Remove ads

Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)

Linked contents
Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete) Demons and Angels Seven Days to Skitter
Reader mode
Fred13 said:
I must be missing something here because how would replacing Taylor's mother with a construct or clone body and taking her mother to the future cause two timelines? The past would still seem exactly the same to everyone including Taylor who was living it. Taylor would only meet her mother again in the future when she rescued her. Assuming it was an accurate clone, there doesn't seem any reason it would change things. If your point is that something might go wrong and set off changes as in the butterfly flapping thing, then that same reasoning should hold true for them doing anything in the past.

Either they can't change the past, period, or they can only change it if no one can tell they made changes. They are obviously going back into the past and making changes. Switching Taylor's mother for a clone at the instant she is dying, would seem to be something they could do that no one would recognize as a change and I don't how that would cause two timelines?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Y'know, I had the same thoughts. I had to get to other things right after the chapter, though, and kind of forgot about them.

Honestly, there's no reason why that should be the case, as the Dread Fred noted. So long as no natives went on the rescue mission (and Taylor may no longer qualify, given VARGA), and they used the Assassin's Cloak to facilitate it, it shouldn't be an issue.
 
Ship of Fools edit comments

Ch 26

not the easy - not that easy

it than I'm - it then I'm

come buy whenever - come by whenever


Love the story, looking forward to more. Kinda weird chapter was perfect until the last few scenes.
 
I suspect the issue would be the universe objecting to changing one's own timeline; as "visitors" they would have a bit more leeway, but changing their own history would be the cause of.... issues.
 
Jacen1 said:
I suspect the issue would be the universe objecting to changing one's own timeline; as "visitors" they would have a bit more leeway, but changing their own history would be the cause of.... issues.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, technically Taylor is no longer Taylor in a very real and tangible way. Her entire body (including her brain) is an entirely different entity, and she's so different than what she once was mentally that she's basically something else entirely.

However, they now have access to an entirely different Taylor and several other people who aren't natives, so they should be fairly safe.

And Saurial et al can do the same for universe-hopping!Taylor.

So long as it's a stable time loop, it should be good.
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Well, technically Taylor is no longer Taylor in a very real and tangible way. Her entire body (including her brain) is an entirely different entity, and she's so different than what she once was mentally that she's basically something else entirely.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Perhaps, but at that point in her own timeline, she was still Taylor. The Universe likely treats her as Taylor+Varga, not some new entity that is a combination of Taylor and Varga or as a replacement for Taylor.

Screwing with one's own history, even in a way you would not know about before doing so, rarely ends well.
 
Lycanthromancer said:
...it shouldn't be an issue.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

There's an awful lot of uncertainty right there. It shouldn't be an issue does not mean it can't or won't be an issue. The really important thing is that Taylor and Varga aren't perfect. They could all too easily make some small mistake with unknown consequences, and not realize it until it's way, way too late. Considering the possible results of such a mistake... It's very much the butterfly effect.
 
Rhostadt said:
There's an awful lot of uncertainty right there. It shouldn't be an issue does not mean it can't or won't be an issue. The really important thing is that Taylor and Varga aren't perfect. They could all too easily make some small mistake with unknown consequences, and not realize it until it's way, way too late. Considering the possible results of such a mistake... It's very much the butterfly effect.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
First thing that comes to mind: how do they go back in time - as TaylorVarga - without alerting the Endbringers? Or giving all thinkers a headache?
 
Another thing to think on is that Varga has stated that Time Travel is a no-no...
Reality tends to jump on time travellers in a big way apart from the reality that the Doctor inhabits.

The rescue of Newt, Hicks and Bishop wasn't done by time travel however. It was done by travelling outside of the reality of that dimension and returning with a different set of time co-ordinates.

So it is quite possible that both Taylor and Varga are massively overlooking the possibility of rescuing Annette & Lisa's brother because they are not thinking far enough outside the box.
 
The big question is; is risking a potential Varga-scale multidimensional catastrophe worth saving the life of one person? Is Annette really that important? And can you really justify taking the risk if it isn't necessary?

It's one thing to skirt the lines like they did with arriving slightly before Taylor got grenaded, but to outright blow right through them and on till morning is another thing entirely.

Would you be willing to risk the kind of damage a catastrophic irreversible Varga-scale fuckup could create, just to save your mother who died years ago? And, frankly, whose death you have finished processing and recovered from with the help of friends and family?

Is it really worth it? Really?
 
Then let someone else do it. Like the other Taylor. Just save each other's mothers, and they're fine. Just make sure the clones are exact, save 'em after the accident, and make sure nobody notices (which is perfectly doable with Assassin's Cloak), and you're golden.
 
You don't need time travel to save Annette when the entire multiverse is available for you. Just find someone who can resurrect her (with magic or watever...)
:)
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Then let someone else do it. Like the other Taylor. Just save each other's mothers, and they're fine. Just make sure the clones are exact, save 'em after the accident, and make sure nobody notices (which is perfectly doable with Assassin's Cloak), and you're golden.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

.... And if they don't get things exactly right, with absolutely zero room for errors, the Universe comes down on them like a falling Neutron Star. (A ton of bricks wouldn't be thorough enough.) In this setting, time travel, especially altering one's own history, or enabling another to alter one's own history, is a good way to have your own existence from conception forward be deleted to protect the rest of existence. Being linked to Varga just means the Universe may need to come up with a worse punishment for Taylor and Taylor.

As agents with no connection to the other realities the crew of the Ship of Fools and the Family had SOME wiggle room. Affecting a reality that they are connected to, even by having an analogue, means no wiggle room would exist. They either perfectly preserve the timeline, or the Universe deals with the paradox their presence represents.

Or at least, that's the case as far as Varga knows. The question then becomes, is it worth the risk? Billion to one odds against success, with removal from history as the price of failure means one must be truly desperate in order to even try...
 
You know, with skitter being reported as dead it would be an excellent time for her to rebrand and be the hero she wanted to be. Especially if Coil can be dealt with. Would be a bit tricky to pretend to not be skitter though while controlling bugs. Although if she delivers the undersiders boss(Coil) to the PRT she might be able to swing the whole undercover plan that she originally came up with.
 
Lycanthromancer said:
Then let someone else do it. Like the other Taylor. Just save each other's mothers, and they're fine. Just make sure the clones are exact, save 'em after the accident, and make sure nobody notices (which is perfectly doable with Assassin's Cloak), and you're golden.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem with the butterfly effect is that even a bit of extra light or the movement of a bit of air can change things significantly as things progress.

Even if no one saw the exchange of bodies they might see or experience some tiny after effect of that event that leads them to be a tenth of a second slower or faster in an action they are performing. This leads to some other person being two tenths of a second off from what originally happened. And this leads to another thing and another.

After that causal chain has progressed for a while you end up with someone in a temper knocking Taylor over as she walks from the bus to school so she breaks her leg and is away from school at the time she should have been introduced to Varga. This chain would then be a paradox.

Changing the timeline an hour back will lead to errors that are so small you will not notice them. Changing the timeline a decade back might lead to some noticeable change. Doing it a century back will lead to something catastrophic.
 
Derek M said:
Chapter 26: Troubling Thoughts and Sudden Surprises

...timeliness...

...It's not the easy...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Should be "timelines" and "It's not that easy"?

Paradox and rescuing people... Varga has made it very clear how dangerous it is doing this, with the sort of capabilities that they currently have. Yes, they could probably find another Worm-verse, ask an Annette there (before she takes a fatal car journey) if she'd be willing for a mind-twin of her to go to a (three year distant?) future and see if she'd have a life with a widowed Danny & Taylor, and if it didn't work out, she'd have the resources to do something else.

Pretty sure Ianthe, with a large bag of onions, could make such a mind-twin, it'd be easier than what she did for Linda. Could likely find such a Worm-verse by looking at the wormhole drive coordinates for the two Taylor's universes, and applying Family math (or, there might be an uncertainty factor making this not quite so simple, which would fit canon TV omake),

Whether this is a healthy path to start down, though...

One reason the Varga may be uneasy about this is the parallel between the death of the Thinker Entity (who was PtV-ing while driving?) and Annette (txt-ing while driving?) being rather fundamental to the Worm-verse reality. Mess with that and you might be reviving an Entity? Or, find Annette is linked to an Entity in an unfortunate manner?
 
Last edited:
The thing to remember is that Taylor Varga uses the Desperately Seeking Ranma rules for time travel. Which means it's a really bad idea. Viewing the past? Okay, this has no problems. Changing the past? Oh yeah, this is a problem. A pretty major one in fact. I hope you enjoy non-existence, and didn't do anything to try enforcing universal stability. The last time someone did that multiple dimensions were erased from existence and a simi-sentient time machine continued to cause problems, likely leading to several other dimensions no longer existing.

If the crew had merely observed unnoticed there wouldn't have been any problems. But instead they got involved, which lead to Amy having to violate her code of ethics in a major way in order to prevent a catastrophe. Trying to save Taylor's mom is reckless. And the scenario Varga gave for what could happen was a best case scenario. After all, Taylor would still exist. More likely she would retroactively have never existed. Possibly her parents never existed either. Worst case, the entire dimension goes POOF.
 
Last edited:
Here is quite a nice list of time travel paradoxes...

I recall from a few years back the idea that if time travel was possible, and the past mutable, travelling through time would, after a few changes, result in a future where there was no means of time travel, because that's the most stable state to fall into... The DSR model is more a self-pruning reality which erases big chunks of itself if time travel causes issues, and, issues almost always occur... Interesting questions of whether there's cross-dimensional Time Police, who give the odd little nudge, sometimes at the cost of their own continued existences...
 
Fred13 said:
I must be missing something here because how would replacing Taylor's mother with a construct or clone body and taking her mother to the future cause two timelines? The past would still seem exactly the same to everyone including Taylor who was living it. Taylor would only meet her mother again in the future when she rescued her. Assuming it was an accurate clone, there doesn't seem any reason it would change things. If your point is that something might go wrong and set off changes as in the butterfly flapping thing, then that same reasoning should hold true for them doing anything in the past.

Either they can't change the past, period, or they can only change it if no one can tell they made changes. They are obviously going back into the past and making changes. Switching Taylor's mother for a clone at the instant she is dying, would seem to be something they could do that no one would recognize as a change and I don't how that would cause two timelines?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Varga might be referencing effects like the Time Boom that in Flash creates Flashpoint Paradox. Otherwise Varga might be referencing some tinker in the world detecting them through unknowable means, thus spiraling events out of order. Or Cauldron doing something stupid because PtV says that Taylor's mother didn't die so they kill her father instead.

EDIT: In hindsight, getting a story about The Vargapoint Paradox would be interesting to see.
 
Last edited:
Fred13 said:
I must be missing something here because how would replacing Taylor's mother with a construct or clone body and taking her mother to the future cause two timelines? The past would still seem exactly the same to everyone including Taylor who was living it. Taylor would only meet her mother again in the future when she rescued her. Assuming it was an accurate clone, there doesn't seem any reason it would change things. If your point is that something might go wrong and set off changes as in the butterfly flapping thing, then that same reasoning should hold true for them doing anything in the past.

Either they can't change the past, period, or they can only change it if no one can tell they made changes. They are obviously going back into the past and making changes. Switching Taylor's mother for a clone at the instant she is dying, would seem to be something they could do that no one would recognize as a change and I don't how that would cause two timelines?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If they already did it, then it wouldn't have. However, just their presence for an instant would have massive effects on the past.

Remember the Varga has a passive effect on probability, and on the powers of those in a large area, and if anyone linked up sees one of them, the Endbringers will behave differently for at least a few seconds. Never mind any lingering effects from their use of space-bending to avoid being seen, with Vista in the city, or residual energy from magic used for that purpose... which Varga might be able to sense even years later. Just the passive effect of Varga's presence on probability is enough to cause big changes when the results have years to propagate.

I doubt it would create two separate timelines unfortunately, as one-timeline changed is worse for her... but the cause tends to be at least partially insulated from the changes in most of these universes. Best case would be she doesn't remember the new past. If she gets memories of the new past, they'd diverge increasingly from the point of her mother's death. Maybe Glory girl didn't pick a fight with the giant lizard when they first met because her date went well, or Vista's parents moved (or got along better) so she isn't a parahuman in the city, thus their collaboration didn't happen. Maybe Alan Barnes took a different street way back when and Emma is still a friend...or maybe it went wrong and she's dead.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top