Time travel and 'Continuum'

For a series that uses time travel as part of its premise, Canadian import Continuum (which wrapped its first season on the infantile “SyFy” Channel) seems to shy away from explaining how time travel works. 

Continuum opens in 2077. It is a dystopian one in which constitutional-democracy and other world governments have collapsed. A new system of corporatocracy and corporate republics now dominate the planet, instituting a high-surveillance, technically advanced police state and removing certain social freedoms, specifically criticism against the "Corporate Congress". The oligarchic society seems relatively free, with a working class that enjoys a high standard of living in contrast with scenes of severe persecution upon a downtrodden people who cannot afford food. 

As typical with this premise, there exist “freedom fighters” who want to bring down the regime. The one interesting aspect of this movement is that they do horrible things in pursuant of their goals –they’ve allowed thousands of people to die to point out the age old axiom that needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Are they terrorist or are they something else?

But some get caught, and one group –called the Liber8- are about to be executed for their crimes when –somehow- they are transported in time, from 2077 to 2012 Vancouver. Caught up in the wave is future cop, called a Protector, Kiera Cameron as well as man named Jason (who we meet in the season finale episode, and says he was in the control room during the time displacement, but ended up in 1992 instead of 2012. Much like what happened to Captain Braxton in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Future's End). 

Now trapped in past, Kiera must try to stop the Liber8 from changing the future. But all is not lost, for she has a guardian angel in the name of a teenager named Alec Sadler. From his family ranch in the wilds of Vancouver, Alec is a young tech genius who has –and more importantly, will- create the technology that everyone uses in 2077. By gaining trust, both set out to stop Liber8. Also, through some quick thinking, Kiera ends up working with the Vancouver police department and gets a partner in the name of Carlos Fonnegra –who has no idea who she really is, but seems unable to question how she gets the information (some made-up government organization known as Section 6) she does. 

I actually like the show, despite the fact that it spends most of the week’s ignoring the implications of time travel (theoretical science has been trying to figure the mechanics of it, despite the fact that Einstein’s classic E=MC² dictates that time travel is not possible).  And in a lot of ways, Continuum is not a science fiction show. I mean, its initial premise is science fiction, but for the ten episodes first season, it sort of shelved that, as it took up the mantle of being a police procedural and, at times, nearly crossed the line into Castle territory. In between the pilot and the season ender we are given the arc of Liber8 movement as they try and “prevent” the movement where Big Corporations are bringing down the world governments. Its ideas are not that farfetched though; witness the whole Occupy movement of 2011. But while the allegory and metaphors work, like many shows the episodes end up living at the corner of Coincidence and Convenience. And there are times that threads are dropped, as you can tell the writers boxed themselves in when they realized those allegory’s were getting a bit complex for a series that is not necessarily designed to engage in deep debates about what makes some a terrorist versus a “freedom fighter.” And on that rare time it was given some voice, they never went far enough. 

But getting back to the whole time travel aspect; for some odd reason, I’m curious about how they approach it.

Alec does discuss the possibility that Kiera, the Liber8 and even himself can be caught in a time loop. But the implications of that is that nothing can change, that Kiera and everyone else that traveled back in time from 2077 were “destined” to come back but never change the outcome that sent them back in the first place. And that they’ll continue to repeat history again and again. But to me, this would be a cheat if the series continues for a while (the series second season debuts in April in Canada, and Syfy has yet to set an official return) so it needs a better time travel theory so the Kiera and the audience can root for her to change her future.

That brings up the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics, which implies there are an infinite number of universes; all the possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual world, so to speak. While many theoretical scientists still believe time is a single unfolding line, the many-worlds formulation dictates that time branches off like a tree limb into an infinite number of alternate or parallel worlds. The one problem with this ideal means that everyone who traveled back from 2077 to 2012 are actually arrived in a parallel universe of 2012 and not the one they remember from the history books in 2077 –because while the same events happen, they unwind differently. So this negates the single unfolding time theory, because if Kiera changes her own future, she would not need to be in 2012 to change her own future. Right? Aslo, the many-worlds theory also creates another problem, which is because 2077 group traveled to an alternate 2012, when (and if) they can return to “their” 2077, how do they figure that out (of course on Star Trek, each universe had a “quantum signature” so they could tell “one” alternate dimension from the next).

So where do we stand? 

I’m guessing that what we have here is a Causality loop of some kind, the time loop’s crazier brother. Causality loop is where events keep repeating themselves over and over again and no one has knowledge of how many times they have repeated the same event or how long they have been stuck in the loop. But it could be possible Kiera and the Liber8 have been doing the same thing again and again. The one variable with in a Causality loop is an outside factor can disrupts the loop. That outside factor could be Alec himself. This current loop Kiera is on could be the first time she encountered Alec, thus creating a different variable –that she could now change her future.

But in the end, if she breaks the Causality time loop does she still change her future? That, my friends, is something she’ll probably never know because she has to stay in this time or she creates a paradox. Which loops us back to the beginning.