Twilight's time travel?

[Makazi 317]

I remember thinking extensively about this a while back, but it basically boils down to this: Twilight from the future visits herself from the past to warn her about something, but isn't able to in time. So past Twilight starts freaking out, trying to avoid whatever it is that's about to happen, and gradually each thing becomes true so that she looks more and more like future Twilight. Finally she realizes there's nothing to worry about, so she goes back in time to tell herself not to worry and fails yet again. Think about it. She goes back in time for the sole purpose of telling herself not to worry about anything; so if there was nothing to actually worry about in the first place, why does future Twilight come back in time to warn her? None of this could have happened if she wasn't originally visited by herself, so where does future Twilight come into play?

 

Allow me to expatiate. The whole reason she went back in time was because future Twilight visited her, so was the future Twilight we see in the beginning of the episode visited by yet another future Twilight and that's why she went back in time? If so, what happened with that future Twilight before her? My theory is that if you go far back enough, there would have been a point where Twilight in whatever timeline wasn't visited by any future Twilight, and maybe something bad did happen, and that's what started the whole cycle of herself going back in time to warn herself. Just because Twilight comes to the conclusion that there was nothing to worry about doesn't mean that nothing happened. In fact, I feel like some kind of disaster needed to happen at some point, otherwise the events we see in the episode wouldn't have been possible.

 

Anyways, I'm thinking way too much about this. These are just my thoughts, however. Feel free to add your own two cents.

 

EDIT: Here's some ideas for possible disaster theories that would have set everything into motion.

1. Nightmare Moon was never stopped and managed to plunge Equestria into eternal night.

2. Fluttershy wasn't there to stop Cerberus, who subsequently destroyed much of Equestria. Perhaps the resulting chaos caused Discord to awaken, and he was able to seize hold of a weakened Equestria that wasn't able to fight back since perhaps one (or more) of the Elements went missing or were otherwise lost in the destruction.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Makazi

[Caliboom 219]

She probably did it because she doesn't want the Past Twilight to get worried about the things that happened to the Present Twilight, but she fails to do so, and those things happen.

 

It's just a massive paradox.

[GuyNamedEarl 1,332]

I understand what you're sayinh. The very first twilight in that time was never visited, so she would never need to go back, so Twillight would never have originally known about time travel. Time travel I'd confusing as fuck xD.

[Makazi 317]

I understand what you're sayinh. The very first twilight in that time was never visited, so she would never need to go back, so Twillight would never have originally known about time travel. Time travel I'd confusing as fuck xD.

 

Yes, that's precisely what I'm saying ^^

[LHfunk 422]

It's just one big paradox. Or, everything that happened originally DID happen, so then it started the cycle. Or future Twilight decided to play a prank on her past self after learning about Time Travel.

[Makazi 317]

Also consider this: Since we know there's a future Twilight, we also know the Twilight we see in that episode isn't the first Twilight to exist; this means there could be any number of alternate timelines wherein anything could have happened. The Twilight we've been seeing up until this point is just one of many.

[Sunset's Shimmer 394]

♫PAAAARADOX♫

 

Try not to overthink it too much, its a children's cartoon show.

[Makazi 317]

♫PAAAARADOX♫

 

Try not to overthink it too much, its a children's cartoon show.

 

Yeah, I know ^^ but as an adult that watches the show, naturally I'm going to have some questions here and there. Of course one shouldn't really question the logic of a kid's show, but I can't help myself sometimes.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Makazi

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

It's a paradox, and a kid's show lol, to be honest I didn't get it either, but whatever.

[sweetolebob18 724]

In the story "All You Zombies" (Heinlein)one of the characters has a poster "If at 1st you don't succeed, be careful you don't succeed at 1st"

 

The question is "What would Cerebrus have done & were any other disasters averted?"  It reminds me of "By His Bootstraps" but less elaborate.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,698]

Obviously the original time traveling twilight was trying to warn Twilight about Tirek escaping that day: Everything just coincidentally occured to make twilight think everything was fine! /conspiracy theory

[aRegularPony 306]

Isn't the future Twilight at the start of the episode the same Twilight that goes back in time to warn her not to worry?

 

As far as I know, Twilight is visited by Twilight, who attempts to tell Twilight not to worry, but doesn't get to do so, causing Twilight to worry and then, at the end of the week, go back in time to tell Twilight not to worry, not being able to etc.

 

It's the same Twilight over and over in a loop. Twilight doesn't realize that the Twilight who made her worry was her when she went back in time, and she repeated the same mistake.

[TerminalObsession 250]

It's because of how fun paradoxes are.

[sweetolebob18 724]

Time travel in EQ seems to work the same way that it does in the Heinlein stories.  That is, knowledge can be gained in the loop (you know stuff because your future self told you & your future self only knows because your past self was told), but loops are closed (that is, your future self CAN'T decide not to go back)

 

This is somewhat different from the way things work in Back to the Future movies, more like Bill & Ted

[MLPFanatic34 3,234]

Obviously the original time traveling twilight was trying to warn Twilight about Tirek escaping that day: Everything just coincidentally occured to make twilight think everything was fine! /conspiracy theory

That's an interesting point, I wonder if that's when Tirek escaped.