Subject: Here's how I interpreted the events:
Author:
Posted on: 2013-09-07 04:58:00 UTC
The Door From the Future RP occurs, in which people from Huinesoron's original Sundering time stream enter the "prime" or "main" PPC time stream.
Differentiation occurs with the arrival of the Skeet and Amy from either The Wrong Trousers's time stream or the future of the SeaTurtle's Sundering time stream(this detail was unclear, but doesn't affect event progression, and actually opens up some interesting questions by remaining ambiguous), and Amy neuralyzes most of the agents who witnessed the arrival of the future-people.
In addition, a separate differentiation occurs when Skeet leaves a psychic message from alternate-older-Gaspard. This doesn't create a new timeline, but simply further alters an existing one.
In the main timeline, the Flowers found out about the bad future from the agents that witnessed the future-people and took steps to prevent it, resulting in a timeline that, while not free of conflict and potential future power struggles, lacks a Sundering.
In the altered timeline, most of the "present" agents were neuralyzed, save Gaspard and a few others that weren't in the room when Amy and Skeet came in, such as Kayleigh Leonard. This caused future events to change, since there was less knowledge in the "present" about the DoE and Sundering than there was in the main time stream, setting off a chain of events that allowed the DTOM to form and rise to an level of power unseen since the Mysterious Somebody's day.
I admit, this is a bit of a leap, since as I said, it is currently unclear whether the Skeet and Amy were bringing a message from STS Gaspard's future self, or simply the future self of a Gaspard. If it was just the future self of a Gaspard, the future of the STS time stream may not have a DoE or a DTOM, may being the operative word due to the potential(in time travel, this is a distinctly different word than "possible") synonymity of the STS timeline and The Wrong Trousers's timeline.
Regardless, events would have proceeded similarly to the main timeline if Amy hadn't neuralyzed the Agents.
Judging by General de Grasse's dialogue, if Gaspard were ever to reveal the information that he now knows about the future, events in STS Gaspard's native time stream would proceed similarly to those in The Wrong Trousers's time stream, or perhaps the two timelines would become synonymous, as I said before. I'm not sure how much hyperbole was used in alternate-older Gaspard's statement there, but going by main-current-Gaspard's demeanor, I'm guessing not much.
I figured that, with the "Triple Prime" chapter title, you had been referring to the three time streams: one in the STS story, one in The Wrong Trousers, and one original timeline that the two latter time streams differentiated from.
From what I can tell, my interpretation seems to at least be close to what you were trying to go for, save that bit at the end about some people having been on a "third lap around the block". Does that mean there have been major characters in three separate timelines, or that the reader has seen iterations of the main characters in three separate time streams, or what exactly?
Perhaps my original reasoning being hard to follow was just due to me phrasing things poorly. It wouldn't be unlike me.
I know you weren't trying to invoke Moffat with that line about fixed points in time, especially since your take on the term as "circumstantial simultaneity of events in several related but unconnected alternate universes" is different than his less-suitable definition. I just inwardly flinched when I saw the term, is all. It's nothing against the way your story handled time.
In fact, I actually quite like your time travel model. Keeping details and possibilities in flux while still keeping a few elements of predestination would seem like trying to, to invoke a phrase, both having and eating one's cake, if it was handled in a less effective manner. As it is here, it opens some interesting mysteries and potential for dramatic tension, which is always a plus.