The Time Loop

[Spooniest]

If the Light Warriors defeated Chaos 2000 years ago, and removed any need for them to go on their Orb-Restoring (or Crystal-Restoring, depending on the translation) quest, then how did they ever get powerful enough to beat Chaos?

Time paradoxes like this just make my head hurt.

[Loony BoB]

First, you take a massive pinch of salt. Second, you learn to hate time travel in Final Fantasy video games regardless because it's always awful. At least it wasn't as bad as "Time Kompression".

[metagloria]

Theory: Each looping of time creates a parallel universe, and each subsequent Final Fantasy is actually set in one of the alternate worlds thus created.

This could explain Garland's appearance in IX, the recurrent theme of the crystals, etc.

[Wolf Kanno]

I wouldn't think about it.

The closest cop out answer I can give is that since the crystals themselves are basically keystones holding the universe together, they allow this little time slip up to happen. It's not exactly like Chaos and the Fiends don't magically appear out of nowhere as well and suffer a bit of a chicken vs. egg scenario.

[black orb]

>>> They send Trunks to beat Chaos..

[Rez09]

I think the nature of a time paradox is that it cannot logically occur, and so makes no sense from a traditional view of time.

In the case of FF1, it could be that time splinters due to the Light Warrior's actions, leaving both futures fully intact, with them traveling back to the new future they have created at the end of the game, while everything they did before traveling back in time still exists and occurs along the alternate timeline.

Alternatively, it may be that the original timeline is destroyed, but it doesn't actually matter, due to innate problems with time travel and ultimate outcome of their actions. One of the often cited problems with time paradoxs is that a person needs to experience future X to have a reason to travel back in time to junction Y, thus preventing X from ever occurring, and in doing so never experiences X and has no reason to stop Y, creating a logical loop. However, there is a potential fault in this logic: if I return to junction Y to stop future X in the first place, X has still not occurred at this point, and so none of my experiences exist at this time either (not to mention my being and belongings, creating a scientific problem of spontaneous existence and conservation of mass). As every event that has shaped me, from my birth, parenting, and growth to the physical and social climates that shaped me, do not and have not existed, my existence at this point in time is logically irreconcilable, unless I now exist outside of traditional time. Therefore, it doesn't actually matter what has shaped me, as none of it has actually happened, when I am standing at junction point Y. If I derail the event and prevent Y, and thus the X that drove me, I do not lose whatever motivation I had, because I was already standing at junction Y without X having occurred in the first place. Furthermore, when the shift to future Z occurs, I'll already exist at junction Y without future X having occurred, therefore continuing down future Z without the need for future X to have ever existed. This is logically what occurred in the case of FF1 if there is only a single timeline, as the Light Warriors exist at junction Y even after the prevention of event X, then return to future Z with memories of event X.

[Sephex]

Well, you see, John Connor knew he was sending his father back in time and...