Time Travel

[Tom Kalbfus]

Suppose someone built a time machine and wished to use Starfinder rules for it? What if the time machine goes back into the Pathfinder era, what would happen then?

[David knott 242]

I would assume that the Gap is at the very least a barrier to time travel. If time travel is possible, you should not be able to travel into the Gap from before or after it.

Alternatively, since the intent of the Gap is to prevent information from passing out from it, it might be possible to time travel into the Gap but not to return from it -- but I suspect that the designers of Starfinder would prefer not to have any time travel under player control because of such headaches.

[Tom Kalbfus]

What if it were possible to time travel to the beginning of the gap, such that future events from that point in time are unknown until they happen? What if the beginning of the Gap was the current era of Golarion for instance? The Gap is actually an uncertainty one, so basically there are two "presents". There is a concept from another role playing game (Timemaster) called "Absolute Now." Absolute Now is that point in the timeline where you can't travel further in the future from, it is the point from which the time travel campaign is based. Well the Gap means there are two "Absolute Nows" the one in the past, you can't go into the future from except to skip over the gap. Since no one knows what happened during the gap, it is impossible to know what changes to make prior to the Gap in order to affect the future.

I got the perfect time travel device. You heard of the "Well of Many Worlds" what if there was a similar device except that instead of leading to many worlds, it leads to many different times on the same world. You can have one that leads to various random eras on Gorlarion, or perhaps even Earth. Since the characters in Starfinder are not from Earth, whatever changes in Earth's timeline that they make do not affect them!

So how about this: a "Well of Many Times" you place it down on a flat surface and it allows two-way travel from where you are now to a random time and place in Earth's history or pre-history. I would suggest there be an "absolute now" in Earth' history that characters cannot travel into the future from, lets make that date today: Thursday, March 30, 2017, and the next day, the "Absolute Now" will have moved to Friday, March 31, 2017 and so on. I suppose the random date should be determined logarithmically.

Roll 1d12
Result
1 1d20-1 days subtracted from the Absolute Now (March 11, 2017 to March 30, 2017)

2 1d12 x 30 days subtracted from Absolute Now (March 2016 to February 2017)

3 1d10 years subtracted from the Absolute Now (February 2006 to February 2016)

4 1d8 decades subtracted from the Absolute Now (January 1935 to January 2015)

5 1d6 centuries subtracted from the Absolute Now (January 1415 to January 1915)

6 1d4 Millennia subtracted from the Absolute Now (January 1985 BC to 1015 AD

7 1d20 x 10,000 years before present

8 1d12 x 100,000 years before present

9 1d10 x 1,000,000 years before present

10 1d8 x 10,000,000 years before present

11 1d6 x 100,000,000 years before present

12 1d4 x 1,000,000,000 years before present

This covers just about all of Earth's history and prehistory that one might be interested in.

[Tom Kalbfus]

The show Legends of Tomorrow is much like this.

[Matthew Shelton]

You might allow a time machine that can "ride light" from distant stars; you can only travel along the light-beam from another solar system or galaxy. The time machine regresses one year for each light-year you travel. This does not account for dark energy expansion.

While the trip itself is instantaneous, the power expense for the trip must be paid up front, all at once (i.e. power is drawn capacitators) for the time machine to function properly. Insufficient charge can leave you stranded partway along the journey in interstellar or intergalactic space.

Every time traveler also has a "point of origin" which is assigned when they time shift for the first time. As long as you travel further away from your point of origin, you can continue to travel back in time. But if you backtrack toward your original destination, even a bit, you travel forward in time one year per light-year traveled. You could not, for example, travel one million light-years away from Golarion (therefore a million years in the past), then return to Golarion by conventional means (even by building a new time machine) and somehow be able to visit ancient Azlant. You might, however, be able to visit ancient Damascus or observe Golarion's protoplanetary disc using a powerful telescope.

The net effect of this it would be extremely difficult for one person to alter their own history and create a grandfather paradox. It would also be virtually impossible to travel all the way back to the Big Bang because once you travel back far enough, you would experience a reversal of the universe's expansion and your "point of origin" would move closer to you--preventing you from traveling backward any further.

Time travel for research (astronomy or archaeology) might find this paradigm useful, without time travel being usable as a giant reset button for anyone and everything.

I expect there'd also be time police and temporal prime directives, and an extradimensional online forum like this.

[Tom Kalbfus]

The time travel device is a variation on a magic item, the Well of Many Worlds, it has the same features as that magic item except that instead of traveling across the Astral Plane to contact another world, it travels across the Elemental Plane of Time, home to the Time Elementals. The "Time Cops" are Time elementals, and they don't like time paradoxes! I believe they are found in he D&D Fiend Folio, I don't know whether any of the Pathfinder Bestiaries has an entry for that creature. The Time Well instead of connecting to a random world, connects to a random time and place on a planet's surface. I have a World Chart here to determine the random location on the planet's surface, a percentile dice roll determines latitude, while a d66 roll determined longitude according to the chart. A d66 is when you roll 2 six-sided dice, one red and the other white, this simulates a 36-sided dice, you then roll a red 10-sided die and a white 10-sided die to determine the latitude and longitude to the nearest degree within the square.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Magic Item
Well of Time
Aura strong conjuration; CL 18th
[/b]Slot -[/b]; Price 100,000 gp; Weight -
DESCRIPTION
This strange, interdimensional device looks just like a portable hole. Anything placed within it is immediately cast to another time and place on a single world (chosen randomly). If the well is moved, it opens to a new time and place (also randomly determined). It can be picked up, folded, or rolled, just as a portable hole can be. Objects from the other time and place on a single world can come through the opening just as easily - it is a two-way portal. Intrinsic to the way this well works is the concept of Absolute Now, Absolute Now is the time and place in which the well itself exists, it doesn't itself actually travel to other times and places, it just opens up a 6-foot wide portal to other times and places when it is laid down flat. The area in which the portal opens up to is about 6 feet above the available surface of the site randomly chosen. (whether land or water). The following table randomly determines the location and time of the other end of the well when it is open, the well always opens to the past, and never to the future!
Assuming a system of latitude and longitude, these tables determine the location of where the portal opens up to on a particular world.

Latitude
Roll d%
01 Between 80 and 90 degrees north
02-03 Between 70 and 80 degrees north
04-07 Between 60 and 70 degrees north
08-12 Between 50 and 60 degrees north
13-18 Between 40 and 50 degrees north
19-25 Between 30 and 40 degrees north
26-33 Between 20 and 30 degrees north
34-41 Between 10 and 20 degrees north
42-50 Between 0 and 10 degrees north
51-59 Between 0 and 10 degrees south
60-67 Between 10 and 20 degrees south
68-75 Between 20 an 30 degrees south
76-82 Between 30 and 40 degrees south
83-88 Between 40 and 50 degrees south
89-93 Between 50 and 60 degrees south
94-97 Between 60 and 70 degrees south
98-99 Between 70 and 80 degrees south
00 Between 80 and 90 degrees south
Then roll a 1d10 interpreting a '10' as a '0' if necessary, and add the result to the lower limit of the latitude range to get the latitude to the nearest number of degrees.

Roll d66 (means roll 2 6-sided dice but don't at them, order matters!
1,1 Between 170 and 180 degrees west
1,2 Between 160 and 170 degrees west
1,3] Between 150 and 160 degrees west
1,4 Between 140 and 150 degrees west
1,5 Between 130 and 140 degrees west
1,6 Between 120 and 130 degrees west
2,1 Between 110 ad 120 degrees west
2,2 Between 100 and 120 degrees west
2,3 Between 90 and 100 degrees west
2,4 Between 80 and 90 degrees west
2,5 Between 70 and 80 degrees west
2,6 Between 60 and 70 degrees west
3,1 Between 50 and 60 degrees west
3,2 Between 40 and 50 degrees west
3,3 Between 30 and 40 degrees west
3,4 Between 20 and 30 degrees west
3,5 Between 10 and 20 degrees west
3,6 Between 0 and 10 degrees west
4,1 Between 0 and 10 degrees east
4,2 Between 10 and 20 degrees east
4,3 Between 20 and 30 degrees east
4,4 Between 30 and 40 degrees east
4,5 Between 40 and 50 degrees east
4,6 Between 50 and 60 degrees east
5,1 Between 60 and 70 degrees east
5,2 Between 70 and 80 degrees east
5,3 Between 80 and 90 degrees east
5,4 Between 90 and 100 degrees east
5,5 Between 100 and 110 degrees east
5,6 Between 110 and 120 degrees east
6,1 Between 120 and 130 degrees east
6,2 Between 130 and 140 degrees east
6,3 Between 140 and 150 degrees east
6,4 Between 150 and 160 degrees east
6,5 Between 160 and 170 degrees east
6,6 Between 170 and 180 degrees east
roll 1d10 add the number to the lower limit of the range of degrees.

For the amount of time displaced in the past
roll 1d12
1 roll 1d20 for the number of days in the past.
2 roll 1d12 x 30 for the number of days in the past
3 roll 1d10 for the number of years in the past
4 roll 1d10 x 10 for the number of years in the past
5 roll 1d20 x 100 for the number of years in the past
6 roll 1d20 x 1000 for the number of years in the past
7 roll 1d20 x 10,000 for the number of years in the past
8 roll 1d20 x 100,000 for the number of years in the past
9 roll 1d20 x 1,000,000 for the number of years in the past
10 roll 1d20 x 10,000,000 for the number of years in the past
11 roll 1d10 x 100,000,000 for the number of years in the past
12 roll 1d4 x 1,000,000,000 for the number of years in the past

when you roll a result for the table above, roll a number for the one above it add it o the amount you already roll and proceed up the table till you get the results for 1 adding the result to the running total of years into the past that the Time Well connects to.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Now lets give this item try, lets say I have a player character that has this item, he lays it down flat on the floor, it is 6 feet wide and a portal opens up.

I roll the percentile dice, I roll a 77, I look up the latitude for this number and find that it opens up Between 30 and 40 degrees south. I roll one more 1d10 and I get 0, so it is 30 degrees south when I add 0 to that lower number. So the latitude is 30 degrees south, now for longitude. I have two kinds of 6-sided dice, one is red the other is white, red is the first number and white the second, I roll and get 6,3, looking up on the Longitude table I find I am between 140 and 150 degrees east, I roll a 1d10 to get a more precise number of degrees east, the result is 5, so the portal appears 145 degrees east. I call up Google Earth t see where I appeared. the portal opens up 6 feet above the desert near the present day location of Louth, Australia, in the State of New South Wales. Now for he distance in the past, I roll the 1d12 and get a 1, I roll a 1d20 and get 3 days, since today is March 31, 2017, the portal opens up near Louth, New South Wales in Australia on March 28, 2017, I've gone three days in the past and to the other side of the World.

My character picks up the Well of time and places it back down on the floor, going to another random tome and location. I roll a 31, that is Between 20 and 30 degrees north, I roll 1d10 for 9 makin it 39 degrees north, I roll my two 6-sided dice to get 2,6, this is between 60 and 70 degrees west, roll another 1d10 to get 6 for 66 degrees west, now for time displacement, I roll a 1d12 for 4, I roll 1d10 x 10 for 50 years, roll another 1d10 for 0 years, still 50 years, I roll 1d12 x 30 for 300 days, totaling 50 years and 300 days, I roll a 1d20 for an additional number of days for 14 more days, total distance in the past is 50 years, 314 days. So lets find out where we are. I go back to Google Earth, look to the location at 39 degrees north and 66 degrees west.

I find myself in the North Atlantic, the nearest land is afew hundren miles from Massachsetts, Cape Cod, the date is March 31, 2017, subtracting 50 years the date becomes March 31, 1967, subtracting 300 days puts me in the neighborhood of May, 1966, 314 -31 for March is 283, - 28 fo February is 255, - 31 for January is 224, - 31 for December is 193, - 30 for November is 163, -31 for October is 132, - 30 for September is 102, - 31 for August is 71, - 31 for July is 41, - 30 for June is 11, there is 31 days in Mar, subtracting 11 days, we get the date May 20, 1966 AD in the North Atlantic off the coast of North America, my character is going to need a boat, if he is going to explore this time and place. The well will have to remain open hovering above the wavetops of the North Atlantic while I am gone, so I can get back, I don't know what will happen if some fishing vessel were to notice this hole hoving 6 feet off the wave tops.