Fianna wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 5:35 am
I don't know if they were really thinking about setting up future time travel stories with this ep.
The time travel here works on the stable time loop principle, where you can't change the past, because anything you do in the past already happened, and created the reality you came from. That's just about the most restrictive form of time travel there is (outside Ghost of Christmas Past "no one can see or hear you" stuff), and really limits the kind of stories you can tell. Which is why all subsequent time travel episodes ignore it.
This episode IS a stable loop, but it's also compatible with the iterative time travel they use later on. (I'm a huge geek for finding logical ways to make time travel make sense, so I'll explain iterative time travel in the last paragraph for the people who like tech stuff.) You just have to assume that we're seeing the final iteration... the one that finally stabilizes the loop. (IE, the first time it happened, they had to convince Hammond without the note. Also, they had to guess on the solar flare times. But, with dumb luck getting them home once, future attempts make it seem like it always happened the easier way.)
Captain Crimson wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 1:59 pm
I really do hope, if they bring in a new SG TV show that's
meant to be a continuation of the SG mythos, not a reboot, as Mr. Wright keeps teasing, that they DO NOT KILL CASSANDRA. She is
VITAL to getting SG-1 back home when they reappear in 2089 after they stepped through the Gate from 1969. I'd prefer to keep the stable time loop explanation, TBH. And it's really, really simple - just don't have her appear at all. If she dies, that's gonna open up a whole list of plot holes that need resolution - like maybe she told somebody else and they were ready and waiting, or that Carter told several people as a backup. Will they address that? I don't know.
And, not that I want Cassandra dead, but her being around for them arriving in the future is not critical to the timeline. They change the past/present/future quite a few times in the show. And Continuum made it very clear that being in the matterstream of a Stargate is one of several methods that prevent altered timelines from "cleaning up" paradoxical entities.
Iterative time travel is used in Stargate and most other fiction (including most of, but not all of, Star Trek) wherein the time traveler can alter the past and erase their own existence, but the universe marches on. There are SOME differences... Marty can erase himself from existence, while, in others, being out of sync with one's own present often protects the traveler.
But, the basic method by which it works is this: Time is not a single dimension of space-time. There are at least 2 time dimensions, and probably 3. That is, 3 dimensions of space, 3 dimensions of time.
If you think of the time dimension as a river, then think of the second time dimension as a mostly dry riverbed with one active channel. Without time travel, the river flows and diverts by the actions of the people in the present. But a time traveler can divert the past flow, and cut off a future channel (ie, kill their grandfather). They don't disappear, though, because that channel they came from still exists... it just isn't active anymore. It's a dry channel.
Note, this is similar to the "multi-universe theory" but it more closely aligns with what is seen in fiction: changing one own's timeline, not jumping between universes. In any case, Stargate ALSO has multiple universes, and they operate differently. That's why I think they represent the 3rd dimension of time: entirely different, yet parallel, universes that each have their own wide riverbeds.
Thus: just the first dimension of space is a line, the second is a plane, and the third is a cube; the first dimension of time is a line (linear time), the second is a plane (transversable riverbed), and the third is a cube (stacked dimensional planes).