If Sylvie keeps visiting the same apocalypse, will she meet past versions of herself?
In anticipation of Doomsday, I have been thinking about timelines in the Multiverse - specifically, about the logic of meeting one's own time-traveling variants. My conclusion: Sylvies will pile up indefinitely. Do you agree?
To explain: In Loki S1, a key point is that because an apocalypse (like Ragnarok or Vesuvius) destroys everything, it doesn't matter what you do there - the timeline will not branch. That's how Sylvie manages to evade detection by the TVA for untold years.
When Loki (S1 E3) inadvertently teleports himself and Sylvie to the doomed moon Lamentis-1, breaking her Tempad in the process, she fumes, "You idiot! ...Of all the apocalypses saved on that Tempad, this is the worst. No one makes it off here!"
I took this to mean that **Sylvie had a catalog of apocalypses that she repeatedly visited**, staying as long as possible but no longer. That familiarity might bring comfort to her uncomfortable life - knowing where to sleep, where to get food, where to find a kind word amidst imminent destruction.
There's a problem, though. **Why didn't Sylvie meet an endless number of past versions of herself?** (Or maybe she did. *"Hi, Sylvie!" "Back at you, Sylvie!"*)
If I understand MCU time travel correctly: traveling to the past will usually create a branched timeline, one with your time-traveling self and one without. You can choose to coincide with other versions of yourself (hence, "[you can smell the cologne on two Tony Starks](https://thedirect.com/article/loki-avengers-endgame-tony-stark-secret)" - or three or four Tony Starks), but you don't have to. If you wish to revisit a moment in time, you can repeatedly do so "afresh," simply by choosing a branch that has no time-traveling versions of yourself.
But **in an apocalypse, no branches are created**. Your actions in an apocalypse are overwriting the only version of that event that exists. So Sylvie couldn't return to visit a version of Lamentis-1 without herself, because there's only one branch, and now it has her on it. Or two of her. Or three of her. Or more.
Would you agree? Of course I'm way overthinking this, but overthinking is half the battle!
https://preview.redd.it/5usueglw6u6g1.jpg?width=2999&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee29e3e1b4bb57b449c699ab033100f9a6b3f4ab
To explain: In Loki S1, a key point is that because an apocalypse (like Ragnarok or Vesuvius) destroys everything, it doesn't matter what you do there - the timeline will not branch. That's how Sylvie manages to evade detection by the TVA for untold years.
When Loki (S1 E3) inadvertently teleports himself and Sylvie to the doomed moon Lamentis-1, breaking her Tempad in the process, she fumes, "You idiot! ...Of all the apocalypses saved on that Tempad, this is the worst. No one makes it off here!"
I took this to mean that **Sylvie had a catalog of apocalypses that she repeatedly visited**, staying as long as possible but no longer. That familiarity might bring comfort to her uncomfortable life - knowing where to sleep, where to get food, where to find a kind word amidst imminent destruction.
There's a problem, though. **Why didn't Sylvie meet an endless number of past versions of herself?** (Or maybe she did. *"Hi, Sylvie!" "Back at you, Sylvie!"*)
If I understand MCU time travel correctly: traveling to the past will usually create a branched timeline, one with your time-traveling self and one without. You can choose to coincide with other versions of yourself (hence, "[you can smell the cologne on two Tony Starks](https://thedirect.com/article/loki-avengers-endgame-tony-stark-secret)" - or three or four Tony Starks), but you don't have to. If you wish to revisit a moment in time, you can repeatedly do so "afresh," simply by choosing a branch that has no time-traveling versions of yourself.
But **in an apocalypse, no branches are created**. Your actions in an apocalypse are overwriting the only version of that event that exists. So Sylvie couldn't return to visit a version of Lamentis-1 without herself, because there's only one branch, and now it has her on it. Or two of her. Or three of her. Or more.
Would you agree? Of course I'm way overthinking this, but overthinking is half the battle!
https://preview.redd.it/5usueglw6u6g1.jpg?width=2999&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ee29e3e1b4bb57b449c699ab033100f9a6b3f4ab
Commentaires
Also, what are you saying no to? Are you saying no to my supposition that Sylvies would have to pile up indefinitely if Sylvie kept visiting Lamentis-1, or are you saying no to the idea that you could *ever* theoretically have multiple time traveling variants pile up in the same branch if they so chose?
Time travel in the MCU is basically travelling to a near identical timeline except in this timeline your future variant time travels to the past. When the avengers go to 2012 they don’t go to the original timeline they go to a practically identical timeline except their future versions are present.
Everytime sylvie travels to say lamentis-1 she could just be travelling to a near identical universe that has the same apocalyptic event happening as to avoid any possible nexus events and her discovery. So the reason an issue like this never occurs is because even though the multiverse isn’t as wide as it is after lokis take over it still has enough options to choose from for sylvie to hide without running into herself.
She also doesn’t even need to revisit the same event multiple times because there’s no shortage of apocalyptic events we see apocalyptic events can be as massive as the destruction of a planet to an extremely bad hurricane as long as wherever you are will be gone after the event it’s not going to create a branch.
This is only true of the Avengers' quantum time travel, not the TVA's "true" time travel.
>But in an apocalypse, no branches are created. Your actions in an apocalypse are overwriting the only version of that event that exists.
It's not that no branches are created, it's that they are so short-lived as to be functionally inconsequential.
Your premise that “in an apocalypse, no branches are created” is misunderstood. Rewatch the scene where Loki goes to Pompei with Morbius. They are checking the tempad to see if their actions create variance energy. They measure the energy created by their actions, not the branch itself.
Mobius, not Morbius - a common typo!
> They measure the energy created by their actions, not the branch itself
Hm, this is an interesting nuance that I hadn't considered. Are you saying that in a sufficiently large apocalypse, timelines could branch and yet no measurable variance energy would result? I guess that could be correct, I just don't remember that being explicitly laid out.
And yes, you could have infinite branches, but since it’s an apocalypse they all end in ruin, so no branch can ever be meaningful.
Umm, that is exactly the show-given explanation for how she is hiding in the Apocalypses. As to your original question, I don't think we have evidence that she revisited any of them.