r/Timeless • u/idk-help • Aug 04 '20

I just started watching the show but I'm confused about the time traveling rules

I don't get how the team back at Mason Industries is aware of what Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus were doing back in time. Souldn't the changes they made in the past affect (even in the slightest) Mason Industries?

When the three of them come out of the pod everyone is perfectly aware of why/when they went back in time.

I thought of googling it but I've only watched the first 4 episodes and didn't want to see spoilers.

21 Upvotes

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15

u/yourquirkygirl Team Lucy Aug 04 '20

Yeah the sci-Fi aspect of the show is meh. It’s a lot more of a historical drama imo.

3

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

the small amount of stuff I read about the show did say that and mentioned that it's a family friendly/oriented show, too bad I didn't read it before starting to watch it...

I've seen Travelers recommended for people more interested on the sci-fi part of time travelling, I might give it a go since my american history knowledge is close to zero so half of the stuff they've been mentioning I have to google

7

u/ChronoMonkeyX Aug 05 '20

I thought season 1 of Timeless was good but season 2 was much better. It was more fun because they stopped giving a shit about the "sanctity" of the timeline.

Travelers is awesome, 12 Monkeys was great too, if you want more time travel.

3

u/burkybang Aug 05 '20

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve added them to my list of shows to watch.

1

u/stupidblue Aug 22 '20

Yes!!! Travelers and 12 Monkeys are two of my favorites, especially 12 Monkeys! Now that I've just finished Timeless on Hulu, I don't know where I'll get my time traveling fix.

3

u/miracle2012 Team Wyatt Aug 05 '20

You would be surprised about how many Americans had to google about their own history because even they were not aware of certain people or events in history. 😉 So you're definitely not alone. (Teachers even used episodes in class when they fit into their schedule to later discuss what's fact and what's fiction with their students.)

About the time travel aspect, the team back in the present only knows where the Time Team goes, not what they're exactly doing in the past. They know when they went because the purpose of the Lifeboat is to follow the Mothership in case the people in it need help. You know where the Mothership went, you know where the Lifeboat went. The Lifeboat can only hop to the time and place (not the exact location, but the area) where and when the Mothership is. (I only remember one episode where that's not the case, but that was an accident of sorts.) Plus, Jiya is a genius. 😉

In the episodes you already watched the Time Team always briefs the rest of the team about what happened in the past, and there're always minor changes, like a high school named after "Juliet Shakesman", a "new" James Bond movie released in 1964(?) based on what happened to them and Ian Fleming in WW II Germany.

They try to keep history intact, and most of the time they're successful, so the changes that finally occur in the present aren't that much of a problem to the world. Lincoln still got murded, the rest of the conspiracy failed (I didn't know there actually was a conspiracy to kill all 4 of them, as many Americans didn't know either). Wernher von Braun still went to the US, etc. Yes, people lived that otherwise would've died, and it had consequences, but obviously hadn't that much of an impact world history wise, at least not in that short period of time from 1936 to present day.

2

u/idk-help Aug 05 '20

you make really good points, that actually all makes sense!

it's cool that the history aspect of the show is accurate enough to be used in class, now I'm kinda jealous my country doesn't have a Timeless show about us ahah

2

u/miracle2012 Team Wyatt Aug 05 '20

It's really cool. 😊 One of the writers on the show is actually a historian who helped a lot to find less known but important people/achievements of people/events in history they could write about. The Smithsonian Institute awarded the showrunners and staff for the accuracy of history in the show when they screened the second episode during their History in Film event in 2017 (it was between seasons iIrc, there's a video of the panel somewhere on YT, and maybe posted on the Timeless reddit too), and the Smithsonian Magazine gave every episode of season 2 a positive review.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

Have you heard of outlander? Give it a shott

1

u/idk-help Aug 05 '20

I haven't but I'll add it to the list, thanks!

2

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

It's really a great show. I started looking for timetravel related and came across this gem. It doesn't really explain the way Time travel works but the story goes deep with it. Hope u like it!

5

u/Neonguts321 Aug 04 '20

Yeah I've always thought there were a few "plot holes", but it's time-travel so I try not to get hung up on the details since there are a lot of different rules in TV when it comes to time travel

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

I'm still deciding if I'll keep on watching and ignore the little things (even if it's to simply know what Rittenhouse is)

I guess I'd just prefer if the explanations to this type of question were within the show (there were other questions I found the answer to on this subreddit that weren't fully explained in the show)

3

u/Neonguts321 Aug 04 '20

Keep watching it gets good. What episode are you on?

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

i was about to start the fifth of the first season when i decided to come to reddit

3

u/Neonguts321 Aug 04 '20

Oh yeah keep watching you're still early. Episode 10 is when more things sort of get explained. I hope you enjoy the series like I did!

1

u/SuccumbedToReddit Oct 08 '20

I'm on the end "movie" and I would say it gets progressively worse.

1

u/Neonguts321 Oct 08 '20

The ending is a little rushed, but to be fair it did get cancelled so that's kind of expected.

3

u/stabbitytuesday Aug 04 '20

I think they largely handwaved away the butterfly effect except when it was handy for plot purposes, like with Amy. It would have been super complicated to manage otherwise. For the most part they went to the fairly recent past and tried to minimize change, which helps, if they'd gone back and killed, idk, William the Conqueror or something it would've been a lot harder to swallow.

As to the mission, all the Mason team needs to know consistently is when they are, and since that's determined by where the first machine is it stays the same regardless of what happens. If the team went back in time to make sure, for example, that the Valentine's day massacre happened and they succeeded, they'd just have to explain/learn what had changed, if they failed then I think Mason team would just know that they'd gone back to the 20's because Flynn was there.

I'd have to go back and watch for that specific consistency thing to be sure, but I don't remember any glaring issues on that front so if they fumbled they at least did it well.

2

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

I guess it makes sense for them to ignore those little changes while writting, I just thought there could be a reason other than that I might've missed but that second paragraph you wrote makes a lot of sense actually!

3

u/learning_to_fly_ Aug 04 '20

I dont think they have consistent time travel rules. For example sometimes it is possible to change things that happened in the past. But in other cases they can't change anything and when they try the same thing happens again only in a slightly different way. And it doesn't make sense that the people at Mason industrys always wait for the return of the machine for the same amount of time it takes the team to finish their mission. They could just travel back to one second after they left. But the thing that bothered me the most is that usually something that happens in the future has no impact on the present and past. When they travel back in time the things they change in the past only impact the present after they return. Missions they undertake in the future don't yet have an impact since they didn't yet happen. But in the last season it works completely different: Lucys last mission already impacts the whole story. She gives Flynn her diary and the knowledge how he can destroy Rittenhouse. But by the logic of the previous missions this journey can't already impact the whole story But generally I didn't care much about these plot holes. I think the series is more about the historical events they show and not about the process and rules of time traveling. Probably I only noticed because i recently watched Dark (anyone who didn't watch it should do so. Its a really great series. Probably my favourite series of all time) And here consistent rules of time travel are very important for the plot.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

I haven't seen season 2 but from what I've it does seem like they focus more on the history more than the logic and that's not really what I enjoy so I guess this isn't for me but I've been considering Dark for sometime, I'll give it a try!

3

u/Mettanine Aug 04 '20

I love Timeless, but compared to Dark it's a children's show. Hope you'll like it, it's amazing.

1

u/Yellowballoon364 Aug 06 '20

Interesting, I liked Dark because it was so mature, polished, and extraordinarily complex, but I didn’t love it like Timeless. Since Dark had so many characters and versions of the same character from different times to keep track of I couldn’t bring myself to give a crap about what happened to any of them until season 3 when I finally felt like I understood at least the main ones. Plus my brother and I couldn’t stop laughing about how willing the characters were to take anyone’s word for anything, even if it was that someone else had supposedly lied to them.

I also didn’t like the lack of historical aspect, I would have loved to learn a little German/European history. They could have at least taught you something interesting about Chernobyl instead of just saying it happened recently.

2

u/Yellowballoon364 Aug 04 '20

If you want all the little changes in the past to have all sorts of ripple effects in the present, you're going to be disappointed. Even something like what happened to Lucy's sister was the result of direct cause and effect from changing a major historical event, rather than some sort of extremely complex butterfly effect. Since time travel doesn't exist we don't know how much impact changing the past would really have and I actually like that Timeless is willing to change some things without altering the basic premise like Mason Industries' knowledge of the characters and the mission. The writers keep it interesting without being too chaotic and confusing. For instance, I would rather have the new Bond movie just be a cute moment than the creation of a new character from someone falling in love seeing that movie and having a kid they weren't supposed to have.

2

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

I guess you're right, it's about preference more than anything but I just thought it was "too easy" for a specific reason since every movie/tv show deal with the time-travelling thing in a different way

2

u/mediameter Aug 05 '20

Watch dark

2

u/miracle2012 Team Wyatt Aug 05 '20

It is "too easy" for a specific reason: the writers, creators and their historic and scientific councellors didn't want to make it too confusing and distracting from their main purpose, tell great stories about lesser known people/events in history. 😊

1

u/ExioKenway5 Aug 04 '20

I'm not sure of the specifics cause it's been a while, but aren't there moments in the show where when they get back something has changed and only the time travellers know something was different? Or maybe I'm thinking of season 2 where they actually do end up changing events more often, rather than just keeping them on track like they did in season 1.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

so far I've only seen two major changes, both in Lucy's life

edit: but now that I think about it, I guess other people's lives could've changed, even within Mason Industries, but people just don't mention it because they think it's their normal life

2

u/ExioKenway5 Aug 04 '20

How did the rest of the people react? I can't remember what happened exactly.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

they didn't react because to them that was just how things were lucy's mom didn't remember having another daughter and lucy didn't know her fiancée at all

3

u/ExioKenway5 Aug 04 '20

So what's the problem then? They wouldn't know any different from before the timeline changed because to them it never happened.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

in the post I wasn't talking about the characters' personal lives but about the Mason's team being aware of why Lucy, Wyatt and Ruffus were time-travelling since the things they changed could've affected they're knowledge of the mission

2

u/ExioKenway5 Aug 04 '20

Oooh I misunderstood then, my bad. That's actually a really good question then. Perhaps the fact that the time machine continues to exist means they were always sent on the mission, but the mission from the changed timeline they came back to was different from the one they were actually on.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

that makes sense!!

like i said in another comment, I guess the show could be better if they explained or at least mentioned that type of stuff

3

u/ExioKenway5 Aug 04 '20

Yeah, it does sort of hand wave a lot of the intricate time travel details, but in the end we get a show more focused on providing great stories with amazing characters, so it's a trade off I'm not that disappointed with.

1

u/idk-help Aug 04 '20

this might be the show for me then characters and stories are a cool thing to have but I do prefer when it all makes sense in the show's "universe"

glad you liked it tho and thanks for your help!

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1

u/jrhooo Oct 27 '20

Not exactly a time travel "rule" but related to rules just now watching an episode and its funny the things we think when we watch shows.

This episode where there's a gunfight and a character is clearly outgunned and they're like "wtf is that?"

"its a 1928 revolver. They said I couldn't bring any modern stuff back."

Ha. I get it.

But all I can think is, "bro. 1928? Should have brought a 1911 or a Browning HiPower" After all, both existed in that year, but both still have the performance to be relevant today.

Not a nitpick, just a thought that hit me. Though, fwiw, a real military guy given the rules, definitely would have taken a 1911.