Endgame: Straightening Out The Timelines

I just got back from watching Endgame a second time ... this time in IMAX. Now are you ready to dive into the time travel and straighten it all out? MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven't already seen the movie.

First off, make sure to read my general rules of time travel in a Many-Worlds model ... here. Or you can just accept the synopsis here: you can only travel forward in time along your own timeline (can't go to other branches); you can only travel backwards along your timeline (backward along the branches); when you go back, it automatically creates a new timeline (a new branch); and tethers are the only way you can return to an original timeline.

Okay, we will begin with a simple timeline. This is the line on which all of the first 21 movies occur, and it looks like this:

Looks exciting? We'll call this Timeline Zero.

In 2023, the first time travel trip has Hawkeye going back to visit his family farm. He doesn't stay long, and he doesn't really change anything. Technically, he does create a new timeline (branch), but it would look very close to Timeline Zero. So, we'll just ignore that trip.

Once they know time travel works, the Avengers and friends split up into three different teams that go back to three different times. We'll handle the easiest one first ... Thor and Rocket going back to Asgard.

Arriving in 2013, Rocket steals the Ether from Jane and gets chased by folks while Thor talks it up with Mom. Thor then summons Mjölnir. The fact that things happen differently is evidence that the Many-Worlds model is in effect. In other words, we have a new branch. We'll call this Timeline Thor-2013.

Thor and Rocket then return to 2023 Timeline Zero thanks to the "GPS" tether platform combination that Tony Stark created. Without the tether, Thor and Rocket would have been stuck in Timeline Thor-2013.

This is what our time map looks like now:

The red dot and arrow represent the trip back to Timeline Zero.

Now a slightly more involved trip ... another team goes to 2014 to visit Morag and Vormir. Rhodes takes the power stone and returns. Nebula is captured by Thanos. Black Widow sacrifices herself so that Hawkeye can return with the Soul Stone. Thanos at a slightly later time figures out how to use the Pym Particles to arrive in Timeline Zero to stop the Avengers. We'll call this branch Timeline Thanos-2014.

The updated map:

The green dot and line represent the return of our Avengers (minus Black Widow) to 2023, and the purple dot and line represent Thanos' trip to Timeline Zero. We have no idea how long Thanos took to prepare for the trip ... a year? a week? But we do know that his ship arrived later that day in 2023.

Now the confusing one: A team goes back to New York in 2012, and whoa Nellie! Captain America secures the mind stone after fighting with himself -- definite evidence that we're dealing with a Many-Worlds model. Professor Hulk secures the time stone after listening to the Ancient One's nonsense about time travel. He also promises to return all the stones to their original places. Ant-man and Stark try to get the Tesseract, but fail miserably. Loki escapes amid all the commotion. Uh oh! We'll call this Timeline New-York-2012.

Stark and the Cap decide to go back to Indiana to get the Tesseract and more Pym juice. They end up in 1970. Stark grabs the Tesseract, runs into his father, while the Cap gets the Pym juice and sees his old girlfriend Carter through the window. We'll call this Timeline Indiana-1970.

Then Stark and the Cap return back to Timeline Zero.

Here's the new map:

The red dot from 2012 represents the Avengers who went straight back to 2023, while the brown dots and lines represent Stark and Cap's trip to 1970 and back to 2023.

Okay ... so far so good? Right now we have five total timelines. With everyone from all timelines returned back to 2023 in Timeline Zero, the big battle ensues. Thanos dies. Stark dies. Everyone cries.

At the end of the movie, the Cap volunteers to go back and return all the stones. However, there's one small problem. If the rules say that you can only travel backwards along the current timeline you're in now, how could the Cap ever return to those other 4 branch-off timelines? This is where I've seen many articles say that the Captain time travel bit broke everything.

But not so fast!

My work friend came up with the perfect answer. The Infinity Stones, themselves, want to return back to their respective timelines. So, as the Cap enters the quantum world, the stones would tether him back to the correct timelines.

As the Cap explains, he delivers the Time Stones first. Each jump requires a Pym juice bottle, but now with Mr. Pym back, we can assume that the Cap has sufficient vials for all the trips. He can deliver the Stones in any order he wishes, but for the sake of my picture, I'm going to say he travels to these in reverse order.

He hits Timeline Thanos-2014 to return the Soul Stone (wonder how that goes?), and the Power Stone. Then he goes to Timeline Thor-2013 to return the Ether (does he have it injected back into Jane?) and most likely also returns Mjölnir. Next comes Timeline New-York-2012 to return the Mind Stone (minus staff? -- he didn't bring that back) and the Time Stone. And finally, Timeline Indiana-1970 to return the Tesseract (how does he get it back to cubie form?).

From there, he can travel backward in time, following Timeline Indiana-1970 to the end of its branch and continuing on down Timeline Zero until he hits 1940's, starting a new timeline. We'll call this Timeline Carter-1940's.

After living a full life with his girlfriend, he decides to go back and give his shield to the Falcon. Since he's stuck in Timeline Carter-1940's, he can't naturally show up in Timeline Zero. He must do one more time jump. I think he could have used the earlier big platform as a tether to return -- perhaps in the few seconds before the original team comes back. And then he could have waited around to show up at the right moment to surprise everyone. As long as he stayed out of the way until then, it might not create another branch.

The Russo brothers give a possibly cleaner explanation: the Cap does return a few seconds after he left, but the Hulk's mess-ups cause him to show up over at the bench. I like that this avoids problems with possibly causing another branch, but I don't like that the Cap misses the platform. But perhaps overall, the Russo brothers' explanation is cleaner.

Either way, here's the final map, showing the Cap's travels in blue ...

Wowzers! Clear as mud?

We end up with six distinct timelines. Now that we've mapped everything out, we can finish with a closer look at each of the timeline to get a better understanding of what happens overall.

Timeline Zero: All the movies happen as the stories were told. The original Gamora is dead, but the new one remains in her place. Stark is dead. Black Widow is dead. Captain America is in retirement.

Timeline Carter-1940's: As long as the Cap stays out of the way, this timeline is going to resemble Timeline Zero closely. Perhaps the Cap is Carter's secret husband. In 2012, the frozen Cap will be unthawed, and events would unfold as expected ... except ... Zero Timeline Cap has stolen the shield and given it to the Falcon, leaving no shield for Frozen Cap later on. Though my son suggests that the Cap could have had a 2nd one created for Frozen Cap. Minor detail?

Timeline Indiana-1970's: Not much happened to change things, so events would probably play out the same as Timeline Zero. (Even possibly creating more copies of the time map above. Timelineception!!)

Timeline New-York-2012: This is the most interesting "messed-up" timeline. Loki has escaped. The Hydra folks are alerted to the fact that others know who they are. These loose threads were not closed. With Loki on the loose, it's impossible to predict how this timeline will differ from Timeline Zero. Rumors are that the announced Loki TV show may happen in this new universe. If so, we'll have to wait till then to get more answers.

Timeline Thor-2013: Not much changed here, either. Younger Thor probably wondered where Mjölnir went for a few minutes, and his mother probably died a little happier. Perhaps the whole Jane/Ether fiasco would cause some further scrutiny into the Reality Stone, which could cause things to play out differently. But on the most part, things should return to resembling Timeline Zero.

Timeline Thanos-2014: This timeline is definitely changed, most likely for the better. Thanos left this universe and died. No Thanos means no Infinity Wars, so whatever happens next in this universe, we might as well call it the Happy Path timeline. In fact, that timeline's Black Widow is still alive on Earth, and will never have to go back to sacrifice herself.

But it does raise the question: why did Thanos think it was worth going to the Zero Timeline where he had already won and fulfilled destiny? Without a tether, he could never return to his own timeline, and that universe would miss out on his destiny. A smarter Thanos would stay. A more hot-headed Thanos would do the stupid thing of going to another universe only to die in the process.

And before we end, here's one more bonus thing to think about. Remember when Doctor Strange found 14,000,605 possible futures? In the Many-Worlds model, all of these possible futures would have to exist in each of their own branches. But in seeing the One where they won, he saw it was necessary to give up the Time Stone. In doing so, he changed the probability distribution of winning among all the possible futures from that point. Those 14,000,605 universes would still exist, but with much less density, while the One future's probability increased. That's still a lot of universes that are going to be sad, and their stories will never be told.

And there you have it. Now that your mind's blown, and the timelines have been explained, you can now impress your friends with your grasp of all the timelines.

Multiple Worlds Theory and Time Travel

The quantum realm can be weird, so today we will dive in a little closer, consider some real science, and ponder on possible time travel implications.

The problem with things being so small is that we can't ever see them clearly. Or, if we try to see them, the photons themselves corrupt what we're seeing. This is known as the Uncertainty Principle. It introduces randomness, and the best we can do is is derive probability distributions to describe what's happening.

In scientific experiments, we can always look back and see what happened, but there's no way to predict beforehand what will happen. One could ask, "But how does nature decide what actually happens?"

One answer is the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). It says that at any given time, ALL possibilities happen, but in different parallel universes. Or in other words, every fraction of a second, a very large number of parallel universes branch off, something like this:

This picture shows just one universe at the beginning, and then after two branching events, a whole bunch of similar but different universes arise. As time progresses forward, we could end up living any of these lines while copies of ourselves follow other lines. We have no idea that other universes exist, and we can never visit them, so to us our timeline looks simple ... like this (just like the one-world model):

Okay, you ready for this? What if you get in a time machine and jump ahead in time? In the middle while you're gone, the universe is going to continue branching out in its own millions of timelines, and when you return, you could end up on any of those timelines ... like this:

At the same time, copies of you will end up in all the other timelines. Isn't this crazy? Remember, it's just a theory.

Also, remember, from your POV, your time travel trip is going to look like this (the simple version -- again, it looks like the one-world model):

What happens when you go back in time? This is when things start getting weird.

In the one-world model, a trip backwards looks like this:

Looks simple enough? There's just one problem with this. In the one-world model, you can't change the past, as the past is already set in stone. For example, you can't kill your own grandpa, else you'll cease to be born, creating a paradox. And if you've never met yourself in the past, you can never meet yourself when you go back in time. It's not just that you would break the universe or anything -- you'd just simply be unable to change what has already occurred, no matter how hard you try, and so it goes. Example: the movie 12 Monkeys, and the book Slaughterhouse-Five.

But in MWI theory, going backwards in time does something interesting. You can see this easily by reversing our earlier forward jump, like so:

Going backwards is easy--just follow the timeline backwards--all the way back to the original timeline. But then as you move forward naturally in time, you're going to be subject to random fluctuations again. You could end up where that red dot is. In fact, the chances of returning back to your original timeline is practically zero.

In short, going back in time creates a new timeline for you. The simplified picture looks like this:

In this picture, everything to the left of the branch represents the history of what happened leading up to that point in time. Then at the point where you arrive from your time travel trip, the two universes diverge. The top branch represents your original timeline, and the bottom branch is your new timeline after you traveled back.

And get this: a copy of your original self also moves along that bottom branch. Since this copy is in a different universe, he can do entirely different things. That is, you could meet yourself, and you could even kill that copy without causing any paradoxes. As the original You still lives his life exactly as you remembered along the upper original branch.

But then what happens if you travel forward in time from the red dot? You can only end up in universes that branch off from that dot. In other words, you can never return to the original timeline. Doing so would break casualty rules. A universe's branch can never ever return to another earlier-created branch.

Perhaps in an attempt to return to that original timeline, you try going backwards in time to an earlier part of that branch. Alas, random fluctuations would ensure that you just create another (third) timeline from that point, and you just make matters worse!

The one exception to this "can't return" rule is the concept of a "tether," which is an entirely made-up sci-fi concept that I don't think is supported by science, but it still sounds feasible. Before you leave your timeline and embark on a trip, you can mark your point so that you can return exactly where you left from. Several shows use this tactic.

Now that you are armed with the basics of Multiple Worlds Time Travel, which is mostly supported by real scientific theories, I'll demonstrate tomorrow how time travel can be explained as presented in Avengers: Endgame.

Endgame: Cool

After 10 years and 20 movies, it comes down to this, an epic movie to bring it all together. So much so that it almost feels like a conclusion, though, we know so many more movies are planned to come out in the near future.

Here you can see my kids and me going to the "midnight" open viewing of this show...

We had a very participatory crowd, cheering and sniffing and saying, "I knew it!" when their favorite fan theories came true. It was all a testament to the fact that the movie delivered. Very few were disappointed.

After Thanos' big win, the Avengers decide to come together and save the day. The plan: grab Thanos' gauntlet and use it to reverse the damage, but wouldn't you know it? Things do not go as smoothly as they had hoped.

It ends up being three hours of build to an epic conclusion.

Sure, there were slow parts, and as usual there are a lot of plot holes. There was only one 30-second gosh-awful-did-they-really-go-there-and-it-doesn't-even-fit-the-story scene they could have easily left out -- by far the most eye-rolling scene ever placed into a Marvel movie. But other than that, the movie was so enjoyable and the payout was so great that all of these weaknesses pale in comparison.

As you may have guessed, the Avengers revert to time travel. And why not? Time travel was used in Doctor Strange, and even a little in Infinity Wars, so why not in this last movie? Some complain that the time travel mechanics don't make sense. But after my work friend and I talked it out over a few days, we were able to put together a consistent map that explains it all. I'll detail this in not one, but two blog entries later this week. It still leaves some glaring plot holes, but so it goes.

I recommend catching this in the theater, if perchance you haven't seen it yet already. If you missed IMAX because of it being sold out, check out your local theater and see if they've extended showings another week, like mine has. There still appear to be several good seats left.

Slaughterhouse-Five: So It Goes

Here it goes: the first of four posts this week touching on the subject of time travel in some shape or fashion. Yeah, I know. You don't believe I can get out four posts in one week, but I've seen the future and it has already happened.

I begin with a spoiler-filled review of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, as I know most of you have already read it in high school. Somehow I had missed the pleasure, but got caught up when all my kids were getting the assignment. If you haven't read it, this is your last chance to stop, read the book, and then come back.

Anyway, this book is about Billy Pilgrim, an American POW who witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden. Vonnegut spends most of the time detailing the terrible conditions Americans had to survive behind German lines, leading to what could arguably be the most atrocious act committed by the British and Americans against innocent civilians: burning an entire city with liquid fire -- a city once known for its art, architecture, and high society. Tens of thousands of people died, and Vonnegut, himself, witnessed it firsthand.

Thus, war is just terrible all around. There are terrible acts committed by all players -- sometimes justified, and sometimes not.

The book is written by some unknown Author, who was with Billy Pilgrim during the war, leading one to wonder how much of the book really happened, and how much was made up to fill in the fiction. It's all about how the Author's been working so hard to put together his Dresden book.

Well after the war, Billy is abducted by aliens who teach him how to see along the fourth dimension. He then becomes unstuck in time and can travel back and forth within his own consciousness. He immediately sees how he dies: an assassination by laser gun in the year 1976. In fact, all of the aliens can see their own death and the ultimate death of their planet. When Billy asks why they don't do anything to stop these deaths, the aliens explain that the timeline can't be changed. It is what it is. Things die, and so it goes.

Thus, throughout the book, whenever someone dies, or even when a concept dies, the Author writes, "so it goes." Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's sad. There are even moments when the Author comes out and tells you this guy over there is going to die in a couple of weeks, and when it actually happens, it's still sad -- though I found myself still hoping he'd avoid it somehow.

At times, I could only read a few pages at a time. Sometimes I had to take a few days off from reading. It just got depressing to read, even with the black humor throughout.

But get this: just like in The Wizard of Oz (the movie), Vonnegut has created a story that could either have happened exactly as he had written, or it was all in the head of a damaged veteran with PTSD. Whichever it is, there is no way to determine what really happened, and the reader can almost decide for himself what he would like to happen.

You, too, can be unstuck in time, once you realize that time is just another dimension that you can travel. Just close your eyes, and remember your favorite memories. If you do it long enough, you can almost imagine yourself being back there, looking ahead to the future events that are yet to come. And then you jump ahead and imagine new futures that can not yet be verified or contradicted. Now, doesn't death by laser gun sound like a plausible death on Earth? It does if you can't prove that it hasn't happened ... yet.

And get this: it's easy to get depressed about death and all that until you realize, there really is no death when you're unstuck in time. You can go back and forth along your entire lifeline ad infinitum, as that is when you're actually alive. You ... just ... exist, and nothing can change it. Something may mark the beginning and end of your existence, but nothing can take you away from your existence during the entire middle.

Stephen Hawking once explained a similar concept when talking about our universe as a big 4-dimensional sphere, where one end could be the Big Bang, and the opposite end could be the Big Crunch. And then the universe would have no beginning or end of time, as it just exists as a 4-D object. It ... just ... exists.

And so it goes. I can't remember how the book ends, but as a whole it can mess with your head. It remains a highly recommend book to read if you haven't read it -- even after reading this spoiler-filled review. But then again, can anything really be spoiled when you can already see the future?

Oh and when you're done reading that, I hear that Billy has a brother who's really good at video games ...

2019 Checkpoint #2

One-third of the way done with the year. The time is flying fast. And what have I done?

My writing success has been off and on. The one-hour-a-day approach has been helpful in helping me push forward. I completed the one short story "The Immortal Actuary," and I've gone back to working on "Descendant History." That last one needs more research and world building, and then I need to throw out everything and try again.

Evidently, the one-hour-a-day approach also takes up a lot of time, taking away from my music ventures. It's almost as if I need to find a balance between all the things I wish to accomplish. Weird!

Stresses from the day job still sucks up much energy leaving little for after-work activities. But I'm doing whatever I can. Sometimes it feels like I'm just going from one thing to the next until I crash at night. It can be both fun and tiring at the same time.

Looking ahead, the next two months are for bringing together all the hymns and songs I've been writing for my church's call for additions to the hymnal and primary songbook. Part of this includes having to write lyrics for two of my hymns -- first time I've tried to do this. July 1st is the deadline, and then time should free up for other activities.

I also need to think about starting up the story submissions machine again. Maybe this time I'll have a hit. And then when I get enough energy, I'll finally get back to finishing my first book, "Justice" so it can be published. After reviewing it a couple of months ago, I see several opportunities for improvement.

So many ideas and so little time!

I hope you all are doing well.