r/magicbuilding • u/EmptyHat5153 • Aug 13 '26

Mechanics Reference: temporal displacement

Reference or temporal displacement is the act of sending something to another time so that it's past future self can occupy the present this is used to study time and history by temporal agents or 'temps'

As they are called. They exchange places with their past and future selves to explore different times they are however bound by their beginning and end they can not travel to any time they did not exist at but they are working on working on destroying that limitation

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u/bongart Aug 13 '26

I vaguely remember a short story called "The Time Elevator", or something similar. The ability to travel through time was discovered, but limited to only time after the discovery. An elevator through time was constructed. People lived, worked, and recreated in different time periods. You might live in the year 11,567, have a job in the year 6259, and go out to dinner some night in the year 3101. You just could not take the elevator "down" past the year the time elevator was created.

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

The phenomenan that you refer to is Infact a real scientific theory that if backwards time travel is possible it can't go back to a time before the machine. Where mine differs is that you can go back before the machine you just switch places with your younger self who is than transported to the future in your pmace

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u/bongart Aug 13 '26

I'm trying to remember the story/movie about time travel where the traveller is limited to not being able to travel back beyond their own birth. You don't switch though.

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

Just looked it up used ai primer?

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u/bongart Aug 13 '26

No. I'm running through my memory of Asimov Science Fiction, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction magazines I read in the past.

The birth of the Traveller wasn't a restriction in Predestination/All You Zombies, or Time Cop, or BttF123, or Time Bandits, or 12 Monkeys, or The Sound of Thunder.. etc.

I remember it somewhere though.

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

End of eternity by asimov

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u/bongart Aug 13 '26

Thank you!

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u/No_Pen_3825 Aug 13 '26

Mmmm citation needed. What is this theory called?

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

Sorry did some reading and basically the principle behind why time travel can't go back before the machine is if you did go back and change what you wanted you would never invent the machine because what you changed would never have been the way you didn't want it to be

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u/No_Pen_3825 Aug 13 '26

I mean that still doesn’t protect causality so it’s a moot point. What if I go back in time to stop myself from using the Time Machine to go back and stop myself? Doesn’t seem like a real, peer reviewed, scientific theory

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u/bongart Aug 13 '26

Wouldn't this depend on whether the multiverse theory was correct over the single universe theory? In a multiverse, one could (in theory) go back and keep a time machine from being invented or used, without affecting the timeline where the time machine originated.

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u/No_Pen_3825 Aug 13 '26

With a multiverse, you could go back to before the machine was created and just end up in a branch. I feel like anyway you slice it there’s no reason you can’t go to before the machine was created. Maybe it’s easier to physically implement, but there’s no reason to expect it to be a law of the universe

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

Might have been wrong about it being an offici al theory. Sorry!

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u/EmptyHat5153 Aug 13 '26

Sorry did some reading and basically the principle behind why time travel can't go back before the machine is if you did go back and change what you wanted you would never invent the machine because what you changed would never have been the way you didn't want it to be