John's big bluff (from Today is the Day 2)

[roxybisquaint]

I was never happy about the John retcon in "Today is the Day part 2". It just didn't add up. He never acted like he had a clue about Riley until "Ourselves Alone", but that didn't give him any time to follow her around, learn about Jesse or figure out the plot. So that's where I've been stuck for a long time. And believing he figured anything out

Comments

[roxybisquaint]

The timeline stuff from the finale has been hurting my head all day. I spent hours thinking about it and I'm still working up a post about the finale that will get into all that. I just have to get my thoughts clear first so I have a solid starting point.

Basically where my head is at right now is that the period of time between when John left and where John emerges can not be changed. Usually the future is not set, but because we're seeing both ends of the line, we see the result of everything that came before. So no matter what we see Sarah do, for example, we know the end result is that judgement day happened.

What's causing me hours of contemplation is trying to figure out what happens if a time traveler from when John is or later in time goes back to some point after John left and causes a change. It think that would have to create a new timeline and effectively trap John where he is now. It would also mean Sarah and John could never reunite. But I'm still thinking it through.

Have you ever seen my big time travel post? I don't know if you're interested, but I take the multiple timelines approach to time travel in TSCC. Mostly it works, but sometimes I think the writers need to spend a little more time on this stuff because there are inconsistencies Iike why weren't there 2 future!Derek's running around in 2007-2009? If Jesse was from an alternate future and *her* Derek was sent back in time, where was he? Or maybe the changes to the future that were created by *our* Derek killing Andy (if we assume that as the event) caused *her* Derek to be sent on some other mission instead of the same one *our* Derek got sent to in 2007?

See? I can spend hours on this stuff. But I'll get into the time travel spec about the finale once I've finished my thinking and get my post up. I have a feeling the time twisty stuff is going to consume the entire off-season ;)

[johnnypate]

Just checked out your TT post. We've been thinking along the same lines. I'm not running with the same working hypothesis as you tho. At present, both in TSCC universe and the me here and now, I'm running with the theory that everyone has their own individual timeline. The only timeline in TSCC that needs to have no casual contradictions in its one self-consistent timeline is "our" Sarah's. She is moving into a changing future where there is no fate but what she makes for herself but she can't retro-edit her past. By that theory, now John has time-jumped he's not her John... except maybe if he's somehow entangled himself by jumping back to before the jump we saw him make in the finale. He then pops up in S03E01 as Sarah is leaving Ziera saying, `I went to the future and came back for you.' Cue some agonizing about whether it is really "her John" and does that even matter when he's the only one she's got?

I could expand a bit more on this but I'm still thinking it over - and I still have to re-watch S1&S2 to see if I can make it fit.

The T1 conundrum of whether Kyle and the Oak are from the same timeline isn't really an issue surely: the timeline that has to stay straight is Sarah's. We know that T2 altered JD, let alone TSCC. Kyle and the Oak are from closely coincident timelines even if they're not from the same one but, in any case, their future timeline(s) aren't Sarah's. Maybe there is a way time jumps can stay in the same timeline. Perhaps in using the same time machine or same time bubble - for instance, in T1, Kyle jumps in to the time machine straight after the Oak's jump and that injects him back into the same timeline because the time machine still has a lock on the Oak's spacetime position. Actually, that does work I think, if you use the very same time machine and it can keep track of the unique spacetime point where someone was sent, you can send someone back to that exact same unique moment of time (and possibly even timeline depending on how many timelines a single person splits off - how many Sarah's are there really, apart from "our" Sarah?).

So, re the finale, in a sense it only truly matters if an S3 appears since we can assume whatever is necessary to make TSCC work providing we can be convinced that they haven't contradicted any legitimate memories Sarah has of her own past up until John time jumps. It would be more satisfying, from a story POV, if we somehow see the "baseline" stories of the timeline Sarah lives (if you see what I'm driving at). An important issue I'm tending towards is that the interactions of different timelines mean that, given everyone's timeline is unique, and that separate timelines are not actually casually connected except in the one focal person's POV it's a case of "what happens, happens." Whatever account a time traveller gives of his/her future is that - an account of their personal timeline which has no causal links to the timeline of the person (Sarah) being spoken to.

How could you retro-edit your own timeline anyway? How would you know what really did or didn't happen if it changed your memories of what happened? How do you know your past memories are really memories of a past that happened (go back and look at your old videos and pictures and see if they match your recollections)? (In "Back to the Future" photographs actually faded and changed as you watched - which seems rather unlikely/improbable to me.)

As an aside note, unless we all share some kind of telepathy or group consciousness at some unconscious level (or are part of some subset that does) as a matter of actual fact we are all in our own separate experiential universes, time travel or not. And we live in the eternal now... the world of the past is gone and the future is a blinding mirage.

This is worth looking at, I think: http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20747
(John Friedman on the finale and his writing decisions.)

[johnnypate]

Errata: I meant to say, "causal contradictions" by which I mean Sarah's past experience can't be retro-edited. Now my head is hurting with the thought of two Sarahs in one timeline...

[roxybisquaint]

Perhaps in using the same time machine or same time bubble - for instance, in T1, Kyle jumps in to the time machine straight after the Oak's jump and that injects him back into the same timeline because the time machine still has a lock on the Oak's spacetime position. Actually, that does work I think, if you use the very same time machine and it can keep track of the unique spacetime point where someone was sent, you can send someone back to that exact same unique moment of time

Hey, I like that and it seems logical. I can definitely get on board with that idea.

I definitely don't like the Back to the Future handling of timelines. That seemed to present a single timeline that's always in flux. Maybe that's a possibility when you get into the idea you were talking about - that the timeline is really only connect to the POV of the person. But from a storytelling standpoint, I don't think it would work well because I'm sure we'll be getting both Sarah's and John's POVs. If there's not some sort of cause/effect link between her time and his time, it probably wouldn't be very interesting.

(part 1)

[johnnypate]

It could be made to work for S3. Our!future!John has to find JH/Cameron (JH/Cameron being Cromartie's body with Cameron's re-programmed chip inside) because JH/Cameron has the time coordinate for our!future!John to jump back to Sarah in Ziera Corp.

Not sure how it would work out in story terms tho: however long our!future!John spends in the future he walks thru the door practically as the time bubble dissipates for Sarah in the Ziera basement or at least however long it takes him to find her after he "lands" since he must jump back to the exact same unique point in time as if he was in the same time bubble (according to my hypothesis, the time bubble is anchored in time but not in 3D space according to T1's Kyle & Oak situation). We then only get a verbal account of our!future!John from our!John or we have some kind of flash-forwards possibly covering a lot of ground as our!future!John hunts for JH/Cameron. Could have some Sarah agonizing over, "Is he really my John" a la Derek & Jesse. However, once our!future!John is back at Sarah (taking Sarah to be the instantiation of the unique and causally consistent timeline POV we have followed as canonical in T1/T2/TSCC) then our!future!John's future memories are of a separate timeline (actually, they're memories of his past even tho they're in the future) and therefore only interesting if it reveals scenarios that look probable (but are not in fact inevitable) for Sarah (as demonstrated by Derek's experience).

It does mean that Sarah (and John) can still stop JD, it's still in Sarah's unmade future, so there is still everything to play for.

If John stays in the future what might work is that, having the unique time coordinate, our!future!John can use a time machine to watch Sarah's actual timeline and make changes accordingly. The time machine must, logically, be able to somehow "see back in time" to place people there (it's an issue I've been pondering on, given multiple timelines). our!future!John is, in fact, retro-editing his timeline (and therefore his memories) but he has a time machine to act as his "true memory" for him. It then becomes a natural way to tell a time travel story, i.e. through the eyes of the one person who experiences the one causally consistent timeline that the time meddler constructs. I think that would be fearsomely difficult to keep straight if it even works, on first pass of pondering on it.

The obvious question is: how many future!Johns are there looking for that unique time coordinate? There is an answer, which I think is logically inevitable, that the one that actually is in the same timeline as Sarah is the one, and the only one, that can find the actual time coordinate that lets him time jump back to Sarah because he's the one and only one that's actually in that timeline. It's logically consistent with what we've seen in TSCC: a future version who jumps back the exact same time coordinate he jumped from is back in the exact same timeline but his memories of the future are now scenarios (actually, strictly speaking, memories of a separate timeline caused by the time bubble) that he can change (as shown by Derek's experience). We could follow (at least some of) the actions of one such time traveller consistently for one of his (potentially looping) timelines by watching only the single timeline of one observer. The story we see is then entirely observer-dependent and only that single observer's timeline has to be causally self-consistent. Magical things like people coming back from the dead (via time travel) can happen for that observer.

In my hypothesis, there are as many timelines as there are time bubbles that aren't anchored by the same time coordinate (strictly speaking that's "at least as many" since we don't know what else can split off timelines).

(part 2)

[johnnypate]

Believe it or not, this makes a lot of sense for me - from this hypothesis we see time as dimensionless and not actually having a direction: what the timeline of a conscious observer represents is an observer's log of the serial change in state of the elements of the observable phenomenal universe which, to preserve causality and therefore comprehensibility, can only be traversed by that observer in a certain order. So, although there is an external phenomenal Universe with concrete objects in it, time is an illusion and causality is the tool that enables our consciousness to construct itself and exist in it's own unique self-consistent view of the the phenomenal universe... or, rather, the human dimension of the Universe.

Maybe you can do a diagram, Roxy, and show whether it works or not - our version of Sarah has to have one timeline going thru, either only jumping forwards or loops back to the one canonical timeline/memory series and she ends up with a John inside her timeline with a loop where he jumped and found the time coordinate back. (Our canonical Sarah is the one we see "at the end" - whenever that is - that has a unique and consistent timeline that we can follow.)

Anyhoo, Josh Friedman is a smart guy - maybe he'll come up with something better... if they give him an S3.

(part 3)

[johnnypate]

Addendum: (you mentioned this now I come to think of it) does the one and only one future!John that can find the unique time coordinate have to have a past that can't be changed because it's part of "our" Sarah's timeline? (i.e. his past becomes the future when he jumps back). I believe that logically the correct answer is "no." Even tho he's the only future!John that is in Sarah's timeline, that's true up to the point he activates the time machine and jumps back into her "now" and then he's actually in the now and there's a time bubble, therefore branching begins. A time jump backwards disconnects the timeline as well as a time jump forwards - time has no direction. In fact Sarah herself has timeline branching caused by the time bubbles but we're only following one stream of consciousness - "our" Sarah's (in your "multi_timelines.png" for example you have 7 timelines @ 2011 several of which will have a Sarah, depending on if she dies before 2011 in one or more).

So, my story is Sarah's John can jump to Sarah in 2009 from an arbitrary point in the future and the future is still what they make for themselves, just like any other time traveller jumping back, so long as he finds the time coordinate from JH/Cameron. JD is still preventable.

You'll have to think this thru for me Roxy and point out if I have it logically wrong somehow. It all makes perfect sense to me at the moment, which makes me think I probably ought to be worried.

Re: (part 3)

[johnnypate]

I'm in fact so confused I'm repeating myself here. But the point is, so long as future!John jumps back to Sarah using information gathered from JH/Cameron we can be sure that he's "our" John. At this point, the Derek, Allison and Kyle we saw straight after the time jump are as close to "ours" as we can get by virtue of the fact of finale future!John's coincidence with Sarah, at least until future!John starts messing with the timeline. Now here's an interesting question to ponder on: according to my hypothesis, does anyone at all there apart from John have to jump back? After all, our Sarah's Kyle (T1) jumped from a timeline where JD was in the nineties. All future!John actually needs to do is find the time coordinate and get access to a time machine, according to my hypothesis... and... he can jump back with Derek, Allison, Kyle, Jesse, Riley, the German Shepherd,...

Re: (part 3)

[johnnypate]

News from the web: according to BAG, John has jumped to a future where, effectively, he's never existed - great interview here:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20811

They could certainly make this work for me using the logic I've outlined above (despite BAG's comment, "string theory" doesn't really have anything much to do with it but I'm sure it sounds good) if future!John gets the time coordinate from JH/Cameron - it must be "the" time coordinate back to focal Sarah because it was from the time travel machine John + JH/Cameron + Weaver used for the jump.