Thread:Elledy92/@comment-26838855-20190425183005/@comment-26838855-20190502012916

Ugh they've copied the Forbes article explanation. I've already addressed this, it doesn't work, and it's really annoying me that it's getting spread. BEJT wrote: I've also seen another suggestion: That the 2012-to-1970 jump (and Steve not having to return after replacing each stone) proves that if you're going back in time, you don't need to arrive back at the machine between, you can just jump further back. I agree with that. But the suggestion from this is that Steve lives out in an alternate timeline to 2023 until he's past the day he left, so then the point he left is in the past, and then he can just jump back to come out in main 2023 elsewhere, not in the machine.

But this has missed the point of the test run scene, where it specifically talks about how your personal past, present, and future shifts when you time travel. This suggestion is not the same as the 2012-to-1970 jump. In that case, you are simply going back, along that diagonal offshoot alternate timeline line and up back into the main stem and further back in the timeline. It's all just a backwards movement. But this case would be going back up a (very long) diagonal offshoot right back to 1947 or whenever the divergence point is, and then forwards again to 2023.

Imagine it like they have a cable and harness attached to them, and like the timeline is a series of pipes. If you go up to 2012 and down a new offshoot pipe, you can then go up to 1970 without returning to the point of origin - just go back up to the point where the offshoot pipe splits and continue up the main pipe. But in this case, to get to main 2023, you have to go right up the offshoot pipe back to the divergence point c. 1947, and then all the way back down the main pipe to main 2023. It's exactly the same as all the return trips from Time Heists, so it has to come out where he left.

There's no advantage to being in Splinter January 2, 2023 to allow you to go back to Main January 1, 2023 (not saying those are the actual dates, they're not, just demonstrating one being after the other), which the test run scene lays out. It's not about being at a later date in one timeline, wherever you are in the new timeline your main timeline is still in your past.