Talk:Reading Steiner/@comment-27183706-20190611150327

The more I think about this the more I feel there is a contradiction.

Reading Steiner allows remembering memories after the worldline changes - but you're physically still at the same time, no time travel, just on a different worldline, and everything in the world is "updated" to match the new past.

So when in the first episode the very first mail is sent that is supposed to change everything to the alpha worldline, something very important is missing. Yes, SERN notices and eventually successfully develops a time machine, and changes the past, or that's when I believe was implied. However, Reading Steiner should bring Okabe's consciousness to the worldline where SERN hasn't yet done that and is in the process of doing it. So no time machine crashed into the building at all. He should live there until 2034 noticing nothing, then when SERN finally activates their completed time machine, the ability should bring him into 2034 of the worldline where SERN has already taken control. Then from there the time machine with Suzuha departs, causing the worldline to switch to what we see in the game and anime - but Okabe's consciousness is already in 2036 so he can't possibly end up "arriving" into that worldline as we've seen. For that to happen, Reading Steiner would need to allow you to remember future events that caused the worldline to change - in other words, make you also travel back in time in addition to changing the worldline.

The only way to attempt to resolve this contradiction is to assume SERN used time travel during the 1 week the message travelled back. If they did they could have already had the Z-project in phase 4. However even then a time machince from 2030+ can't possibly appear. For that, the active timeline has to reach 2030+ (and then the time travel "undoes" it and a new worldline forms) which implies Okabe's consciousness has to reach that year. Furthermore in that case, hacking into SERN after the mail was sent to delete it wouldn't work.