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Okay, so this is something I wrote out just so I could get it straight in my own mind. I had read some of the posts on the Official Heroes forum the day after the show aired as to what exactly happened, and where they were. Some of it was helpful, but a lot of it was too convoluted and involved too much assuming of what the future will hold (but no actual spoilers).. so a lot of guessing. So I wrote this out based on only the information given, and it makes the most sense to me right now. Lemme know if it works for you too, or if it is still confusing.


It seems unclear what kind of timeline Present Day Hiro and Ando jumped to.
It's one where someone blows up NYC, but Claire still lives, ...but then so does Sylar. It's a little confusing at first glance, but I think I've broken it down in the most simple way I can.

This is the future of the world that Present Day Hiro and Ando left.
This would be the outcome if they hadn't jumped into the future.
Weird I know, but it still exists as they experience it, solely because they had not gone back yet, once they did so, this future would be altered or cease to exist.
This is the future as if they had never jumped, but just kept going on with their actions in the present. (Don't worry, keep reading)

F. Hiro is where things are a little confusing. He comes from a timeline where the cheerleader was not saved, where Sylar had her power and healed himself in NYC when Hiro tried to kill him. However, that is not the timeline he finds himself in this episode. This Future Hiro is the one who went to our TV timeline and told Peter "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." The thing is, once doing so, he jumped forward to what would have been his timeline, but has been newly changed/created by his action. So Claire is now alive. However, F. Hiro still only knows what he has experienced in his original timeline, and does not know what has transpired in the timeline he has just jumped into, even if it is mostly the same.

Basically this future is a transitional timeline, wherein we are between the actions of our current day Hiro and Ando. In this timeline, the cheerleader has been saved, but "the world" has not. Sylar lives because our current heroes have yet to kill the version of him without Claire's powers. And Peter still blows up because no one outside his family and Linderman yet knows he is the bomb nor has it been figured out how to stop him - its a future, as we have seen so far in the series, where Linderman has persuaded Nathan to let Peter blow up.

So there are three timelines:
#1 one which we never really see, where F. Hiro came from, wherein the cheerleader dies, but is similar to #2
#2 which is what we have seen on TV up until Hiro & Ando jump to the future of that time, and includes this episode where we see what the outcome would have been had they not jumped.
#3 which will now branch from #2, the difference being Hiro & Ando can change things since they have new information.

We don't know if all the things in #2's will transpire - resulting in the future we saw - but they are determined by what happens from this point forward on the TV timeline.
Hopefully, with the new information that P. Hiro & Ando have been given by F. Hiro and Peter, as well as Issac's last 9th Wonders book found in F. Hiro's pocket right before they go back, they will be able to at least kill Sylar and stop "the bomb," thus preventing the future we saw, and creating a more peaceful outcome.

So that brings the whole time-travel business to the most simple version. It could be that it's all one timeline, and they end up with that future anyway, but what's the fun in that if we know where everyone ends up?

Being Heroes, there are still a couple burning questions, however:
We still don't know if Sylar was in fact the bomb in timeline #1, but if it was Peter in both #1 and #2 and if he will still be the bomb in this new #3 or if it is someone else?
Or will they be able to stop it from happening at all?
We still don't know how it all goes down.
If it is Peter, why and how?
How did Peter get his scar in timeline #2, especially now that he has Claire's ability? (he has it in timeline #1, however, as F. Hiro mentions it in his first appearance)
And one that I'm quite interested to find out:
In the future we saw Jessica was no longer inhabiting Niki's mind and - as far as I can tell - no longer possessed super strength.
How did she lose Jessica and did her power actually go with her?

The only way I can think of Pete getting that scar is if the Haitian blocks the healing power while Pete gets slashed... but when Pete and Claude were attacked by Bennet and the Haitian on the roof of the Deveaux building, Pete's power's were not blocked... so maybe someone else can block power...?

That's all I've got for now. Lemme know what you all think.

I've been thinking about the last episode in terms of the Doc Brown BTTF explaination.  Wouldn't the future be changed immeadiatly due to the fact they had saved the cheerleader?  Well done driveby and my brain is fried too.  Hopefully, I can get it back together before the ep tonight.

Don't think too much about the time traveling because any movie that has time travel is never right. As a matter of fact it's impossible. There would be no need to change anything if you went back to change it and if there was nothing to change then you would never go back. Trust me, if you think about it too much your head will implode and your brains will leak out of your ears!

Exactly. That's the thing, the application of time travel is completely theoretical, so it's really figuring out which version of the idea they are going with! It really is all speculation on our part and the writers. Its from clues in the show and the general ideas of story structure and continuity that Heroes has laid out thus far that we can garner what their reality entails.

That's the thing! She was saved, but the world was not! This basically shows that it's not so simple as "if you save the cheerleader, you will save the world." It's meerly a piece of the whole. By saving her, F.Hiro set forth a chain of events that minutely changes the future. But there is still more to do, and that's where P.Hiro comes back in with his new info in order to change things. Because he did not go back in the past and act on those things yet, that future remains the same.

Remember F.Hiro asks P.Hiro if he killed Sylar yet? That's all that really changed (that we can forsee as of yet), that they can kill Sylar because he never got Claire's power. But because P.Hiro hasn't actually gone back and done it yet, the future remains the same.
...But even that doesn't save the world, because F.Hiro assumed Sylar was also the bomb. From what we know, Peter is the bomb. Killing Sylar will only stop his murderous rampage, but if no one relizes the truth and helps Peter...then NYC is still destroyed! Oh the conundrum!

Here's two sections where they talk about the timeline issues.

Then later, they take part of my question to further clarify:

Looks like I made everyone's brains hurt with my wording...! At least that's solved, know we can go into the last three episodes with hope for change.

Read the rest of the Q&A here.
There are no spoilers, its mainly questions asked, and either clarification or a tease is given as an answer. They also talk about plans for next season, a book(?) about what happened between Hiro and Charlie for that time he was in the past trying to save her, as mention that the online comics will continue all summer and what some of them may be about. Probably the best resource for burning questions and the like.