3031: Time Capsule Instructions

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Time Capsule Instructions

Title text: Inside is a third box, labeled DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE IN THE TIME ZONE WHERE YOU OPENED BOTH PREVIOUS BOXES.

Explanation

This New Year comic sees a New Year party held at a location where a time capsule has clearly been buried, as evidenced by a sign marking the spot. It is likely that this was buried some years ago with the intention of being unearthed at the start of 2025, after some significant number of years have passed, rather than for an indeterminate amount of time (such as was the case in 1617: Time Capsule), with the intent to allow people of a then-future time see what those of that era found interesting to preserve and "send" into the future.

Some form of New Year Celebration is happening near to the Time Capsule site, as indicated by the off-panel noises, probably especially convened at the capsule's site in eager anticipation. Cueball and Megan, who have already said cheers with their wine glasses, look eagerly on when Ponytail opens the time capsule.

Not all such projects are kept conspicuously marked, or may lose their signage due to circumstances unanticipated at the time of the original installation, resulting in a surprise (or accidental) unearthing, while others may still be known for what they are (as with the intended time to stay closed) but need to be relocated/reconcealed due to later redevelopment of the location. (There is generally nothing to prevent premature unearthing and opening, perhaps especially to ensure that the contents are not damaged, but often efforts are taken to best adhere to the original wishes.) To this end, as might be expected of such a time capsule, the box that Ponytail digs out is itself marked that it must not be opened until the year 2025 and it seems that (for the comic) this is the case, and at least part of the reason for the gathering.

Within the capsule, however, is a second container (a not atypical precaution), but this one has the instruction to not open after 2024, which is a far less obvious element for a time capsule (though various supplies, from packaged food to signal flares, may have a similar requirement). Obeying the instruction for opening the first box has entirely precluded obeying that given as a prerequisite for opening the second... at least without using some form of time-travel. This could be either be a mundane twist of the circumstances (changing reference calendars or time-zones), or else require actual time-travel, but it is unlikely that they have any practical solution prepared to use to overcome this twist.

The title text makes the situation more similar to Matryoshka dolls, where boxes are recursively stacked, with a third label having another restriction. This new label alludes to one of the ways one can open the first two boxes without ignoring the instructions: by crossing time zones. When more easterly-referenced locations have become the 1st of January 2025, it will (for a short while) still be the 31st of December 2024 in more westerly ones (the boundaries themselves might be any orientation, not just north-south; the whole concept inverts across the International Date Line, before even considering hour-shift differences), meaning that theoretically someone could open the first box in a time zone where it is 2025 and then quickly travel to one in which it is still 2024 to open the second box. Depending upon where the capsule was located, timely travel opportunities may be possible, but it seems unlikely to have been something anticipated by the recipients of the task.

However, the title text implies that if you take advantage of this loophole, you will not then be allowed to open a third box inside the second box, as the instructions for that box requires that you have opened the first two boxes in the same time zone. You must not open the third (and final?) container unless you opened both previous boxes in the same time zone as you are now, which is not compatible with having changed location to get to this point.

Potential solutions

Depending on interpretation, you could defeat the third box by placing it inside two time zones at once before opening it, as there is no time limit on the third box. This works if the instruction on the box is read as "unless you are in the time zone where you opened the first box, and you are in the time zone where you opened the second box". However, this new loophole could be patched by interpreting the third box as "unless you are in the one time zone where...".

How to be considered to be simultaneously covered by two time-zones (in a way that you can choose which to observe) is left up to the reader, although another variation of this solution would be to change the calendar used as point of reference, as many calendars use a lower year than the Gregorian calendar, or is offset by a few days, and you could justify changing the date (if not the hour) that you consider true. Or perhaps mix and match calendar traditions that consider a day (and therefore a calendar date) to start only at dawn, rather than at astronomical/geopolitical midnight.

Perhaps the solution would be for both the box and the person opening it to be on the boundary between two time zones, half in each. Or, depending on how one interprets the nature of Daylight Saving Time, there may be another solution. In Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia are in the same time zone (by the most common interpretation of the word) and border each other, but only the latter uses Daylight Saving Time; similarly, Queensland does not use Daylight Saving Time but is in the same time zone (by the most common interpretation of the word) as multiple Australian territories that do use Daylight Saving Time, including New South Wales, with which Queensland shares a border. This suggests the idea of opening the first box in South Australia or New South Wales then taking it north of the (latitudinal) DST boundary without crossing any (longitudinal) time zone boundaries; one will then have up to an hour to open the second box and then as long as one wants to open the third box. However, Randall has historically expressed opposition to Daylight Saving Time, so he might not count the first opening as occurring in 2025 if that year has already started only by virtue of Daylight Saving Time.

Without any tricksy thinking and assuming we may not have the box nor the person opening the box in two time zones at the same time, a semantic loophole presents itself. The title text refers to "you" and not the box, while the instructions on the first and seconds boxes can be reasonably assumed to apply only to the time zone that the box itself is in. The box could be moved from one time zone to the other by the use of, as an example, a robotic arm, then opened, and then brought to the time zone that the person controlling the robotic arms is in. Alternatively, if two different people opened the first two boxes in the respective time zones, the "you" would then have to be reconsidered as plural, and, since both people could stay in their respective time zones, the third box could be opened.

Some of the above solutions might only be used if you already knew of the instructions on the boxes, unless it was previously dug into one of the relevant locations (and, depending upon the 'author' of the box-puzzle, this may have also been anticipated and be an intended part of the puzzle). Even getting the second box open following instructions would require it was possible to travel fast enough and far enough to reach a second New Year, which is not easily guaranteeable on the spur of the moment. This is definitely possible if you plan for it, but whether this disinterment party was prepared is unlikely.

Having made the initial two openings in different locations, another possibility is to choose either location (it being easiest to remain where you were allowed to open the second box) and having removed all boxes from any prior host containers, close the box that is now out-of-zone. You can now either take the box's mandate as dealt with, and expired, or avoid any quibbles by waiting just long enough for the now-closed 2025 box to once more experience 2025 in the second box's locale, permiting you to re-open it and fulfil the requirements of the third.

In any case it seems more likely that normal people, having taken the initial instruction at its word, would ignore any new contradictory rules. The original rule that the Time Capsule should remain closed until 2025 is the one that makes sense. So after opening the first at the right time, one could just disregard the words on the boxes (or at least Randall's interpretation of them); there is probably not some kind of magical enforcement mechanism. Also it seems likely this was just a prank so there will be nothing interesting inside, but one might fear some kind of booby trap, or a bobcat. So there could be some kind of enforcement mechanism.

Considering when the comic was published, however, a full day prior to any territory having actually celebrated the arrival of 2025, one might imagine that this is not an upcoming scenario, but one that has happened/is happening already. In this case, it suggests that the party (both diggers-up and associated party-goers) were fully aware of some of the stipulations they were to be subject to and (impatiently, or at even just as cleverly as the initial burier of the boxes) arbitrarily marked the arrival of 2025 early to 'justify' the opening the outer box. They could then conveniently reconsider their schedule, continuing now on the basis of acting prior to the end of 2024, and have no further trouble with either of the inner instructions (opening the next box before the official arrival of 2025 would be simplicity, and any antecedent calendar reinterpretations could be considered logically separated from any prohibitive change in location and/or time-zone).

There is also the question of a hypothetical fourth box, which, given that there was a third box, there is no reason that there shouldn't be a fourth, probably with a label designed to better shut down some of these potential solutions. And maybe it's boxes all the way down!

Transcript

[Cueball and Megan are clinking wine glasses while Ponytail is digging with a shovel under a sign standing on two legs next to Ponytail. From the off-panel to the left several voices are shouting. On the sign are two large words above two lines of unreadable lines of text.]

Off-panel voices: Happy New Year!

Sign: Time Capsule

[A dirty box with a hasp closing it. There is a label on the lid:]

Do not open until 2025

[Cueball and Megan, holding their wine glasses, look over Ponytail's shoulder as she crouches down in front of the box and opens it with an audible sound. The shovel is standing behind the box, dug into the ground.]

Click

[The open box is shown revealing that it contains a second, pristine box with a similar label:]

Do not open after 2024

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Discussion

Neither date has a calender suffix, which allows the finder to assume it to be a BC date, which would render the issue… moot.172.71.102.192 22:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Given that they open it at New Year 2025 and that this was known to be the year to open it, probably standing in the small text on the sign, they are of course years in the normal calendar and when not writing CE og BEC as Randall would do then it is always CE. --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The answer is simple! Open the box after 2025 (Vikram Samvat calendar) and before 2024 (gregorian) Nerd1729 (talk) 22:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

1: Open first box in a GMT+X tz, where is already 2025; 2: Travel to tz GMT+X-Y, where is still 2024, remove second box from inside first box and open it; 3: Wait for the year to turn 2025, close the first box and open it again; 4: Now both first and second boxes were open in the same tz and you can open the third one. 162.158.49.76 22:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC) auroralimin

you have overthought this so much but it works surprisingly Nerd1729 (talk) 23:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Only if you can convince yourself that it was not the first opening that counted as opening in the text on the third. I would not be able to convince my self of that. And although the explanation at this times suggest there is no enforcement method, then maybe Black Hat who obviously made this capsule may have booby trapped the boxes. And only because you managed to move it did it not explode! ;-) The Australian solution in the explanation may work, but only if you did not open the first box until in Australia on New Years Day 2025... --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Open it standing next to a border between time zones, step across, then stand in both? 162.158.62.154 (talk) 02:36, 31 December 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The third box can be defeated by being at one of the two geographic poles, which have no time zones (or at least, which can't be said to be in any time zone). Nitpicking (talk) 03:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Both poles (indeed, all poles) still have a timezone (and, when I last read the page, I also wanted to point out that east/west travel wasn't consistently later-to-earlier, and even without considering going to a pole, it's not just E-W journeys that can step your timezone across). Even the ISS has a timezone, even if that's just the old backup of UTC. 141.101.98.54 11:03, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Only remember not to open either before on the pole! Oh and you did not know the instructions on box 2 and box 3 until you opened them! --Kynde (talk) 13:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

"WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" (sorry folks) Jaap-Jan (talk)

A fourth box saying do not open this unless on a another planet than the one you opened the first three boxes on. --Kynde (talk) 12:43, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

"You must open this box if (and only if) you haven't opened any of the other boxes"... 172.70.85.5 13:07, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The best solution I can think of is to use solar time. First, open the first box in time zone X once 2025 has begun according to solar time. Second, cross the year line according to solar time, while remaining in time zone X, to reach 2024. Open the second box. Third, immediately open the third box while remaining in time zone X, which is the same time zone in which the first and second boxes were opened. That said there is almost certainly a fourth box, but, cross that bridge when you come to it. If anyone agrees with this, add it to the explanation? Mrfoogles (talk) 14:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I considered a variation on that, but shall leave that to someone who can word it right/fit it in. I'm edited out, right now (having, amongst other things, added the "imaginary and prematurely celebrated New Year" excuse/solution, assuming the comic is contemporary/reporting past events, rather than somehow portraying slightly into the future from its publication time).

PS, as I write, maybe some editors/lurkers here have started their own 2025s (legitimately!), though I'm personally still 8h35m (plus change) within 2024 (and others will be more so). Hello to the Future, from here in the Past! (Is 2025 any good, yet?) 141.101.98.244 15:25, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Who says you have to follow the instructions. I would say "screw it" and open al the boxes anyway. Or use a circular saw to cut the box open, bypassing the lids. 172.68.71.44 15:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the "Potential solutions" or any subsection really, but the six paragraphs up top should really be three. TL is a leading cause of DR. 172.70.214.186 18:13, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Alternate calendars to the rescue? According to the Greeks, it will be 2024 for another couple weeks. Cwallenpoole (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

use islamic calendar for box 2 and you have centuries to open it! 198.41.242.244 21:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

And if you successfully open all boxes against all odds, your reward is just a printed picture of a still frame of that one Spongebob episode where the guy says "I couldn't afford a present this year, so I got you this box." 172.70.176.14 07:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

After opening the '25 box, take the set to where it's still '24. Open the '24 box, close the '25 box, and wait till it is '25 to open it again. The 3rd box can be opened freely. 198.41.227.114 (talk) 08:57, 1 January 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I believe that's been covered. (Note: extract the '24 box from the '25, before closing it, if you might have to close the '24 before the '25 can be... Or just fully extract unopened box#3, before closing '24-then-'25, if that still satisfies you having had opened all boxes once you re-open '25 in the was-'24 TZ. 172.69.195.201 13:30, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Is anyone aware of any time capsules that were due to be opened in 2025? guess who (if you desire conversing | what i have done) 09:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Insert a colon and open the second box somewhen between 12:00 and 20:23. 141.101.76.169 12:05, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Didn't Randall talk about a similar subject in What If? just get the government to change the time.--172.70.222.190 10:26, 19 January 2025 (UTC)