The Timetables are items retrieved from Davesprite's timeline. They resemble a pair of records floating on rotating gears. By scratching the records, he is able to control the flow of time in a variety of ways. He seems to be able to use standard time travel to go forward and backwards in time and uses this ability in battle. He mentions to Alternate Future Rose that he's spent four months skipping back and forth. After returning to the main timeline, he gives the timetables to Present Dave before jumping into the sprite.
Trolls' version[]
Aradia's Music Box Time Machine
Aradia possesses a similar set of objects, known as her Music Box Time Machine. While Dave's timetables are built on red gears, reminiscent of the ones in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, Aradia's devices appear to be the comb and cylinder of a music box encased in large quartz rocks, reminiscent of her own Land of Quartz and Melody. Just as Dave spins the records to travel through time, she presumably revolves the cylinder forwards or backwards to move along the time stream.
In the original (pre-retcon) timeline, Gamzee is the final owner of the Music Box Time Machine as of this page
. He uses it to travel through time in the B2 session, presumably going back in time from his arrival on the meteor to visit Jane and possibly traveling to the future to raise Caliborn and Calliope (although his means of arrival on their planet have been as of yet unclear, and time travel with the Music Box is only one theory).
Post-retcon, as of Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5, Vriska owns the Music Box Time Machine - having presumably confiscated it from Gamzee - and uses it to meddle in a similar fashion as he had.
When Vriska reaches the Alpha Kids' Medium in the post-retcon session with the meteor, she uses the Music Box Time Machine to go back in time and advise the Alpha Kids on how to prototype. While Vriska did bring objects such as the refrigerator which held the corpses of the dead trolls with her, it's most likely that these turntables can't transport other sentient beings.
Alchemizing[]
The Timetables have been alchemized to create the following items:
- Convenient computing, access to Sburb on the go. Oh, and it probably has weird time powers.
- An older issue of the Gamebro magazine. Dave thinks his Bro has the one he created. It can also be seen here
in Dirk's room.
- Caledscratch, probably.
- A broken sword that can "rewind" to a non-broken state.
Trivia[]
- It seems like Timetables are strongly tied to music (it seems logical, since music is strongly tied to time and rhythm): Dave's Timetables resemble records, and Aradia's look like a music box.
- A Time player's timetables generally seem to resemble their session's Scratch construct. Or perhaps by the whims of paradox space, it is the other way around.
- The question of whether items like the timetables actually have intrinsic power can be debated. Doc Scratch has raised the possibility that, rather, such items (in that case, Rose's Thorns of Oglogoth) only channel innate abilities of the player that wields them. Rose, for example, could use the Needles due to her connection with the Horrorterrors, and Dave can time-travel as a Hero of Time. However, Gamzee and Vriska both being able to use the Music Box Time Machine appears to invalidate this claim, since neither have any time-traveling powers of their own.