RPS: The biggie first. Does ITB have multiple timelines because a new timeline is created every time the mechs go back in time, or because a (presumably infinite) number of other timelines already exist and they are trying to save humanity in as many of them as possible? Or something else entirely?
Chris Avellone: The pilots have different theories.
Isaac Jones’s belief (who’s the pre-imminent Breach researcher in the game – and I’ll paraphrase his answer so his neural lag s-s-stuttering isn’t p-p-present) is at some point in the “future” or “a future”, the first Breach caused an explosion of tachyons that went both forward and backward in time.
Isaac does not know when or why this breach occurred, but believes it was on purpose and was likely a laboratory test. He claims that if there weren’t multiple timelines before, that tachyon explosion (the “Big Breach Bang” as his colleagues would tease him about… but they’re all dead now) caused a fragmentation of timelines – into how many, he doesn’t know, nor would he be able to track the divergences since that would require knowing the details of the explosion, the tachyon output, and many other factors that are almost impossible to plot out.
Now the problem is, if this theory is true, every time a breach occurs, multiple timelines are created. If a timeline is lost, then other timelines are created… but if a timeline is saved and the pilots travel onwards, then that means the surviving pilots can go to other timelines, and if enough successes occur, eventually, all new timelines could be saved from the Vek based on law of averages.
Isaac believes (er, h-h-hopes) it is “unlikely” that localized breaches cause new timelines, but even he can’t be sure. He thinks it’s unwise to test the theory.
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