Causality
“Cause and effect. I drink-a too much wine, I need-a to piss.”
“Oh shut up, we heard you the first time.”
Causality, or causation, is the flow of events from cause to effect. Causality was invented at the Dawn of time, and has been used ever since to allow us to say things like "has been used ever since". The concept was good, but the quality of causality has been going downhill due to increased activity of time travelers. Fans of causality have classified time travelers into two categories: Assholes and Total Dicks.
Causality and Time Travel[edit]
Causality and time travel are mortal enemies. It was once thought that breaking causality through the use of time travel would cause a paradox that would destroy all of reality. Further research seemed to show that paradoxes just cause relatively minor disruptions, which reality can eventually repair. This was also false. The truth is somewhere in between - some damage is repaired, but repeated breaking of causality results in more and more nonsense. Eventually events will become so scrambled that things will happen for absolutely no reason.
Minor Fuck-ups[edit]
Even if you try not to change anything, you've damaged causality just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This qualifies you as an asshole, but it won't do any lasting damage.
Major Fuck-ups[edit]
Anything that leaves an effect without a cause is a major Fuck-up. This includes objects that were never made, and people who are their own parents. These do lasting damage to causality. Causing a Major Fuck-up qualifies you as a total dick.
Colossal Fuck-ups[edit]
Nested Major Fuck-ups. Paradoxes within paradoxes. Creating a situation like this probably causes you to retroactively cease to exist, so I won't bother calling you a nasty name.
A Brief History of Causality[edit]
- 9,987,108 BC : An unknown time traveler appears in the Void and instantly dies. The presence of his corpse causes the "first" Colossal Fuck-up, as the universe is not supposed to exist until 6,834,000 BC.
- 6,834,002 BC : The universe comes into existence.
- 6,834,001 BC : The universe comes into existence again.
- 5,912,644 BC : The universe comes into existence again.
- 5,007,941 BC : Against all logic, the year 1941 AD happens.
- 3,860,119 BC - 6834 BC have retroactively ceased to exist.
- 6040 BC : The earth is destroyed by temporal-nuclear war.
- 5221 BC : The universe comes into existence again.
- 4866 BC : Against all logic, the year 9401 AD happens.
- 2100 BC - 2100 AD : These are such high-traffic years that anyone existing during this time is likely to be related to himself in some way, or own at least one object that was never actually built. Months disappear and reappear at random.
- 2006 : Discussing future events damages causality. Suffice it to say, it just makes less sense the further out you go.
What can I do to help?[edit]
It's simple. If you see a time machine laying around, don't touch it. Whenever you do anything, make sure you do it in the correct order - for example, when making cereal, don't eat it and then prepare it.
Remember: Cause then effect.