Apparently some people have problems understanding Koizumi's speech, so here's my shot at translating it.
Spoiler! :
“You see, this all started when Nagato-san decided to rewrite the world on December the 18th. In that world, Suzumiya-san, Asahina-san and I were nothing but normal humans. You spent three days in that world before initiating Nagato-san’s Emergency Escape Program, which took you three … No wait, four years now, back in the past. You then encountered the real Nagato-san and with her help traveled back to the dawn of December the 18th.
Yes I know that. I’ve been there again recently, you know.
“Let’s label the day Nagato-san changed the world as ‘X’. On that day, Suzumiya-san had disappeared and I had become a normal human with no esper powers. In order to fix things up, you had to return to X to rewrite the future.”
An ontological paradox, huh.
“If you had not gone back to X, the world would have gone off its original path, and strayed on a ‘wrong’ one. Thus if you had not gone back to X, this world would not have existed, and instead the ‘wrong’ world would continue to exist.”
Seeing the confused look on my face, Koizumi said flatly:
“Let me show you a picture. That might help.”
Ever since the snow mountain incident, Koizumi sure has liked drawing a lot. Picking up a water-based, multi-purpose whiteboard marker, he started to trace a line down the white board.
“Let’s say this line is the world going on its original course from the past to the future.”
Koizumi then stopped and drew a big X in a circle at the end of the line.
“This is Point X and specifically where Nagato altered reality.”
I nodded my head. What Koizumi said made sense.
Koizumi placed the marker on the X and started drawing a loop to the right. The loop went in a full 360 degrees arc, and ended back on the same point it had started – X. His drawing resembled a budding leaf on a snapped twig.
“This loop represents your journey after you activated Nagato-san’s Emergency Escape Program. You traveled back to Tanabata four years ago, met with the adult version of Asahina-san, obtained the nano-machine gun from Nagato-san and proceeded to travel back to the dawn Nagato-san changed the world. If everything had ended here, it would have been fine, but unfortunately, something else happened. Am I right?”
It was because Asakura Ryouko was there that I failed to accomplish my mission. However, thanks to my other self, Nagato-san and Asahina-san (small), we managed to revert the world back to normal. Now that you mention it, it did take us one month to do it.
“Precisely, which means you saved yourself. I will explain later, but for now, please look at this.”
Koizumi started drawing another loop, this time to his left..
“This loop represents the world in Suzumiya-san and my memories. In this world, you had taken a trip down the stairs and ended up unconscious for three days,” he said, as the loop once again reached where it started – the X.
However, instead of stopping at the X, Koizumi proceeded to draw the line further below the X, before once again placing the cover back on the marker. I looked at his drawing, and found myself staring at a sideways eight, an infinity symbol ( ∞ ), with a single line striking through its center. And in the center, where all points were intertwined, was the single letter X.
Even though I had told myself countless times that Math and Physics just weren’t for me, I found myself slowly understanding what Koizumi had to say.
The right loop represented my memory, the one that involved that messed up world. After a series of chaotic events that involved me getting stabbed again by Asakura Ryouko, I had finally managed to bring the world back to X on its original orbit.
The left loop, on the other hand, was the world not in my memory. It comprised of the three days I lay unconscious in hospital.
But if both of them ended on the same X, even though they contained different endings, then that must mean…
“There are two ‘X’s”
Koizumi answered me simply.
“Since the altered reality is called X, let’s just call this current reality X’.”
Koizumi put down the marker and began looking at his own diagram.
“Without an X, there couldn’t possibly be an X’. Thus we can conclude that the original X didn’t disappear. Rather, it was overwritten by X’. The future that was supposed to occur after Nagato-san changed the world was replaced by the other future you created by going back in time to stop Nagato-san. That is why it is the left loop that gets to continue down the time axis, and not the right.”
“I have no idea what are you talking about.”
I lied, suddenly remembering what Asahina-san (Big) had said.
Something about a larger and more complicated time quake occurring.
“It’s just like looking at two overlapping circuits. You can’t see it in 2D, but if we were to put the entire diagram in 3D, you’d be able to see two lines that are of different depth.”
I rubbed my temples as I pondered what would a time traveler make out of this. Or an alien, for the matter.
“There’s also one possibility I would like to share with you.”
I’m pretty darned sure you’re going to spit it out even if I said no.
“The memories we had about you falling down the stairs… Maybe it never really existed.”
Does it really matter? After all, all I did was lie there for three days anyway.
“Do you remember what I said before? We cannot ignore the possibility that the world was just recreated five minutes ago. Maybe you never did fall down the stairs or end up in hospital. Maybe when you went into the alternate world, time simply just froze for the rest of us. Suzumiya-san’s memories, along with mine, were made up simply for us to believe in them…”
I had wanted to tell Koizumi that his idea was totally ridiculous, but I found that I couldn’t. It was, after all, possible to rewrite the future, as I had demonstrated by rewriting the original future X had in store. Surely three days wasn’t that much of a feat?
“Let’s change the subject. It appears that Suzumiya-san saw who the mysterious shadow was, after all.”
Who was it? Who pushed me down the stairs?
“Nagato-san did.”
That’s just plain stupid. Wasn’t Nagato with you guys then? From what I heard, I was the last one to walk down the stairs.
“Yes, that’s what we remember. But what if Nagato-san was the one who invented the entire memory of you being unconscious, and Suzumiya-san had intuitively sensed it? Since she doesn’t know about the alternate world, her intuition got all mixed up, and in the end all that she could remember was that Nagato-san was up to something. That sort of explains why she felt as if Nagato-san did it.”
“But since Nagato couldn’t have possible done it seeing that she was walking ahead of you, Suzumiya-san invented up this mysterious shadow just to provide an explanation for your fall. In reality, the perpetrator does not exist. There is no mysterious shadow.”
You can’t be telling me Haruhi suspects Nagato purely based on intuition. After all, when Nagato had altered reality, she had changed everyone’s memories, and Haruhi didn’t seem to suspect anything at all. I’m more willing to believe this mysterious shadow than your intuition theory. After all, there may be others plotting elsewhere, just like that incident in the snow mountain.
Koizumi smiled at me and said:
“It was simply a theory I had come up with in order to answer your question. After all, I do not really understand how time travel is possible, and how problems are created. What I do want to know, however, is what Asahina-san is doing here, coming all the way from the far future.”
“Let me ask you a simple question. If you had the ability to go back to the past and prevent something terrible from befalling you, would you do it?” Koizumi asked mysteriously as he stretched his hands forward.
Yes I know that. I’ve been there again recently, you know.
“Let’s label the day Nagato-san changed the world as ‘X’. On that day, Suzumiya-san had disappeared and I had become a normal human with no esper powers. In order to fix things up, you had to return to X to rewrite the future.”
An ontological paradox, huh.
“If you had not gone back to X, the world would have gone off its original path, and strayed on a ‘wrong’ one. Thus if you had not gone back to X, this world would not have existed, and instead the ‘wrong’ world would continue to exist.”
Seeing the confused look on my face, Koizumi said flatly:
“Let me show you a picture. That might help.”
Ever since the snow mountain incident, Koizumi sure has liked drawing a lot. Picking up a water-based, multi-purpose whiteboard marker, he started to trace a line down the white board.
“Let’s say this line is the world going on its original course from the past to the future.”
Koizumi then stopped and drew a big X in a circle at the end of the line.
“This is Point X and specifically where Nagato altered reality.”
I nodded my head. What Koizumi said made sense.
Koizumi placed the marker on the X and started drawing a loop to the right. The loop went in a full 360 degrees arc, and ended back on the same point it had started – X. His drawing resembled a budding leaf on a snapped twig.
“This loop represents your journey after you activated Nagato-san’s Emergency Escape Program. You traveled back to Tanabata four years ago, met with the adult version of Asahina-san, obtained the nano-machine gun from Nagato-san and proceeded to travel back to the dawn Nagato-san changed the world. If everything had ended here, it would have been fine, but unfortunately, something else happened. Am I right?”
It was because Asakura Ryouko was there that I failed to accomplish my mission. However, thanks to my other self, Nagato-san and Asahina-san (small), we managed to revert the world back to normal. Now that you mention it, it did take us one month to do it.
“Precisely, which means you saved yourself. I will explain later, but for now, please look at this.”
Koizumi started drawing another loop, this time to his left..
“This loop represents the world in Suzumiya-san and my memories. In this world, you had taken a trip down the stairs and ended up unconscious for three days,” he said, as the loop once again reached where it started – the X.
However, instead of stopping at the X, Koizumi proceeded to draw the line further below the X, before once again placing the cover back on the marker. I looked at his drawing, and found myself staring at a sideways eight, an infinity symbol ( ∞ ), with a single line striking through its center. And in the center, where all points were intertwined, was the single letter X.
Even though I had told myself countless times that Math and Physics just weren’t for me, I found myself slowly understanding what Koizumi had to say.
The right loop represented my memory, the one that involved that messed up world. After a series of chaotic events that involved me getting stabbed again by Asakura Ryouko, I had finally managed to bring the world back to X on its original orbit.
The left loop, on the other hand, was the world not in my memory. It comprised of the three days I lay unconscious in hospital.
But if both of them ended on the same X, even though they contained different endings, then that must mean…
“There are two ‘X’s”
Koizumi answered me simply.
“Since the altered reality is called X, let’s just call this current reality X’.”
Koizumi put down the marker and began looking at his own diagram.
“Without an X, there couldn’t possibly be an X’. Thus we can conclude that the original X didn’t disappear. Rather, it was overwritten by X’. The future that was supposed to occur after Nagato-san changed the world was replaced by the other future you created by going back in time to stop Nagato-san. That is why it is the left loop that gets to continue down the time axis, and not the right.”
“I have no idea what are you talking about.”
I lied, suddenly remembering what Asahina-san (Big) had said.
Something about a larger and more complicated time quake occurring.
“It’s just like looking at two overlapping circuits. You can’t see it in 2D, but if we were to put the entire diagram in 3D, you’d be able to see two lines that are of different depth.”
I rubbed my temples as I pondered what would a time traveler make out of this. Or an alien, for the matter.
“There’s also one possibility I would like to share with you.”
I’m pretty darned sure you’re going to spit it out even if I said no.
“The memories we had about you falling down the stairs… Maybe it never really existed.”
Does it really matter? After all, all I did was lie there for three days anyway.
“Do you remember what I said before? We cannot ignore the possibility that the world was just recreated five minutes ago. Maybe you never did fall down the stairs or end up in hospital. Maybe when you went into the alternate world, time simply just froze for the rest of us. Suzumiya-san’s memories, along with mine, were made up simply for us to believe in them…”
I had wanted to tell Koizumi that his idea was totally ridiculous, but I found that I couldn’t. It was, after all, possible to rewrite the future, as I had demonstrated by rewriting the original future X had in store. Surely three days wasn’t that much of a feat?
“Let’s change the subject. It appears that Suzumiya-san saw who the mysterious shadow was, after all.”
Who was it? Who pushed me down the stairs?
“Nagato-san did.”
That’s just plain stupid. Wasn’t Nagato with you guys then? From what I heard, I was the last one to walk down the stairs.
“Yes, that’s what we remember. But what if Nagato-san was the one who invented the entire memory of you being unconscious, and Suzumiya-san had intuitively sensed it? Since she doesn’t know about the alternate world, her intuition got all mixed up, and in the end all that she could remember was that Nagato-san was up to something. That sort of explains why she felt as if Nagato-san did it.”
“But since Nagato couldn’t have possible done it seeing that she was walking ahead of you, Suzumiya-san invented up this mysterious shadow just to provide an explanation for your fall. In reality, the perpetrator does not exist. There is no mysterious shadow.”
You can’t be telling me Haruhi suspects Nagato purely based on intuition. After all, when Nagato had altered reality, she had changed everyone’s memories, and Haruhi didn’t seem to suspect anything at all. I’m more willing to believe this mysterious shadow than your intuition theory. After all, there may be others plotting elsewhere, just like that incident in the snow mountain.
Koizumi smiled at me and said:
“It was simply a theory I had come up with in order to answer your question. After all, I do not really understand how time travel is possible, and how problems are created. What I do want to know, however, is what Asahina-san is doing here, coming all the way from the far future.”
“Let me ask you a simple question. If you had the ability to go back to the past and prevent something terrible from befalling you, would you do it?” Koizumi asked mysteriously as he stretched his hands forward.
HolyCow
XD