Thank God it ended when it did...

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Well paradoxes can't happen therefore they won't happen even if you try to make them happen because that's just how things work.

Why can they not happen?

Because that's the nature of a paradox. If you go back in time and kill your father before he impregnated your mother then you wouldn't be born to go back in time and kill him. Or if you go back in time and kill a younger version of yourself then you won't grow old to travel back in time and kill yourself.

You see, since it can't happen, it won't happen.

[Sionnach Glic]

Then what stops it? Your father won't magicaly teleport away from you when you go to shoot him.
The only reason they couldn't happen is if time travel was impossible, or my theory of alternate realities is in effect.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Then what stops it? Your father won't magicaly teleport away from you when you go to shoot him.
The only reason they couldn't happen is if time travel was impossible, or my theory of alternate realities is in effect.

No, but the universe would naturally correct it, like your gun misfires or something and doesn't kill him. Or the trajectory is changed by a factor not under human control, like wind or something(blowing the guy over, not the bullet(before anyone accuses me of saying something that stupid))

[Sionnach Glic]

The universe isn't magic. Things don't just happen for no reason, nor is the universe conciously making sure everything stays fine. There would be no correction, as such a correction would simply be impossible.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

The universe isn't magic. Things don't just happen for no reason, nor is the universe conciously making sure everything stays fine. There would be no correction, as such a correction would simply be impossible.

It doesn't conciously make sure everything stays fine in the conventional sense but it does prevent people from breaking the laws of physics.

[Sionnach Glic]

A paradox is not breaking the laws of physics. In fact, paradoxes can only come about because of the laws of physics. Making your gun misfire for no reason would be breaking the LOP.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

A paradox is not breaking the laws of physics. In fact, paradoxes can only come about because of the laws of physics. Making your gun misfire for no reason would be breaking the LOP.

Okay, then please explain how a paradox would work then?

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

The paradox works and then the very fabric of time and space rip apart.

Or when you travel back in time, you become 'unstuck' from the timeline and can kill your father before you're conceived, but when you go forward again, you're a non-person. No records, memories or anything survive the changes.

Those are my two cents on it.

[Sionnach Glic]

It wouldn't. Why? Because it's impossible to get into that situation in the first place. If being able to travel through time and still remain in your own reality was possible, we'd have seen some indication of future humans screwing around.

[Duskofdead]

Then what stops it? Your father won't magicaly teleport away from you when you go to shoot him.
The only reason they couldn't happen is if time travel was impossible, or my theory of alternate realities is in effect.

If you went back and killed yourself history would be "updated" to where you were murdered... but then what Blackstar is saying, is that if you were murdered before an age where you went back and killed yourself, then you could never go back and kill yourself. What would "really happen" in that scenario is a question of theoretical physics which frankly should give everyone a headache. Sci fi tends to get around this either by ignoring it entirely ( the lazy way ) or having people somehow "shielded" from changes in the timeline (the arguably cheap way) so that they can disrupt it yet not be changed along with the resulting effect.

I tend more towards the chaos theory/alternate decision-branch universe theory. What would happen in that case is anytime you went back in time, you weren't in fact in your own actual past, but in an alternate copy of our universe where you kill yourself, and there is actually no effect upon you or the worldline you came from whatsoever. In the one you're displaced into from time travel, you of course were murdered, but you could return to your own "worldline" and nothing would change for you whatsoever. I think the most "realistic possible" instance of time travel would be more like that... it would only be half time travel, the other half would be basically displacement into an alternate universe. And what happens in one universe would not necessarily have any effect whatsoever on another.

Blackstar meant if there's just one timeline, one universe, then it's impossible to go back and kill yourself, because if you died earlier, you'd never go back and kill yourself. So basically nothing would happen. Only the "alternate reality" idea would make this possible.

[Mikey]

So technically, we're all in agreement?!

Isn't that a paradox in itself?

[Sionnach Glic]

Uh, Dusk, that's pretty much what I was saying. You can't go back and change stuff that way, full stop. However, the universe isn't going to change its own rules to stop you creating a paradox if it were possible.

[Duskofdead]

Uh, Dusk, that's pretty much what I was saying. You can't go back and change stuff that way, full stop. However, the universe isn't going to change its own rules to stop you creating a paradox if it were possible.

My head! It acheth!

[Sionnach Glic]

Ah, screw time travel.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Ah, screw time travel.

Actually, that's probably Starfleet's view of it, too. Kirk probably got so many violations because he liked seeing Temporal Investaigation's heads spinning.