7 replies to this topic

[your evil twin]

First up, I've got to congratulate Petroglyph, I'm really looking forward to End of Nations and I've signed up for the newletter, and a few years ago I had lots of fun playing Empire at War, a very good use of the Star Wars license.

I bought Universe at War after hearing that it was made by the same guys and I played it for the first time earlier today. I played for several hours and it was pretty interesting, with each faction having so many unique abilities and ways of playing.

It got me thinking though... since some of the guys at Petroglyph made the early Command & Conquer games, there's a question that has always bugged me...

In the intro movie for Red Alert 1, Einstein goes back in time to eliminate Hitler. We see him shake Hitler's hand, there is a chrono sound effect, a wave of blue chrono energy passes from Einstein to Hitler and then Einstein reappears in 1946, reporting that "Hitler... is out of the way." (Presumably it takes a few seconds for history to re-order itself and for reality to change, a standard sci-fi convention.)

I always assumed that Einstein brought some sort of chrono-weapon for erasing Hitler. That theory seemed to be confirmed by Red Alert 2 where a similar weapon was used by the Chrono Legionnaires, they fired blue beams that erased enemies from existance, like a long-range version of what Einstein used to kill Hitler.

An alternative theory I had was that Einstein had some sort of "recall" device for returning to the present (his pocket watch?) and he activated it at the exact instant that he shook Hitler's hand... the time machine pulled Einstein back to 1946, and since Hitler was touching him at the time the chrono energy disintegrated him, or perhaps he was dragged into the time vortex and sent to nowhere and nowhen.

When EA did Red Alert 3, their intro movie has the Soviets travel back in time to kill Hitler. The General is about to touch a curtain and the scientist says "No, don't touch anything! Must not do anything to disrupt the space time continuum!" And then the Colonel shakes Hitler's hand and disintegrates him.

So it seems that in Red Alert 3 EA interpreted that old Red Alert 1 intro as meaning that it was the handshake itself that was lethal - if you are a time traveller and you touch someone, you destroy them.

Of course, that leaves the rather obvious problem that the time travellers are touching the ground without any problems, and I don't remember them bothering to put on some special "chrono boots"! And they are also touching the air. And it certainly can't be that "touching someone in the past changes history and causes a paradox" because touching someone is no more paradoxical than them seeing you and talking to you.

So, what do you think? Back when Petroglyph was Westwood and made Red Alert 1, do you think it was their intention that Einstein had some sort of chrono weapon for killing Hitler, or that he killed Hitler by warping back to the present while holding him, or was EA right in their interpretation that "handshakes from time travellers are lethal"?

Edited by your evil twin, 18 April 2012 - 05:38 PM.

[The Archon]

I always assumed it was some kind of weapon, rather than the handshake itself, that killed Hitler and Einstein.

[Valdez]

The C&C storyline isnt exactly known for its plot integrity and sense-making anyway. I think offcially it was supposed to be some sort of natural chrono effect that erased Hitler (and similarly mimicked by EA for RA3), but of course plot holes will be plot holes and will stay that way. Like the plot hole of there being no nuclear weapons after Einstein was erased (he wasnt really involved in the Manhattan Project or any significant nuclear program)


I dunno if any of the original RA1 devs are still at PG. Folks like Adam Isgreen are no longer at PG for instance.

[your evil twin]

It's nice to see that I'm not the only person that assumed it was some sort of weapon as The Archon thought the same thing. While Valdez reckons it is a natural effect. So straight away I can see that opinion is divided!

As the C&C franchise progressed it is true that the plots made less sense, but during the time of old C&C1 and RA1 the story was told in a serious manner. It did have B-movie stuff like teleportation, the "iron curtain" device and giant ants, but the movie sequences and briefings and graphical style played everything straight. It was not until RA2 that they decided to go for campy humour (which EA then turned up to 11 for RA3).

I remember when I was a kid I read this fan-made "storyline FAQ" that had been circulating the web. It was a pretty impressive piece of fan work, but I immediately baulked at the bad science of what happened to Hitler:

Quote

By the laws of Quantum Physics, any entity that is in a state of Space-Time Continuum flux had to avoid physical contact with any entity native to the visited timeline.  If any physical contact be-tween the fluxuating entity and the native entity would happen, the theorized effect was something defined as a "Temporal Paradox". This "Paradox" would result in the immediate Space - Time restoration of the fluxuating entity, but cause a complete dimensional dislocation of the native entity.

Which struck me as absurd as Einstein simply TALKING to Hitler changes history and causes a paradox, a physical touch is in no way more paradoxical. Nor is it any more paradoxical than changing history by moving an inanimate object (removing bullets from a gun, stealing a car, etc).

But Valdez, you saying that "I think offcially it was supposed to be some sort of natural chrono effect" has made me think... yeah, perhaps it is an effect of the chronoshift itself rather than the fact that Einstein is a time traveller. Maybe there is some nugget of truth to that storyline FAQ's "quantum flux" idea and the person who wrote it just unnecessarily muddled things by talking about "temporal paradox" and living entities.

Maybe the chronoshift had some side-effect where the person or object that was chronoshifted had some sort of chrono energy static electricity. Touching the ground is OK (perhaps because the Earth is huge, or because the traveller is in contact with the ground at the instant of arrival) but touching an object or person causes a discharge of this energy. So it wasn't a time travel paradox that killed Hitler, but a side-effect of the chronoshifting process itself, which Einstein intentionally made use of.

And I can buy that idea, because it makes use imaginary sci-fi energy rather than really bad paradox logic.

Anyway, I thought this would be a nice place to bring this up, since even if there's no-one at Petroglyph that can give us an expert Red Alert dev opinion, at least this should be a nice place to find some hardcore Red Alert fans.

[Piglet]

Well, since Einstein actually touches Hitler and then the chrono-effect happens, I think Einstein was INDEED traveling back to his own time. Thereby erasing Hitler.
EA, when working on the reboot of the franchise which started with C&C3, pretty much threw out everything established before that point and just went with the quirkyness of Red Alert 2, and just used Time-magic. (Space-magic's evil twin)

[Valdez]

your evil twin, on 19 April 2012 - 05:07 AM, said:

As the C&C franchise progressed it is true that the plots made less sense, but during the time of old C&C1 and RA1 the story was told in a serious manner.

It was still kinda serious in Tiberian Sun. Then RA2 was invented.

Technically C&C 3 and C&C 4 were serious too, or at least they took themselves seriously.

The weapon theory could also be supported in RA2 perhaps, since we have Chrono Legionnaires that can erase people. The time-paradox issue is harder to make sense of. I mean isn't the regular chronoshifting some sort of short-scale time-travel too? Wouldn't that make everyone who has ever chronoshifted incapable of touching stuff?

[Chrissyx]

First off you have to differ between a chronoshift and a time travel. The Chronosphere from the intro was indeed a time travel device, which used Einstein to travel back in time. Touching *any* stuff in the past is actucally *not* an issue. Even shaking hands with Hitler should not affect anything in the first place. But Einstein grabs Hitler and travels with him back just in that moment to essentially remove Hitler from that timeline and out of the space-time continuum. You could imagine Einstein dropping Hitler during his time travel back, arriving without him. However as I said before, that Chronosphere was constructed as a time travel device, because Einstein suffered hard from the real WW2 with Nazi Germany we all know. Now pay attention: By removing Hitler from the timeline, Einstein caused *zero* change for his timeline he returned back to. That's why he said "time will tell". But what he cannot know is the fact that removing Hitler has branched a brandnew timeline without Nazi Germany leading to the events we all know in RA1. Important: Only in *that* forked timeline Einstein never had a reason to construct a Chronosphere as a time travel device (!) but constructing a very similar Chronosphere with shifting capabilities. Again chronoshifting is not time travel, since you move instant to another place but still in the normal time(line). That's why you see a time travel in the intro, but never in the game (hence only chronoshifting). Also note Einstein built that Chronosphere during WW2 and not after the war like in 1946. This was actually a good move from the RA2 designers: By encountering Yuri 20 years later in WW3 Einstein had *finally* a reason to construct a dedicated (!) time travel machine parallel to the Chronosphere which was still acting as a chronoshifting device only. The Allied could travel back to the start of WW3 without causing any trouble to the space-time continuum (or even branching another timeline), since no one was removed from the timeline with a time travel handshake. The only interessting part is the meltdown of the two competing timelines at the end of YR. This implies, if Einstein remained in 1924 and lived up the 1946, there would be another timeline melting. Have a look at my drawing for further input: http://www.chrissyx....c&ctimeline.php
Gosh I really love to think about this stuff, it's so much fun.

Alright, with this in hindsight, have a look at RA3 by EA: The handshake of Cherdenko and Einstein in 1927 is not making any sense. They are walking on the ground and therefore touching it without disintegrating it. You could explain this with a different time machine design pattern, which affects interaction of biological lifeforms only - in a much more strict and negative way. Well, their time travel differs vastly from the very first one by Einstein from 1946 to 1924 and back anyway. When the Soviets travels back, they did not arrived in the original timeline, but the actual changed one! That means they branched off another timeline and continued to exist in that new one.

Oh and thanks for anyone reading the whole post.

[Valdez]

lol why are people still trying to make sense of Red Alert? Really, the series is more enjoyable without putting it under a microscope IMO...