I ' m from butt fuck nowhere Kentucky , and we had no swimming class . Yes I know how to swim and have never met someone that couldn ' t . but really if you can ' t swim you ' ve just never really tried or are extremely out of shape . <| sep |> Yeah , feel like it might have been just for the narrative ' s sake , to illustrate how much further Okabe was getting from the beta timeline and to give him something to measure his progress with . That being said , your explanation makes a lot of sense . The world would have a buffer between the alpha and beta versions . This way , in the beta worldlines , Feris ' s dad can ' t survive , Ruka will always be male , etc . Looking at the divergence numbers , they do grow further and further away as the IBN 5100 gets further and further from Okabe ' s reach . And I agree now that having him give up , and not showing us the 23 SG 0 timeline , would ' ve ruined the message a little bit . But , I think that showing a timeline where he fails and becomes determined to do things again will make the message even stronger . At least , that ' s what I ' m hoping for SG 0 .