Yora
2012-07-28, 04:46 PM
This is for a setting I am working on. I am using Planescape terminology here, but otherwise it doesn't really follow standard D&D rules for magic and such.
I like messing with time, but never liked all these "go back in time to undo the reason that made you go back in the first place" plots. They don't make sense and fall apart at the first closer look. So that's the First Rule: You can not undo what already happened.
But there's all kinds of other fun stuff you can do with the rate at which time flows, which does actually happen in real world physics all the time, but becomes notable really only at massive scales at huge distances, incredible speeds and massive gravity. And even then the different seems tiny unless you start dealing with black holes and light speed. But it's real.
Some background on the setting, which might not be entirely neccessary, but might help understanding what I'm going for if I explain myself poorly.
In the setting, the normal state of the Cosmos is The Void, which is basically a combination of the Astral Plane and the Far Plane. There's no time and distance, but still there are some temporary bubbles in which there is time, distance, and mass, which is the normal Universes or Material Planes. At first the borders between these Universes and the Void are thin but slowly become solid, and after some billions of years they disintegrate again. That happens for all eternity. Each Universe is actually a pair of a Material Plane and a Spiritworld between which hopping around is relatively easy, but they are still just two "sections" of the same single "bubble".
However in the case of the Metarial Plane the setting is located, there one hole in the border to the void in the form of a demiplane that connects to the Material Plane, the Spiritworld, and the Astral Plane, combining features of all three, which makes it a really weird place. Once somebody shaped it into an island and build a fortress on it, so it's now the Fortress of Time. Figuring out what happens when one goes there is what this thread is about.
I have prepared three graphs.
First is how time and space normaly seems to be.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w1kxtdU81rud7mxo1_1280.png
At the top you have a couple of physical locations in space, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. They could be anywhere and the distance between them and their relative positions to each other are irrelevant. Could be a few meters away or on different planets, it doesn't matter.
At the side there are some moments in time, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Again, it does not matter how much time passes between them, but in this case it is important that they happen in order. 2 after 1, 3 after 2, and so on.
In reality, there's an infinite number of locations and moments and there are no units on either axis. The lines and the dots at the intersections are only a grid for orientation.
Now in this first graph, this is what people normally see.
Let's say there are people in A, B, C, ... and at a magical signal that travels instantaneously, they all light a candle of the same size at the same time, which are the events A1, B1, C1, ... The candles burn at the same speed and when As candle burns out, so do the other candles at the same moment, which are the events A2, B2, C2, ...
Thats how thing happen in everyday life.
But now in the case of the setting, time does not flow at the same rate everywhere, but sometimes it speeds up or slows down, and it does so at different rates in different locations.
Which we see in this second chart:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w29wxJpC1rud7mxo1_1280.png
Here the horizontal lines become important. Because even when using magic to send telepatic messages or teleport, magic still seems to work just like in the first chart. When you are in location C at the moment 5 and teleport (event C5) to location B, you still arrive at B5. Even with magic, you can not go to B4, despite the time distortion between the locations B and C.
I call these vertical lines Causality Lines. Because if B4.3 had send a magic message to C4.3 and in reply someone would travel from C5 to B4, there would be no need to send the message in the first place. Cause and effect can never be reversed and the causality lines represent which events happen "simultaneously" in respect to causality.
What you could have is sending a message from D4 to C4 and someone at C takes 1 minute to start the teleport from C5 to D5 and the person at D is waiting for 3 minutes. Normally it's just a few seconds or minutes in duration difference that nobody notices, but it can get massive when traveling between the Material Plane and the Spiritworld, so you can visit spirits for an hour and be gone for weeks.
(There is an infinite number of causality lines between to moments so you don't get time paradoxes when thousands of people are teleporting between thousands of locations.)
Now, why does this all matter?
Because as mentioned in the setting spoiler, there's the Fortress of Time that lies outside of the normal flow of time and space.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w33aU7711rud7mxo1_1280.png
That grey bar, that's the Fortress of Time. Imagine the causality lines connecting behind of it, it does not break them.
Outside in the normal world, causality lines still rule supreme. But inside the Fortress of Time, things get freaky. The First Rule is still in place. When someone entered the Fortress at causality line 1 and left it at causality line 2, you will not find him there when you enter at causality line 3.
This is what I have so far, but I think you might be able to do a lot of crazy stuff with that Fortress of Time. And here I'd really appreciate your input.
All I really require is that it is not possible to create time paradoxes in the normal world.
I think it might even be possible that you enter the Fortress after someone else and arrive before him.
I like messing with time, but never liked all these "go back in time to undo the reason that made you go back in the first place" plots. They don't make sense and fall apart at the first closer look. So that's the First Rule: You can not undo what already happened.
But there's all kinds of other fun stuff you can do with the rate at which time flows, which does actually happen in real world physics all the time, but becomes notable really only at massive scales at huge distances, incredible speeds and massive gravity. And even then the different seems tiny unless you start dealing with black holes and light speed. But it's real.
Some background on the setting, which might not be entirely neccessary, but might help understanding what I'm going for if I explain myself poorly.
In the setting, the normal state of the Cosmos is The Void, which is basically a combination of the Astral Plane and the Far Plane. There's no time and distance, but still there are some temporary bubbles in which there is time, distance, and mass, which is the normal Universes or Material Planes. At first the borders between these Universes and the Void are thin but slowly become solid, and after some billions of years they disintegrate again. That happens for all eternity. Each Universe is actually a pair of a Material Plane and a Spiritworld between which hopping around is relatively easy, but they are still just two "sections" of the same single "bubble".
However in the case of the Metarial Plane the setting is located, there one hole in the border to the void in the form of a demiplane that connects to the Material Plane, the Spiritworld, and the Astral Plane, combining features of all three, which makes it a really weird place. Once somebody shaped it into an island and build a fortress on it, so it's now the Fortress of Time. Figuring out what happens when one goes there is what this thread is about.
I have prepared three graphs.
First is how time and space normaly seems to be.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w1kxtdU81rud7mxo1_1280.png
At the top you have a couple of physical locations in space, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. They could be anywhere and the distance between them and their relative positions to each other are irrelevant. Could be a few meters away or on different planets, it doesn't matter.
At the side there are some moments in time, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Again, it does not matter how much time passes between them, but in this case it is important that they happen in order. 2 after 1, 3 after 2, and so on.
In reality, there's an infinite number of locations and moments and there are no units on either axis. The lines and the dots at the intersections are only a grid for orientation.
Now in this first graph, this is what people normally see.
Let's say there are people in A, B, C, ... and at a magical signal that travels instantaneously, they all light a candle of the same size at the same time, which are the events A1, B1, C1, ... The candles burn at the same speed and when As candle burns out, so do the other candles at the same moment, which are the events A2, B2, C2, ...
Thats how thing happen in everyday life.
But now in the case of the setting, time does not flow at the same rate everywhere, but sometimes it speeds up or slows down, and it does so at different rates in different locations.
Which we see in this second chart:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w29wxJpC1rud7mxo1_1280.png
Here the horizontal lines become important. Because even when using magic to send telepatic messages or teleport, magic still seems to work just like in the first chart. When you are in location C at the moment 5 and teleport (event C5) to location B, you still arrive at B5. Even with magic, you can not go to B4, despite the time distortion between the locations B and C.
I call these vertical lines Causality Lines. Because if B4.3 had send a magic message to C4.3 and in reply someone would travel from C5 to B4, there would be no need to send the message in the first place. Cause and effect can never be reversed and the causality lines represent which events happen "simultaneously" in respect to causality.
What you could have is sending a message from D4 to C4 and someone at C takes 1 minute to start the teleport from C5 to D5 and the person at D is waiting for 3 minutes. Normally it's just a few seconds or minutes in duration difference that nobody notices, but it can get massive when traveling between the Material Plane and the Spiritworld, so you can visit spirits for an hour and be gone for weeks.
(There is an infinite number of causality lines between to moments so you don't get time paradoxes when thousands of people are teleporting between thousands of locations.)
Now, why does this all matter?
Because as mentioned in the setting spoiler, there's the Fortress of Time that lies outside of the normal flow of time and space.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7w33aU7711rud7mxo1_1280.png
That grey bar, that's the Fortress of Time. Imagine the causality lines connecting behind of it, it does not break them.
Outside in the normal world, causality lines still rule supreme. But inside the Fortress of Time, things get freaky. The First Rule is still in place. When someone entered the Fortress at causality line 1 and left it at causality line 2, you will not find him there when you enter at causality line 3.
This is what I have so far, but I think you might be able to do a lot of crazy stuff with that Fortress of Time. And here I'd really appreciate your input.
All I really require is that it is not possible to create time paradoxes in the normal world.
I think it might even be possible that you enter the Fortress after someone else and arrive before him.