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Post by jda on Jun 5, 2020 17:59:30 GMT
Ha, so, GKC officially going DARK? /wildspec So, the Court is EthernalKat's endeavour to ensure the creation and life of her friend Antimony/Surma... |
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Kuraimizu
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Post by Kuraimizu on Jun 5, 2020 18:26:07 GMT
To those interested I have re-drawn My Temporal Map, depicting what happens to the timeline with one event of time travel to the past, and a return trip to the future. Temporal-map-01-past |
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Post by Eily on Jun 5, 2020 19:34:43 GMT
Wait, does there need to be a loop? Even time travel isn't actually needed. The simplest explanation is actually that Kat did see one of the Tick-tocks but just doesn't remember (like they visited her when she was small or something). Or it could be that her power to understand robots doesn't require contact, she actually absorbed knowledge on the birds from a distance on a subconscious level all this time. Funny thing is, for Kat to jump to the time travel explanation, she probably had to have a pretty good idea of how and why time travel happened The main reason I still think time travel and a loop are involved is that it seems to be were Tom is going. By the way it's possible to explain the Jones and Coyote paradox as well, maybe Jones was actually a simple human at some point and Coyote never put the stars in the sky, but the beliefs of humans made the world and their memories change to be compatible with that story. |
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Post by netherdan on Jun 5, 2020 20:19:04 GMT
Time travel could well be a red herring if due to retro active robodeity status, the birds were always there from the beginning If, like csj noted, there is no time travel involved but the bird rescue squad is just retroactively brought into existence because every faithful robot knows that the Angel created those to watch over them, the outcome remains the same. It's already happened. No question whether Kat will succeed or not because she already did. That sure does solve a lot of problems by using already established in-universe rules godly hypothesis. Can the birds exist before they are created? According to Coyote's Great Secret: yes! And with Arthur himself, the first "living" robot witnessing the creation of the Mythical Ornithonic by the Angel! I believe we will get some creepy robocult bonus pages for this chapter... |
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Post by warrl on Jun 5, 2020 20:47:30 GMT
Wait, does there need to be a loop? The secret of time travel is within the loop. Or maybe the loup. |
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Post by AluK on Jun 5, 2020 21:58:19 GMT
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Post by madjack on Jun 6, 2020 0:42:42 GMT
By the way, madjack , there's a typo in the thread title's page number. There is too, fixed. |
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Post by Igniz on Jun 6, 2020 2:34:10 GMT
Imagine them popping up and dropping non-subtle hints to Kat while she keeps refusing it as "impossible" until they get fed up and tell her the secret of time travel because if she doesn't figure it out in time the paradox will resolve by splitting into yet another timeline for them to deal with (as in, the paradox will be resolved anyway and they only get to decide if it's a split or a loop) If we consider that the Tic Toc a) will be sent to the past (that is, if we're really talking about time travel here), b) will remain intact and won't be destroyed/disassembled in the foreseeable future, and c) it is indeed the one we've previously seen it can be sent by Kat in any moment of her life from the robot's construction onward. In fact, as long as it ends appearing at the proper time and place, it doesn't need to be sent specifically by her. Given they have access to the proper technology (or spell, or creature, or whatever) and know the when and where, it could be sent by pretty much anyone: Annie² herself, Kat's descendants, Robot, Tony, Juliet and Arthur, Eglamore, Jones, an unknown fairy, robots from the far future... For all we know, as of now, it can even end up in the past thanks to Coyote/Loup's meddling. |
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Kuraimizu
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Post by Kuraimizu on Jun 6, 2020 8:23:06 GMT
www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=646According to the robots, the Tic-Toc Mythical Ornithonic is older than the Court itself. This is starting to hint at Kat becoming a Goddess of Technology and Time, and actually going back in time, and being responsible for the Seed of Bismuth that gave birth to the Court of Gunnerkrigg.
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Post by saardvark on Jun 6, 2020 13:20:28 GMT
To those interested I have re-drawn My Temporal Map, depicting what happens to the timeline with one event of time travel to the past, and a return trip to the future. Temporal-map-01-pastDo you have some explanatory text that goes with this? Kinda walks the viewer through it? It looks interesting, but is a bit cryptic to me.... |
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Kuraimizu
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Post by Kuraimizu on Jun 6, 2020 14:38:45 GMT
Do you have some explanatory text that goes with this? Kinda walks the viewer through it? It looks interesting, but is a bit cryptic to me.... in what way would you like it clarified? it's a map depicting what happens to a timeline with one instance of Time travel into the past. and either a Round trip or return trip. each event is labelled, and each label is clarified and it even includes the number of time travellers in each timeline caused by causality and temporal cloning. I even included a legend including the 4 types of temporal incursions. despite, only using 2 types of temporal incursions in this example. What do you feel it is missing? if you can't tell me what you need explained, how am I to improve it? you can't complain and then just say it's cryptic when I literally labelled all of it. how would I walk you through a Map? do you need a story to literally explain every event ? do you want a choose your own adventure? there are literally 3 beginning Events, 1 2nd event 3 third events and 12 4th events That would be very difficult to write a walk-through for that wouldn't become a short novel. |
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Post by saardvark on Jun 6, 2020 19:35:45 GMT
Do you have some explanatory text that goes with this? Kinda walks the viewer through it? It looks interesting, but is a bit cryptic to me.... in what way would you like it clarified? it's a map depicting what happens to a timeline with one instance of Time travel into the past. and either a Round trip or return trip. each event is labelled, and each label is clarified and it even includes the number of time travellers in each timeline caused by causality and temporal cloning. I even included a legend including the 4 types of temporal incursions. despite, only using 2 types of temporal incursions in this example. What do you feel it is missing? if you can't tell me what you need explained, how am I to improve it? you can't complain and then just say it's cryptic when I literally labelled all of it. how would I walk you through a Map? do you need a story to literally explain every event ? do you want a choose your own adventure? there are literally 3 beginning Events, 1 2nd event 3 third events and 12 4th events That would be very difficult to write a walk-through for that wouldn't become a short novel. No need to be defensive of feel offended, I am not criticizing, merely a little confused. Perhaps I am just stooopid; Im like that sometimes. A single example walkthrough of an event's history of your many suggested possibilities would probably suffice to clear my foggy mind. Let me give you a few of my puzzlements, which you can clear up as you wish. 1) Above you say "it's a map depicting what happens to a timeline with one instance of Time travel into the past and either a Round trip or return trip." What is the difference between a round trip and a return trip? (I would have thought them identical.) 2) Your types of incursions seem to overlap, tho I probably misunderstand. A feather incursion can happen anytime, but it seems like any of the other could happen anytime too, so what is the difference? A dandelion quantum incursion (multiple similar outcomes) would seem to be a subset of a complex incursion (multiple outcomes)... a simple incursion also would seem to be a particular subset (2 rather than multiple) of the complex type. (I like the dandelion metaphor for multiple outcomes... both in the number of petals each has, and in how they reproduce so prolifically!) 3) Im a bit unclear on what History, or No history of time travel implies... that history knows about the travel? That it has an effect (or not) on history? That the traveler him/herself has/has not traveled in time before? 4) Im unclear on the meaning of the numbers in square brackets: [0/1] or [2/3] or [1]... Thanks for your time and patience. |
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Kuraimizu
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Post by Kuraimizu on Jun 6, 2020 21:24:19 GMT
No need to be defensive of feel offended, I am not criticizing, merely a little confused. Perhaps I am just stooopid; Im like that sometimes. A single example walkthrough of an event's history of your many suggested possibilities would probably suffice to clear my foggy mind. Let me give you a few of my puzzlements, which you can clear up as you wish. 1) Above you say "it's a map depicting what happens to a timeline with one instance of Time travel into the past and either a Round trip or return trip." What is the difference between a round trip and a return trip? (I would have thought them identical.) 2) Your types of incursions seem to overlap, tho I probably misunderstand. A feather incursion can happen anytime, but it seems like any of the other could happen anytime too, so what is the difference? A dandelion quantum incursion (multiple similar outcomes) would seem to be a subset of a complex incursion (multiple outcomes)... a simple incursion also would seem to be a particular subset (2 rather than multiple) of the complex type. (I like the dandelion metaphor for multiple outcomes... both in the number of petals each has, and in how they reproduce so prolifically!) 3) Im a bit unclear on what History, or No history of time travel implies... that history knows about the travel? That it has an effect (or not) on history? That the traveler him/herself has/has not traveled in time before? 4) Im unclear on the meaning of the numbers in square brackets: [0/1] or [2/3] or [1]... Thanks for your time and patience. 1. a Return trip would be using Time travel to go to the past, and Time travel to return to the future. a Round trip is the long way around, and only possible, if you go back in time fewer years, than you have left to live. basically staying in the past, and returning by the normal passage of time. which would result in there being two of you. 2. a feather incursion is an event that is planned to happen, or guaranteed to happen, but the time it will occur is not set in stone. in the case of the map, the feather incursions, are the events, of when the time traveller decides to return to the future. and when in the future he chooses to return to. Another example would be when geologic stress builds up enough to cause an earthquake, or erupt a volcano. it's not a matter of if it will happen, but a matter of when it will happen. A second example would be when you are going to die. The longer you live the closer you get to your eventual death. the closer you get, the brighter the wave function of that event gets, and the more probable it becomes. certain events, may also spawn extra or brighter wave-functions by overlapping probabilities, making certain events more likely to occur sooner. A Dandelion Incursion is an event that can have more than one outcome, Yes it happened or no it did not, Heads or tails, etc. or more complex, such as rolling dice, and the probability of what numbers are rolled. or Dropping a glass object, how it hits the ground, determines where a fracture starts, it's molecular crystalline structure determining how the fractures propagate, and how large the pieces are, internal stresses and momentum, determining how far shards of glass travel, and whether or not those pieces also break. causing millions to a near infinite number of possibilities for how the glass shards eventually come to rest. One reality for each possible combination. 3. History of Time travel, does not mean that the Event of arriving in the past has been recorded. History means that the event has occurred, No History means that the Event never happened. Just because nobody witnessed it and wrote about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. 4. The brackets show how many of the time traveller exist in that reality. if you travelled to a time during your life span, or within the limit possible for a round trip, you could result in a paradoxical reality, with 2 or 3 of you. does this help answer your questions? or has this spawned other questions? |
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Post by saardvark on Jun 7, 2020 0:19:51 GMT
No need to be defensive of feel offended, I am not criticizing, merely a little confused. Perhaps I am just stooopid; Im like that sometimes. A single example walkthrough of an event's history of your many suggested possibilities would probably suffice to clear my foggy mind. Let me give you a few of my puzzlements, which you can clear up as you wish. 1) Above you say "it's a map depicting what happens to a timeline with one instance of Time travel into the past and either a Round trip or return trip." What is the difference between a round trip and a return trip? (I would have thought them identical.) 2) Your types of incursions seem to overlap, tho I probably misunderstand. A feather incursion can happen anytime, but it seems like any of the other could happen anytime too, so what is the difference? A dandelion quantum incursion (multiple similar outcomes) would seem to be a subset of a complex incursion (multiple outcomes)... a simple incursion also would seem to be a particular subset (2 rather than multiple) of the complex type. (I like the dandelion metaphor for multiple outcomes... both in the number of petals each has, and in how they reproduce so prolifically!) 3) Im a bit unclear on what History, or No history of time travel implies... that history knows about the travel? That it has an effect (or not) on history? That the traveler him/herself has/has not traveled in time before? 4) Im unclear on the meaning of the numbers in square brackets: [0/1] or [2/3] or [1]... Thanks for your time and patience. 1. a Return trip would be using Time travel to go to the past, and Time travel to return to the future. a Round trip is the long way around, and only possible, if you go back in time fewer years, than you have left to live. basically staying in the past, and returning by the normal passage of time. which would result in there being two of you. 2. a feather incursion is an event that is planned to happen, or guaranteed to happen, but the time it will occur is not set in stone. in the case of the map, the feather incursions, are the events, of when the time traveller decides to return to the future. and when in the future he chooses to return to. Another example would be when geologic stress builds up enough to cause an earthquake, or erupt a volcano. it's not a matter of if it will happen, but a matter of when it will happen. A second example would be when you are going to die. The longer you live the closer you get to your eventual death. the closer you get, the brighter the wave function of that event gets, and the more probable it becomes. certain events, may also spawn extra or brighter wave-functions by overlapping probabilities, making certain events more likely to occur sooner. A Dandelion Incursion is an event that can have more than one outcome, Yes it happened or no it did not, Heads or tails, etc. or more complex, such as rolling dice, and the probability of what numbers are rolled. or Dropping a glass object, how it hits the ground, determines where a fracture starts, it's molecular crystalline structure determining how the fractures propagate, and how large the pieces are, internal stresses and momentum, determining how far shards of glass travel, and whether or not those pieces also break. causing millions to a near infinite number of possibilities for how the glass shards eventually come to rest. One reality for each possible combination. 3. History of Time travel, does not mean that the Event of arriving in the past has been recorded. History means that the event has occurred, No History means that the Event never happened. Just because nobody witnessed it and wrote about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. 4. The brackets show how many of the time traveller exist in that reality. if you travelled to a time during your life span, or within the limit possible for a round trip, you could result in a paradoxical reality, with 2 or 3 of you. does this help answer your questions? or has this spawned other questions? no, I think that covers it, thanks. You have encoded a lot of information in the map, I just wasn't deciphering it all.... |
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Post by King Mir on Jun 7, 2020 1:34:55 GMT
I am thinking multiple timelines originating from 1 branch point. The branch point is where Tic Tocs save Annie, and Annie tells Kat about them. Multiple branches split from there; Annie never ran away to the Forest, Annie died when Tony tried to reach Surma's soul, Jack and Annie become a couple, all that stuff. But in each one Annie told Kat about the birds, and Kat built a time traveling bird. Each is a different bird, but also the same bird from a parallel reality. Of course, not all parallel realities had Kat successfully sending the bird back in time, or there would have been a infinite number of Tic Tocs. But Kat can't not try. Because she knows if not enough of them succeed, Annie dies at the waters. Annie has essentially become a Schrodinger's Fire Elemental!! Or maybe Kat just builds 6 of them. There could still be an infinite number of Tic Tocs in an infinite number of timelines where Annie is saved. If going back in time like this splits the timeline, then you can never change your own past, only the past of someone else who's just like you. Likewise, if this is how these birds "travel back in time", this means that Kat cannot send her birds to make a change in the past, and go observe that change in her own present. |
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Post by King Mir on Jun 7, 2020 2:06:06 GMT
Time travel could well be a red herring if due to retro active robodeity status, the birds were always there from the beginning If, like csj noted, there is no time travel involved but the bird rescue squad is just retroactively brought into existence because every faithful robot knows that the Angel created those to watch over them, the outcome remains the same. It's already happened. No question whether Kat will succeed or not because she already did. That sure does solve a lot of problems by using already established in-universe rules godly hypothesis. Can the birds exist before they are created? According to Coyote's Great Secret: yes! And with Arthur himself, the first "living" robot witnessing the creation of the Mythical Ornithonic by the Angel! I believe we will get some creepy robocult bonus pages for this chapter... Coyote and Jones are indeed the product of human imagination retroactively springing them into existence. The question is, is that imagination of people from the same timeline in which they exist? I agree that the nature of existence of these birds, Jones, and Coyote is likely the same, for meta story reasons. I guess that means Jones might be a robot from the future. But it could also mean that Kat don't need to actually build a time machine; she just needs to believe hard enough that Annie will have been saved by Tic Tocs, and it will have happened. I mean it's Kat, so she's going to build a machine because that's what she trusts, but someone else could just build a stone alter. |
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Post by netherdan on Jun 7, 2020 3:36:09 GMT
That sure does solve a lot of problems by using already established in-universe rules godly hypothesis. Can the birds exist before they are created? According to Coyote's Great Secret: yes! And with Arthur himself, the first "living" robot witnessing the creation of the Mythical Ornithonic by the Angel! I believe we will get some creepy robocult bonus pages for this chapter... Coyote and Jones are indeed the product of human imagination retroactively springing them into existence. The question is, is that imagination of people from the same timeline in which they exist? I agree that the nature of existence of these birds, Jones, and Coyote is likely the same, for meta story reasons. I guess that means Jones might be a robot from the future. But it could also mean that Kat don't need to actually build a time machine; she just needs to believe hard enough that Annie will have been saved by Tic Tocs, and it will have happened. I mean it's Kat, so she's going to build a machine because that's what she trusts, but someone else could just build a stone alter. The robots will do the believing just fine. As for Kat making a time machine anyway because she thinks she has to even though it's impossible... We're talking about a girl who thinks anti-gravity is a trivial step for studying protein folding, and when she gets invested in something she can, I dunno, create a new kind of soul or whatever. So yeah, time travel will probably happen too |
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Jun 7, 2020 23:16:47 GMT
In split timeline theory, it's more of a helix than a loop.
The nice (read: existentially terrifying) thing about split timelines is there must always be an origin timeline where all other initial timelines branch, and which experiences no effects of time travel at all. ie the "first" Tic Tocs to be sent to save Annie came from an origin timeline where Annie died, and which Kat never saw the fruits of her labor. aka "the darkest timeline" shall we say.
Unless you do Endgame's "have your cake and eat it too" version of split timelines and pretend that putting things back where you left them doesn't also create a split timeline, and no it's okay you didn't actually doom five alternate realities by permanently and irrevocably removing one of their Infinity Stones, because Infinity Stones don't create split timelines when you return them despite doing so when you take them away even though that makes no damn logical sense, yes I am complaining about this - in which case I suppose Kat could save a version of Annie using the Tic Tocs, kidnap her, and bring her to the prime timeline. (Kat wouldn't actually be bringing her to the prime timeline as far as I'm concerned, because the very act of doing so creates yet another timeline, but for the sake of this silly idea that's how it would work)
Alternatively, they exist in a static causal timeline like Dr. Who/Bill and Ted rules, and the tic tocs are a self-creating temporal artifact. The problem with this is you couldn't pull a second Annie out of another timeline. She could only be pulled from a thread within their own timestream. That's basically the way we'd assumed Loup did it prior to the little Dr. Seuss dude giving his observations.
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Post by jda on Jun 8, 2020 1:31:30 GMT
Ok, so we know the first reason for TicTocs' existence: boredom. We also know that Kat's idea is to send them to save Annie. But why the other times? According to wiki : |
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