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In response to
"But don't you think that of all the people on the planet, *one* person would have done something that would (spoilers?)"
by
oblique
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yes, that's what I'm saying. What everyone saw is now meaningless. Mere hints at what might come to pass.
Posted by
Beryllium (aka grayman)
Nov 3 '09, 10:39
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Some time travel shows have a few ways of dealing with this, of course:
1 - Fate. All the choices have already been made, and exactly what everyone saw will come to pass, and nothing they do will change it. This is the 12 Monkeys methodology.
2 - Time heals all wounds. This is what the Star Trek movie adhered to; the timeline was trying to heal itself from the gaping would caused by Red Matter. This is why the Enterprise crew ended up so identically united, yet earlier in their careers than in the canonical timeline.
3 - Timecop/Year of Hell. Changes in the past ripple into the future and can cause major catastrophe, but other people from the future can be insulated from the effects and can correct their own timeline to what they believe is an accurate representation of their own history.
4 - Unprotected Time. Changes in the past create a new future, so any previous knowledge of what the future holds is meaningless, and there's little point in reacting to information about the future, because it is in a constant state of flux.
There are a few more, that's all I can think of right now. FlashForward is in the 4th realm, as is Back to the Future (kind of; it also has a tendency towards #2)
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