Time Travel Mechanics

How should we equalize verses that treat time travel differently? Say, the difference between Back to the Future, in which traveling to the past will change the future, and Dragon Ball, in which traveling to the past will create another timeline.

This has obvious implications regarding things like Acausality; in the first case, a character who isn't affected by changes to the past is an exception, but in the latter case, it's the rule.

In my opinion (and I believe this has been upheld in revision threads), only the first type, in which Acausality is an actual feat, should be given Acausality (Type 1).

I also think that, for the sake of versus matches, any given character's time travel (and other abilities) will function as they do in their verse; Trunks' time machine will create another timeline, but the Delorean would change the future by changing the past. Trunks wouldn't change things for Marty McFly, but Marty could change things for Trunks, basically.

It's worth noting that type 1 Acausality isn't just useful for time travel, and could prevent dying from a character attacking you at every point in time, which would certainly kill a character from a setting in which time travel only creates divergent timelines.

Do we actually have standards on what to do with time travel in general for verses threads? Geuninely asking because I remember making a thread myself to question this because of it being very abitrary.

I mean an attack at every point in time still includes the present and can kill that guy the regular way

The OP seems fine, there's also the issue of actually finding people from other verses in the past anyways.

We don't. This is why I've made this thread.

Assuming the character can take the attack in the present.

IIRC, all Battle takes place in a neutral Universe per SBA. You can technically find your opponents in the past assuming you fires that time travel attack few seconds or more after both combatants spawned in the neutral Universe.

The problem more or less with that is that traveling back a few seconds would only be useful in very limited situations. Generally, the idea of time traveling to the past is to time-paradox the opponent by killing a much younger/weaker version of them, the issue being it assumes the time traveler knows exactly when and where to go to accomplish that.

Pretty much, I could think of some cosmic awareness dudes who could pull it off or just attacks that retroactively kill people when they're hit but we can't default to assuming stuff like that.

Doc Brown did actually talk about time travel leading up to the many-worlds interpretation, and many verses had the premise of going back in time to change the timeline like Dragon Ball and Terminator but ultimately ended up morphing into parallel timelines. Certain verse mechanics such as that is not straight forward set in stone like that, unless they successfully carried out their time travelling feats. And other verses can have both theories, like Star Trek though usually they treat it like having a butterfly effect when you mess with ST timelines.

And we don't even have any Back to the Future pages, not to mention Trunks don't even use time travelling in battle. For those that start off with time travel the butterfly effect is the traditional assumption in vs matchups, as you don't even need to lock on to the specific person in question (though that may heavily be in-character dependent).

I believe Type 1 is useful with one timeline, and Type 3 is useful with the parallel timelines.

It's just for the sake of examples. I know we don't have Back to the Future pages and I know Trunks doesn't use it like that. You don't need to explain this to me.

I agree with the first half, about giving acausality to characters based on how their verses treat time travel. To be blunt, that's pretty obvious and self-explanatory.

I have problems with the second half, about using it in vs matches. These rules are not the ability of characters, it's how their verse handles it through its own rules. And in a vs match, things like that should be neutralized through equalization.

"I also think that, for the sake of versus matches, any given character's time travel (and other abilities) will function as they do in their verse; Trunks' time machine will create another timeline, but the Delorean would change the future by changing the past. Trunks wouldn't change things for Marty McFly, but Marty could change things for Trunks, basically."

This is the thing I have problems with. Why not say that the effects of time travel on a given character will function as they do in their verse; the effect of Trunks' time travel done on Marty McFly would change things for Marty because according to his verse Marty is bound by his own past, but Marty couldn't change things for Trunks because Trunks isn't bound by its effects on past.

See the problem? This in no way is associated to characters, it's how the verse treats it and a neutral verse should only have one kind of law to remain neutral to both sides.

Eh, Time Travel in combat is kind of unusual, I consider it to be a self BFR, even if kill the younger version of the character, the battle ends there and the traveller doesn't get a proper win, independently if the opponent have or not Time Paradox Immunity.

But if it really important to equalize, would say the verse with with a properly constructed multiverse takes priority, like, in LoK, depsite being possible to travel back in time, the timeline itself is immutable and "launching a peddle to the river do not alter its flow"; Valiant, before the events of Timewalker, was also impossible to alter the timeline, until the Null was created.

All right here's my idea to fix everything at once that I made a while ago:

1) Any fight with time travellers should take place in a composite universe of the 2 universes where the characters are from because SBA says that the fight takes place in Central Park and most people assume this is our world. But in our world you can most likely not kill someone via time travel if you could get it to work and it would be highly ineffective because the characters only exist within that universe since the beginning of the match thus any time traveller who can not go to another multiverse can not use it's abilities to the fullest and even if they could go to another multiverse, there is no guarantee that the paradox would reach the person in question as they'd be in a different space-time continuum. Any contradictions that arrive from this that are relevant for the match such as say Flash wanting to kill Funny Valentine in the past and the argument arrives if Flash would know who Funny is or not due to him being the President of America, then the OP has to solve this contradiction by either saying that Valentine is/was the president of America in that composite universe or that he is/was not. The matches should also preferably take place in our current year unless the OP specifies otherwise (this means Funny Valentine gets sent to 2019).

2) With Dragon Ball or MCU characters the OP would have a bit more freedom. If a time traveller is in the match, then the fight can take place in a composite universe where the standard assumption is that time travel killing works (because it tends to be that way in most verses), so Dragon Ball and MCU characters would also get the heads-up that the time travel laws of the universe they're fighting in works differently and they'd also be able to time travel kill an opponent if they have a time machine/ring or Tony's space-time gps and they think about doing it (they most likely won't but the possibility is still there). It could also take place in a composite universe where either the opponent's or Dragon Ball's/MCU's time travel laws are dominant (and thus prevent them dying via time travel this way) and lastly the fight can take place in the Dragon Ball/MCU-verse where they can not be killed via time travel. Also Goku himself would always need to fight in either a composite universe or in Dragon Ball itself due to one of his abilities being BFR to King Kai's planet which he can only do if King Kai's planet is within the same macrocosm as himself (also have the feeling this is outside help but that's for another time).

There is also a paragraph about Funny Valentine that I can post if we want to solve that as well.

I don't really mind how it goes either way, AKM.

"characters only exist within that universe since the beginning of the match"

At that point you're just actively disadvantaging characters who use time travel to do that. No. Unless the character is like from a completely different universe (like some sort of extradimensional alien), they exist in the past of this neutral universe.

"so Dragon Ball and MCU characters would also get the heads-up that the time travel laws of the universe they're fighting in works differently and they'd also be able to time travel kill an opponent if they have a time machine/ring or Tony's space-time gps and they think about doing it"

No? Why would they get heads up?

Goku teleporting people away isn't relevant to this at all. Neither is Funny Valentine. Stay on topic.

>At that point you're just actively disadvantaging characters who use time travel to do that. No. Unless the character is like from a completely different universe (like some sort of extradimensional alien), they exist in the past of this neutral universe.

If characters' pasts exists within the neutral universe then it is per definition a composite universe, but currently in SBA the neutral universe is implied to be our universe so this should be clarified.

>No? Why would they get heads up?

Because otherwise some DB or MCU characters might be confused and not act like their lives are in danger if they see someone attempt to time travel kill them, this might not be a frequent issue but some villains like to boast about their plans.

>Goku teleporting people away isn't relevant to this at all. Neither is Funny Valentine. Stay on topic.

Sorry, it was related to battlefield standards so I left it in my post but I won't bring it up again.

Because otherwise some DB or MCU characters might be confused and not act like their lives are in danger if they see someone attempt to time travel kill them, this might not be a frequent issue but some villains like to boast about their plans.

Why should they suddenly be aware of this? Why can't the characters utilize a seemingly innocuous attack to their advantage?

If it functioned like that many characters would be gutted.

Why would anyone not act like they're in danger when someone attempts to kill them? It's not like most characters would realize that's what's happening anyways. It doesn't really matter.

Well no heads-up I guess, just thought it would make it more fair in specific scenarios and for other scenarios wouldn't really change anything. Although if the characters' past is within the composite universe and time-travel was always offensive within said universe, then they would know about this and use it to their advantage even if that were not the case within their home-universe.

Agreed. I also consider Time Travel a self-bfr, an automatic lost for the user. The reason is because you are escaping from the current battle.When you time travel, your opponent is the last man standing in the match, hence you have instantly forfeited your own match by self-bfr.

Who is the last man standing during that match? Your opponent. Who wo that match? Your opponent. Conclusion, you lost the battle by bfring yourself via time travel.

As long as the opponent comes back it should be fine, I wouldn't necessarily call Reverse Flash going back in time to kill your mom before you were born, quitting the current battle but rather finishing the current battle before it even began. Also don't forget that characters have a week to return from BFR before they lose the match and according to your logic you would lose the instant you leave the battlefield since it won't be the same fight anymore when you come back.

@Greenshift Pretty sure a time limit to return back to a fight from time traveling is irrelevant since you always can return back to the fight at anytime you want to.

@Greenshifter

But the thing , you see, if you time travel back and paradox your opponent's existence away, this battle would not eve happen in the first place. And you "killing" your opponent was not even within the VS Battle because the Vs Battle never happened . So, what you did is just prevent the battle from happening in the first place, basically meaning no one actually won the battle because the battle did not even happen.

I will still consider it bfr-ing yourself away, because after the deed, the Vs Battle would not even happen,meaning the moment you time-travelled away, you have already escaped from the battlefield from eternity bcause the battle would have never happened! However, the moment you time-travelled away, your opponenet was still present in the battlefield, effectively making your opponent the last man standing.

Given the ongoing forum migration, we should start to try to pause all ongoing content revision threads now, unless they are very important: https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/4208849

Antvasima said:

Given the ongoing forum migration, we should start to try to pause all ongoing content revision threads now, unless they are very important: https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/4208849

Click to expand...

Agreed. But I hope to continue this discussion on a more broad scope when we get on the new forum.

Between the self-bfr argument that doesn't fit all kinds of time travel (Isolating characters who can time travel without leaving the fight), and the problem with giving people advantages and disadvantages based on how their time travel works ...I just don't agree with the majority here.

Okay. No problem.

Just have their time travel work how their time travel works.