Turn Back the Wheels of Time – Disco Elysium

This guide will help you complete the Turn Back the Wheels of Time task in Disco Elysium.

Turn Back the Wheels of Time Map

Legend

1. Measurehead
2. Racist Lorry Driver
3. Whirling-in-Rags
4. Rene Arnoux
5. Isobel’s Shack
6. Morell and Gary

Turn Back the Wheels of Time Walkthrough

Background

This is a political vision task. See the Political Vision Tasks Introduction for how to trigger it.

Walkthrough

When you wake up on Day 4, an Endurance thought orb will appear over your head. When you click on it, Endurance will suggest that life was better in the past, and that you’d do well to go back to those golden days. To that end, Endurance will suggest that you talk to people in similar situations, to see if they have a way for you to travel back in time. You’ll have four choices for this:

• Gary the Cryptofascist (#3 or #6). If Gary is still in the game (he’ll disappear after you’ve completed the task Inspect the Traps), then he’ll tell you about three ways to travel through time — all verified by the radio show “Truth Hunt” — but you won’t believe him.
• Measurehead (#1). If you pass an “impossible” Suggestion check with Measurehead, then he’ll take you into the harbor office, and he’ll try to convince you that the present is better than the past.
• The racist lorry driver (#2). The racist lorry driver will tell you that there’s no such thing as “fascist magic” and that there isn’t any way to travel back in time. You’ll get a red “formidable” Logic check while talking to him, but passing / failing it won’t change the thrust of the conversation. You’ll just (perhaps) gain an understanding of why he’s single.
• Rene Arnoux (#4). If Rene is still in the game (he’ll disappear at the start of Day 5), then he’ll tell you that you’re where you deserve to be, and that going back in time would make everything meaningless. You’ll get a red “impossible” Pain Threshold check while talking to Rene, but passing it will only reveal that he regrets a lost love, which you might already know if you’ve uncovered any of the Rene / Gaston / Jeanne-Marie love triangle (by completing Rene’s other tasks).

You won’t need to talk to all four of the above, just Measurehead plus one other, so if Gary and Rene are no longer in the game, then you’ll still be able to complete the task.

None of the people you talk to will give you the answer that you were looking for, which will leave you with just one option: to confront yourself in a mirror. You can use either the mirror in your room in the Whirling-in-Rags (#3), or the mirror in Isobel’s shack in the fishing village (#5).

When you look in the mirror, you’ll be given a red “impossible” Endurance check. If you pass it, then Endurance will reveal that the present is “all s**t” but you’re a “noble sufferer.” This will change your portrait (mainly the background). If you fail the check, then Endurance will simply call you a failure. Either way, you’ll probably lose Health and Morale during the conversation, but you’ll earn 30 xp for completing the task.