Let's Watch Steins;Gate

[Randomguy]

Let's Watch Steins;Gate

Hi, I'm Randomguy. You may remember me from such Let's Watches as "Let's Watch FMA:Brotherhood".

I found myself with some free time lately, so I decided to start watching another anime, and settled on Steins;Gate, which I'd heard good things about. I wasn't originally planning to do a Let's Watch of this show: I was just going to sit back, relax, and just binge watch the whole thing. Then I saw the first episode, and couldn't bring myself to keep watching... without first re-watching the episode, writing down what the time was whenever it appeared onscreen and trying to and figure out what the hell was going on.

So, without further ado:

Episode 1: Turning Point

Event Log:

• At 2010 / 07 / 28, shortly before 11:50: Okarin hears an impact on the roof. It appears to be a small satellite. There’s someone walking around on the roof.
• A text is received. A metal Oopa discovered.
• At ~11:56, another text is received. The metal Oopa has been lost.
• The lecture begins at 12:00 on the dot.
• Okarin has an outburst in the middle of the lecture: Apparently the professor plagiarized the work of someone called John Titor.
• The red haired girl, Makise Kuriso shows up. She apparently has published papers. I’m assuming she’s a Professor. She claims that Okarin met her at ~11:45 and had an outburst. Okarin has no memory about this.
• Okarin finds out how much the metal Oopa is worth. His excitement about the 10 000 yen shows how poor his “lab” is. That’s like 100$.
• Okarin discovers Kuriso's (or should I call her Makise? I'm not sure.) corpse. If it is in fact her corpse? That “blood” wasn’t exactly blood coloured, and Okarin seems… unhinged enough to miss that. Maybe that whole scene was staged for his benefit to create a stable time loop? I’m just going to assume it’s real and give them artistic licence on the glow-y blood.
• Okarin hits send on his text to the hacker guy about Kuriso's murder, and something happens. Apparently he goes back in time, or possibly to an alternate timeline, where the streets are empty.
• In this “alternate timeline”, a much larger satellite has crashed, instead of landing safely. It has destroyed the top floor of the building.

• Apparently a few hours later, we get formally introduced to the girl he was with, Mayushii, and his “hacker” friend, Hashida Itaru. We also get our first look at Okarin's lab, which looks less like a lab and more like an apartment packed with science experiments.
• I’m… I’m just not going to comment on Alpacaman.
• From the news, we discover that in this alternate timeline, which I will call Timeline 2, the large satellite crashed into the building around 12:00. That'd explain why the streets were empty when Okarin showed up: the police probably cleared out the surrounding area after the crash, and only started letting people back in the area a few hours later.
• We find out that Timeline 2 Mayushii was there because Timeline 2 Okarin dragged her over to have a look at the satellite.
• In Timeline 2, the lecture on time travel as cancelled.
• “Steins;Gate has chosen!”. No idea what this means. I vaguely recall something about the series being based on some internet hoax involving time travel, which may have had something to do with someone in real life named John Titor, but I can’t go looking it up now for fear of spoilers.
• Okarin continues to be unhinged. He successfully irradiates a banana.
• Some nice alliteration about radioactive bananas from Itaru.
• At about 4:00, Okarin and Itaru return to the university building. They discover that the texts that Okarin sent were received on 2010/07/23 at 12:56, 5 days before they were sent.
• In the pre-credits of Episode 2, Okarin flips out at Kuriso. And this is where I realized I absolutely HAD to make an event log to make sense of things. (This is where I’m getting the “about 4:00pm” bit. Okarin sayd that Makise died three hours ago.)

Working Hypothesis:

Here's what I've come up with so far: There are 2 timelines: Timeline 1, with the small satellite that made only a small impact when it landed safely, and Timeline 2, with the large satellite that crashed and destroyed the top floor of the building. In Timeline 2, the lecture on time travel was cancelled. I’m assuming both timelines have their own copy of everyone.
At exactly 12:56, when Okarin from Timeline 1 (henceforth Okarin-1) hits send on the text, he is transported to 12:56 at Timeline 2. Apparently due to timey-wimey side effects, his text gets split up into three parts and sent back in time by 5 days. Here, he meets up with Mayushii-2, who was dragged along to the university by Okarin-2 when he heard the news about the large satellite crash. I don’t know what happened to Okarin-2, but I’d put 60% chance that he ended up in Timeline 1. Either that, or he was just "overwritten" by Okarin-1.
At about 4:00 Okarin-1, meets Kuriso-2, the red haired professor.
Not long after that, and not seen onscreen, something happens that sends Kuriso-2 to shortly after 12:00 in Timeline-1, where she confronts Okarin-1, who of course has no idea what she’s talking about because their first meeting (from her perspective) has not yet happened from his perspective. Interestingly enough, these are the sort of shenanigans that normally happen in stable time loop situations, not parallel timeline situations.

The metal Oopa will be critically important to the plot. Here’s why: Mayushii-1 got the metal Oopa. Mayushii-2 never had it. And the time that Mayushii-1 lost the metal Oopa roughly corresponds to the time when Makise-2 crossed over into Timeline-1. So perhaps Mayushii-2 will find the metal Oopa next episode. Her reaction to finding the thing, and insisting she never had it before now, will be another clue to help Okarin figure out what’s going on.

One more thing: The corpse that Okarin found could belong to either Kuriso-1 or Kuriso-2. Or theoretically another version of Kuriso from a different time or timeline, but probably one of those two. And I have no idea who could have killed her and why.

Jeez, I feel like I need a timeline graph already. But I'm going to consider that a good sign. I'm really enjoying this show so far.

[Lethologica]

Oh hey, it's S;G. I like and dislike this show, so discussion will probably be fun times.

Spoiler: This is a serious spoiler

Show

• Okarin discovers Kuriso's (or should I call her Makise? I'm not sure.) corpse. If it is in fact her corpse? That “blood” wasn’t exactly blood coloured, and Okarin seems… unhinged enough to miss that. Maybe that whole scene was staged for his benefit to create a stable time loop? I’m just going to assume it’s real and give them artistic licence on the glow-y blood.

Holy ****ing ****, he gets this on watch 1, episode 1? I give up. Some people just understand storytelling.

[Randomguy]

Episode 2: Time Travel Paranoia

Event Log:

• I feel like that “reaching one hand up towards the sun” imagery is common in anime intros. (granted, 2 data points isn’t a whole lot to extrapolate from.)
• Looks like Okarin just got emathculated pretty hard by Kuriso during her lecture on time travel. Also, I love the Dr. Who reference in the dub.
• Ryuka (i’m probably spelling that wrong) has a crush on Okarin! How cute.
• Wait, what? Did I here that right? “The personification of feminine grace… and a dude.”
• I heard that right. Ryuka is a dude.
• Eh, I ship it anyway.
• Okarin is realizing that he remembers things that no one else does. Which is inconvenient, since he appears to be a Schizophreniac and people are used to dismissing his nonsense.
• Now we get some exposition about John Titor. Also “worldline” instead of “timeline”? ugh. The dubbers dropped the ball on that one. Anyway, it seems like in Timeline-1, John Titor went back to year 2000. But in Timeline-2, Titor never went back to year 2000, and has no intention to. Interesting. As a result, in Timeline-2, he’s much less well known. This might explain why the lecture was cancelled in Timeline-2: No John Titor to plagiarize from.
• Enter stage left: Moeka, who takes a large number of pictures and wrangles Okarin’s contact info from him. She is very attached to her phone. I’m betting she’s going through some of the same timeline-hopping stuff Okarin is, and is taking pictures to have a record of where she’s been and when (using the timestamp on the picture), to convince herself that she’s not going crazy. That’d explain her attachment to her phone. I feel like the picture of that old computer also suggests time traveller.
• Watching Okarin interact with the waitresses at the maid-cat cafe is very endearing. He's actually kinda nice when he's not acting completely insane.
• The banana has either time travelled or teleported back to the bunch. And Kuriso's caught them red handed in the act of bananaportation.

Episode Notes: First Impressions

I’m assuming that Okarin is a high functioning paranoid Schizophrenic, what with him always talking about the Organization being out to get him. That, and him claiming that he set his phone to turn off in anyone’s hands but his own. He’s also clearly quite brilliant despite all that, even though he got his academic butt whooped by Kuriso during her lecture.
Wait a moment. What if Kuriso’s corpse that Okarin saw in episode one was just a hallucination? Visual hallucinations are actually a potential symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. Normally I’d say that the writers wouldn’t pull something like that, but Okarin actually does show many of the symptoms of Paranoid Schizophrenia, which may could count as foreshadowing, so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue.

Pigtail girl who got a job at the old CRT store. (video game store?): She seems exciteable. Don’t know what her deal (or her name) is. I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

Moeka: Is this one of those tropes in anime and manga where a shy girl is named "Moeka" because it has "Moe" in it, in the same way that a disproportionate number of protagonists are named "Hiro"? As I mentioned above, I suspect her of being a time traveller and timeline jumper. Not much else to say about her yet though.

Itaru: He’s a bit creepy, but I like how snarky he is, and he keeps Okarin grounded.

Kuriso: We already new that she’d jumped from one timeline to another. But her showing up at the end of the episode at a dramatically appropriate time suggests that she’s time travelling intentionally, not accidentally.

Mayushii: I wonder what her story is. How’d she end up in the same friend group as Okarin and Itaru? Is she a classmate of theirs? Okarin's younger sister? I'm not sure.

[Eldan]

Actually, World Lines are a thing, I don't think they dropped the ball.

[Grinner]

Hoo boy, this will be fun.

...Although you're doing a lot better than I did watching it through. I'm having trouble keeping all the details together, even knowing how it will end.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Or, should I say...

FUWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~

Also, I think the subs used "world line" as well. I don't know the original Japanese enough to know if they're deliberately going for that slant or not.

[Lethologica]

*cough* The name's Kurisu.

Feel free to ship anyone and everyone. It's a VN adaptation, that's what VNs are for. Not a fan of the way the show treats Ruka, but that's not Ruka's fault.

World line is a correct translation; the term they use is 世界線 ('sekai sen'). 'Sekai' means 'world'.

Never underestimate the rule of drama.

[Grinner]

Actually, World Lines are a thing, I don't think they dropped the ball.

I don't think the usage is exactly the same, though.

In that article, the term "world line" refers to the totality of an object's movement over time, and it doesn't really refer to anything physical. It's just a method of representation, I think. It's definitely an interesting way of thinking about physics, but in Steins;Gate, the usage seems different.

Spoiler: Spoilers ahoy!

Show

From what I remember, there are multiple world lines in the series. Each world line consists of a collection of timelines, and given how Okabe is tasked with changing the world line in order to prevent Kurisu's father from taking over the world (or was it SERN?), we can safely assume that the future is pretty much predestined within any given world line. Otherwise, it wouldn't be too difficult to prevent that from occurring.

While the universe seems to resist attempts to change the future, it is possible to find the right point in spacetime at which world lines meet (which is what Suzuha spends the series trying to do), thus allowing an individual to direct the universe along a different world line. It's an interesting compromise between the concepts of free-will and destiny. From an extradiegetic viewpoint, it's also kinda handy for the purposes of drama, since it allows time travel to occur without the butterfly effect kicking in.

Does the series ever address the problem of multiple universes? If there's only one universe and the many states in which it can exist, I can kinda see applying the term "world line" if you treat the universe as a single object. It's hard to explain...

[Randomguy]

*cough* The name's Kurisu.

Augh! I literally switched over to watch the sub for episode one to make sure I spelled all the names right. I guess I made a typo when writing one of them down.
Thanks for the correction.

Feel free to ship anyone and everyone. It's a VN adaptation, that's what VNs are for. Not a fan of the way the show treats Ruka, but that's not Ruka's fault.

I didn't realize Steins:Gate was a VN adaptation. Neat. I guess I can probably expect some ship tease between Okarin and just about all of the other characters, then.

World line is a correct translation; the term they use is 世界線 ('sekai sen'). 'Sekai' means 'world'.

It may be the correct literal translation, but it seems like they're talking about to timelines, and not world lines. (which I did not know where a thing). Although, I have to say that overall the dub has been really good about non-literal translations. I've noticed a lot of well used idioms. Also a few that aren't as well used, but that doesn't happen so often.

[Grinner]

It may be the correct literal translation, but it seems like they're talking about to timelines, and not world lines. (which I did not know where a thing). Although, I have to say that overall the dub has been really good about non-literal translations. I've noticed a lot of well used idioms. Also a few that aren't as well used, but that doesn't happen so often.

The term refers to something more complex than a simple timeline. Wait a bit longer.

[Lethologica]

The term refers to something more complex than a simple timeline. Wait a bit longer.

No, I think Randomguy is correct.

Spoiler

Show

The term for a timeline in Steins;Gate is 'world line', and the term for a collection of world lines with a convergent result is 'attractor field'. See the Steins;Gate wiki for details: Attractor Field

[Grinner]

Spoiler

Show

No, I think Randomguy is correct. The term for a timeline in Steins;Gate is 'world line', and the term for a collection of world lines with a convergent result is 'attractor field'. See the Steins;Gate wiki for details: Attractor Field

Ohhhhhh....My bad.

[Lethologica]

Ohhhhhh....My bad.

Well, hm. Actually, the way I put it might have been too strong; see below.

It may be the correct literal translation, but it seems like they're talking about to timelines, and not world lines. (which I did not know where a thing). Although, I have to say that overall the dub has been really good about non-literal translations. I've noticed a lot of well used idioms. Also a few that aren't as well used, but that doesn't happen so often.

While this is true, it may be that the Japanese expression used in Steins;Gate is distinct from how the concept of 'timelines' is normally expressed in Japanese. In that case, a correct translation would maintain the distinction. I've been wandering around the net looking for (a) an English-to-Japanese translation of 'timeline' that isn't just the Katakana loanword, and (b) an explanation of why 'world line' was used. I haven't had much success on either score.

In particular, 'world line' may denote a specific kind of timeline, with behaviors peculiar to the setting, as opposed to the general concept of timelines. Saying anything more about this is getting into the spoilers Grinner and I have been churning through.

[Randomguy]

Episode 3: Parallel World Paranoia

Event Log:

• "Don’t you take your eyes off her for a nanosecond". "Sure thing boss."
• Okay, the guys are being really creepy about the banana double entendres here.
• Basically everything Mayushii says about chicken tenders is hilarious.
• Gah! Why would she open the microwave then?
• And the results of the experiment: The text message was once again received 5 days ago.
• Here’s what I don’t get: If the microwave is a time machine, then why didn’t it do anything to the chicken tenders? Well, other than burn them.
• They appear to have burnt out their time machine.
• "The IBM 5100 was built before basic, so it’s the only computer that can read IBM’s proprietary code."
• "The IBM5100’s singular abilities are needed to halt CERN’s ambitions." It has a secret function that only a few of the engineers know about.
• One thing from Titor’s message: "in 2015, WW3 occurs." The show's set in 2010, so that's actually only 5 years away. That's a lot more imminent then CERN's takeover.
• From the CERN documents: “Error: Human is dead. Mismatch.”

Episode Notes:

Turns out Kurisu showing up at the same moment they time travelify the banana is a complete coincidence. She’s apparently quite averse to the idea of time travel, which makes sense when you think that she’s probably sunk quite a bit of time into proving that it’s impossible. Apparently her math was wrong somewhere, though, because CERN's own documents say that they successfully created mini-black holes, which she said was impossible.

So, we know that both Moeka and John Titor are both looking for the IBM5100, and from last episode it was mentioned that there were rumours of one being around. I wonder how they’re connected? Moeka could be working for Titor, or against him, or she could want it for the same reason. Also, she’s definitely a time traveller.

If CERN controls all of the advanced technology in the future, then how did John Titor get his hands on time travel? He also knew that the miniature black holes (Z-program) was already successful by this point in time, even though CERN kept that a secret. It’s possible that info about the Z-program was revealed decades after the fact, and that Titor managed to steal time travel tech from CERN, but still. Seems suspicious.
Also, if he can travel through time, why not go back to 1975 when the IBM5100 first came out and just grab one? Unless the amount of energy you need depends on how far back you're going, which I guess makes sense. In fact it makes a lot of sense: One standard microwave draws enough power to send a message back 5 days, or a banana back 5 minutes, or a bunch of bananas back by less time then then they were even in the microwave. So the heavier something is less it travels back given the same energy. This might also explain why the microwave didn't mess up the chicken tenders.

The differences between Timeline 1 and Timeline 2 aren’t actually caused by the text that Okarin inadvertently sent back in time, although that would have fit nicely with what we new about timelines. So however their time travel microwave works, it doesn’t create a new timeline when it sends a text back in time. But something happened to transport Okarin to a different timeline. What gives? Maybe there’s something else that happened simultaneously.

Even if it only sends information back, that's still pretty useful. Finding out the stock market 5 days in advance comes to mind. Or the lottery numbers. Shame they broke it, though.
Hang on: if they broke the thing and now can't fix it, then how did they make it in the first place? Especially if they didn't know what it did when they did make it. Are they just throwing science at the wall until something sticks?

No idea what the “human is dead” bit is referring to. It can’t be Kurisu. Or can it? No, probably not.
Makes sense that time travel is hazardous, though. After all, look at what it did to the banana.

Speaking of Kurisu, let's take a moment to figure out which one's which:
We know that the Kurisu that Okarin ranted at after seeing her corpse is the same as the one that confronted him in Timeline 1.
We know that she's also the same Kurisu that gave the lecture about the impossibility of time travel in episode 2, since she knew Okarin's name. And all other instances of Kurisu appear to be the same one as that.
...
What?
So Kurisu started off in Timeline 2, travelled to Timeline 1 and back in time 3 hours to confront Okarin, and then went back to Timeline 2 to give her lecture? How the hell did she switch timelines and times, twice, without noticing? I guess that's possible if she stayed in the radio building the whole time, and didn't check the time. Or her phone.
Geez, this theory is getting increasingly unlikely and it's the best one I can think of. My next best guess is that future Kurisu from Timeline 2 went back and switched timelines to play out a script, written by future Okarin, so that the Okarin of episode 1 reacts in the correct way and flips out at Kurisu-2 when they first meet (from her perspective) in order to ensure that they meet in the first place.

So... who's the corpse? Kurisu that was originally from Timeline 1? Kurisu from Timeline 2 in the future? Kurisu from some other timeline? A hallucination? A dummy covered in fake blood? Probably not that last one, but who knows?

And for that matter, how did she die? Who killed her? What was their motive? I guess the motive would depend on which Kurisu the victim actually is. The possible suspects right now are anyone who has (or will have) access to time travel, so: CERN agents, John Titor, Moeka, maybe even future Okarin. Or the person who mysteriously landed on the rooftop of the radio building in Timeline 1. Now that I think of it, Roof Person is also probably a time traveller. Or the death could have been caused by a time travel related accident, which has been established as a possibility. Person is dead, and all.

Speaking of Roof Person, I went back and took a screencap of the one very brief image we were given of her.

Spoiler: Image

Show

So if I ever see a character wearing brown, fingerless gloves, then they are (probably) Roof Person.

[Grinner]

So Kurisu started off in Timeline 2, travelled to Timeline 1 and back in time 3 hours to confront Okarin, and then went back to Timeline 2 to give her lecture?

I think you're confusing yourself. (You're definitely confusing me, at least.)

In the episode 1 log, you stated that the time travel lecture was cancelled in Timeline 2.

[Randomguy]

I think you're confusing yourself. (You're definitely confusing me, at least.)

In the episode 1 log, you stated that the time travel lecture was cancelled in Timeline 2.

The lecture that was cancelled was the pro-time travel lecture, at 12:00, that some guy plagiarized off of John Titor. Kurisu's lecture, on why time travel is impossible, which happened at 4:00 ish, was not cancelled and definitely happened in Timeline 2.

[Lethologica]

Speaking of Kurisu, let's take a moment to figure out which one's which:
We know that the Kurisu that Okarin ranted at after seeing her corpse is the same as the one that confronted him in Timeline 1.

How do we know that again?

[Randomguy]

Speaking of Kurisu, let's take a moment to figure out which one's which:
We know that the Kurisu that Okarin ranted at after seeing her corpse is the same as the one that confronted him in Timeline 1.

How do we know that again?

We know this because the reason that she confronted him in Timeline 1 is because he raved about her being dead in their previous meeting from her perspective.

[Ravian]

We know this because the reason that she confronted him in Timeline 1 is because he raved about her being dead in their previous meeting from her perspective.

I'm not so sure about that (I also haven't finished the series yet so this is just my opinion rather than a spoiler).

I may be recalling it wrong, but I thought she said that he wanted to talk to her for some reason, not specifically because of him ranting about her being dead.

My theory is that there's a stable time loop and he'll end up traveling back in time to either set or try to stop events in motion.


Thanks for doing this by the way. I've been trying to finish this series for a while (I'm around the midway point, having stopped twice now due to other distractions.) Hopefully this thread should finally give me the excuse I need to finish the damn thing.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I continue to be impressed by your attention to detail. I think it'll pay off for you.

I don't recall if they explained why the chicken tenders didn't turn out quite the same; they definitely give an explicit reasoning in the VN, where they go into a lot more detail about stuff. It's been a while since I've seen the show, so I could be mis-remembering.

[Randomguy]

I'm not so sure about that (I also haven't finished the series yet so this is just my opinion rather than a spoiler).

I may be recalling it wrong, but I thought she said that he wanted to talk to her for some reason, not specifically because of him ranting about her being dead.

Here's a rough transcript of their conversation. In retrospect, I could have probably looked it up instead of transcribing it myself, but either way:

Kurisu: So what were you trying to tell me back then? Earlier.
Okarin: Earlier?
K: A quarter of an hour ago?
O: They let you out of a nuthouse? Hold on, Makise Kurisu? [is confused, then realizes who she is]
K: [impressed he knows who she is.]
O: [acts crazy]
K: Look, I just wanted to ask you about…
O: And you’re a fool to expect I’ll talk! [starts talking into phone about being cornered by an agent.]
K: [Figures out phone is off.]
O: [Acts crazy.] [evil laughter]
K: Great, you’re crazy. Clearly this is asking a lot, but I need you to summon up whatever focus you can spare. Think back 15 minutes. You were trying your damndest to tell me something? And going by the look on your face it was worth hearing.
O: [Acts crazy] [evil laughter] [exit stage left.]
Okarin's internal monologue: She’s clearly a lunatic.

Sure sounds like she's referring to the meeting in episode 2 to me. Oh, and you gotta love the irony in that last line.

Okay, hang on a second. Let's label the meetings between them for easier discussion.
Meeting A is them meeting in episode 1, transcribed above.
Meeting B is with Okarin and Kurisu's corpse.
Meeting C is in the pre-credits scene of episode 2.
Meeting D is Kurisu giving her lecture in episode 2.
Meeting E is at the end of episode 2 / start of episode 3 when Kurisu shows up at their lab.

My current hypothesis is that, from Kurisu-2's perspective, the meetings go in this order: C --> A --> D --> E.

This mostly makes sense. However, there are a few problems with this
A small problem is that in meeting C, Okarin gives Kurisu his name. By which I mean he yells it at her dramatically while she's going off to give her lecture. But in meeting A, Kurisu never uses Okarin's name. This isn't that big of a deal, the meeting may have just been written that way to avoid giving too many hints to the audience, but it's worth noting.

Here's the bigger issue: At the end of meeting C, Kurisu leaves directly to meeting D. (which we know because at the end of meeting C some guy says "They're ready for you now, miss.", with "they" probably referring to the people in the lecture hall.) And in meeting D she does use Okarin's name. This sort of suggests that D was directly after C from her perspective. There's that, and there's also the fact that I brought up before: For the order to be C --> A --> D, Kurisu would have had to time travel twice, without noticing, on her way directly to meeting D. Which is starting to get unlikely.
It's still the best idea I've got, though, so I'll stick with it for now. Hopefully I'll get some answers in the next few episodes.

[Randomguy]

Episode 4: Interpreter Rendezvous.

Event Log:

• And from one brief flashback, we find out that at least one of Mayushii's parents is dead. Well, at least we know a bit about her now.
• Text message from Titor. Add Okarin to the list of people that want the IBN 5100.
• "The world needs only one despicable mad scientist! We need to realize our goal of global dominion before the upstarts cut us off at the pass!" Real Selfless, Okarin. Save the world from CERN so you can take over yourself. Nice. Also, technically you're the upstart here. They are an established evil organization.
• Mayushii has work and Itaru needs sleep, so looks like Okarin’s going to have to put his evil plan on hold for now. Not like there’s a strict time limit, though. They've got a few years.
• Okarin has managed to merge the new information about CERN with his earlier delusions of being schemed against by "The Organization." Which I guess simplifies thing, better then adding a second secret society that’s scheming against him.
• Apparently Kurisu’s father was fixated with time travel as well. I wonder who he was?
• Way to dine and dash, Okarin.
• I agree with Okarin here. What the hell?
• Okay, some sort of board game tournament? At a maid/catgirl cafe?
• I’m just waiting for Okarin to run out of hot air and lose horribly.
• And his first move is to surrender. That was actually clever of him. He’s still a drama queen though.
• But they did find a lead on the IBN!
• That's interesting: Kurisu's apparently only 17. And she’s already a published papers? And giving lectures? Wow.
• The IBN 5100 was donated to the shrine 10 years ago. Same year Titor originally showed up in Timeline 1. Huh.

Episode Notes:

Okarin's code words stem from his usual paranoia, but in a situation with time travel they might actually come in handy sometime later: If someone that's not supposed to have a code word uses one, then it's possible that they got the code word at some point in the future and then travelled back. It's always the same thing, though, which makes it less useful.

Okay, the last part of this episode is quite funny: Okarin's switching between talking to Ruka's father and Kurisu, and whenever he talks to Ruka's father he's super polite, and when he talks to Kurisu he's incredibly rude and condescending. He's literally switching back and forth from one sentence to another!
This is an extreme example, but it also demonstrates how he treats people in general. Some people he's "nice" too (still overdramatic and eccentric though) and other people he just sort of treats as subordinate, like Kurisu and Itaru. Now that I think of it, his condescension might even be, like, a form of affection.

One new mystery is added in this episode: Who donated the IBN5100 to the shrine? Whoever it was, they probably intended Okarin to end up with it. They were probably also a time traveller. So... Titor? Future Okarin? Moeka?
Wait... what if the thing that caused Timeline 1 to turn into Timeline 2 was that someone went back and left the IBN for Okarin to find? I'm not sure whether or not that makes sense. I do know that whatever caused the change, it must have involved going back into the distant past, because of the differences between the two satellites: For the two satellites to be different, they must have been designed differently, for different purposes, and the design phase of the satellites would have happened years before they launched or crashed.

Running Plotlines
I'm going to make a quick list of the running plotlines, to make sure that I don't accidentally forget anything important.

• The differences between Timeline 1 and Timeline 2
• The small satellite landing vs. the large satellite crash
• Titor's appearance in year 2000 vs Titor's appearance in 2010
• The mysterious roof person from Timeline 1.
• What caused Timeline 1 to turn into Timeline 2.
• How Kurisu went from timeline to timeline.
• Who killed Kurisu, what was their motive, and which Kurisu was killed?
• Who donated the IBN5100 to the shrine?
• Why did Moeka want the IBN5100? Is she working for Titor, for CERN or neither?

[DarkCorax]

I really enjoyed Steins;Gate. It's always interesting with this kind of show to watch someone going in blind and trying to work out what is happening, managing to be eerily accurate in some areas while being wildly off base elsewhere.

[Eldan]

I quite like this show. I also found my old avatar again.

[Calemyr]

Posting primarily to be sure I can find this again. Full Metal Alchemist was fun, but Steins;Gate is a whole other game. Seriously. Everything makes "total sense" looking back at it, a lot of clues are there all along, and the mysteries all fit together neatly once you see it all, but until the closing credits you're left scrabbling with the clues you've got. You're a very smart guy, Randomguy, so watching as you spot and piece together every clue, thread, and red herring will likely be the most entertainment I'll get all year.

I don't think this is a vital spoiler, but it's really useful for understanding this story. A World Line is a collection of time lines. If I wake up and have a bowl of cereal, go back in time and tell myself the milk is bad, then wake up and have a Pop-tart instead, I've got two timelines, but the state of the world hasn't changed in any meaningful. I have one less pop-tart, and didn't end up with a bowl full of sour milk. Now, if I decided to go to Kwik Trip to fuel up before work, start chatting with the cute lady behind me in the line, and ultimately meet the girl of my dreams in a chance encounter, then go back and time and give myself coupons to Super America, I end up going there instead, and never meet the love of my life. That's a much bigger change, but it's still very much on a personal level. The world doesn't change. But then say I went back in time to around the year 2000 and started raising an epic stink about airplanes, and how a fully fueled plane could not just flatten a major landmark but the flaming fuel could both destroy it utterly and make the death toll so much worse, well... changes might have been made. New security and safety features on planes, for example. 9/11 fails utterly. No world uniting against the tragedy, no war on terror, no backlash from errors stemming from it. End result is one idiot's raving changes the world immensely. Imagine what the modern world would have been like if those planes had been brought down long before they found their targets. That world would be a new World Line, with its own various timelines based on my choice in breakfast and relationship status. Killing Hitler would be another World Line changer, I would assume.

Something happened that day that radically changed the chain of events. The crashed satelite might have broken the chain of events that killed Kurisu, for example, and Kurisu might be a crucial element in the future. That metal opa might interfere with just the right electronics at just the right time to save the world, perhaps, and its loss has damned us all. Itaru might have finally impressed that cat-maid girl if Okarin hadn't gone even more unhinged and started making something of his life. Mayuri might... pffffft... nope. Can't type that with a straight face. The girl may be cute and a wonderful source of breather comedy (annoying too-ta-roo sound be darned), but relevant she is not. Anyway, something changed that day that had a major impact on the state of the world.

Or, if you prefer, you could look at a World Line as a rope, made up of a large number of relatively close timelines. Make a big enough change and you jump from one rope to another.

Hope that makes sense. It's critical to the plot, but to the concept rather than the resolution, so I think it's just useful to know.

Other than that, there's one question I'd add for your list of things to remember: Why is it only Okarin that remembers the first World Line? I remember that really bothered me first time around.

[Kato]

Ah man.... not I feel like I should go back and watch the show again alongside you... Hm... I'll give this some serious thought.
I love this show, I love Okabe, I love Kurisu, I love how the characters work of each other... I don't like some of the unnecessary bad science but otherwise this might be my favorite anime, or at least top 10.

A World Line is a collection of time lines.

Huh? How is a world line different from a time line? Or, well, maybe not exactly. I still think the analogue is not fitting.

[Eldan]

I think this show has the very best bad science. Hilarious bad science that shows a certain love for actual science. Unlike a lot of so-called SciFi.

[Calemyr]

Huh? How is a world line different from a time line? Or, well, maybe not exactly. I still think the analogue is not fitting.

It's simple. A World Line is multiple timelines that are related, the same way a book is multiple pages that are, probably, related..

[Randomguy]

A World Line is a collection of time lines.

I guess this makes sense. In theory they're just very similar timelines, in practice it would be useful for time travellers to group them all together and give them the label Worldline 2814 or something to distinguish it from the Worldline where Axis powers won WW2.

Other than that, there's one question I'd add for your list of things to remember: Why is it only Okarin that remembers the first World Line? I remember that really bothered me first time around.

I originally thought that Okarin was the only one to remember the first World Line because he literally travelled from one world line to another, and no one else did. Recently though I've been considering the possibility that he hasn't been travelling, just that something happened that changed the world line and he retained the old memories. One piece of support for this is the texts that Okarin sent about Kurisu's death, which he can't actually find on his phone. So that particular piece of physical evidence from the other World Line is gone.

The thing that distinguishes these two ideas is other physical evidence, like the metal Oopa and more importantly the texts that were sent about it. If the texts are on his phone now, it's time travel, if they aren't, then it's a change in memories. Okarin hasn't mentioned that they were missing, but he might just not have noticed if they were, what with all the other more significant stuff going on.

It's actually a very important distinction, from my perspective at least: If his memory changed instead of him physically going from one worldline to the other, then my current theory on Kurisu's personal timeline is completely wrong. (Well either that or we have a weird situation where Kurisu time travelled while Okarin is just remembering a different timeline).

At this point I'd bet on actually travelling from timeline to timeline instead of just a change in memory, but if it were a change in memory I would guess Okarin was unaffected because of his schizophrenia.

[JCarter426]

I recently recommended this to a friend but he still hasn't finished it. So it'll be interesting to see someone else's speculation.

But regarding the worldline issue, the terminology originates from John Titor himself. He borrowed it from physics but he didn't use it the same way - it's basically just his term for timeline. The collection of similar worldlines thing is called something else in Steins;Gate.

Spoiler: John Titor quotes, possible spoilers

Show

Temporal space-time is made up of every possible quantum state. The Everett Wheeler model is correct. I have met and/or seen myself twice on different worldlines. The first was a training mission and the second is now.

I was born in 1998 so the other "me" is 2 on this worldline. There is a saying where I come from, "Every possible thing that can happen or will happen has already happened somewhere".

For starters, the fact that I'm here makes it different. I've also noticed little things like news events that happen at different times, football games won by other teams, things like that.

I would guess the temporal divergence between this worldline and my original is about 1 or 2 percent. Of course, the longer I am here, the larger that divergence becomes from my point of view.