Hi, just had some thoughts about the ability to predict and/or see the future.

In general I don't really like that because by seeing the future you are already changing it even by actively not participating that is a change in the future and thus other important or little events may be changed. So even before i really say anything else it is already in a state where the more people have this ability the less reliable it is.

But even then I want to have a real logic behind these things, and not anything like "he is overpowered so lets give him this ability too". In the end it could really be just like an overpowered ability given to somebody but I want to see a worlds rules and logic even behind that.

So in my opinion there are kinda 4 kinds of settings where people can see into the future (if you have more let me know):

1) A real overpowered being, for example a God of Creation, that created everything, thus still has a connection to everything and can influence people to get the result he wants to have. This God for example can bless other people, therefor connecting their subliminal minds to his knowledge and they can then see the plans of this being, thus seeing the future that is going to happen. 
In these settings these oracles are either a tool for the God to change things to how he wants things to be or they are set to search for disturbances, people born without the connection to the God that are able to change things because they cannot be influenced as easily. 
I personally dont really like this setting but if there is a world based on this concept then it is possible. With more than 1 of these higher beings it becomes more difficult because they may have different plans and thus there is not a certain path anymore.

2)Still based on the existance of these OP beings, predictions that are lets say under half of the average lifetime of a being would be possible if the Gods cannot influence the people. Their connection is still there and the Gods have access to the memories and plans of everybody, even longtime plans. By having this information about every single being on the planet they can see what is going to happen. 
Same as before they can let Oracles or so know of it by sharing their knowledge. This way is complettely unreliable though and can (and probably will) change the moment someone has one of these visions. 

3)In a world where there is a spiritual or out of world place that everyone is connected with. It can be through some kind of world mana, a soul plane where peoples souls get reincarnated or something else. People with an exceptional connection to this other plane (lets call it that as an example) can get access to a whole picture similar to the Gods in 2). These people can kinda train themselves to this level, but they have to be very very strong then already as they kinda go into an essential part of the world already. 
Just as unreliable as 2)

4)Being able to see a short timeperiod into the future, not more than a few seconds, sometimes minutes and furthest possible a few days maybe. This is based on the ability to sense the most pressing overlying processes of people, kinda like a mild version of mind reading. They can sense when the decision for movement is made for example thus being able to dodge before the movement is finished etc. The longest timeperiods are going more into mind reading as people can bigger plans while they are in motion because many people in their area think that at the same time.
This ability is area-bound, as the other people need to be in the sphere of influence. For short period things it is very reliable and can only be countered by either being so fast and precise that there is no way to counter or being able to use that ability themselves. Or something like overpowering with masses etc.

So all in all you can see I am not a fan of "in a thousand years someone will come and bring a great change" kind of stuff. I mean there will always be these predictions in the world if on purpose or not like Earth ending 2012 per Maya etc. But just knowing a great change will come and really trusting in it whole kingdoms are gonna behave differently and thus the great change may just be caused by the Vision being there. 
And a Vision coming true because people behave differently because they had this Vision .... meh

Welp that are my thoughts about being able to see into the future, would love to see what other people think about it ^^

The Alex Verus Novels by Benedict Jacka is really a good representation of that kind of magic.

My story is basically number 1, but it also deals with the idea that the future is seen because it needs to be changed. That's the reason for future sight - to manipulate people into acting a certain way to achieve a certain outcome. However, you are right. The "in 1,000 years there will be blah blah blah" is a bit much.

'Set'hDrax'iix' pid='824086' dateline='1494586941' Wrote: Well, thanks i guess, but the funny thing about having an all powerful being who creates the universe is that there is no universe for him to exist in while creating the universe. (Since of course the threads that make up space are part of the universe.)

True, although there is a concept i quite liked in an unfinished story of VRDrako, "Mystery of the Dungeon". It is about Dungeons that become really big creating worlds instead of floors at a certain point in time with them giving most groups of sentient beings something I think he called "Queen", that will in the end act as their patreon God.

But in most cases I agree, just wanted to give the possibility of that option ^^

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'lightningwarrior21' pid='824080' dateline='1494566323' Wrote: My story is basically number 1, but it also deals with the idea that the future is seen because it needs to be changed.

Where does the Knowledge about the future needing to be changed comes from though? One of my points was such a thing like stronger/higher or whatever beings influencing people to get what they want but if there is a need for the future to be changed it is either to get an exact result someone wants or based on knowledge the need to prevent something, but this information cannot come out of nowhere in my opinion.

This is an interesting topic, in the end I think it comes down to the rules you set for your universe.

In our world prediction depends on the quality of the data and the quality of the model that describes reality. A virtual machine an predict the flow of a program almost exactly to a ludicrous length. A sophisticated enough camera system allow to predict a roll of a dice, satellites allow to predict meteo, but only for about a week in the future.

Based on those rules, an oracle should get less accurate the smaller his power is and the further ahead is trying to predict.

If the prediction is based on literally seeing the future, it's a different story. This would be a violation of causality, our understanding of the laws of physics forbit it.

But in a fiction you are not restricted by that. You can make up your rules for time travel and future sight. Therefore anything goes here.