Goodbye Original Timeline

[Robroy]

If the timeline's events were rewritten, then these events still happened, they just don't exist anymore. They clearly did happen, because Peter remembers these events, as he participated in them.

And if this were a completely different universe then nothing has been changed. Peter remembers what happened because it happened. The Olivias we see now do not remember the events because in this universe they never happened.

If, however, we are in a whole seperate universe (after all the red and blue universes are two, why not three or three hundred) then the red/blue-verse are still in existence. No reason why they should not be.

No reason why there should be either.

Well, if they were going to wink them out of existence I would hope they would make that clear.

Regardless of how many universes there could potentially be, September stated that the timeline has been rewritten (hence the apparent impossibility of Peter's continuing existence via his "essence" or whatnot). If the Red/Blue worlds were not physically altered through this process, then why make the mention?

No idea why. Again, I have no idea what the writers plan to do. I do know that erasing the things we have seen the first three seasons is disastrous.

Such a move doesn't make sense in a narrative sense either. What's the point of switching to an unrelated set of worlds from a storytelling perspective?

Well, off the top of my head, it does save the first three seasons.

[Omniscient_Jay]

^^^Robroy:

It seems your position is that because the relationship between the old Red/Blue worlds and this new series of worlds has yet to be conclusively established, that it is best to consider that they are separate, for then the former is preserved and not made meaningless.

Yet why could it not also be that while the past worlds were rewritten, they may still retain their importance? It is certainly the way things seem thus far considering all evidence. Sure, it may make it seem like S1-S3 don't matter as of the last episode, but that is no reason to dismiss the rewritten interpretation of things because of it; after all, as you say, we don't know what the writers have planned, so the jury is still out on whether S4 was a worthwhile venture or not.

In the meantime, as one who enjoys theorizing about what's going on, I will try to piece together all the pieces of information as they are dished out, and so far, I would contend that this assembled product leans to the notion that the past season were rewritten, with the possibility that they can be salvaged.

[Robroy]

^^^Robroy:

It seems your position is that because the relationship between the old Red/Blue worlds and this new series of worlds has yet to be conclusively established, that it is best to consider that they are separate, for then the former is preserved and not made meaningless.

Yet why could it not also be that while the past worlds were rewritten, they may still retain their importance? It is certainly the way things seem thus far considering all evidence. Sure, it may make it seem like S1-S3 don't matter as of the last episode, but that is no reason to dismiss the rewritten interpretation of things because of it; after all, as you say, we don't know what the writers have planned, so the jury is still out on whether S4 was a worthwhile venture or not.

In the meantime, as one who enjoys theorizing about what's going on, I will try to piece together all the pieces of information as they are dished out, and so far, I would contend that this assembled product leans to the notion that the past season were rewritten, with the possibility that they can be salvaged.

My position is more like "A pox on their houses if they re-write the first three seasons." My interest is truly not about figuring out how things must work for this to still be the red/blue-verse. As I stated in the beginning, that is what I had been assuming this whole season. I truly did not care how it happened. Now I am praying it did not. Just think of all of the character development that is being lost. More importantly, why is it being lost? What is being gained by having it re-written without Peter. All those interactions between Peter and Walter... gone, Peter and Olivia... gone, Peter and Broyles... gone. And in its place we get, frankly, a smaller show.

[Omniscient_Jay]

My position is more like "A pox on their houses if they re-write the first three seasons." My interest is truly not about figuring out how things must work for this to still be the red/blue-verse. As I stated in the beginning, that is what I had been assuming this whole season. I truly did not care how it happened. Now I am praying it did not. Just think of all of the character development that is being lost. More importantly, why is it being lost? What is being gained by having it re-written without Peter. All those interactions between Peter and Walter... gone, Peter and Olivia... gone, Peter and Broyles... gone. And in its place we get, frankly, a smaller show.

Heh.

But again, just because they are gone now doesn't mean that they are gone forever. It is easy (too easy, in fact) to simply hope in the Vacuum and change everything back or have the Observer change something; or perhaps through more wishy-washy things along the vein of Soul Magnets and Emotional Quantum Entanglement. The point is that are many ways that the status quo of previous seasons can be reinstated, so the only reason to worry about potential loss is if by series end, things don't in fact return to "normal" (and there's no reason why they couldn't fuse the world of S4 with the development of S3, with a clever enough solution).

[Cassiopea]

My position is more like "A pox on their houses if they re-write the first three seasons." My interest is truly not about figuring out how things must work for this to still be the red/blue-verse. As I stated in the beginning, that is what I had been assuming this whole season. I truly did not care how it happened. Now I am praying it did not. Just think of all of the character development that is being lost. More importantly, why is it being lost? What is being gained by having it re-written without Peter. All those interactions between Peter and Walter... gone, Peter and Olivia... gone, Peter and Broyles... gone. And in its place we get, frankly, a smaller show.

Heh.

But again, just because they are gone now doesn't mean that they are gone forever. It is easy (too easy, in fact) to simply hope in the Vacuum and change everything back or have the Observer change something; or perhaps through more wishy-washy things along the vein of Soul Magnets and Emotional Quantum Entanglement. The point is that are many ways that the status quo of previous seasons can be reinstated, so the only reason to worry about potential loss is if by series end, things don't in fact return to "normal" (and there's no reason why they couldn't fuse the world of S4 with the development of S3, with a clever enough solution).

Have faith Robroy, have you even seen Sliding Doors? It's a British love story with sci fi elements, if you've not seen it. Gwyneth Paltrow's character meets a man (who turns out to be "the one", her soulmate, the one she's destined to end up with) in one timeline but in another different version of events (if she hadn't caught the train) we also get to se what her life is like if she hadn't met him at that time. The girl in the first set of events dies but at the end of the film in the second set of events we see Gwyneth Paltrow's character meet the same man just later in her life. We don't see that she finds out that he is "the one" because the film ends there but we can assume that they are going to fall in love because we've already seen their love story in the first sequence of events when the girl caught the train and met the man before that version of her dies...

Anyhoo, what I'm getting at is something that I started to see in the latest episode, Forced Perspective. The gang is all back together again, solving the Fringe mysteries again. Peter can start to re-establish the relationship with his father, Olivia's love for him can be rekindled --- correction, I believe the correct terminology for a re-written timeline would be "their relationships can be kindled once again"!!. Yes the people are different and have altered pasts but fate will take them back to where they need to be in this timeline, like what we know and the only way we can appreciate this is because we've seen how it was in the other version of events. Therefore series 1-3 were not for nothing. Also they are going to throw in a big twist akin to what Omni J is proposing which will involve some of the Fringe science that we have all be so invested in throughout series 1-3, a twist which we could not understand if we'd not watched all those episodes! Even so far with Jones we have seen how Peter can use his experience from the past version of events, what we saw in series 1-3. It's like only now are those events that happened in series 1-3 are happening now in series 4, like a delay (just like in Sliding Doors) because Peter wasn't in this past and things transpired differently...