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This topic has moved here: Subject: Why Time Travel shouldn't work.....and why it would.
  • Subject: Why Time Travel shouldn't work.....and why it would.
Subject: Why Time Travel shouldn't work.....and why it would.

Veritas Aequitas

Ok so to end all of these silly time travel threads once and for all (which I won't do but can only hope for) I'm posting this thread.

*User Warning: Wall of Text Ahead! Wear Hardhat*

Quite simple:

Why time travel shouldn't work:

+ Time travel is the easy way out. If you can time travel, you can fix everything. Only one game in my opinion has correctly worked out time travel, and that was time splitters. Every other game that tired it has fallen straight on it's face.

+ Time travel doesn't particularly fit into the Halo universe in my opinion. Though we have absurd technology, all of it is viable on some level in thought. Time travel, although up to much debate, is not "concrete". No one (except top scientists who continue to debate) understand the idea and what would be necessary for time travel.

+ Time travel is a horrible thing to have. Not only is it a cop out (explained in point 1), but it's just silly. There are so many things that can go wrong and unanswered with Time travel, like would the Master Chief see himself and what would he do in that particular situation. I don't think that Bungie is interested in working out that particular situation at this time, and I would hope that they are smarter than that ;).

+ Finally, the Chief is a spent character. Though we all yearn for him, we don't yearn to play for him as much. We just want to know what happens to him, his fate persay. For this reason, Bungie is probably working on some other characters. The Halo universe is rich in diverse characters, all with stories to be told.

Sadly this is how Time travel could work in the game...

+ Medicant mentions that Master Chief will be his example to the forerunners. Seeing as Forerunners are all but extinct (as far as we know and excluding the human race "offspring") how would he show them he has redeemed himself? Well if Forerunners still exist than they are certainly watching us at all times and at all angles. (They wouldn't intervene because that wouldn't teach us anything). For this reason, Medicant sent the Chief back to the beginning of the war to save us from the whole fiasco and millions of human lives. If the Forerunners are all dead, extinct, fanito, then we are they're remnants, meaning he sent the Chief back to us so we could all be saved.

+ Though one can argue, as I have done before, that the technology doesn't exist, if anyone knows about time travel then they know that worm holes are required. The gateway to the Ark can be considered a worm hole. Medicant, having lived for millions of years has vast knowledge of the gateway and all of it's ticks. He could easily have bent it to his own means to send the Chief backwards in time.

+ The Chief, although a highly yearned character (as mentioned before) doesn't have to be playable in this game. He could easily be a character molding events in the background as Medicant was in Halo 3. He could simply be an unseen but felt entity in the game that we don't learn about till half or all the way through.


In conclusion, though I don't agree with the use of Time travel, it could work and be explained (but not with a quick "it worked like this" explanation).

Read, discuss, flame.

  • 07.01.2009 11:55 PM PDT
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ok let me put it this way, after you read real theorys about time travel from actual scientists and how time travel could be possible, you dont want to hear the words time travel again

  • 07.01.2009 11:59 PM PDT

Veritas Aequitas

yea I know, I've happened upon it and didn't like what I had seen. Needless to say in a videogame world you can explain anything to anyone in hocus-pocus terms. It's kinda funny what fiction gets away with; which is why I'm a script writer ;).

  • 07.02.2009 12:07 AM PDT
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only one game has properly used trime travel. and that was zelda ocarina of time

  • 07.02.2009 12:18 AM PDT

Veritas Aequitas

Sunuva gun I forgot about OoT. Another good game with time travel. Both were good games.

On another note Time travel would be interesting only because it would be cool to see the Arbiter when he was still the Ship master and half-maw (my nick name for the current ship master) as well as Keyes still alive and his daughter in active duty elsewhere.

  • 07.02.2009 12:22 AM PDT
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also the past cannot be changed. but the future can be. because if you did change it in the past it would have already been fixed in the present because their is an endless loop of time traveler "chiefs" going back in time to fix things. just like in RVB

  • 07.02.2009 12:23 AM PDT

Wormholes are completely hypothetical mishaps in the regular space-time continuum. Therefore, I'll base my argument on hypothetical observations.

There are more than four dimensions- you can look this up anywhere. M-theory suggests it, so does superstring theory, and I'm sure many others. The other seven hypothetical dimensions of our universe are supposedly "crumpled up" while the four that we move about on (width, depth, length, and time) expanded as the universe expanded.

Now, presuming that the dimension of time expanded the same way as the other three we know of did, then time is only experienced on the dimensions that we move about on. However, there may be intersections between our dimensions, and the ones we know little of. If one was to somehow enter an alternate dimension, one would either find themselves transported to another dimensional interlink instantaneously, or, if time increases as distance does, one would find themselves in the future. Traveling back in time would be impossible.

Now, I understand that "it's only a game", but it'd kinda suck if the whole point of this new game was to end the war before it began, which meant that you'd never have had the war, which would mean that you'd never need to go back in time, so you would have the war... etc.

Anyway, I just hope the Bungie has decided not to have MC travel back in time =P

[Edited on 07.02.2009 12:32 AM PDT]

  • 07.02.2009 12:31 AM PDT

Veritas Aequitas

So to speak.

Prepare yourself cause this is about to get deep lol.

Medicant Bias had ONE chance to send the chief back. He doesn't have unlimited resources and supposing the chief screws up (which he wouldn't do because he's the chief), whose to say that he would encounter Medicant Bias or the Ark at all?

If the Chief goes back in time and tells cortana not to jump to the first Halo, this will keep the flood contained. They can combat the Covenant Armada and only them. This would simply leave the rings untouched. The humans could also go to the different rings, seeing as the chief knows the coords, and blow them up. This would probably be an unwise scenario seeing as the flood could probably fly through space unharmed (as seen when they enter earth's atmosphere in a destroyed, hole ridden ship.

So there would be no loop, just one chance. If everything got mucked up then it would stay mucked up. Supposing they did reach the ark a second time, the second chief would fix the first one's mistakes.

This all of course banks on the silly idea of time travel, the point of the debate of this thread lol.

  • 07.02.2009 12:36 AM PDT

Good theory, but if that occurred, wouldn't the first three Halo games, and Halo 3: ODST be obsolete? 'Cause, you know, they'd be telling a story that couldn't have happened, if this happened instead?

  • 07.02.2009 12:39 AM PDT

Veritas Aequitas

You do realize that all of these games never really happened? Lol of course you do!

Think of games like fictional storytelling. If you want to tell a different version of how things went down, then go ahead, you just label them differently. One can learn a lot from comic book stories no matter how nerdy they may seem. Marvel has a million different versions of the marvel universe characters because they don't want their characters to die.

And no, those games wouldn't be obsolete because they were the telling of how the chief got there in the first place. He still experienced all of that, including the time travel.

This is getting kinda wonky now lol.

Still, I stand by my claim that time travel is a bad idea. If bungie uses it I'm still going to buy the game and probably enjoy myself. I simply created this thread to show the nay-sayers how it could work. They seem hellbent on disproving it when in reality no one can do anything but theorize until the game, or more news, surfaces.

  • 07.02.2009 12:44 AM PDT

Yeah, I guess you're right.
I have to say, though; regardless of whether or not there's time travel involved, I'm going to play it and enjoy as well =P
Oh, well, I guess we'll find out what Bungie have done when they release it.

  • 07.02.2009 12:48 AM PDT
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Wort, wort, wort!

If Chief traveled back in time the war would be lost. Why? Cause Thel' Vadam(ee) wouldn't have been de promoted, and his race wouldn't be misstrusted so they wouldn't join us. Just destroy the human race..
Altough I hate that TT theory.. it just sucks

[Edited on 07.02.2009 12:58 AM PDT]

  • 07.02.2009 12:58 AM PDT

Veritas Aequitas

Posted by: Sp4rksLT
If Chief traveled back in time the war would be lost. Why? Cause Thel' Vadam(ee) wouldn't have been de promoted, and his race wouldn't be misstrusted so they wouldn't join us. Just destroy the human race..
Altough I hate that TT theory.. it just sucks


I don't know what TT theory you're talking about, but to say that something simply "sucks" doesn't do anything but prove you have an opinion. If you want people to believe and see from your perspective you're going to have to explain yourself.

On that note, we don't need the elites to win the war with the advanced knowledge we have. Do you realize that we lost all of the spartans merely because we were caught with our pants down? Had we known what we know now, we would have trounced them, which is why, as explained previously, the time travel situation COULD work. Do I think they should use it? No. But it could work.

  • 07.02.2009 1:01 AM PDT

"TT" means Time Travel. It'd be a close call though. Us humans, versus the Covenant as a whole... we'd probably lose, even if we managed to save Reach from prior knowledge of it happening.

  • 07.02.2009 1:04 AM PDT