Temporal Patch spell - is there always a week?

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Axelmania
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Temporal Patch spell - is there always a week?

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The conclusion of the recent season of 12 Monkeys got me thinking about time travel again...

This is regarding some content in Transdimensional TMNT.

Page 41 mentions Romero was punished for trying to "edit out" Lord Simultaneous. It's been awhile since I read the Mirage comics which inspired this so I don't remember how much mention this got there...

Page 89 mentions that Simultaneous knows the "Patch" spell which, so long as you get within a week of a change to the past (I assume a week prior or a week later is fine, though 'later' would be the usual based on how jumping between Twists works.

No range is listed for the spell which gives the impression it works no matter where you are when you came back, which makes it pretty powerful. You'd just need to know which Twist (or Micro-Twist) to aim for.

Is it possible that Romero actually did succeed in editing out Simultaneous (killing him as a kid, killing a parent, preventing parents from meeting by chasing one off with a Shadow Beast so he misses the dance) but that Simultaneous noticed the change and reacted quickly enough to use a Temporal Patch to split the changed timeline into its own dimension?

Page 96 mentions Temporal Kickback and of all the statted Time Lords, Simultaneous seems the most experienced and intelligent and able to be able to detect changes at an earlier stage and have enough time to go back and fix it.

I'm not sure how quickly he'd need to react though since the SIX WAVES (Warning, Editing, Deletion, Raze, Extermination, Re-Creation) don't have time-spans listed with them, leaving them mostly up to the GM.

When it comes to preventing your own death I'm not sure how long you would have, I think you could survive up to the 4th wave (Raze) although it could cause problems (material things destroyed, maybe you lose your time machine or magic scepter/wristwatch and are unable to go back and prevent the problem) but the 5th 'Extermination' wave sounds like it would be the one to kill you and prevent you from going back. I think at that point you'd need another party who survives in the rewritten reality (like Renet or Simultaneous' teacher Timagetus) to go back and fix things... presumably even if the living person is erased, others' memories of that person are not erased into the 6th 'complete re-write' wave.

Marcus Sandelheim may not have made noticeable impacts on history, but the 79th level probably has stuff linked to him so if he was erased, his stuff might start being edited out, replaced with some other guild master's, etc.

I worry about the state of the Time Lords without him though. I believe at some point in the comics it is indicated that Renet Tilley takes over as the new Guild Master. Her IQ is only 18 though and you need IQ 24 to use the Patch spell (Simultaneous has 25) so either Renet figured out some way to increase her IQ, or they decided to start teaching this to non-guild masters (or kept Simultaneous on retainer to deal with major problems) or the Time Lords of the 79th can no longer erase changes to the past...

I guess the guys beyond the Third Millenial Barrier could always fill in to fix problems the Time Lords can't manage though. They have technological equivalents to the patch spell without IQ requirements and hyper-smart people they can send back.
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