An addition regarding time travel verse equalization

[DontTalkDT]

It came up in a vsthread some time ago and, now that I think about it, it might be worth to add a small note regarding it to the time travel page.

So, what this is about, is characters that use time travel to fight. Particularly time paradoxes.
Character A travels back in time, has to search for a long time to find its target in the past and, once he does, kills Character B as a child. As a result, Character B in the present ceases to exist and Character A wins the fight. Typical time traveller move, yes?

However, in our vs-threads that is a little difficult. Character A and Character B come from different franchises, meaning that they also technically have different pasts. And Character A would never be able, under any circumstances, to get from their past to Character B's past, as that would mean to cross from one franchise into the other.
Meaning, time travel could never be used to time paradox the opponent.

That's where verse equalization should come in IMO. The point of verse equalization is to alleviate such problems that come with having crossover fights, to have each character fight like they usually would and their techniques work like they usually would work. As an entire branch of abilities would be useless without it, I think its usage is justified in this case.

Hence, I would suggest to add a little note regarding that case somewhere. Something like:

In a fight between characters of various franchises, time travelers are usually assumed to be able to travel into the past of either franchise for the sake of verse equalization. That doesn't necessarily mean that they land close by to the opponents, but just that they land in some relatively normal place in the other franchises past (ideally their version of the fighting location) from where they can start moving around as they usually would.

What do you think, everyone?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree with this.

 

[Zencha9]

i think it's fine, at least time traveling powers aren't useless now

but i have a question that might be a bit off topic but like if someone with time manip resets time thus destroying the present alongside the universe would that be included on said character's profile? like "3-A via chain reaction" or something like that?

 

[Elizhaa]

The suggestion seems doable.

 

[Arceus0x]

Technically it's fine as the time traveling character in question would still need to guess the right time at which the opponent existed and was a child and they'd need to find their location (and there's about 510.1 million km^2 to search through)

 

[Bobsican]

TBH I'm not too sure on this, do we assume that the place SBA takes place is where character A and B were born before and whatever? That seems rather unlikely, but it may be worth noting if that'd be a consequence of the premise of this and all.

I thought we'd just take into account the cosmological distance between series A and B, and so at least 2-C travel would be required to go to the verse of the other to time paradox them. Of course the place SBA takes place could just be (manually) changed to either verse to avoid this entire issue.

 

[DontTalkDT]

TBH I'm not too sure on this, do we assume that the place SBA takes place is where character A and B were born before and whatever? That seems rather unlikely, but it may be worth noting if that'd be a consequence of the premise of this and all.

My idea was that the battle initially still takes place in the real world, but the time traveller lands in one of the franchises when they go to the past so that time travel makes sense.

The simplest case is if both franchises have a planet Earth and the battle, for example, takes place in New York. In that case, Character A would be assumed to either go to their timelines past New York or the other timelines past New York if they go backwards in time.

So we don't fuse the verses history together or anything, as that would become very complicated very fast. So it's basically like your 2-C travel idea, just that we give the benefit of actually letting them enter the other timeline by default.

I thought we'd just take into account the cosmological distance between series A and B, and so at least 2-C travel would be required to go to the verse of the other to time paradox them.

That doesn't make sense with all cosmologies. However, more importantly, it still nerfs a whole lot of characters by requiring their fiction to have multiverse stuff. Most fictions play in one universe and it seems like a shame to make their timetravel useless over a technicality.

Of course the place SBA takes place could just be (manually) changed to either verse to avoid this entire issue.

That only works until two timetravelers fight and then the fighting location isn't really neutral anymore, so I don't really like that option much.

 

[Bobsican]

So your premise is that per verse equalization, time travelers have inherently as much range as required for this power in particular to be usable on the opponent to time paradox them? I think this may have some other implications, most notably suddendly being usable against BFRs far above their original capability (if any), so I'm not too sure on that, as unlike other cases of verse equalization, at this point we'd be giving powers for free when they haven't even done that in-verse to begin with.

How would we deal with cases where a character's life was previously bound to multiple timelines? More specifically cases where they have been in multiple universes for a considerable amount of time, and so their "everyday activities" for the purposes of SBA to grab the respective character from is very unlikely to be in the universe where they were born in particular.
It'd also be unlikely to claim a opponent from another verse can go back when the other was a baby or similar when at the very least that'd require way more information than usual in such case.

 

[DontTalkDT]

So your premise is that per verse equalization, time travelers have inherently as much range as required for this power in particular to be usable on the opponent to time paradox them? I think this may have some other implications, most notably suddendly being usable against BFRs far above their original capability (if any), so I'm not too sure on that, as unlike other cases of verse equalization, at this point we'd be giving powers for free when they haven't even done that in-verse to begin with.

Giving them powers for free isn't my intention. Basically, when they go from the initial battlefield to the past they land in an equivalent/neutral place in either one of the two franchises, but that's it. This isn't to say that they then could then suddenly teleport to other universes under any other circumstances or free themselves from BFR that way. It's only to say that they can enter the others person timestream at a regular location and then they can from there on only move around like they usually can.

How would we deal with cases where a character's life was previously bound to multiple timelines? More specifically cases where they have been in multiple universes for a considerable amount of time, and so their "everyday activities" for the purposes of SBA to grab the respective character from is very unlikely to be in the universe where they were born in particular.
It'd also be unlikely to claim a opponent from another verse can go back when the other was a baby or similar when at the very least that'd require way more information than usual in such case.

The idea is that they initially either land at an equal or a neutral location and from there just move around like they usually could. That means they could land somewhere far off and, of course, they don't get extra knowledge like the character's age or location.

So, say the battle takes place in New York and the franchise of B has New York as a place. Then going 20 years into the past will initially land A in the New York from 20 years ago in B's franchise (or of A's franchise, but then no paradoxing would happen) regardless of where B is at the time or how old B is. If B is, for example, in a different dimension in that point in time... well, then A won't be able to reach them regardless (Unless A can travel to other dimensions).

If franchise A has no place that is equivalent to New York B would instead land in a relatively neutral place. E.g. Tales of Gods and Demons has no planet Earth. So instead a character might land in Tiny World (the world where the most normal humans live) and in Tiny World just in a random chunk of forest, instead of in a significant location. That neither aids nor inhibits the character beyond just landing them in the same timeline as their opponent. Finding the opponent would be entirely on them.

---

Idk, is that too complicated? I guess we could also just write something like

In a fight between characters of various franchises, time travelers should usually be able to travel into the past of either franchise for the sake of verse equalization. How that works in detail should, if necessary, be debated in respective threads and decided by the thread creator. It should be done in a fair fashion that allows the time traveler to use their ability as usual (e.g. for preparation or to cause time paradoxes) without giving them advantages that they would not have when the ability were to be used in their own franchise.

 

[Bobsican]

Okay, thanks for the clarification, now it looks fine.

 

[Zaratthustra]

Would you assume that X can go for example millions of year in the past if Y- timeline goes that far? Cause it seem like it could create problems if X never showed such a "Deep" dive in the past. Ex: X goes 30 years in the past to kill Z who is now 34. X never states how far it can go, it just does it. But lets asume his world (Earth) has just humans with powers meaning that their lifespan is not that long thus their timeline is also not long..would he be able to do the same to Y whose world has lifespans going for thousands of years if not millions?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Would you assume that X can go for example millions of year in the past if Y- timeline goes that far? Cause it seem like it could create problems if X never showed such a "Deep" dive in the past. Ex: X goes 30 years in the past to kill Z who is now 34. X never states how far it can go, it just does it. But lets asume his world (Earth) has just humans with powers meaning that their lifespan is not that long thus their timeline is also not long..would he be able to do the same to Y whose world has lifespans going for thousands of years if not millions?

No. The intention isn't to boost abilities beyond what they have been shown to be able to perform in their own series. The only hurdle this is supposed to overcome is that of fictions having different pasts.

 

[Zaratthustra]

I understand that but how will this go? Ex: one character is a human with normal lifespan while the other is a being from Tales of Demons and Gods who has lived for tens of thousands of years... both have time travel, but no one said how far they can travel. How would it work in a shared timeline to say? Would both be able to go to the moment when the other is a kid?

Also, not really related but curious. X goes in past to kill Y but at that time Y was in a location that X cant reach (another dimension, maybe a location protected by something or someone) or them simply be protected or in vecinity of someone who would help them. Would these factors count?

 

[DontTalkDT]

I understand that but how will this go? Ex: one character is a human with normal lifespan while the other is a being from Tales of Demons and Gods who has lived for tens of thousands of years... both have time travel, but no one said how far they can travel. How would it work in a shared timeline to say? Would both be able to go to the moment when the other is a kid?

Well, they would have to guess the appropriate amount of time to go backwards in time and there is no guarantee that they get it right. They could go too far or not far enough. And of course they would need to be able to go that far back (although, due to repeated time travel, that is usually the case)

Also, not really related but curious. X goes in past to kill Y but at that time Y was in a location that X cant reach (another dimension, maybe a location protected by something or someone) or them simply be protected or in vecinity of someone who would help them. Would these factors count?

Sure. If someone is in a special protected location the other party needs to have abilities that allow them to find and enter said location to kill them there.

 

[DontTalkDT]

In a fight between characters of various franchises, time travelers should usually be able to travel into the past of either franchise for the sake of verse equalization. How that works in detail should, if necessary, be debated in respective threads and decided by the thread creator. It should be done in a fair fashion that allows the time traveler to use their ability as usual (e.g. for preparation or to cause time paradoxes) without giving them advantages that they would not have when the ability were to be used in their own franchise.

^So everyone fine with this new version, yes?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Looks good

 

[OnsokunoSonic]

Simple, but useful. Agree.

 

[Elizhaa]

Seems fine.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Alright. I applied it, so I will close this now.