Steins Gate and the theory of time travel

It's rare for an anime to compel me to type @ 12:30 am when I have work the next morning, but after reading a bit on AnimeSuki I felt the need to at least blog about my thoughts on the whole time travel theory. First, note that this is my theory and not of 5pb/nitro+, so I may very well be dead wrong and am open to disagreement. Second, this is an extremely spoiler heavy post. Do not, and I repeat, do not read on unless you have seen Steins Gate up till episode 23, or you'll be wasting an amazing anime.

Now that you have been warned, read on...


Here we go, let it be known, on the record, that Steins Gate is one incredible anime, and if ep24 does not disappoint, will be one of the best anime I've ever seen. The twists (albeit slightly predictable) and events that has transpired over the course of the story is engaging to the point where I could not stop watching despite my best efforts. Now I have to wait an entire week for the final episode...oh the horror.

First, before we dive into the theory of time travel, we must first understand the premise of which Steins Gate is based upon. Originally a Visual Novel on the 360, Steins Gate is a collaboration project between 5pb and Nitro+, their second after Chaos;Head, which was also made into an anime. It was unfortunate that the Chaos;Head anime was terribly done and ruined what I heard was an amazing VN, but with Steins Gate the anime had ample time (two-cours) to tell the story. The story itself is based on the internet phenomenon in November 2000, where a mysterious forum user named John Titor appeared. He stated he was a time-traveler that came from the future, year 2036 to be exact, and made quite a fuss back then. I will let you read the rest of his story on wiki and other sources if you are interested, but the only relevant item from the real John Titor, aside from his existence, is his approval for the Everett-Wheeler model of Quantum Physics, or the Many-worlds interpretation.

Many of us who are interested in Sci-Fi have undoubtedly heard of this theory, that the world is actually consist of many different parallel timelines split from the many key decisions made by key personnel. The theory states that all possibilities are real and its chances of happening is 100%; there are no paradoxes as each different action will lead to a different timeline and will split the world further.

It is not unusual for anime, visual novels or light novels to take parts from certain folklore/theories and put a twist on it, an example would be Fate/Stay Night where King Arthur is a woman. I believe such is the case here in Steins Gate. Although on the surface Steins Gate did take in both Titor's existence and parts of the MWI, the underlying theory is completely different. This is where I believe a lot of the viewers were confused, because the parallel world theory is so prevalent in our society that it is hard to imagine time travel without it. The fact of the matter, from what I understand, is that Steins Gate's time travel is not consistent with the MWI theory.

The MWI theory states that all possibilities can and will happen, and all timelines are equally real. This is not true for Steins Gate, because if this was true, Okabe would be a contradictory existence.

Let me start with the timelines or world lines in Steins Gate's world. The world lines split when a major decision is made, thus creating two or more parallel worlds that continue to separate as it progresses. On the surface, this is consistent with MWI, but this is no longer true with the existence of Okabe Rintaro. His power is completely contradictory with MWI, and in my opinion is actually the backbone to the actual time travel theory of Steins Gate.

All throughout the anime (and presumably the VN), Okabe had been jumping back and forth from world lines, and retained all his memories in his quest. In a way, his quest is equivalent to that of a player playing an eroge or VN, where his decisions are directly affecting the world. In an eroge, players make key decisions that will send the game towards a particularly heroine (or harem ending, if possible), whether that be a bad, good, true ending would depend on other decisions. The issue here is that Okabe dictates which path the world takes, his decision to change other people's decisions dictates how far the world line splits, or merge. He is the player in this VN (ironic, yea), and his Reading Steiner is the "system data file" where all your progress is saved, and can be view using the CG mode after you complete the game. His original D-mail moved the world to the "Alpha world line", where Mayuri dies, SERN creates a dystopia and everything goes to hell (Bad End). His removal of the first D-Mail is a decision that moved the world towards the "Beta World Line", where Kurisu dies, WW3 happens and everything goes to hell (another Bad End). This is basically equal to two separate "Bad End Routes" in a VN, named Alpha and Beta.

Now the interesting part- how it differs from MWI. As stated above, all possibilities must be real in MWI and they happen in exclusivity of each other, but such is not the case in Steins Gate. Basically, if I travel back in time and killed your mother, you will not disappear, I simply created a new timeline that is parallel and separated from the current time line. The result of my decisions and actions affects the world, a particular world to be precise. To put things into perspective, if we consider Okabe to be the player of one VN, where he will travel down one path every time he plays. In MWI's case, Okabe will also be the player, but he will be playing multiple instances of the same VN, at the same time. His decision in one game is exclusive from the rest, and he will be able to collect all the endings simultaneously. All his decisions creates a route that is true as it is happening, but it is only true in its own instance, that is the true essence of MWI.

The above cannot be true for Steins Gate's universe, mainly due to the existence of Okabe. As I mentioned before, his Reading Steiner is like a system data file where all clear data is saved. However, only one instance of the VN can be run with that system data at a time, which is the world line Okabe current resides in. He retains his previous routes (play through) memories but cannot access then simultaneously as the current route, which is exactly like a recollection or CG mode of a VN/eroge. You can view a certain event that you have collected in the mode, but you cannot experience the same event if it differs from your current route. This is different from MWI where all instances happens at the same time, and they are all true. If Okabe was truly in MWI, then he must be in all instances of the worlds simultaneously, which would mean he has no need to "travel" from world to world, rendering his Reading Steiner completely useless. The fact that he must travel from world line to world line suggest that the world can only have one instance of itself, where only one world is true, this of course differs from MWI. However, that is not to say the other World Lines are not parallel to the current one. They also have their progression but will remain a hypothetical route until the world shifts to it, like a route not taken in a VN- it is programmed into the system, the natural progression of the route is mapped out, but is not real until the player decision shifts the game into that route.

Now, onto a little bit of speculation (as I have not played the VN, nor do I possess a time machine that would allow me to watch episode 24 right now...not to say I do not wish for one). A lot of viewers are confused about the two world lines present in the story thus far, and the reason why Okabe must make sure he does not "change the past". As this also link to my speculation to ep24, I will go into it with a some detail:

The future 33 year old Okabe explicitly said to not "change the past", why?

This is because, his existence, depends entirely on the chain of events:

The original world, the beta (beta v1) world line, is the world line where the story begins. In this line Okabe saw the dead Kurisu, where his fear prompted him to send the very first D-Mail, and forced the world into the Alpha line.

In the Alpha Line, Kurisu did not die and "invented" the time machine for SERN which allowed it to create the dystopia of in the future. The dystopia urged Daru to create a time machine to send his daughter back in time to change the world line, and her miscalculation caused her time machine to crash into the building, which forced Kurisu out of her supposed death. (This is of course an infinite time loop as the creation of SERN's time machine by Kurisu was the reason why Suzu came back from the future. The act of her coming back from the future was the reason why Kurisu is alive. Probably a minor "grandfather paradox" that I will ignore) The events that transpire afterwards, include the full three weeks of Okabe traveling back in time multiple times, is invaluable experience for Okabe.

Now back in the Beta World Line. Okabe's failure to save the Kurisu the first time gave him despair, another key component in the puzzle. This situation can be compared to certain games where you must complete a certain objective in order to unlock a special ending, or dungeon. Okabe must obtain both the experience and despair to alter the Beta World Line to create the future Okabe we saw in episode 23. The existence of the future Okabe is a testament to his own theory, where you change the future without changing the past. If you think about it, the World Line had not changed from ep1, it is still the Beta line, but yet it is vastly different from ep1. The fact that Okabe's Reading Steiner did not activate is another proof that the line did not changed.

This new Beta line (Beta v2) contains Okabe who is fully aware of time traveling, convergence and his attraction to Kurisu, compared to the Okabe in beta v1 who is completely unaware of the above. If the beta line had progressed normally, then WW3 will happen and Okabe would've been completely useless. However, in beta v2 he was aware of what he could do and had done so to instruct the beta v2 present Okabe. If the present Okabe had gone and changed the past, such as prevent the past Okabe from seeing Kurisu's death, then the past Okabe would never have ventured into Alpha. This would mean Okabe of the present and future would both ceased to exist since the original Okabe did not make the decision that would allow him to gain both experience and despair. Remember, Reading Steiner does not transcend time, it only allows Okabe to retain his memories from World Line to World Line. Which means if he had gone and change the past, he would either to too late to send the D-Mail that would move the line to Alpha, or he may very well completely be oblivious to time-traveling due to the creation of "new" Okabe who did not world line travel at all. Either way the plan would cease to exist and there would be no way to redo.

I'm the mad scientist, HOOIN KYOMA!

This is why he must "deceive" the world, he must allow the world to progress to the point where he sends the first D-mail, as a per-requisite to him gaining the necessary keys to success. Then after that his actions of destroy the time machine paper, and rescuing Kurisu will force the world to move from Beta to a new World Line, Steins Gate. His success, like the future Okabe said, depends solely on deceiving the world proceeding to the world line where the story of Steins Gate took place, thus allowing the existence of the knowledgeable Okabe to change the world.

I look forward to the finale of this awesome anime...and I'm tired. I will be adding some images tomorrow after world, right now I'm simply too drained to search for them.

Once again (it's been so long!), much thanks to Random Curiosity for screencaps.