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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)

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Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete) Demons and Angels Seven Days to Skitter
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If you take Mpis comments on time travel as the point of view of Varga/Taylor, you have one MC around that will VERY STRONGLY advice against time traveling. And you already had the Ancients (and look at their track record of responsibly doing things) disable that part of the wormhole drive.
 
Derek M said:
One of the temptations in any fic that includes the possibility of time travel (which includes basically any fic with parallel dimensions, wormholes, or known methods of time travel)
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Maybe fanfics could have an icon, which looks like a blue police box, on skis, hanging in the air over a shark? :)

I was told that Heroes had something in the actor's contracts about how they they reserved the right to kill their characters at any time...
 
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Derek M said:
...Wash's death was a horrible shock... ...not one example I cited off the top of my head involved the death of a male character...
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Hmmmmn.

But yes, time travel, and fix fics via time travel, don't tend to have very long shelf lives because they're avoiding or outright deleting character growth from how people have coped with the death or avoided catastrophe. If nothing wrong ever happens, if nothing grabs you by the soul and TWISTS about the protagonist's life, it tends to just become bland in a remarkable hurry.
 
Waffelmeister said:
Hmmmmn.

But yes, time travel, and fix fics via time travel, don't tend to have very long shelf lives because they're avoiding or outright deleting character growth from how people have coped with the death or avoided catastrophe. If nothing wrong ever happens, if nothing grabs you by the soul and TWISTS about the protagonist's life, it tends to just become bland in a remarkable hurry.
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It depends on how they're executed, and if the chance that what was once right could be set wrong exists. That tends to take the STRESS button, and slowly and deliberately break it off somewhere so deep into ULTIMATE TURBOSTRESS FORTRESS OF STRESSITUDE where the outcome isn't so certain anymore thanks to the failure to grow or the chance that someone might muck it up.
 
Derek M said:
The reason I will not do that is because it would completely derail the narrative and introduce all sorts of issues with causality, paradox, etc. Even Heinlein himself, probably the most well-read World as Myth author, restricted characters to sneaking in in the dead of night to rescue people in a way that wouldn't screw up history. As a writer of stories, there is a very good reason to avoid reset buttons. Firstly, it makes the overall plot pretty hard to follow. Secondly, the fans who read your work invest their time and attention. If you do your job well, they develop an emotional attachment to the characters and what happened to them. Wiping away history effectively means that the effort of your fans doesn't matter.
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To be honest, this was the biggest problem and most brilliant thing done with TNT's Witchblade tv series. Season one was amazing, but the season ended with a cosmic reset button being hit to undo all the events of the season. This in turn let the main character change a critical decision which had gotten her first partner killed in the pilot episode. Thus undoing all the character growth from the entire season for both herself and the rest of the cast.

What made it brilliant was that during season 2 the same events from season one played out. And while that could have been just rehashing things, the change of her original partner still being alive allowed butterflies which over time drastically altered what happens. While the first few episodes of season 2 are the events from the previous season's episode in that spot with sometimes minor differences, those changes ended up causing things to majorly shift by around episode 4 or 5 of season two.
 
Waffelmeister said:
Hmmmmn.

But yes, time travel, and fix fics via time travel, don't tend to have very long shelf lives because they're avoiding or outright deleting character growth from how people have coped with the death or avoided catastrophe. If nothing wrong ever happens, if nothing grabs you by the soul and TWISTS about the protagonist's life, it tends to just become bland in a remarkable hurry.
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Doh! That's what I get for not taking my smart pills this morning. In the almost impossible chance that Alan Tudyk ever gets wind of this, you have my sincerest apologies. It is no excuse that my most recent memories of his roles were of a droid and a chicken.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
To be honest, this was the biggest problem and most brilliant thing done with TNT's Witchblade tv series. Season one was amazing, but the season ended with a cosmic reset button being hit to undo all the events of the season. This in turn let the main character change a critical decision which had gotten her first partner killed in the pilot episode. Thus undoing all the character growth from the entire season for both herself and the rest of the cast.

What made it brilliant was that during season 2 the same events from season one played out. And while that could have been just rehashing things, the change of her original partner still being alive allowed butterflies which over time drastically altered what happens. While the first few episodes of season 2 are the events from the previous season's episode in that spot with sometimes minor differences, those changes ended up causing things to majorly shift by around episode 4 or 5 of season two.
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Doing that kind of writing well is extremely difficult. It's also risky as a TV show to potentially alienate your fan base, as your ratings are literally your lifeline.
 
Yeah, the series only lasted two seasons, probably because the first half of season 2 was rehashing season 1 with changes due to Danny being alive. Actually, most of the season was rehashing events from the first season since Sara literally rewound time to the day after she got the Witchblade. But as the season went on events did not feel the same. And it started with the episode Dragon since that didn't end anywhere near as well for Irons as the first time around due to Sara not being drawn as tightly into his web by that point. Which in turn caused other events to veer off in different directions. To the point where even the base events were the same, they weren't just rehashing what happened the first time. It was new stories. I found it interesting to see how one change such as Danny being alive caused everything to go sideways. But many didn't like the second season.
 
Ignoring time travel, however, you can also get into the concept of Dimensional Analog Characters, like that Injustice comic series had. Black Canary and Green Arrow were in love with each other. In one world, Black Canary died, and in another, Green Arrow died. Doctor Fate then plucks the living Black Canary out of one world, and plonks her down in the world where there is a living Green Arrow. This can get... remarkably squicky. Your true love died? Just realm hop until you find a copy of them and repeat. I swear I remember a fanfiction where the protagonist basically made a harem of his own wife this way. And there's always the problem that no matter how many dimensional analogs you bring back with you, you're never actually saving the one you wanted to live in the first place.
 
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In some supers setting, you almost get the impression of tapping of an ethereal toe, or repeated glances at an astral watch... Followed by, from the rude heroes, "You took your time about bringing me back!". :)
 
Derek M said:
Like a Timey-Wimey warning? :)
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Considering TV seems to use DSR for time travel stuff (or at least that's what the omakes in the TV thread imply), then to be honest if Taylor can't convince them to avoid time travel at all costs, then the only moral thing for her to do is to either remove any tech/magic/whatever that allows time travel even if it leaves them stranded somewhere or alternatively just kill everyone that wants to try it out. Or you could just let us know that you arent using that bit of world building. :p

For those that haven't read DSR, basically actually going back in time and changing stuff is a good way to get yourself removed from existance, if you're lucky. If you aren't then it can cause problems starting with your universe getting deleted to your reality strand and any reality strand close by getting erased from existance. Funnily enough, despite how terrible an idea it is, IIRC time travel is relatively easy to do in DSR (and I guess TV too).

Edit: I think that in DSR a time travel machine managed to get something like 3-4 universes erased or cleansed of all life.
 
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Ace Dreamer said:
In some supers setting, you almost get the impression of tapping of an ethereal toe, or repeated glances at an astral watch... Followed by, from the rude heroes, "You took your time about bringing me back!". :)
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There's a reason that barring extreme shenanigans, all my stories run on "All deaths final, barring prior arrangements".

Possible prior arrangements include
-Growing a bunch of blank-brained clone bodies and implanting a comm-hole mind-state transceiver in your brain
-Sticking your soul in a phylactery
-Performing a ritual that links your existence to some important cosmological force
-Networking yourself into a swarm intelligence, so that the loss of a single body here and there doesn't really impact you.
 
Speaking of dimensional analogues, I'd love to see dimensional analogue!Annette and what she'd have to say about V!Taylor and her accomplishments when she's pulled in from a different time-strand.

On a different note, why wasn't half the city shut down in the main T!V time branch when Winslow was contaminated? And why aren't we seeing a massive plague of superbugs happening? Has Othala been secretly fixing the place so as not to draw Family attention, maybe?
 
Waffelmeister said:
Ignoring time travel, however, you can also get into the concept of Dimensional Analog Characters, like that Injustice comic series had. Black Canary and Green Arrow were in love with each other. In one world, Black Canary died, and in another, Green Arrow died. Doctor Fate then plucks the living Black Canary out of one world, and plonks her down in the world where there is a living Green Arrow. This can get... remarkably squicky. Your true love died? Just realm hop until you find a copy of them and repeat. I swear I remember a fanfiction where the protagonist basically made a harem of his own wife this way. And there's always the problem that no matter how many dimensional analogs you bring back with you, you're never actually saving the one you wanted to live in the first place.
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Ryoko Saotome explores this topic in an interesting way.

It's a good story, but the auther really needs to fix the formating. To read it you'll need to copy/paste into a text file so you can break it up into actual paragraphs instead of chapter length text walls.
 
I just write said:
There's a reason that barring extreme shenanigans, all my stories run on "All deaths final, barring prior arrangements".

Possible prior arrangements include
-Growing a bunch of blank-brained clone bodies and implanting a comm-hole mind-state transceiver in your brain
-Sticking your soul in a phylactery
-Performing a ritual that links your existence to some important cosmological force
-Networking yourself into a swarm intelligence, so that the loss of a single body here and there doesn't really impact you.
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Technically speaking... The right combo of magic and tech (or sufficiently advanced either) can make for a setting where you need to distinguish between 'dead', and 'dead dead'. Passive time-scry a pre-death frozen second, record the mind-state, clone-and-load. For better ethics, ask the deceased if they wish to return, and, if not, what's their opinion on a mind-twin with a different soul/spirit.

Can result in "We can't bring him back, he's not dead, he's in a box on Thor's mantelpiece"...

Please note: none of the above requires time travel which alters the past...

Now, erasing someone from existence, without risking your own, and making sure that sticks... :)

I don't believe I've seen "We nuked the multiverse, it was the only way to be sure" levels of drastic... Yet. :)
 
Ace Dreamer said:
The right combo of magic and tech (or sufficiently advanced either) can make for a setting where you need to distinguish between 'dead', and 'dead dead'.
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The comic Schlock Mercenary has been exploring this issue for... well over a year now. Oops, over thirteen years from the first resurrection, which is technically over a year... With a nanite swarm in their bodies that actively record genetic templates, neural structures and memories. All of which can be remotely stored on secure servers. They have gone so far as to have FIVE levels of dead. From 'body isn't working, but nanites are keeping the brain alive and oxygenated', the middle ground of 'brain is missing, but the nanite swarm in the body still has all the current memories', to 'whole body was atomized completely, but we still have their last backup on file, and can print a new body'. A lot of their current human level plot is dealing with the fallout of going from being able to live around a hundred years to being able to live forever.


Tuesday 6 December 2016
Be warned, there are around nineteen years of archive. It's like a wiki walk. You may wake up weeks later and be halfway through.
 
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Questara said:
Actually they established earlier in this story at least that its Subspace interference or other tencho babble that causes his TechBane. ;)
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Perhaps it does, there, then. Perhaps this is the author locking it down for their story. But as Dresden cannon explicitly says, magic's side effects change with popular belief, so every time they jump there is a possibility that Dresden might end up with a different bane. Nothing keeps the author from dropping Techbane and giving Harry his own background theme music any time he wants.
 
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