#causal loop

I already explained the difference between a Causal Loop and a Closed Loop. But can you have two Causal Loops going at the same time? Yes, you can. And here is how...

The only way an Internal Causal Loop can exist inside a Main Causal Loop is if neither Loop affect the beginning or end of the other. For whatever reason the person(s) in the Internal Loop has to go back, it cannot change the fact that the person(s) in the Main Loop will have to go back and restart the Main Loop again. The restart of the Main Loop does not require the Internal Loop restarts as well, and vice versa.

 Example: Our Main Loop is Sao Paulo and 2023. Our Internal Loop is 2019 Emma going back to 2017 to leave Jan a note to do something for Emma’s mother. Regardless of if Flynn steals the Mothership, 2019 Emma will still go back to 2017 to leave the note with whatever Time Machine she has available, likely the Mothership anyway. And Emma doing this has no effect on whether or not 2023 Lucy goes back to Sao Paulo.

When the person(s) return from starting the Internal Loop, they will overwrite themselves inside of the Main Loop.

 Example: From above example, when 2019 Emma returns to 2019 from visiting 2017, she overwrites herself. Each time she has various degrees of success in saving, or not-saving, her mother, which leads to her constantly restarting the loop. Each time Emma returns, she will overwrite the Emma who lived through the previous timeline and whatever changes were made because of it.

 The person(s) in the Internal Loop can break their loop the same way as the Main Loop can be broken. That is, they have to decide not to go back so that the last person standing remembers the previous timeline.

Example: From above, Emma eventually is able to save her mother, but if she does not go back, then she will be overwritten by the Emma who only remembers her mother dying. If this Emma chooses not to go back, to let the other Emma overwrite her, then the Internal Causal Loop will end.

 If the person(s) who starts the Internal Loop is the same who started the Main loop, then they will overwrite themselves again when they return to the end of the Main Loop.

 Example: If 2020 Lucy goes to 2017 to save Anthony, then when she returns she will overwrite the Lucy who doesn’t remember Anthony dying. After three years, 2020 Lucy becomes 2023 Lucy. If when 2023 Lucy goes back to Sao Paulo, and this time events occur where Anthony dies in 2021, then when 2023 Lucy returns, she overwrites the Lucy who lived through Anthony’s death in 2021 and will still think him alive.

 Casual Loop with Secondary Casual Loops work essentially the same. The key is that one loop does not affect the other loop in either starting or ending.

Okay, so this new concept of a causal loop has been introduced to explain Savitar's existence & his killing Iris in the future, etc. It's supposed to come about b/c Barry creates time remnants & one becomes Savitar, but the question begs...if there was no Savitar to begin with, why would Barry have needed to create time remnants ending in one of those TR's becoming Savitar?

Tati has been working night & day on her blog (& on twitter too) to explain this concept to people, b/c it is a hard one to grasp & even I have only kinda sorta gotten it until today. Today she posted yet another explanation & it finally clicked, so I am going to tell you all how I understand it (Tati confirmed it's legit, lol) in the hopes that maybe it'll make sense to you too (if you are one of the still confused ones lol).

Basically, when Barry created FP, a hypothetical future was born where a villain named Savitar kills Iris. In order to make sure that remains set in stone, Savitar makes past Barry aware that this could happen (the thrust into the future), driving him to eventually create time remnants, one of which he'll spare to become him. So maybe there was an original Savitar that WASN'T a TR of Barry's, but it has hypothetically happened so many times that now he is one & the origin doesn't matter bc it's all a hypothetical future anyway. Since, like Jay said, "the future isn't written yet." For our team in the present, it's still not a reality. And the only way this future can MAKE itself exist is if it tricks its past into making it happen.

The Lincoln Quandary

 What if Lincoln was never meant to die? What if he lived, but through time travel shenanigans he ended up dying during one of the timelines? But the Time Team wasn’t able to save him in the next timeline, or the one after. Then, eventually, everyone’s memories get overwritten. Now we all believe that the fixed point in history is Lincoln has to die…

 If we’re dealing with a closed loop, then this question is asked and answered. It happened that way and it will always happen that way.

 But Timeless is a Causal Loop and therefore literally anything goes. The whole point of this kind of loop is to go back and make changes and try to make things better (or worse, it’s a matter of perspective). The only issue is that once you close the loop, you will have the memories of the previous timeline.

 This is the end of the loop… so what about the beginning and the middle?

We can reasonably infer that since pre-pilot Lucy goes back and gives Flynn the journal, what we see in the series is not Timeline Zero (i.e. the first timeline before the first person goes back in time, ever). We also know that Anthony and Emma tested the Lifeboat and Mothership and went back on several occasions. Timeline Zero would be the timeline Anthony first tested the Lifeboat as Rufus mentioned in Stranded.

 Now, since Lucy goes back and starts her Causal Loop in 2014, any trips Anthony and/or Emma made after this point become a part of Lucy’s Causal Loop. And each time Lucy restarted her Loop, Anthony would create even more new timelines. This is because each time he and Emma went back, they changed something, it may be insignificant, but it’s still a change and it counts as a new timeline.

 Below is an illustration of how this happens. It does assume that Lucy goes back with the journal first, instead of Flynn stealing the Mothership first, but the idea is still the same regardless.

You can, technically, create a loop inside of a loop, and that may or may not be the case here. We don’t know enough of all of Anthony and Emma’s missions to know for sure. If Emma actually went to 1872 after Lucy arrived in 2014, then it could be its own Causal Loop inside of Lucy’s Causal Loop.

Depuis la nuit des temps, l’humanité contemple les étoiles, cherchant des réponses sur ses origines et une éventuelle vie extraterrestre. Dans le jeu Causal Loop, développé par le studio indépendant Mirebound, cette quête prend une tournure interactive et cérébrale, où l’exploration archéologique sur une planète lointaine se mêle à des mécaniques de jeu innovantes. Un Trio aux Dynamiques…

Causal Loop has been added to The Timeloop Tournament