WMG / Continuum

TV series:

Keira will turn out to to have history with Liber8.

The flashbacks over the first few episodes show her being more and more shocked with things in her time not being as great and fair as she believed, it's not much of a stretch that before the seasons out it's going to show that she was actually involved with them prior to their turn to violence.

• Partially confirmed. As if episode 9, we've seen that before the execution her path had crossed with most of the members of Liber8.
  • She was part of the teams that arrested Kagame and Valentine. She also met them in the gleaner community without realizing it.
  • She provided security for a demonstration of a project Ingram was working on, where Jaworski was a test subject. And it also turns out she arrested Jaworski after he escaped.
  • She fired the missiles that killed Kellog's sister.
  • She provides security when Garza is brought on board Alec's flying palace along with a group of hookers.
    • Perhaps I'm misreading the original WMG, but this troper reads it as if it's suggesting Kiera will turn out to have been a member. Given that she seems even in the flashbacks to have quite a special zeal about it, it could be because she feels particularly betrayed at them becoming a violent group

As it turns out, her mother was part of a nonviolent citizen activist group which was accused of being part of Liber8, providing the authorities the excuse to cart them all off and throw them in jail. That's a history, all right.

Operation Theseus is a Shout-Out to the Theseus paradox.

The Theseus paradox says that the Athenians preserved the ship of Theseus by gradually replacing rotten or broken parts over time, which raises the question whether the ship is still fundamentally the same objects after it had all its parts replaced. A later debate also added the question that if all replaced parts got preserved as well and reassembled once the old ship is completely renewed, which of the two ships would be the actual ship of Theseus.The naming hints towards Kagame, who is the only person in the world who isn't unique, but actually exists twice: Once as a newborn and once as a timetravelling old man.

Alec is Sam's father.

Don't know if Kiera will hook with the young one, or the old one in the future, but I am definitely putting this one out there.

There is, and always has been only one time-line. The older Alec Sadler is also a high-up in a deeply secretive and underground version of Liber8.

Look at the broken statue in 2077 in the first episode, versus in 2012 directly after the bombing. Not only is it broken but it's broken the exact same way, meaning that Kagame's suicide bombing is what always happened. Younger Alec is correct in saying that time can't be changed, but his older self understands that time can be tricked and manipulated and that what you see isn't always all that's there. The older Alec all but comes out and says that he's lived through it all before with his "what made me the man I am today" comments to Kagame. Not much was shown but it's likely he had long, deep conversations with Kagame and possibly Julian (Theseus) as well to make them understand that their fight has succeeded and it's only a matter of time.

Alec, despite being the inventor of it seems most of the technology of 2077 and being a very rich and powerful man, might be disgusted at the state of things and the blatant misuse of his life's work. He's secretly a leader of an underground movement that has been building its power and influence for the past six decades at all levels worldwide, and as soon as the Liber8 members and Kiera are sent to the past (completing the time-loop) it'll be time for the millions of members to come out of hiding and essentially take the world back from the corporations / dictatorships. The whole purpose of Liber8 and Kiera in the past is not to change it, but to sow the seeds for the future.

Kagame's Liber8 could not win. He was defeated and set to be executed and lost hope, but Alec showed him that he'd actually won with there being millions around the world waiting for the proper time to rise up. Essentially, Kagame saw the fruits of his labor before he'd even did them and it gave him such hope that he was willing to go along with the time-travel plan and later die.

• As of the first episode of season 3, this is Jossed. There might be a Stable Time Loop going on, but there are definitely more than one timeline.

Keira is a descendant of Scarlett from G.I. Joe

The Time Machine is based on or derived from the MASS Device.

The "Freelancers" are people under instructions from Old Alec

While temporal displacement seems to affect mental stability in some cases, for the most part people who are displaced seem to have all their mental faculties. They were put "in position" prior to the major displacement event pushing Liber8 into 2012 and have quietly banded together to subtly put themselves in positions of ability to aid Kiera if Younger Alec should fail.

• Seems to be Jossed. They appear to have access to the temporal-transfer apparatus in 2077 and have used their future knowledge to carve out comfortable niches for themselves in the past a la Kellog, and are decidedly not working on any kind of master plan.
• Further information in "Second Opinion" would seem to suggest that in fact, "Mr. Escher" is a Freelancer actively working to preserve the current timeline which would catapult his company into being one of the most powerful in North America. Thus, Old Alec's plan may partly involve derailing Escher's plans, or modifying them in some way.
• It looks like "Freelancers" are actually part of the Super Soldier program, and their 'futuristic compared to 2077' tech is secret, highly classified stuff that Kiera would not have known about, but Old Alec does. In light of this, Old Alec almost certainly knew that Mr. Escher was bootstrapping Piron from detailed examination of the Liber8 soldiers, as well as old fashioned industrial espionage.)
  • All of the above is Jossed in the season 3 premiere: The Freelancers are members of a cult founded by a time traveler from the XXII century who went back 1,000 years. The purpose of their order is to prevent any major changes in the time continuum.

Escher/ The Freelancers are From the Early 2100's

• and Escher is Sam Cameron, doing everything in hopes of preventing the 'temporal Prison Break' from taking his Mother away from him
  • Jossed: The Freelancers are locally recruited member of an Order founded in the 12th Century. However, the time traveler who founded the order did come from the early to mid 2100’s.

Garza is related to Alec.

Look at the odd way she treated and reacted around his younger self in general during his (very) brief adbuction. Though this may be due to the fact that his older self was responsible for their time-travel, she was still the only one to react in that manner which seems suspicious. Given that we still know next to nothing about Old!Alec, this might be possible.

• Looks like it was Jossed. She was apparently selected from a group of call girls to meet Old Alec Sadler. Thus, her reaction to Young Alec also telling her he thought she was pretty. Interestingly, the functions of the CPS seem to extend to providing the kinds of things private security guards normally do in 2012, i.e. securing prostitutes for CEOs and the like. However in actual fact, she wasn't there to "service" Old Alec. He wanted to talk to her, and knew she was tasked to kill him. She was told by Old Alec to kill his younger self if he looked like he was embarking down the same path that would preserve the pre-time-travel 2077 timeline.

The entire universe is a stable time loop

The wave that sent people back in time kept propagating. Everyone alive on earth is either a "Freelancer" or descendant from one. The wave sent the entire planet (and all other planets, and stars, etc) back in time, and was essentially the big bang.

• Jossed. The wave stopped propagating before it even left the room.

Escher is really Sam Cameron or one of his descendants. Emily is his daughter and Kiera's granddaughter (or later descendent).

And he got into temporal "freelancing" as a way of searching for and trying to rescue Kiera. Considering he took the name "Escher" in the first place, he might have considered it ironic with all the brain-bendy time-paradox stuff going on.

• Which would explain Emily's lack of knowledge about the Kardashians and her intensive knowledge of time travel.
• Jossed as of "Second Wave". Escher is not very friendly to Emily.
  • Unfriendliness does not preclude a familial relationship.
    • He's been paying her to be near Alec. That doesn't sound like a very likely familial interaction.
  • Jossed. He's Alec's father.

Garza is the one responsible for nice Young Alec turning into the ruthless bastard Old Alec is

As of 'Seconds', there's a strong possibility/suggestion that Julian becomes Theseus because Kiera "intensively" interrogates him, before pulling her gun on him before she gets stopped by Carlos. The thought crosses my mind, Garza's been sent back to stop Alec from turning down the path which leads to him presiding over a series of factory gulags staffed by permanently mind controlled slaves , so what happens when she tries again, only to be permanently stopped by Kiera?

• The brain-bendy part of all this is, what if Kiera hadn't been intended to go back in time? Of if she was, is Young Alec withholding something Old Alec wanted her to know?

Kiera really does have a military CMR. She just doesn't know it.

What if, without her knowledge, Old Alec asked the CPS to specifically earmark her for an experimental CMR not normally available to police? Possible indirect evidence is the fact that Liber8 people call her "Protector", and Travis's CMR can link up with hers. That capability would make complete sense in a military context, where troops would need to instantly communicate in fluid, highly dangerous situations. BUT it makes no sense to allow it for police officers, so Kiera's CMR in 2077 was set by default to disable the cross-CMR communication capability.

• Also backing this up is that although Kiera doesn't often mention it, the show and supplemental material indicate that she actually used to be a soldier in the 2060s. This would only improve the chances of someone high up making a case for a secret military CMR inserted into a cop.

The ARC program Alec developed will become The Machine.

After all, it views things through cameras, and has high predictive and analytical power.

Escher is Alec Sadler.

The only question is whether he's a younger version of Original Timeline Alec, or an older version of Current Timeline Alec.

• Current-timeline Alec would seem to be the likely candidate. Escher's ruthless in a way even Old Alec doesn't quite seem to be, and we know Old Alec is enough of a chess-master type on his own. Throw into the mix a cynical, disillusioned teen genius who bootstrapped himself with 2077 future tech and you could get someone who gives less of a damn than anyone about what will happen to ordinary people and more about just getting super rich, timeline be damned.
  • A possible addendum to this theory. It's possible that Old Alec saw the possibility of his tampering causing this eventuality, thus the reason he sent back Garza as insurance was to prevent him from becoming Escher. The other freelancers may be pawns of Old Alec, attempting to course-correct the future to one that he wants. Really, you have to admit that the idea that Old Alec playing Xanatos Speed Chess against three different versions of himself would be very in-character for him!
  • Jossed. Escher is revealed to be Marc Sadler, his father. As a result, Jason is not his father as he'd initially suspected, but his son.

There was no corporate bailout of the governments of North America.

It makes no sense whatsoever for businesses to directly take over government, and they know it, nor does any business entity, or even all of them combined, have the resources to bail out governments that not only have gargantuan debt, but can print more "assets" at will. The "bailout" was in fact an elaborate paper shuffle and fabrication. Every use of the word "corporate" (corporate congress, etc.) and their crushing mistreatment of the populace is a ploy to redirect the heat and pave the way for the eventual triumphant return of the statists, who will benevolently save them from their evil corporate masters and confiscate everything to "punish the malefactors".

• Supplemental canon material called "The War Files" Josses this pretty well. Numerous references are made to the Corporate Congress.
• There is currently approximately 30 trillion American dollars stored in swiss/cayman/etc bank accounts. This isn't even counting the assets that are out for the public to see. That's more than enough for a few corporations to get together and pay off the debt.

Alec will create a split timeline.

One of the freelancers note that he isn't their problem in THIS timeline.

• As of the first episode of season 3, this is confirmed.

Season 3....

Will focus on Carlos and Betty with Julian's crew fighting against a prototype CPS run by Dillon as Kierra teams up with the freelancers

• Partly confirmed. Kiera does indeed "team up" with the Freelancers, but Betty is now a reverse mole against Liber8 since Carlos busted her for spying.
• May still be a possibility with Carlos. Betty's dead, but they're really playing up the evil corp bad guys this season.

The Time Travel Device is an Ontological Paradox.

Every group of time travelers, even those who have more advanced technology than 2077, is trying to get hold of the device. The design of the device doesn't match up with any of the other 2077 tech we have seen, and doesn't bear the hallmarks of SadTech. This makes the most sense if nobody knows how to make it, only how to use it - in which case, where did it come from? Maybe it appeared when the first time travelers did, and has just been reused over and over again.

The Freelancers were started by Alec Sadler.

Or rather, started by one version of him. It will turn out that the Freelancers consider him to be critically important not because of his inventions or the 2077 time-line that Kiera came from, but that he actually is the one referred to by their leader to make a great sacrifice to go back 1000 years in time to found their organization. One of the two Alecs will end up doing this, but it's not clear which.

• Jossed.

Kiera's double was murdered by Emily.

The Freelancers deny doing it, and it couldn't possibly have been Liber8 since they don't know about the dual Kieras and would have been surprised to see her still alive if they had killed her. And in both the Freelancers and Liber8's cases, the pieces of the time travel device and Kiera's CPS suit would have been stolen, yet they were both still present on and by her corpse.

So that leaves an unknown party yet to be revealed, or most likely Emily. There are several reasons as to why this could be the case, given that she had access to the lab, the other Kiera appeared to have been caught off guard with no time to react, and by eliminating both her and Escher from holding Alec back so that they could run away together. She also had no reason to steal anything there, unlike the others. The fact that she seemed surprised to see Kiera in Minute To Win It doesn't help her case.

• Jossed. Curtis Chen did it, along with a time traveller from an alternate 2039 in which Present!Kellog was at one time a corporate baron, but fell victim to the never-ending civil war among various factions in the GVRD and by 2039, was the leader of a faction whose last gasp was to find a Timey-Wimey Ball and send Brad back to avert that catastrophe; it appears that the event was precipitated by a raid on a Freelancer base in that era, and they discovered fragmentary records that pointed to Kiera Cameron as a possible focal point for the changes.

Season 4 episode titles will have "Hour" in them

The first season started with having 'Time' in every title. This is followed by season two of 'Second' and then season 3 with 'Minute'. An hour is the next largest unit of time.

• Confirmed.

The native time-line version of Alec will be killed.

It's been shown (through their meeting face to face) that the two Alecs are already both very different from and opposed to each other. Corporate!Alec (the native time-line version who inherited the majority of Piron) is already growing cold and is likely heading down the same path that led to Kiera's 2077. Kiera will be forced to kill him or let him die, so that the other Alec can take his place and ultimately prevent the CPS and Corporate Congress from existing.

Also, it may be possible that this has happened before in the previous time-line that led to 2077, only in that version Kiera chose to kill the other Alec so she could have a chance of getting home. Kagame's bombing and Future!Alec's foreknowledge of some of Liber8's activities does suggest that a previous loop of some sort may have happened before, only this time Alec added more contingency plans to make sure the right version of him is eliminated. If Kiera still can't do it, Garza can, because we still don't know the extent of what Future!Alec told her to do.

• Other thought that crosses this troper's mind; Time-Travelling!Alec might get Emily to do it. Or of course, she might do it off her own bat, what with her knowing about both, having chosen to side with one of them (the two Alec's having apparently ruled out being friends), and having her wondrous propensity for deadly force.
• Appears to be Jossed. It's the time-travelling Alec Sadler that's been locked up by the Freelancers, with Kiera's help.
• Still a possibility. Kiera seems to doubt that she jailed the right one, given how Alec's behaving. And Kiera seems to have realized this, since she takes Brad to break Alec back out.
• Wow, that ended up pretty spot-on, except Alec ends up being the one to kill his past self.

Alec Sadler and Liber8

Alec is shown effectively handing Julian a bottomless well of money and connections to propagate anything he likes, as long as it connects back to Halo. This is what initiates the decades-long connection between Alec and Julian, and later Alec and Kagame. It also is what started him becoming The Chessmaster of time travel.

Continuum is a Stealth Prequel to Star Trek.

Consider the numerous shout-outs scattered through the series so far, as well as the repeated plot point of matter-antimatter reactions being the major clean energy source of the future. Every version of the timeline also seems to include massive unrest and devastation through the mid-21st century. The rise of The Federation (or some global precursor) sounds an awful lot like the "good future" that the characters are ultimately aiming for. Who knows, could a more benevolent Future!Alec be the one to fund the proliferation of interstellar Faster Than Light technology?

Continuum and Terra Nova take place in the same universe.

Kellog getting sent back to... whenever the heck he got sent back to creates yet another crapsack alternate future. The incessant screwing around with the timeline by everybody and their mother creates the relatively stable time portal used to send the settlers back in time. Had Terra Nova continued, Kellog would eventually have appeared as his usual Magnificent Bastard self.