maybe it's just me who's confused

[theboss25]

Hey everyone!

I dont post very often so forgive me if I mess up some of the "fringelo" (fringe-lingo haha no? not funny :$ my bad)

anyway, last night's episode was interesting but left me a little confused. So September told Peter that he couldn't erase him because the love between Peter and others (Olivia, Walter) was too strong to enable his existence to be removed completely. Thus, Peter is in his timeline, even though he thought he had to go back home, and that the current Olivia was his Olivia all along.

That's fabulous, really pulled at my heartstrings but now I'm trying to make sense of the events that's happened since the end of season 3 and everything in season 4. Does that mean that everything significant from season 1-3 still happened or did the timeline get permanently altered when the Observers attempted to erase Peter. Like, I know that Scott still exists in Olivia's mind because she mentions the events around his death to Peter, but what about when Olivia met William Bell, or when Walter discovers the alternate universe? Are these memories just going to come back to her or will they overlap and be like two different story lines containing the same characters?

Also, with Peter.. in the old timeline we know that Peter is really Walternate's son who was taken by Walter. Nina gets her weird steel arm trying to stop Walter and Peter is saved by September when he falls into the lake.. But in this timeline, no one saves Peter, Walter believes that he loses both boys and it's affected his relationships with people since then. So which Walter is Walter?

Im not sure if I'm confusing you all more, but like the events from people memories make up their characters, their personalities but we now have two different set of events that are (if I understood the episode right) that are existing at the exact same time, the time line we watched over season 4 is really the same timeline we know from seasons 1-3..

Sorry if I'm confusing everyone, theyre just some questions and complexities of characters that I've been wondering since yesterday. I've always loved the way that the writers of fringe have developed strong, relatable characters out of their pasts so I'm just curious what you think could happen now?

PS. I'm REALLY curious to how David Robert Jones is going to come back in all this.. if this timeline is really the old timeline then that means that Peter didn't kill him when the portal closed on him.. AND he now has some strange abilities because of it.. hmm

[Omniscient_Jay]

September went back in 1985 and (not)saved Peter. This not only means that Peter himself was wiped away (since he died as a child), but every single Peter-dependent event post-1985 was physically altered up to the present (2011).

In the case of Olivia, her life in the rewritten timeline still physically happened (as did the lives of all the characters in this new history), but her memories of that very life are being overwritten by a different set of memories. So pretty soon, Olivia won't remember what has happened in her life, but other characters will (unless they start getting mind-wiped too).

Does this answer your question? As you also noted, the question you are trying to ask isn't quite clear.

[The Question]

Damn You OJ, you beat me by minutes!

---

Haven't been on in a while, but I felt very vindicated by some of last night's events, so I'd thought I'd try to answer your question as best I can to help formulate my thoughts.


Essentially there seems to be some sort of Merger/Collision event that is happening both naturally and artificially between not only the two universes but also the Old Timeline and New Timeline (DRJ trying to meld those 2 towns together with amphilicite).

The reason why the OT hasn't simply been Poofed out of existence is not just because of Peter's [I called them Soul Imprints] connection with who he left behind (if you haven't you Must read the comic books, At least read Beyond The Fringe, it is official canon with the show's plot line and it bridges events between season 3 and 4, it will help add context, and it was written by Joshua Jackson). But also due to September's self propagating paradoxical interference.

The thing is, it's sorta meant to be confusing, because we are at the Climax of this extremely large equation that represents what has been playing out again and again, over and over in attempt to find a result that provides the proper balance.

Break it Down:

- DRJ is trying to meld stuff together, he doesn't seem to know or remember anything of his existence before the moment of his conception in the Redverse, or "Other Side" (he had to be put back together, by whom though, Cough, MD, cough, remember when Nina had that meeting with the joint chiefs, "...nano technology... We aren't Responsible... We just own the patents"). But he is DRJ and is therefore will act like DRJ.

- We are Unclear on Bell at this moment, especially because of actor availability for the role, but he has been put in place to be the possible mastermind as an overarching character that has seen much of this from a bird's eye view, sometimes interfering on purpose to nudge it, or staying out of the way of events that had to be played out (sometimes for selfish reasons). "I have seen history repeat itself enough times to know.." [Momentum deferred]

- Walter is a Walter is a Walter, everyone is who they are, but Olivia and Peter have Unique circumstances to remember the timeline beforehand (he wasn't in existence when it got changed, again you gotta read Beyond The Fringe) and Olivia remembers because of Cortexiphan... it is my belief that the Catalyst for her remembering is the Soul Imprints (what September so boringly called love)...

- Everyone else has a sort of odd sense like the man from One Night in October who forgot everything but remembered the very important thing that Margery had said to him, because it was a Core foundational aspect of who he was, (what Broyles said in one night in October “At the risk of sounding sentimental, I’ve always thought there are people who leave an indelible mark on your soul. An imprint that can never be erased.”)


I can go into it further, and I've written more about it in prev. posts about what a Soul Imprint is (especially in the world of Fringe, where the soul is a scientific and spiritual tool and the same time)


Hope I helped! (if you are unclear on any lingo I used, simply ask)

[jophan]

[B] - DRJ is trying to meld stuff together, he doesn't seem to know or remember anything of his existence before the moment of his conception in the Redverse, or "Other Side" (he had to be put back together, by whom though, Cough, MD, cough, remember when Nina had that meeting with the joint chiefs, "...nano technology... We aren't Responsible... We just own the patents"). But he is DRJ and is therefore will act like DRJ.

I'm not getting the part about DRJ having no memory. DRJ likely used the same technique to escape from prison as in S1 and was therefore physically decaying. He crossed to the NT/Redverse at some point, at least partially healed himself (with or without assistance), and developed the human shapeshifters. He also gained support from some NT/Red natives including Alt-Nina and Alt-Broyles (if he isn't a shapeshifter). What he does not have is any memory of the OT/Blue & Red universes, but neither do any others except Peter and Olivia. He does have memories of the NT/Blueverse up to the time he crossed over and NT/Redverse since.

[The Question]

I'm not getting the part about DRJ having no memory. DRJ likely used the same technique to escape from prison as in S1 and was therefore physically decaying. He crossed to the NT/Redverse at some point, at least partially healed himself (with or without assistance), and developed the human shapeshifters. He also gained support from some NT/Red natives including Alt-Nina and Alt-Broyles (if he isn't a shapeshifter). What he does not have is any memory of the OT/Blue & Red universes, but neither do any others except Peter and Olivia. He does have memories of the NT/Blueverse up to the time he crossed over and NT/Redverse since.

Well that's just it, there are a lot of things about Fringe lately that have irked me, and as someone who followed Fringe since the Pilot, (you can't just throw out all your established rules for the sake of time on a sci-fi show that tries to be as plausible as Fringe does) I feel like I'm just grabbing onto the characters I relate too and hoping I come out the other side without a big frowny face.
I will say that I did enjoy the other night, and it seemed to be a decent recovery from what fell really short on my expectations last week.

Maybe instead of some Chaotic Timeshift Ripple explanation it's something as simple as the voice analyzer can be tricked (because any automated system can be exploited), and DRJ does remember everything from before, and he's a good liar.

Or there is No real importance to remembering things from before AT ALL, except to the viewer, and there screwing with us.

Maybe they will just show everything in it's strange new mix and everyone will simply "settle" for good enough on the whole timeline question, because the only thing that makes it an issue/problem for the characters to have to deal with in the immediate, is Peter wanting to get home/needing to be sent home (for safety of the fabric of the universe, the time bubble was the catalyst for a lot of this).
If he is home, then why the hell would anyone else care about timeline business?

I mean it all does kinda come down to what DRJ knows/wants/is working with in colusion.

[PB]

Hey everyone!

I dont post very often so forgive me if I mess up some of the "fringelo" (fringe-lingo haha no? not funny :$ my bad)

anyway, last night's episode was interesting but left me a little confused. So September told Peter that he couldn't erase him because the love between Peter and others (Olivia, Walter) was too strong to enable his existence to be removed completely. Thus, Peter is in his timeline, even though he thought he had to go back home, and that the current Olivia was his Olivia all along.

Yeah, that pretty much summarizes the big reveal as it were. Because of Peter's strong bond with Olivia and Walter, when the timeline was overwritten following the point of Peter's death in Reiden Lake, he somehow managed to persist in an astral form despite his history being written out of existence. He was anchored to the new timeline as it were due to his strong bond with Walter and Olivia (even though they themselves could no longer remember that bond because their histories had been changed following Peter's death at Reiden Lake).

Does that mean that everything significant from season 1-3 still happened or did the timeline get permanently altered when the Observers attempted to erase Peter. Like, I know that Scott still exists in Olivia's mind because she mentions the events around his death to Peter, but what about when Olivia met William Bell, or when Walter discovers the alternate universe? Are these memories just going to come back to her or will they overlap and be like two different story lines containing the same characters?

Just to be clear on this point, my understanding is that the timeline has been permanently alterered, the term overwritten has been being used because traces of the rewritten timeline continue to persist in the form of Peter's astral projection that finds a way to physically manifest in the fourth episode of this season as well as Olivia's previous memories. However, I don't think any of this means that the previous timeline still exists somehow and can resurface and meld with this new timeline. I think the point of this whole story arc really had a lot to do with Peter making the ultimate sacrifice to save the two universes, giving up everything he ever knew and everyone who ever knew him. It wouldn't be much of a sacrifice if it were possible to just go back to the way things were. This is still a new timeline, but somehow Peter's and Olivia's memories have survived, thus allowing their relationship to persist as it once was in this brand new timeline. As for your question about how her memories from the previous timeline and the current timeline will coexist I think that question was answered by Olivia's conversation with Nina in this episode. Her memories are being replaced by those from the previous timeline. Thus, it appears she is forgetting ALL of her experiences and relationships as they had developed in the previous timeline. So she will still remember everyone, but her memories will be those of the overwritten timeline. Thus she will forget her relationship with Nina as her foster mother even though it happened, and she will remember DRJ's death, even though she now must persist in a timeline in which he is very much alive.

Also, with Peter.. in the old timeline we know that Peter is really Walternate's son who was taken by Walter. Nina gets her weird steel arm trying to stop Walter and Peter is saved by September when he falls into the lake.. But in this timeline, no one saves Peter, Walter believes that he loses both boys and it's affected his relationships with people since then. So which Walter is Walter?

Walter still crossed over though and attempted to save the boy, so Nina likely still attempted to stop him from crossing over and still would have lost her arm the same way. Remember, the only events that have changed are those following Peter drowning in Reiden Lake after Walter brought him OVER HERE using the portal device, so everything that happened prior to that event is as it was in the overwritten timeline. Your question about Walter is a good one, the Walter that exists in this rewritten timeline is a Walter that attempted to save the Peter from Over There but failed because he drowned in Reiden Lake. Physically, this is the same Walter, but he lived a different history in which Peter died. So now Walter and Peter are building their relationship all over again and I suppose it will be up to Walter if he chooses to accept that this adult Peter who has resurfaced in this timeline is actually the same one who he knows drowned in Reiden Lake as a child. So it's our Walter, but with a different history. I don't know how longtime viewers are going to feel about this, but right now there is no evidence to suggest that Walter will ever be able to retrieve his memories from the previous timeline like Olivia did (that would be a good episode though if Walter decided to overdose on cortexiphan and LSD in a desperate effort to retrieve those memories and almost dies in the process).

I'm not sure if I'm confusing you all more, but like the events from people memories make up their characters, their personalities but we now have two different set of events that are (if I understood the episode right) that are existing at the exact same time, the time line we watched over season 4 is really the same timeline we know from seasons 1-3.

So to respond to this question, and to summarize what I've put forth above, we do not have two timelines occupying the same space, the previous timeline was written out of existence following the point that young Peter died in Reiden Lake, only traces of it remain that have bled through, those traces being Peter's astral manifestation that manages regain physical form and Olivia's memories. But those are the only aspects of the previous timeline that persist in this timeline. Whether or not there are other traces from the previous timeline that might resurface somehow (Walter's memories for example) remains to be seen. But for all intents and purposes aside from these traces that have bled through, the previous timeline from Seasons One through Three has been completely rewritten.. The reason the word overwritten has been a popular choice of words is because in the episode "The End Of All Things" Walter compares a video tape to a palimpsest which was widely accepted as foreshadowing regarding how the previous timeline was erased and replaced. With a palimpsest scroll, you scrape away previous writings (completely scrape away, like erase) and then write over the portion that was scraped away. However, traces of the writing that were scraped away will still exist in the form of an indentation in the scroll, from the pressure of the writing implement. So to be clear, the old timeline if you wish to look at it as a palimpsest was scraped away and discarded and replaced with a newly written timeline. Peter's return and Olivia's memories from the previous timeline resurfacing can be thought of as indentations or traces remaining, that were unable to be completely scraped away. However, for all intents and purposes, the previous timeline was all but annihilated, and only traces remain. So there are not two timelines occupying the same space, just one existing over the top of what traces may remain of the previous. I hope that's clear.

Sorry if I'm confusing everyone, theyre just some questions and complexities of characters that I've been wondering since yesterday. I've always loved the way that the writers of fringe have developed strong, relatable characters out of their pasts so I'm just curious what you think could happen now?

Yeah, I don't know, the Walter and Nina we had come to know and love through the previous Three Seasons are lost to us now, they lived different histories in this timeline and are for all intents and purposes different people than the one's we had come to know in the previous seasons. It remains to be seen how the writers will manage to endear these characters to the longtime audience who want "the old Walter" back. It will be interesting to see how this is handled as we move forward.

PS. I'm REALLY curious to how David Robert Jones is going to come back in all this.. if this timeline is really the old timeline then that means that Peter didn't kill him when the portal closed on him.. AND he now has some strange abilities because of it.. hmm

So in this thread in particular, I think this issue is being made more complicated than it is. In this timeline, because Peter died as a child, he was not around to participate in any investigation of David Robert Jones's escape and thus was never in a position to prevent him from crossing Over There by closing the portal on him and cutting him in half. So in this timeliine, David Robert Jones successfully crosses Over There and then begins his campaign to infiltrate Fringe Division and manufacture neo-shape-shifters from actual human beings. David Robert Jones's experiences from the previous timeline mean nothing to him in this timeline because he has no memories from that timeline. As it stands, the only two people with any memory of the previous timeline are Peter and Olivia. You can think of David Robert Jones as the exact same guy from seasons one through three but with a different history following the death of Peter at Reiden Lake, just like all the rest of the characters in this timeline.

[BlastOff]

Yeah, I don't know, the Walter and Nina we had come to know and love through the previous Three Seasons are lost to us now, they lived different histories in this timeline and are for all intents and purposes different people than the one's we had come to know in the previous seasons. It remains to be seen how the writers will manage to endear these characters to the longtime audience who want "the old Walter" back. It will be interesting to see how this is handled as we move forward.

For me, they have succeeded. In the first 3 seasons we saw a Walter that was burdened by the secret of Peter's survival and we watched how he slowly came back to himself and to maybe forgive himself for Peter. In this new overwritten timeline we have seen a Walter burdened by the guilt of both Peters' deaths. Yet slowly, even before Peter's return, he was trying to get out into the world. We have been given a deeper look into Walter's psyche and watched him still tend towards that same eccentric, inquisitive, beautiful man he is. If anything, he's more endearing to me at this point.

[dawson_son]

I think one issue Walter had was his guilt and love to protect his son by all costs that we deal in s3 with September/observers trying to make him "let go" was he was too over protective we adressed it couples of times last season and even Peter felt it thats why he didnt tell him about the disks and his search for the shapeshifters. Maybe now he will build a relationship with Peter and let go off of any guilt he has compared to him. What annoys me we spend 15 episodes to this and 7 episodes seems nothing to retreat the relationships or build them from scratch unless Walter gets a magic potion and remembers which i doubt and somehow it pains me . But their dynamic its still there despite the new status they have. I really wanna see Peter explaining to Walter what happened maybe now he will be more open to accept the facts and maybe Walter will be the one to adress how peter came back!!

[jade86]

I think it's wrong to say that Peter has not been erased, because we saw his disappearence in the third season finale. September said Peter has not been COMPLETELY erased, because of little traces of him still present in olivia and walter's consciousness. But Peter phisically went somewhere. It's possible that he was both "out of time/in time".

[Firefly]

- We are Unclear on Bell at this moment, especially because of actor availability for the role, but he has been put in place to be the possible mastermind as an overarching character that has seen much of this from a bird's eye view, sometimes interfering on purpose to nudge it, or staying out of the way of events that had to be played out (sometimes for selfish reasons). "I have seen history repeat itself enough times to know.." [Momentum deferred]

Oh that's interesting.

I'd have no problem with Bell being the big mastermind behind everything. I always thought he was a bit of a creep.

Perhaps Jones is actually a good guy and intended to cross over and kill Bell because he knew what he was really upto...