However, so far, there has been nothing to indicate that Tarkir somehow clones the people from alternate timelines or bends its own timeline in such a way that every person is a universal constant.
Even if that were true it raises the question, why is it important for the plane, to have a Taigam on it, but not who he is aligned with. Why are some things arbitrarily constant actross timelines and others aren't. The lack of causality really opens a can of worms.
Taigam exists in Tarkir because their is a large set of global hidden variables (which we call "the author") that require it. Fiction is neither causal nor local, it merely pretends to be.
Since no one knows how time travel should work (let alone fictional time travel caused by stepping into the tomb of a dead spirit dragon) there are no reasonable assumptions to be made about how it works. For instance why is "only silver can travel through time" reasonable but not "individuals are preserved quantities"? Neither violates any actual rules of time travel.
Since no one knows how time travel should work (let alone fictional time travel caused by stepping into the tomb of a dead spirit dragon) there are no reasonable assumptions to be made about how it works. For instance why is "only silver can travel through time" reasonable but not "individuals are preserved quantities"? Neither violates any actual rules of time travel.
One, however, violates basic common sense. It's easy to understand that, if your great, great, great grandfather is killed in a time travel event, you will cease to exist. Even if you were to assume you'd still exist in some capacity, you wouldn't look the same, or be called the same. On the other hand, "common silver goes unscathed through a time portal" doesn't violate any such basic line of thinking. Who knows, maybe a quantum physicist would be able to demonstrate why that shouldn't be the case, but by then he will have lost 99% of the people who are the target audience for this story, so that doesn't matter in the end.
And again, I do understand that keeping the same characters / names / etc help in the storytelling; as in, it gives people known quantities to compare between the two timelines. I'm just saying that, in my pesonal opinion, they went to far here, thanks to the incredibly high time gap and the cataclysmic proportions of the time-altering event. It's just not able to suspend my disbelief enough, due to how blatant those perceived flaws are in my eyes. It just doesn't make for good, or even passable storytelling in my eyes. Yes, it will vary from person to person, but I obviously can only speak for myself.
With the appearances of Taigam and Yasimin in the story, it seems like a pretty good bet that most, if not all of the characters named in the KTK planeswalkers' guide that didn't show up in the Khans part of the story will be showing up in some capacity in the Dragons of Tarkir storyline. Chekhov's Gunman and all that.
So that's...Nitula, the Hunt Caller in the KTK timeline; the Temur-associated ainok, Baihir and Kharkhel; Kiradi, the human Sultai mage; the rakshasa lord Feyomsi; and possibly a couple of others (I don't remember if Chianul has made an appearance in the story yet, the efreet might qualify for this, as others have already pointed out...and then there's figures like Arel, another Temur whisperer whose named popped up on a few cards' flavortexts). Lots to work with there, especially within the Temur/Atarka contingent.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The true measure of all heroes is not what they achieve, but who they inspire." —Triumph of Gerrard
Just look at it this way. It is just coincidence that all the main characters are in Dragons of Tarkir. There is still a possibility that random Joe unnamed character from Khans might not exist in Dragons of Tarkir
Does Sarkhan flying with the Temur dragons when he first reappears and that it was supposed to be the Temur clan story this week bolster the belief that this new sarkhan could now be from the Temur clan in the new timeline? His is old mardu friends didnt know him either and Zurgo suggested his name was Temur. Sarkhan has also already been RG.
Does Sarkhan flying with the Temur dragons when he first reappears and that it was supposed to be the Temur clan story this week bolster the belief that this new sarkhan could now be from the Temur clan in the new timeline? His is old mardu friends didnt know him either and Zurgo suggested his name was Temur. Sarkhan has also already been RG.
This was my thought as well, particularly since he spent time with the Temur in the other timeline.
i am thinking that Narset was branded a heretic not because she could see other places, but because, in the altered Tarkir, she can see different timelines, possibly different realities. so young Narset probably spewed out what her visions told her - the extinction of dragons, the supremacy of the khans. that got her into trouble and when she was about to be executed, her spark ignited.
anyway, i'd like to see Tasigur still existing in this new timeline, even as a zombie.
First of all the butterfly effect it's not common sense, causality sure is, but the fact is, we have no information about the events that lead to this specific state in Tarkir.
Second, how "cataclysmic" was it really? In one timeline you had the clans fighting dragons to extinction and then fighting each other, in the new one, you get the clans fighting dragons until their own defeat, then submitting to dragons and then who knows, we haven't been told yet, yes there must be some alterations, but a handful of characters having only small alterations seems plausible enough.
I mean, it's not likely, but it is certainly possible. I'm gonna make a wild guess and speculate that if you were to compare DTK's tarkir with KTK's Tarkir element by element, you'd find many more differences (dead characters, changes in the environment, maybe even extinct races as result of dragon's depredation), but those are of no concern to us and who's got the time to both write and read a bunch of irrelevant stuff, for the moment at least, the author is obviously focusing in the ones that are useful to tell this particular story, and that's completely fine.
The thing I find weird is that no one has mentioned that this alternate fate was set in Tarkir 1.0. The Temur shamans could see the other timeline, they knew the other reality. The two futures are intertwined, and so they could very easily create similar outcomes.
Does Sarkhan flying with the Temur dragons when he first reappears and that it was supposed to be the Temur clan story this week bolster the belief that this new sarkhan could now be from the Temur clan in the new timeline? His is old mardu friends didnt know him either and Zurgo suggested his name was Temur. Sarkhan has also already been RG.
This was my thought as well, particularly since he spent time with the Temur in the other timeline.
There are no Temur now. There is only Atarka, which means, no, he won't have blue in his casting cost.
Akki_Akki wonders. What about Yasova and the Temur/Atarka? Yasova etched into some ivory a person and above person the words Khan Khan. What if Sarkhan said his name to a person of the Temur Clan/Atarka Brood and they recognized his name as Khan of Khans, the one who helped save Ugin with a stone cocoon. Who Yasova referred to Sarkhan as a Spirit that was whisked away after he had saved Ugin.
First of all the butterfly effect it's not common sense, causality sure is
The butterfly effect is literally just the logical conclusion of causality. What you're saying is essentially: "Sure, you can pile bricks on top of each other, but we don't know if it's possible to build a wall!"
Was the time travel really the issue with the latest UR? I thought people were just upset about Sarkhan having a sudden and irrational infatuation with Narset that he has never expressed so strongly before.
The time travel is neither good nor bad until we see the set to completion, but the writing of the main character of this block was poor this time.
Sarkhan believed he needs Narset to calm his insane mind. Nothing romantic; one's a monk and the other's a planewalker, for crying out loud. You might as well say "One day Ms. Squirrel fell in love with Mickey Mouse..."
The problem was the author used a very inappropriate writing style for this story.
Was the time travel really the issue with the latest UR? I thought people were just upset about Sarkhan having a sudden and irrational infatuation with Narset that he has never expressed so strongly before.
The time travel is neither good nor bad until we see the set to completion, but the writing of the main character of this block was poor this time.
Sarkhan believed he needs Narset to calm his insane mind. Nothing romantic; one's a monk and the other's a planewalker, for crying out loud. You might as well say "One day Ms. Squirrel fell in love with Mickey Mouse..."
The problem was the author used a very inappropriate writing style for this story.
I assure you I am the absolute last person who wants something romantic in the story. My disappointment is also with the tone.
I think time travel is one of those things that people feel smarter about themselves for complaining about.
Some people are acting like Wizard's thought they could "pull a fast one" on us. "If Sarkhan already saves Ugin, why would Sarkhan of the future ever go back and save Ugin? Answer THAT Wizards!"
The entire point of time travel stories is the comparison and contrast of timelines. It'd be like you open up a "What if America had lost the Revolutionary War?" set in 2010 and America is controlled by the Ottoman Empire because "**** happens and butterfly effect, you would never be able to predict what actually happens so that means everything is equally valid narratively".
The idea that there are traits of characters that remain the same regardless of whether Dragons or Khans win is completely in line with the idea that there are some people who are "significant" enough that they fix the variables of the timeline change. I don't really see any inconsistencies in the writing (yet) regarding how they treat time travel.
Imagine it like there is some divine fate (controlled by some external agent) that keeps track of the "set" history of Tarkir. When Sarkhan invokes the proper magic to go back in time, the external agent has to respect that some things must change, but in order to keep the temporal forces in line, as much that can be maintained of the original Tarkir timeline is kept, with key players still existing at the right moments.
You can tell me that there is nothing exists to support that interpretation, but I think if you expect WotC to have one of the UR's be a Physics Guide to Time Travel on Tarkir, with explanations that chrono particles from the past shot to the present to form a Sarkhan who shouldn't exist, blah blah blah, I'm sorry, but I don't think you're going to get that. But call it inconsistent for it breaking it's OWN rules, not rules that you take from other sources.
Question things like "I think it's a little unrealistic that Zurgo still knows what a Khan or Mardu is, despite the history sort of that sort of thing being wiped out 1000 years earlier." (I realize that we never heard Kolaghan in the past actually outlaw it, even though somewhere in that gap she must have). There's an explanation for that as well, but atleast it's trying to attack inconsistencies within the story, not inconsistencies with MTG and other media.
The entire point of time travel stories is the comparison and contrast of timelines.
This is really important. The number of time travel stories that aren't fundamentally illogical and don't completely fall apart under any sort of scrutiny is vanishingly small. Particularly time travel stories where the past can be changed to create an alternate present (which is the vast majority of them); the whole concept is logically absurd. And this is coming from someone who actually really enjoys time travel stories!
So it seems pretty silly to draw some sort of line and say "This time travel story is fine, but this other one is ridiculous, because it contains 5% more illogic and handwavium." And it really only is a very small percentage more absurd, if any at all, if we're comparing the Khans storyline to something like Back to the Future or Terminator. The fundamental logical problems in time travel stories of that sort are a lot bigger than quibbles about the so-called butterfly effect.
Not At all! the butterfly effect talks about the effects of changes in the "initial" conditions of a system, not the same as causality. Causality is a natural (often obvious and inmediate) consecuensce of an action, while the butterfly effect talks about how a very small change can cascade into unforsenable consecuences, if given enough "room" to spread. The butterfly effect isn't obvious unless you are at least familiar with the basic principle of chaos theory, even if you don't understand it, it doesn't come up as naturaly unless you are aware of it.
I didn't say anything about that, and Zugo said it was a temur name
No, he actually said it sounded like an ATARKA name.
Either way, the point was that its possible that the alternate Sarkhan ended up with the Temur/Atraka rather than the Mardu/Kolangath. Also Sarkhan spent quite a bit time among the Temur, so its possible if he gains clarity of mind he does become Temur color since he already has been seen as G/R
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Taigam exists in Tarkir because their is a large set of global hidden variables (which we call "the author") that require it. Fiction is neither causal nor local, it merely pretends to be.
Since no one knows how time travel should work (let alone fictional time travel caused by stepping into the tomb of a dead spirit dragon) there are no reasonable assumptions to be made about how it works. For instance why is "only silver can travel through time" reasonable but not "individuals are preserved quantities"? Neither violates any actual rules of time travel.
And again, I do understand that keeping the same characters / names / etc help in the storytelling; as in, it gives people known quantities to compare between the two timelines. I'm just saying that, in my pesonal opinion, they went to far here, thanks to the incredibly high time gap and the cataclysmic proportions of the time-altering event. It's just not able to suspend my disbelief enough, due to how blatant those perceived flaws are in my eyes. It just doesn't make for good, or even passable storytelling in my eyes. Yes, it will vary from person to person, but I obviously can only speak for myself.
*****
ricklongo and RicardoLongo on MTGO
*****
Visit my gaming blog: http://www.gamingsweetgaming.blogspot.com
****************
Check out Rick's Picks, my PureMTGO article series
****************
So that's...Nitula, the Hunt Caller in the KTK timeline; the Temur-associated ainok, Baihir and Kharkhel; Kiradi, the human Sultai mage; the rakshasa lord Feyomsi; and possibly a couple of others (I don't remember if Chianul has made an appearance in the story yet, the efreet might qualify for this, as others have already pointed out...and then there's figures like Arel, another Temur whisperer whose named popped up on a few cards' flavortexts). Lots to work with there, especially within the Temur/Atarka contingent.
This was my thought as well, particularly since he spent time with the Temur in the other timeline.
anyway, i'd like to see Tasigur still existing in this new timeline, even as a zombie.
Second, how "cataclysmic" was it really? In one timeline you had the clans fighting dragons to extinction and then fighting each other, in the new one, you get the clans fighting dragons until their own defeat, then submitting to dragons and then who knows, we haven't been told yet, yes there must be some alterations, but a handful of characters having only small alterations seems plausible enough.
I mean, it's not likely, but it is certainly possible. I'm gonna make a wild guess and speculate that if you were to compare DTK's tarkir with KTK's Tarkir element by element, you'd find many more differences (dead characters, changes in the environment, maybe even extinct races as result of dragon's depredation), but those are of no concern to us and who's got the time to both write and read a bunch of irrelevant stuff, for the moment at least, the author is obviously focusing in the ones that are useful to tell this particular story, and that's completely fine.
The butterfly effect is literally just the logical conclusion of causality. What you're saying is essentially: "Sure, you can pile bricks on top of each other, but we don't know if it's possible to build a wall!"
Sarkhan believed he needs Narset to calm his insane mind. Nothing romantic; one's a monk and the other's a planewalker, for crying out loud. You might as well say "One day Ms. Squirrel fell in love with Mickey Mouse..."
The problem was the author used a very inappropriate writing style for this story.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffI assure you I am the absolute last person who wants something romantic in the story. My disappointment is also with the tone.
Some people are acting like Wizard's thought they could "pull a fast one" on us. "If Sarkhan already saves Ugin, why would Sarkhan of the future ever go back and save Ugin? Answer THAT Wizards!"
The entire point of time travel stories is the comparison and contrast of timelines. It'd be like you open up a "What if America had lost the Revolutionary War?" set in 2010 and America is controlled by the Ottoman Empire because "**** happens and butterfly effect, you would never be able to predict what actually happens so that means everything is equally valid narratively".
The idea that there are traits of characters that remain the same regardless of whether Dragons or Khans win is completely in line with the idea that there are some people who are "significant" enough that they fix the variables of the timeline change. I don't really see any inconsistencies in the writing (yet) regarding how they treat time travel.
Imagine it like there is some divine fate (controlled by some external agent) that keeps track of the "set" history of Tarkir. When Sarkhan invokes the proper magic to go back in time, the external agent has to respect that some things must change, but in order to keep the temporal forces in line, as much that can be maintained of the original Tarkir timeline is kept, with key players still existing at the right moments.
You can tell me that there is nothing exists to support that interpretation, but I think if you expect WotC to have one of the UR's be a Physics Guide to Time Travel on Tarkir, with explanations that chrono particles from the past shot to the present to form a Sarkhan who shouldn't exist, blah blah blah, I'm sorry, but I don't think you're going to get that. But call it inconsistent for it breaking it's OWN rules, not rules that you take from other sources.
Question things like "I think it's a little unrealistic that Zurgo still knows what a Khan or Mardu is, despite the history sort of that sort of thing being wiped out 1000 years earlier." (I realize that we never heard Kolaghan in the past actually outlaw it, even though somewhere in that gap she must have). There's an explanation for that as well, but atleast it's trying to attack inconsistencies within the story, not inconsistencies with MTG and other media.
This is really important. The number of time travel stories that aren't fundamentally illogical and don't completely fall apart under any sort of scrutiny is vanishingly small. Particularly time travel stories where the past can be changed to create an alternate present (which is the vast majority of them); the whole concept is logically absurd. And this is coming from someone who actually really enjoys time travel stories!
So it seems pretty silly to draw some sort of line and say "This time travel story is fine, but this other one is ridiculous, because it contains 5% more illogic and handwavium." And it really only is a very small percentage more absurd, if any at all, if we're comparing the Khans storyline to something like Back to the Future or Terminator. The fundamental logical problems in time travel stories of that sort are a lot bigger than quibbles about the so-called butterfly effect.
No he ASKED if it was an atarka name, I assume because sarkhan showed up with atarka dragons
Either way, the point was that its possible that the alternate Sarkhan ended up with the Temur/Atraka rather than the Mardu/Kolangath. Also Sarkhan spent quite a bit time among the Temur, so its possible if he gains clarity of mind he does become Temur color since he already has been seen as G/R