Time Travel Question

[Vulcan7200]

I had a question regarding Time Travel in Mage. This is a discussion that came up with a friend of mind when we were discussing Spheres and what they could do.

Time 5 lets you "step out of time" and sounds like it lets you freely walk around in time.

Time 3 lets you cast spells into the past or future. Now, with Correspondence letting you open Gates for people to pass through, is it possible to open up a Gate into the past or future when combining it with Time 3? I can't see any reason why it couldn't based off of how the wording of Time 3 and Correspondence 4. My friend believes time travel is strictly the realm of Time 5. I can see validity in both arguments and was curious if anyone here had any insight.

[Barbelith]

Correspondence 4 for portals, Time 5 for time travel.
Time 3 lets you speed up or slow time for yourself, 4 allows you to freeze time and set up triggers etc. but the Dr Who effect is only available to Masters of Time. Your friend is right.
Technically you could make a one-way portal to the future with Time 4 by freezing until the time had passed, but you couldn't come back.

[Vulcan7200]

The paragraph after "Bullet Time" for Time 3 mentions casting spells backwards and forwards in time. Am I misreading that then?

[Just John, Forever...]

The paragraph after "Bullet Time" for Time 3 mentions casting spells backwards and forwards in time. Am I misreading that then?

(Just jumping in...)
You can "sift the sands" with Time:3, and skew back time a matter of rounds or possibly minutes (with a lot of successes and/or "conventional" rounds that last anywhere up to 1-3 minutes), but you can't actually time travel, proper, with Time:3 (that is, as Barbetlith basically, said, "no Doctor Who-ing"). You need at least Time:5+ (Mastery to Archmastery, and really the latter, proper, for what most people have in mind when they think of "time travel") for true, honest-to-goodness, get-in-the-Tardis/Delorean/thing-a-ma'-jig time travel. (Across most eras of Mage, you'd need Time:6+ (Archmastery), Correspondence:4 to accomplish what you are describing, with Spirit:4 thrown in if you are breaching the Gauntlet/Horizon(s)/Shround/Mists/want-to-try-to-impose-an-alternate-timeline-on-things, and (often, though not required) Entropy:1 to sparse out alternate threads/flows in the timeline(s) so as to *properly* reach a *particular* destination.

True Time Travel(tm) is a heavy, heavy thing in Mage. Heavy. And the Paradox that usually accompanies it (particularly in reference to traveling into the past) makes such endeavors less-than-desireable for all real purposes. (If trying to "suss out" a given time period/line for experiential purposes, it's actually better to use Spirit:4, Time:2, Entropy:1 to locate a (Pen)Umbral Realm wherein you/whomever can experience such and perhaps learn something; other than that, though, True Time Travel(tm) is completely story/ST-driven in the WoD, as a setting... even the most powerful of hedge magics that are in-sync with time, itself, such as "Turn Back the Skies" (a vampiric level:7 ritual, though there are implied to be mortal counterparts at that relative level, 6/7) or Temporis:9, are very limited in scope. True Magic(k) has to face down not only intense metaphysical resistance to time travel -- particularly to the past -- but also the mounting Paradox that accumulates with it, particularly when other magic(k)s are used retro-actively.)

So yeah, your friend was right: Time:5 at a bare minimum, with higher levels of Time and/or supporting Spheres required to well-and-truly Time Travel(tm).

[Bluecho]

Another option for Experiential Time Travel, that I came up with a while back, would be to use Mind 3 + Time 2 + Correspondence 3 to shape a dream around a different place and time. Good for A Christmas Carol style magical shenanigans. Completely coincidental, too, as everyone knows any old thing could happen in a dream.

[Just John, Forever...]

Another option for Experiential Time Travel, that I came up with a while back, would be to use Mind 3 + Time 2 + Correspondence 3 to shape a dream around a different place and time. Good for A Christmas Carol style magical shenanigans. Completely coincidental, too, as everyone knows any old thing could happen in a dream.

Yeah -- that's a good, "cheap" way to handle that. (Also, if you know of/have proper connection to any other space(s) involved, you don't even need Correspondence:3 -- you can have it at 2 and sufficiently cover the bases, as Mind:3 and Time:2 are the ones "carrying the weight", as it were, of the spell. Also, if you add Spirit:2/3/4, the alternate timelines dreamt of/"experienced" can have semi-substantial impacts as the character can experience these alternate timelines via the Umbrae, giving the experience more "weight" and influence on the character/those involved.)

[Luis Carlos]

Do you remember the videogame "Life is strange"?

What if you don't really travel throught time but toward a paradox realm like an uchrony? Or time-travel is only an illusion because you can't really change the past... or only the past from a different space-time line, a parallel Earth.