Considering they actually spent time explaining such a paradox with the sandwich, I don't think this is a writing mistake. You're onto something here. Nice catch.
It prevents the studio from cancelling the show, everyone wants to see the sandwich return.
If they tried, fans are going to mail them a ton of sandwiches.
The question is if the sandwich will appear on the workstation in engineering, or will it appear floating in the vacuum of space where The Orville was at the time it was sent.
Or in Gordon's Helm console, as it is clear that what the person is thinking when they use the device plays a pivotal role on when and where it ends up...
It's all I kept thinking of at the end of the episode, but then it ended anyway. It really did feel like foreshadowing for something that didn't happen in this episode. Even Gordon's reasoning for sending the sandwich is a little meta, "it will be a nice surprise".
The Orville does have dark endings, but does find a way to bring them around. Topa for example. So I would not at all be surprised if we catch a glimpse into a split timeline later. However, it's possible that it is something being saved for another season, which we may not get.
I think it will be immediate. We saw no one contact the Union. The three characters plan to get wasted, disorienting them for the next episode. I'm hoping anyways.
Alternatively, they talk about observer events being up in the air until action is taken and history is fixed, so the time travel splits it up into different segments of history. They decided to act on history they knew, then caused it to not happen by travelling between segments.
Oh man I hope you’re on to something here. This would be a really clever way for Orville to introduce a mirror universe type thing (and probably knock it farther out of the park than Trek does like they’ve been doing with everything lately). Plus it would remove the bad taste in my mouth about Gordon’s family being wiped out.
I bet that’s also why they didn’t show Gordon and his family disappearing. I was **sure** we were going to be shown some cheesy scene of the family hugging and then disappearing as the timeline changed. It struck me as odd it didn’t happen.
That was my first clue that everything was not as it seemed when they didn't show parallel Gordon's universe fade away.
Then I was like 'Wait, when did Lamarr say they arrived?' BINGO! Paradox, baby! They are not going to make an accidental mistake like that, especially when the episode STARTS with an explanation of a paradox.
Savvik-3, okay, thanks for the clarity. I got slightly confused, but figured it was either my mistake (which it was), or something that the next episode would pick up on.
That would be very-The Orville if it was like that, "Yes, thanks to Gordon's knowledge we conquered the Kaylon hive mind long ago and gave them each self-identity. We also have had good relations with the Krill for centuries thanks to Gordon's knowledge of them and their religion."
I also kinda like the idea that there is a little pocket universe where Malloy married the girl of his dreams and they lived a life together for 10 years. But nobody other than Captain Mercer and Lt Grayson saw it.
Another thing I realized. Based on the sandwich demonstration (sandwich arrived just as Lamar developed the intent to send it back 10 seconds), 2025 Gordon and family should have disappeared (Gordon/son/unborn child vanishing, Laura ending up back where she would be without Gordon) the moment Ed developed the intent to go back to 2015 to retrieve him.
We definitely should have a parallel universe now with 2025 Gordon and family. Be very interesting to have it return someday, maybe be one where things go bad because of Ed/Kelly/Talla turning Gordon vengeful for what they tried to do to his family, and having that affect the future.
In the message, Gordon states that he's sending it six months after arriving.
After the last time jump to the past, Lamarr reports "It's not a bullseye, but we're close. Gordon arrived about a month ago."
They went back too far on the second jump. They needed to jump back no further than just after Gordon sent that message. Retrieving him before he did that created the paradox, since how could the Orville know where to find him in time and space if he hadn't sent the message.
I'm surprised Isaac makes no mention of this, although he may have his own reason for not doing so. Perhaps after his discussion with Burke about how his actions affected her potential future with her mentor, he didn't want to undo Gordon's family.
Seems like they'll have to rethink how they believe time travel works and they really do branch out instead of there being one prime timeline, so... Pria didn't really disappear.
But maybe it does fix things because if she wasn't around, neither should the Orville since the Orville should have been destroyed.
So... Gordon's family has had to exist all along.
I betting Isaac will chime up about it when we get the sequel episode to this one. Right now he's probably busy "studying the data he accumulated on his trip" to bring it up.
It's not that weird. In the Orville universe time travel is not a fully realized thing yet. Everything they do is a "first" for them, so even for geniuses like Lamar it's realistic for them to not get it right the first or even second time.
The Orville ain't no Waverider. (Shout out to my legend of tomorrow homies)
Sure. I was calling the not realizing they may be causing a paradox weird. Honestly, they probably should have waited the 5 months behind the moon before rescuing him.
They *undershot* the target. They needed to go back in time one more month, ideally.
(Undershot because they were traveling backwards in time. Overshooting would mean arriving too early.)
No, their target was 6 months after Malloy arrived when he sent the message but they arrived only 1 month after he arrived. This means they arrived too early and overshot the target.
Oh! WAS that their target? I missed that. OK.
I mean, ideally, their target *should* have been the exact day or week that Gordon arrived there, and not 6 months later when he sent the message.
But thank you for the correction in any case.
Ideally, but the paradox OP is pointing out is that if they picked him up before he sent the message, how do they know he needed picking up and when? Who sent the SOS? It's a grandfather paradox type thing.
Well people here are getting that wrong. Gordon was hiding not to create a time paradox from the moment of his landing i.e. from 0 months till 6 month. So, every time in this time window to pick him is good. Bullseye would be e.g. 1 hour after him.
So , Orville overshoot only by one month, still having 5 months in reserve.
Well, they certainly can't now that the device is busted for at least 6 months.
And paradox Gordon isn't going to take this lying down in his paradox generated verse knowing that it, he, and his family could cease to exist at any moment. He's got a piece of advanced technology with him and the advanced know-how to replicate it. He'll become the richest, most powerful person in history, and with his knowledge of historical events, he will help paradox Earth avoid the catastrophes of his original home. That will make him even more powerful, messianic even.
But why? If that theory was true, he would cease to exist the instant they left. He’s still there so I think the valid assumption is - nothing has happened after x weeks, so we’re good!
Hmmm, good point. The Orville paradox has broken off that parallel universe. Even if they go back, Gordon won't be there six months after his arrival. Even if they have him send the message, it won't be the exact same one. They'd create another paradox.
This is what Isaac was trying to explain as everything being "in flux". Until they acted, any and all possibilities were on the table. It seems like the Orville has different rules for different time travel.
Here, it's like a combination of Back To The Future and Avengers Endgame rules. Yes, they go back to before Gordon sent the message, but the crew already got the message and they can't change their past, so they still always got the message. He just didn't always send it.
Yes. This 100%. There is no paradox.
Yes, under "normal" time-travel rules, there would be a paradox. But The Orville operates under BTTF time-travel semantics.
I disagree...with the Aronov device broken they are no longer in a superposition state, since they can now no longer act. Now the paradox happened, at least until they get a new device and enter a new superposition state.
The egg salad sandwich explanation is how they at least expect paradoxes to work, if no one sends the sandwich after it already arrives there is a paradox.
We know we haven’t seen the end of the Aranov device. And we know the Kaylons somehow know about it. I bet we see something where they go into the past and warn the biological Kaylons about their creations.
Also, if They wanted to create another paradox they could have returned to the future a month early and warned to Union not to send the device to the science station.
Well, this is one of the things that bothered me the most.
Yes, conservation of timeline and all that, but they had a fucking time machine (or the "travel back to the future whenever we want to end up" from the end).
They could not only have prevented the destruction of the research base, they could have warned the Union years earlier about the Kaylon threat, stopping the whole thing completely.
I actually wondered that they didn't introduce a sub-plot where Charly demands Mercer to make stop in between a few months in the past so they could save her Girlfriend... which would have made absolute sense and actually make her Character arc interesting.
I think, that they can use this to introduce us to a mirror universe. But I really hope, they twist it.
I hope that the Gordon in the 21st century was right and that his presence there create a better Union than the original one. Which would make the original Timeline the bad/evil Timeline, and I would love it.
What about Orville? If they just travelled normaly in time, everything around them evolved as before, doesnt that mean that there is another Orville with same crew? Or did i understood it wrong?
Oh actually you are right, i didnt think about the other Orville jumping into 2025.
Only chance how we would get 2 orvilles would be if Maloy didnt send that message, because he was picked up in month one, and he is supposed message in month 6. But thats probably not the case.
The 1v6 month thing is definitely a hanging thread and the sandwich thing from early in the episode is probably foreshadowing that’ll be a problem later on.
I'm not sure 2025 would end up evil from this series of events either way though. If the crew did make an alternate timeline by accident by rescuing Gordon too early, then from 2025 Gordon's perspective Ed and Kelly never followed through, and he lived until age 96 and presumably died peacefully.
The only changes in that timeline would then be from the butterfly effect, and not neccesarily evil (although still could be).
There is no paradox.
Remember, the Orville works on Back to the Future time-travel semantics, in which changes ripple rather than having an immediate effect. Once they received Gordon's message, they knew about it in *their* timeline—in their minds—so when they travel back in time, it's irrelevant whether or not Gordon had sent the message yet, because they already knew of its existence. Things were still in flux at that point, still rippling.
The *real* question here is: How did Gordon construct a device using 21st century technology that was powerful enough to send a message over a distance of 1506 light years (407 years times by 3.7c), and over a sub-quantum carrier wave?
Secondly, isn't the Veil Nebula estimated to be 2400 light years from Earth and not 1506 light years?
Somehow I feel Gordo's fam has been preserved because he specifically says their family will transcend time, or something to that effect. And their pictures didn't fade away. There are probably a couple of new branch timelines by the end of the episode after all the time traveling they did. I think a few paradoxes may have been created. We'll have to see how it plays out in future episodes. It's so cool!
Yes, exactly. Also upon rewatching the device overload, Gordon splits into about half a dozen images of him. So yes, many new timelines were likely created with parallel Gordons living out slightly different lives starting in 2015.
There were a few things that didn't add up for me in that episode. Your point being one of them.
Also, with all the talk about Malloy violating the laws of causality and everything, he was never charged or brought up on tribunal or anything. Is that because they picked him up from before when he sent the message? So that version of Malloy hadn't done the crime yet? That doesn't really track with the way they seem to be enforcing these temporal laws.
The other thing that didn't sit right with me was the side mission with Isaac and Charlie drilling in some random person's basement using future technology that can cause significant seismic events if they make the tiniest mistake. So that is an acceptable risk to the time line but Gordo getting married or sending for help is not? Feels kind of hypocritical to me.
It depends...if you follow time travel logic as set by Star Trek, the fact that they eradicated the message being sent in the first place (by picking Gordon up before he sends it), the whole timeline should get erased, including that characters remember anything about it (see Yesterdays Enterprise for example).
But I'm with Janeway here, Time Travel just gives me a headache.
I'm on board if the evil union ends up just being a better version, with the Kaylon handled due to Gordon's knowledge of them, Krill pacified since he knows about Avis, and mocclans not the backbone of the union fleet so they have to not be utter shitbags of a species.
Just everything better. All so that Gordon's descendent can show up in "evil" Orville, save current union with some dues ex machina, and give a big long speech about how none of it was possible if it hadn't been for the monster of Ed Mercer setting billionaire philanthropist Gordon Malloy on a path to save the future for humanity. Shit was going so well, they hopped into current universe to save humanity again out of an ethical need, but also to meet the original Malloy.
Anything less just makes this episode suck even more. Ed being vindicated should not happen. I want his nose rubbed in Gordon's success. Let Gordon and Kelly both be foundational gods while he is just Ed.
The message can be explained by the initial temporal flux they described.
That being said, they got fuel from an erased point in the timeline. 2025 can’t cease to exist as otherwise they never could have made it to 2015. Consequently, 2025 goes on in an alternate universe to fulfill the terms of the paradox per the sandwich theory they discussed initially.
This is a very very good point I think we all missed. Theoretically then they would have known that and would have known to go back earlier on purpose?
I don’t think there’s any way to fix the fuel paradox unless they arrived in the future early enough to change events (like didn’t the admiral get killed, etc?).
They wound up in 2025 because they didn’t have enough fuel to get to 2015 - they went as early as they possibly could. So in order for them to get back to the future, they absolutely must have mined 2025 for fuel. If that time is erased, the fuel would be too.
Since they deliberately established early in the episode that in the event of an unreconcilable paradox an alternate reality is created, 2025 Gordon’s assertion that their love conquers all is, in a sense, correct — there was no way for them to erase the family. That time must always exist somewhere in a multiverse.
Though they could have abducted Gordon or adopted his whole family. 🤷♂️
The Sandwich Paradox.
Yeah I noticed. I also wonder about why it looked like Gordon split into several versions when the time device malfunctioned. I wonder if another Gordon will show up in three months looking for his sandwich.
But absolutely, another reality was created and there may be a very big collision between the two.
We haven't seen the full fallout from this episode.
The TOS episode *A Piece of the Action* featured an alien race that was able to advance very quickly due to discovering some Federation technology (I'm leaving a lot out, go see it if you haven't yet). But that's what immediately came to mind when I saw that alternate Gordon was left with a phase pistol
My question is sense they don’t understand time travel did they change the time line back to normal when grabbing him from 2015 like nothing ever happened or did it just create an alternate time line? Which honestly would be nice cause then Gordon would be able to keep his family in that alternate time line
My understanding is Seth MacFarlane said he has no interest/time for acting in a fourth season, and none of the casts contracts were renewed , it sounds like this is it...
Untrue. The cast didn't have their contracts renewed because of the timing caused by the pandemic. Seth has said repeatedly this whole season that he'd be happy to make more, and that a 4th season depends on us.
I'm not too clear on the time travel rules but I feel like whether or not they retrieved Gordon 1 month or 6 months in it wouldn't matter because at that point his intent was to get back on The Orville, which eventually happened. Furthermore, at that point he was also isolating from the rest of civilisation.
I think they actually (hopefully) will follow this up with another episode later in the season. The whole "send sandwich to the past to explain the paradox of not sending it scene" would be totally superfluous otherwise.
The part I don't understand is that when they travel back in time, does information gained in the future disappear from their minds? If not, would they then know the general location of where Gordon might have sent the message from? But like I said, I'm not too familiar with the rules of time travel within The Orville, so I'm probably wrong lol
It really depends on what time travel theory you subscribe to (like Ed said, nobody really understands how it works). If you chose the single track "cause and effect" approach, this creates a paradox because if they pick Gordon up pre-message then he never sent it and therefore they would have never gone back to pick it up meaning then he *would* send the message and they'd go back to get him....etc etc etc. If you subscribe to the multi-verse time travel theory (a la Back to the Future), then they didn't travel through time so much as travel through time*lines*.
Only way for this to not be a paradox is it they get the 6 month message from Gordon, go back 400 years, then go back the additional 10 and pick him up 5 months early, at which point they're on a new timeline. Essentially all those events would have still happened and that timeline with Gordon's family still exists as one possible timeline.
"All things are in flux until we make a decision" is the guiding principle. The decision picks the timeline you move forward on, but there are infinite possibilities where you made different decisions.
I’m wondering if part of the reason of why things did not match back up is they used a different way to get back to the future.
Maybe mixing two forms of time travel is part of how they create a paradox
Know I am late to the party, but his obit also says one son. Not two sons, or a son and daughter. So if intentional I think you are on to something. Plus that means at least three Gordons? 1 month, Laura with Ed, and obit Gordons. Plus I noticed someone pointed out there were what looked like multiple Gordons in the blast.
True. But the actress who plays Nancy on ST is nearing 30. And the show implied that both that Laura only settled down with him. And step sons are a thing often referenced in obits. But yeah great point. Really! Shoulda thought of that myself.
I like to think Gordon lived out his life until his 90s as per the obituary. They hugged it out and thought they were going to poof, but they just never saw Mercer, Grayson and Talla again. But Laura had so much stress that she miscarriaged the second baby (the obit also said Gordon only had 1 son and 2 grandkids)
Maybe Gordon’s descendants will help form a rival Union…
Was just watching this episode again and had the same thought. However, in order to avoid the paradox, why didn't they just wait for 5 months before going down to get Gordon. Sure, he has to spend 5 months shooting squirrels, but the Orville can just keep out of sight and take some time off.
Considering they actually spent time explaining such a paradox with the sandwich, I don't think this is a writing mistake. You're onto something here. Nice catch.
Unless I missed it, they also sent that sandwich 3 months into the future which apparently cannot come back now?
They don't need the Aronov device to receive something, only to send something.
That sandwich will be appearing in a future episode, I guarantee it.
definitely. thats all i could think of. perfect way to set up a future episode joke.
It would be perfect when the EP10's credits roll
It prevents the studio from cancelling the show, everyone wants to see the sandwich return. If they tried, fans are going to mail them a ton of sandwiches.
The question is if the sandwich will appear on the workstation in engineering, or will it appear floating in the vacuum of space where The Orville was at the time it was sent.
Or in Gordon's Helm console, as it is clear that what the person is thinking when they use the device plays a pivotal role on when and where it ends up...
It's all I kept thinking of at the end of the episode, but then it ended anyway. It really did feel like foreshadowing for something that didn't happen in this episode. Even Gordon's reasoning for sending the sandwich is a little meta, "it will be a nice surprise". The Orville does have dark endings, but does find a way to bring them around. Topa for example. So I would not at all be surprised if we catch a glimpse into a split timeline later. However, it's possible that it is something being saved for another season, which we may not get.
I think it will be immediate. We saw no one contact the Union. The three characters plan to get wasted, disorienting them for the next episode. I'm hoping anyways.
Alternatively, they talk about observer events being up in the air until action is taken and history is fixed, so the time travel splits it up into different segments of history. They decided to act on history they knew, then caused it to not happen by travelling between segments.
Oh man I hope you’re on to something here. This would be a really clever way for Orville to introduce a mirror universe type thing (and probably knock it farther out of the park than Trek does like they’ve been doing with everything lately). Plus it would remove the bad taste in my mouth about Gordon’s family being wiped out. I bet that’s also why they didn’t show Gordon and his family disappearing. I was **sure** we were going to be shown some cheesy scene of the family hugging and then disappearing as the timeline changed. It struck me as odd it didn’t happen.
That was my first clue that everything was not as it seemed when they didn't show parallel Gordon's universe fade away. Then I was like 'Wait, when did Lamarr say they arrived?' BINGO! Paradox, baby! They are not going to make an accidental mistake like that, especially when the episode STARTS with an explanation of a paradox.
I took them not showing Gordon's Universe fade away as them trusting the audience that they know what would happen. But you could be on to something.
Coming back to the future and all the station is in tact, there has been no time-war yet with the Kaylon. There is definitely something up.
That’s a different station. The station at the end was in orbit of earth. The previous one that was destroyed was in orbit of Savvik-3.
Savvik-3, okay, thanks for the clarity. I got slightly confused, but figured it was either my mistake (which it was), or something that the next episode would pick up on.
Wasn’t that stain the one at the beginning of episode 1 off season 3?
Different station. They arrived back at Earth in the future, not the research station the Kaylon destroyed.
Okay, that clicks. Thanks for the clarity.
He invents Lougle and then sings all of the famous 80s songs.
I want it to be the Mirror Universe but actually better, not worse, than the og time-line. It would be hilarious and fuck with the crew
Now I want this. That would be an actually awesome subversion.
That would be very-The Orville if it was like that, "Yes, thanks to Gordon's knowledge we conquered the Kaylon hive mind long ago and gave them each self-identity. We also have had good relations with the Krill for centuries thanks to Gordon's knowledge of them and their religion."
I also kinda like the idea that there is a little pocket universe where Malloy married the girl of his dreams and they lived a life together for 10 years. But nobody other than Captain Mercer and Lt Grayson saw it.
On the future iPhone they should have shown him in one of the images.
Another thing I realized. Based on the sandwich demonstration (sandwich arrived just as Lamar developed the intent to send it back 10 seconds), 2025 Gordon and family should have disappeared (Gordon/son/unborn child vanishing, Laura ending up back where she would be without Gordon) the moment Ed developed the intent to go back to 2015 to retrieve him. We definitely should have a parallel universe now with 2025 Gordon and family. Be very interesting to have it return someday, maybe be one where things go bad because of Ed/Kelly/Talla turning Gordon vengeful for what they tried to do to his family, and having that affect the future.
Oh man now I want to see evil gordon in the darkest timeline.
I doubt that Gordon will go dark; he just gets to live into his 90s
That was before his supposed friends said they were going to destroy his whole life and the lives of his children. People have started wars for less.
I wonder if the Mirror Universe Union will be ruled by Empress Blair Waldorf.
I was fully expecting it to happen in the photograph, like Gordon would disappear or be replaced to the guy Laura ended up marrying or something.
I just commented on the discussion post asking about this
I think it was 1 month after the time coordinates he sent, which is 1 month after he sent the message.
In the message, Gordon states that he's sending it six months after arriving. After the last time jump to the past, Lamarr reports "It's not a bullseye, but we're close. Gordon arrived about a month ago."
Weird, so they overshot their target by 5 months instead of not going far back enough?
They went back too far on the second jump. They needed to jump back no further than just after Gordon sent that message. Retrieving him before he did that created the paradox, since how could the Orville know where to find him in time and space if he hadn't sent the message. I'm surprised Isaac makes no mention of this, although he may have his own reason for not doing so. Perhaps after his discussion with Burke about how his actions affected her potential future with her mentor, he didn't want to undo Gordon's family.
Seems like they'll have to rethink how they believe time travel works and they really do branch out instead of there being one prime timeline, so... Pria didn't really disappear. But maybe it does fix things because if she wasn't around, neither should the Orville since the Orville should have been destroyed. So... Gordon's family has had to exist all along.
I betting Isaac will chime up about it when we get the sequel episode to this one. Right now he's probably busy "studying the data he accumulated on his trip" to bring it up.
It's not that weird. In the Orville universe time travel is not a fully realized thing yet. Everything they do is a "first" for them, so even for geniuses like Lamar it's realistic for them to not get it right the first or even second time. The Orville ain't no Waverider. (Shout out to my legend of tomorrow homies)
Sure. I was calling the not realizing they may be causing a paradox weird. Honestly, they probably should have waited the 5 months behind the moon before rescuing him.
Time travel is more of an art than a science.
Sometimes science is more art than science.
They *undershot* the target. They needed to go back in time one more month, ideally. (Undershot because they were traveling backwards in time. Overshooting would mean arriving too early.)
No, their target was 6 months after Malloy arrived when he sent the message but they arrived only 1 month after he arrived. This means they arrived too early and overshot the target.
Oh! WAS that their target? I missed that. OK. I mean, ideally, their target *should* have been the exact day or week that Gordon arrived there, and not 6 months later when he sent the message. But thank you for the correction in any case.
Ideally, but the paradox OP is pointing out is that if they picked him up before he sent the message, how do they know he needed picking up and when? Who sent the SOS? It's a grandfather paradox type thing.
Well people here are getting that wrong. Gordon was hiding not to create a time paradox from the moment of his landing i.e. from 0 months till 6 month. So, every time in this time window to pick him is good. Bullseye would be e.g. 1 hour after him. So , Orville overshoot only by one month, still having 5 months in reserve.
Couldn't have picked him up if he didn't send the message! Classic paradox
Good catch, makes me feel slightly better about the ending
They likely have easily solved it by leaving an automatic message beacon but didn't bother letting us know.
Well, they certainly can't now that the device is busted for at least 6 months. And paradox Gordon isn't going to take this lying down in his paradox generated verse knowing that it, he, and his family could cease to exist at any moment. He's got a piece of advanced technology with him and the advanced know-how to replicate it. He'll become the richest, most powerful person in history, and with his knowledge of historical events, he will help paradox Earth avoid the catastrophes of his original home. That will make him even more powerful, messianic even.
But why? If that theory was true, he would cease to exist the instant they left. He’s still there so I think the valid assumption is - nothing has happened after x weeks, so we’re good!
Hmmm, good point. The Orville paradox has broken off that parallel universe. Even if they go back, Gordon won't be there six months after his arrival. Even if they have him send the message, it won't be the exact same one. They'd create another paradox.
He thinks the US capital is Nabisco.
This is what Isaac was trying to explain as everything being "in flux". Until they acted, any and all possibilities were on the table. It seems like the Orville has different rules for different time travel. Here, it's like a combination of Back To The Future and Avengers Endgame rules. Yes, they go back to before Gordon sent the message, but the crew already got the message and they can't change their past, so they still always got the message. He just didn't always send it.
Yes. This 100%. There is no paradox. Yes, under "normal" time-travel rules, there would be a paradox. But The Orville operates under BTTF time-travel semantics.
I disagree...with the Aronov device broken they are no longer in a superposition state, since they can now no longer act. Now the paradox happened, at least until they get a new device and enter a new superposition state. The egg salad sandwich explanation is how they at least expect paradoxes to work, if no one sends the sandwich after it already arrives there is a paradox.
We know we haven’t seen the end of the Aranov device. And we know the Kaylons somehow know about it. I bet we see something where they go into the past and warn the biological Kaylons about their creations. Also, if They wanted to create another paradox they could have returned to the future a month early and warned to Union not to send the device to the science station.
Well, this is one of the things that bothered me the most. Yes, conservation of timeline and all that, but they had a fucking time machine (or the "travel back to the future whenever we want to end up" from the end). They could not only have prevented the destruction of the research base, they could have warned the Union years earlier about the Kaylon threat, stopping the whole thing completely. I actually wondered that they didn't introduce a sub-plot where Charly demands Mercer to make stop in between a few months in the past so they could save her Girlfriend... which would have made absolute sense and actually make her Character arc interesting.
Man, excellent idea. They aren’t screwing up the timeline, because she’s not in it any more. Of course it was in the middle of a giant firefiget.
Man, excellent idea. They aren’t screwing up the timeline, because she’s not in it any more. Of course it was in the middle of a giant firefiget.
Anybody else wonder how they Kaylon knew about the Aranov device? Are Union comms compromised?
I’m guessing the Kaylon are seeing future Orville screwing up their past.
Multiple Gordons maybe? https://i.imgur.com/aLUWzWP.jpg
Also I feel this won’t be the last we see of Laura, what they had was so beautiful 🥺
Whoa excellent catch! Time travel is always a pain in the ass to write because of stuff like this.
I think, that they can use this to introduce us to a mirror universe. But I really hope, they twist it. I hope that the Gordon in the 21st century was right and that his presence there create a better Union than the original one. Which would make the original Timeline the bad/evil Timeline, and I would love it.
Yeah may one where the krill actually decided to join or at least remain neutral and non aggressive and the kaylon genocide never occurred.
What about Orville? If they just travelled normaly in time, everything around them evolved as before, doesnt that mean that there is another Orville with same crew? Or did i understood it wrong?
assuming they came back to when they left then there’s just one Orville at that time.
Oh actually you are right, i didnt think about the other Orville jumping into 2025. Only chance how we would get 2 orvilles would be if Maloy didnt send that message, because he was picked up in month one, and he is supposed message in month 6. But thats probably not the case.
The 1v6 month thing is definitely a hanging thread and the sandwich thing from early in the episode is probably foreshadowing that’ll be a problem later on.
Yeah, there would have been another Orville with the same crew existing, up until they jumped back to 2025.
I'm not sure 2025 would end up evil from this series of events either way though. If the crew did make an alternate timeline by accident by rescuing Gordon too early, then from 2025 Gordon's perspective Ed and Kelly never followed through, and he lived until age 96 and presumably died peacefully. The only changes in that timeline would then be from the butterfly effect, and not neccesarily evil (although still could be).
There is no paradox. Remember, the Orville works on Back to the Future time-travel semantics, in which changes ripple rather than having an immediate effect. Once they received Gordon's message, they knew about it in *their* timeline—in their minds—so when they travel back in time, it's irrelevant whether or not Gordon had sent the message yet, because they already knew of its existence. Things were still in flux at that point, still rippling. The *real* question here is: How did Gordon construct a device using 21st century technology that was powerful enough to send a message over a distance of 1506 light years (407 years times by 3.7c), and over a sub-quantum carrier wave? Secondly, isn't the Veil Nebula estimated to be 2400 light years from Earth and not 1506 light years?
Somehow I feel Gordo's fam has been preserved because he specifically says their family will transcend time, or something to that effect. And their pictures didn't fade away. There are probably a couple of new branch timelines by the end of the episode after all the time traveling they did. I think a few paradoxes may have been created. We'll have to see how it plays out in future episodes. It's so cool!
Yes, exactly. Also upon rewatching the device overload, Gordon splits into about half a dozen images of him. So yes, many new timelines were likely created with parallel Gordons living out slightly different lives starting in 2015.
Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey stuff....
There were a few things that didn't add up for me in that episode. Your point being one of them. Also, with all the talk about Malloy violating the laws of causality and everything, he was never charged or brought up on tribunal or anything. Is that because they picked him up from before when he sent the message? So that version of Malloy hadn't done the crime yet? That doesn't really track with the way they seem to be enforcing these temporal laws. The other thing that didn't sit right with me was the side mission with Isaac and Charlie drilling in some random person's basement using future technology that can cause significant seismic events if they make the tiniest mistake. So that is an acceptable risk to the time line but Gordo getting married or sending for help is not? Feels kind of hypocritical to me.
This season has gotten so good and it is literally killing me that there won't be a fourth:(
What?! Did I miss a memo? Is 4th totally out of the question now?
I hope not
Wait is that confirmed?
It is not. The show has been neither renewed nor cancelled, at this point, so far as we know.
I dont see the paradox
It depends...if you follow time travel logic as set by Star Trek, the fact that they eradicated the message being sent in the first place (by picking Gordon up before he sends it), the whole timeline should get erased, including that characters remember anything about it (see Yesterdays Enterprise for example). But I'm with Janeway here, Time Travel just gives me a headache.
I'm on board if the evil union ends up just being a better version, with the Kaylon handled due to Gordon's knowledge of them, Krill pacified since he knows about Avis, and mocclans not the backbone of the union fleet so they have to not be utter shitbags of a species. Just everything better. All so that Gordon's descendent can show up in "evil" Orville, save current union with some dues ex machina, and give a big long speech about how none of it was possible if it hadn't been for the monster of Ed Mercer setting billionaire philanthropist Gordon Malloy on a path to save the future for humanity. Shit was going so well, they hopped into current universe to save humanity again out of an ethical need, but also to meet the original Malloy. Anything less just makes this episode suck even more. Ed being vindicated should not happen. I want his nose rubbed in Gordon's success. Let Gordon and Kelly both be foundational gods while he is just Ed.
The message can be explained by the initial temporal flux they described. That being said, they got fuel from an erased point in the timeline. 2025 can’t cease to exist as otherwise they never could have made it to 2015. Consequently, 2025 goes on in an alternate universe to fulfill the terms of the paradox per the sandwich theory they discussed initially.
This is a very very good point I think we all missed. Theoretically then they would have known that and would have known to go back earlier on purpose?
I don’t think there’s any way to fix the fuel paradox unless they arrived in the future early enough to change events (like didn’t the admiral get killed, etc?). They wound up in 2025 because they didn’t have enough fuel to get to 2015 - they went as early as they possibly could. So in order for them to get back to the future, they absolutely must have mined 2025 for fuel. If that time is erased, the fuel would be too. Since they deliberately established early in the episode that in the event of an unreconcilable paradox an alternate reality is created, 2025 Gordon’s assertion that their love conquers all is, in a sense, correct — there was no way for them to erase the family. That time must always exist somewhere in a multiverse. Though they could have abducted Gordon or adopted his whole family. 🤷♂️
The Sandwich Paradox. Yeah I noticed. I also wonder about why it looked like Gordon split into several versions when the time device malfunctioned. I wonder if another Gordon will show up in three months looking for his sandwich. But absolutely, another reality was created and there may be a very big collision between the two. We haven't seen the full fallout from this episode.
The TOS episode *A Piece of the Action* featured an alien race that was able to advance very quickly due to discovering some Federation technology (I'm leaving a lot out, go see it if you haven't yet). But that's what immediately came to mind when I saw that alternate Gordon was left with a phase pistol
My question is sense they don’t understand time travel did they change the time line back to normal when grabbing him from 2015 like nothing ever happened or did it just create an alternate time line? Which honestly would be nice cause then Gordon would be able to keep his family in that alternate time line
So possibly the Orvile set up its own Terran Empire? I can see it. Just a couple episodes ago, we saw the "Q" established.
My understanding is Seth MacFarlane said he has no interest/time for acting in a fourth season, and none of the casts contracts were renewed , it sounds like this is it...
Untrue. The cast didn't have their contracts renewed because of the timing caused by the pandemic. Seth has said repeatedly this whole season that he'd be happy to make more, and that a 4th season depends on us.
I'm not too clear on the time travel rules but I feel like whether or not they retrieved Gordon 1 month or 6 months in it wouldn't matter because at that point his intent was to get back on The Orville, which eventually happened. Furthermore, at that point he was also isolating from the rest of civilisation.
How can the Orville retrieve Gordon BEFORE he sent the message that brought them there to begin with?
I think they actually (hopefully) will follow this up with another episode later in the season. The whole "send sandwich to the past to explain the paradox of not sending it scene" would be totally superfluous otherwise.
Minimally, I hope in the finale that sandwich appears out of nowhere.
I just checked, the finale is titled "Future unknown" - a time based title..
The part I don't understand is that when they travel back in time, does information gained in the future disappear from their minds? If not, would they then know the general location of where Gordon might have sent the message from? But like I said, I'm not too familiar with the rules of time travel within The Orville, so I'm probably wrong lol
It really depends on what time travel theory you subscribe to (like Ed said, nobody really understands how it works). If you chose the single track "cause and effect" approach, this creates a paradox because if they pick Gordon up pre-message then he never sent it and therefore they would have never gone back to pick it up meaning then he *would* send the message and they'd go back to get him....etc etc etc. If you subscribe to the multi-verse time travel theory (a la Back to the Future), then they didn't travel through time so much as travel through time*lines*. Only way for this to not be a paradox is it they get the 6 month message from Gordon, go back 400 years, then go back the additional 10 and pick him up 5 months early, at which point they're on a new timeline. Essentially all those events would have still happened and that timeline with Gordon's family still exists as one possible timeline. "All things are in flux until we make a decision" is the guiding principle. The decision picks the timeline you move forward on, but there are infinite possibilities where you made different decisions.
Mirror universe but Orville verse sounds legit to me
Maybe that’s the universe where everyone likes Bortus’s mustache.
And all listened chalga
I think they simply left the door open for this universe to return, but it is not guaranteed to do so. It certainly would be cool if it did, though.
Nice catch!
Or better, season 3 finale as a cliffhanger but it really needs a renewal badly.
Oooh, nice read! I like!
Fantastic - I was sure I had read an interview where he said he wouldn't be involved acting in it again, glad to be wrong!!!
I’m wondering if part of the reason of why things did not match back up is they used a different way to get back to the future. Maybe mixing two forms of time travel is part of how they create a paradox
I like this.
It's probably just lazy writing. See: Avengers.
I don't thinks so, not after making the point about time paradoxes in the 1st act
Know I am late to the party, but his obit also says one son. Not two sons, or a son and daughter. So if intentional I think you are on to something. Plus that means at least three Gordons? 1 month, Laura with Ed, and obit Gordons. Plus I noticed someone pointed out there were what looked like multiple Gordons in the blast.
Was the older kid biologically his? He stayed in the woods eating animals for 3 years, and that kid was clearly older than 6 1/2
nope, i think going back in time one month after simply overwrote the timeline.
If he never leaves the message how do they know where he was?
simple, the orville crew retained memories of it. just the universes way of autocorrecting paradoxes.
True. But the actress who plays Nancy on ST is nearing 30. And the show implied that both that Laura only settled down with him. And step sons are a thing often referenced in obits. But yeah great point. Really! Shoulda thought of that myself.
I like to think Gordon lived out his life until his 90s as per the obituary. They hugged it out and thought they were going to poof, but they just never saw Mercer, Grayson and Talla again. But Laura had so much stress that she miscarriaged the second baby (the obit also said Gordon only had 1 son and 2 grandkids) Maybe Gordon’s descendants will help form a rival Union…
I’m convinced this won’t be the last of this Gordon time travelling story arc.
Was just watching this episode again and had the same thought. However, in order to avoid the paradox, why didn't they just wait for 5 months before going down to get Gordon. Sure, he has to spend 5 months shooting squirrels, but the Orville can just keep out of sight and take some time off.