something' which you will want ) ? 
* Sorry, killing someone significant only scrambles things completely out of recognition ( things can then go horribly horribly wrong in completely unpredictable ways ). Few things are the result of one factor, often many small factors, and things happen to complicated interactions. How are you gonna figure out what you need to change with any certainty at all ? Quantumz- there ARE NO CERTAINTIES.
* Even if you learn something there, and can somehow see a way (on going back) to attempt to modify that resulting universe, it does not mean that whatever you then DO (attempt to change) will work out. It could easily cause FAR different results than you predicted, and thus have a completely different ( and unwanted/undesirable ) outcome. Its all from that 'Different Flap of a Butterfly wing causes a Hurricane' UNPREDICTABILITY of Causality ( Chaos Theory, yada yada ... ). After your 'Change', each of the INFINITE branching universes STILL can go other directions. The further into the future the more the randomness disturbs any predictable outcomes.
* Depending on how far into the future you want to change, what YOU DO (on returning) differently the rest of your life "now that you've seen the future" will effect myriad OTHER factors with similarly unknown consequences. (( "Just one Fart different and you change the universe." - Dr Who ))
* Any attempt to change your universe's/dimension's/timeline's future will match only an INFINITELY tiny subset of those universes ( infinite branchings, remember ... ) An NO, Weaves and Knots in Time don't exist if you follow the real ideas of that Multiverse Quantum "Theory" which supposedly allows ACTUALLY INFINITE Dimensional Universes (( BTW, what is loosely labeled 'theory' is only a rather tenuous proposed 'hypothesis', which in itself is highly disputed because it DESTROYS more Real Physics than it fixes. ))
You simply cannot control the future - no matter what you change, everything else that depends on chance can go every which other way -- in a cascade of complex interactions, no following event HAS to fall the same way, and certainly any which are connected to your new actions will be thoroughly disturbed by subsequent events. 
(( This "Tear" thing in the game ALSO is Fiction/Fantasy anyway ( NPoQT - Not Part Of Quantum Theory ), and no selecting/viewing or moving between the universes is provided for in any part of that 'Theory'. Ditto for magic god powers instilled by missing digits, allowing omnipotent all-universe-seeing abilities -- which Elizabeth actually demonstrated NOT having anyway. ))
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