With the focus on time, time manipulation and timelines and various posts made about it, I thought it’d be a good idea to go over the topic given how the nine now have fourth dimensional perception and powers. The general framework for space/time, timelines and the universe at large is mentioned in Unveiling in a single paragraph. “In the wet pop of grapes and the smear of berries—in the perturbation of the field that was the garden before the first tick of time and the first point of space—were the detonations that made the universes. Each universe was pregnant with its own inflationary volumes and braided with ever-ramifying timelines. Each volume cooling and separating into domains of postsymmetric physics, all of which were incarnations of that great and all-dictating bipartite law that states only: exist, lest you fail to exist.” Let’s look at the keynotes in this. So we see mention of Universes, plural. Not to be confused with timelines, these are universes with their own dimensions and timelines as described. All of Destiny is happening within one of these and we have no clue about the others. Inflationary volumes, these are the dimensional planes such as the material plane (the normal physical universe), the ascendant plane, unknown space, the Distrubtary etc. basically anything called a dimension or plane or any sort of terminology like that. Every ramifying timelines, describes an infinite branching of timelines. First tick of time/ first point of space; the original “primary” point of space time where the primary timeline starts and from which the branches sprout from. The branches are everything that didn’t happen but could have. The choices we didn’t make, all compounding off one another. This morning when you debated hitting snooze but didn’t? There is a branch for when you did and from that an infinite amount will come because of the domino effect of everyone’s choices over time from that initial point. This part is important because Destiny has always treated these other timelines as unimportant. Nothing from them, besides the Vex, ever comes out. However the Dark Future lore does not deal with these other ‘what-if’ timelines. The Dark Futures were all instances of the primary timeline being reset after failing to stop the Witness and allowing Elsie to use her accumulated knowledge to get the dominos to fall in the right way so we could. This isn’t just Elsie being sent back in time but a rewinding of the entire universe itself while only allowing one person to remember. A cosmic reset prevents even fourth dimensional beings from being aware of it as they reside within the universe and are subject to its laws. This shows a distinct difference in our Guardians instance of time travel to save Younger Saint. Where only we moved through time while the rest of the cosmos kept ticking. And we nearly destroyed time doing it. So true time travel into the past requires God Tier ability. And The Nine aren’t gods. Crota was called a god too, the label has little meaning. This distinction is important for EoF, as it shows the god like power it takes to truly enact time travel on the scale the Conductor wants and why the nine can’t do it. So despite knowing she will fail, it’s the journey that matters. Cause bad stuff can still happen despite our stopping her in the end. It also shows that while the nine are master manipulators, they aren’t gods. The EoF storyline is just outright ignoring Elsie and the Dark Future lore by acting like we only survived because the Nine manipulated things to make it so. And somethings Orin said proves it. The Nine can’t send people back to change things because time only flows forward: “Chronal flow applies to all: time moves forward, never backwards” So the Nine follow the same laws as everyone else when it comes to time travel of the past. Orin also said “Agency is a quantum indeterminate: known hope” Well what does that mean? Wiki summary: Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable. The distribution is uniquely determined by the system state, and moreover quantum mechanics provides a recipe for calculating this probability distribution. Probability is the keyword. The Nine perceive the past, present and future all at once. The future isn’t determined, so they can see all the possible futures. This trinocular presence and vision is why they seem to always get what they want. To give an idea of what this means think of Back to the Future 1 Now imagine if Marty had this trinocular perception. He would have seen how every change he made or could make would affect his original present and also the future. He would have known before he bumped into his mom what the outcome would have been. He could have tip toed around all the things that led to bad changes and manipulated things just right to help his without making a mess and having to think up of a way to fix things. And if he did make a mess? He could the paths for how to get things back on track anyway. There’s almost no way to fail. This is the premise of what the Nine are doing. They manipulate things to get people to make certain choices that will result in the outcome they want. They don’t manipulate your mind, just limit the avenues to make you choose the path they want you to take. Choice is the factor they can’t control, only manipulate. But this great gift is also their Achilles heel. We are told Three and Nine had to search for a solution. This means despite their great perception, they don’t inherently “see” every possible outcome and know the right path automatically. It sorta reminds me of Paul Atriedes in Dune. He could see all possible futures but he had to look for them and he missed some, like when Gurney almost killed his mother. That possibility was there but he didn’t see it. The ability to see doesn’t equate to knowing everything that can be seen. They have blind spots and it is those blind spots that allow paracausal entities the opening they need to make their own fate instead of the fate the nine want. We just have to be aware of their machinations in order to subvert them. Ignorance to this capability of theirs is likely why it’s been so effective against us. You can’t prevent a manipulation if you have no idea it’s going on. And now that the curtain is pulled back, we can use our paracausality to defy them. An interesting idea done in a creative way. My gripes? Vex tech and Nine power combined doesn’t magically enable past time travel or trading Past Earth with Present Earth. The Vex move laterally across time and the Nine move forward. How does that combined equal reverse? Or how Control means she can force an entity to physically move into a plane it can’t exist in…while it’s in a dimension she isn’t even in… Even though the cutscene showed her in both? 🤦 Like bro, I’ll make an exception but don’t be too silly lol Eh, this is hardly the first time they just rammed something through for the sake of trying to make a story interesting. So let’s hope it remains interesting.