Steins; Gate 11 — Sending Memories through Time

It reminds me of my favorite xkcd, only Kyouma’s time machine sends things in the opposite direction.

Christina discovers how to send memories through time, and apparently it’s simple enough that they can do it with supplies from Akiba. Part-time girl accuses Christina of being a CERN agent. The threats against Kyouma were upped again this week, although I found last week’s picture much more intimidating. Oh, and Kyouma has control of the LHC. The world is doomed.

The biggest question now, for me at least, is what is the story with part-time girl and Christina? I highly doubt that Christina is actually an agent of CERN. But since part-time girl is from the future, perhaps Christina eventually becomes an agent of CERN in some parallel universe. If you’ll recall, Christina was killed in the first episode but then came back with a timeline shift. I’m guessing that there is some organization in the future opposing CERN (including part-time girl and possibly Moeka, assuming they aren’t in CERN themselves, but not Kyouma, since he would have kept his memory…? or perhaps not, his memories seem to always go sideways in time, but never backwards).

Someone from the future probably arranged to have Christina killed, but then another change in timelines prevented this. Or maybe Mayushi changed the timeline— I have my suspicion that the microwave isn’t the only factor in allowing time travel, and that there’s more to Mayushi than meets the eye. Anyway, whatever happened, one of the effects may have been that Christina met Okarin and didn’t join CERN. Perhaps even part-time girl’s return to the past was the cause. I have my suspicions that Christina’s father will turn out to be with CERN, so this could help to explain how Christina joined.

If you actually managed to read through everything I just said, you can tell that my thoughts are even more confused than the Steins; Gate timeline. Which is exactly how a time travel show should be.

My one gripe with this episode is that its portrayal of science is stretching my suspension of disbelief. Chrstina was a genius physicist since elementary school? No, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. The myth of the child genius never actually happens. And the “Oh, I forgot, but I wrote a paper about the exact problem we’re trying to solve” never happens either. Same with “I can build a machine to connect to your brain and send memories through time with parts found next door by tomorrow”. I know, I know, it’s more entertaining this way, but this kind of portrayal of science in fiction sets ridiculous expectations among non-scientists. Same with its portrayal of hacking. “CERN hacked into our system, so now we have control of the LHC.” No, it doesn’t work that way. And anyone who was even aware that the LHC control system was on an outward facing network ought to be shot.

6 thoughts on “Steins; Gate 11 — Sending Memories through Time

  1. Your sense of disbelief was meant to stretched. It’s not like this show is intending to cater to the scientific community, it’s simply striving to be an entertaining tale about time travel and its implications, as incorrect as it is.

    If anything really, you should draw meaning from the moral stigmas that present themselves when you start to dabble in time travel. Is it right to mess with the past? What about the huge reaching consequences? Is it playing god?

    While most viewers don’t tend to think that deeply once they finish watching an episode, it is fun to poke around and elaborate on a few key points.

    1. Yeah, I think it’s more a comment on me than on the show that I’m perfectly willing to accept a time traveling microwave, but take issue with an elementary school genius scientist.

      I do like the approach this show is taking so far on the moral issues: they present a ton of interesting questions, but leave it up to the viewer to actually think about them. The only discussion they’ve had of the ethics so far is various people asking if it’s right and Kyouma responding with his mad scientist laugh (and Mayushi said it was “sad” this episode for them to have different memories). I guess Kyouma’s answer to the “Is it playing God?” question would be “Sure, and that’s my duty as a mad scientist.” I think I might do a larger post on this soon, you’ve brought to mind a few short stories about time travel (Bradbury’s The Sound of Thunder and the Toynbee Convector) that deserve mention as well – thanks for the suggestion.

  2. If you start thinking it as developer nothing and I say NOTHING makes sense, but we’re here for the novelty, not for getting science facts. 😀

    1. True enough. Steins; Gate is probably one of the most realistic portrayals of hackers hakers in anime (see: Battle Programmer Shirase, Stellvia of the Universe, Lain, Dennou Coil…). 🙂

  3. As always in science fiction you have to gloss over the details.
    I just loved the playful banter and the badly disguised attraction between Okarin and CHRISTIIIIINA. That, and the ominous threat of SERN are the main appeals of the series for me.

    1. Yes, the banter between Okarin and Christina is still the highlight for me as well. And nothing screams danger like a photo of red Jello.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *