|
|
Post by atteSmythe on Jul 9, 2020 14:25:53 GMT
Which solution? So far Kat has only constructed a Tic-toc and deduced from that she must have somehow mastered time travel in the future. She has no clue how to do it yet. Ah, yeah, I forgot all this angst was over having to do it in the first place. For some reason, I had this despair filed under “look what horrors I have wrought” |
|
|
|
Post by DonDueed on Jul 9, 2020 19:11:49 GMT
Jones' body is unchangeable, indestructible, impenetrable even for x-rays and has existed without any kind of maintenance for 4.5 billion years (correct me if that's not Earth's actual age). If this body has been artificially constructed it must be from a point long into the future. And there is still no reason why anyone would create her and send her back to the formation of Earth.
Maybe the only reason that's needed to create her and send her back in time is the fact that she exists and has apparently existed for that long. Fulfilling a contract with the past, so to speak. It's not unreasonable to think in those terms now that we know time travel is possible in the Gunnerverse.
It seems hard to deny that she must have been sent back in time, based on her appearance alone. She was present long before any human beings existed, or any kind of terrestrial life for that matter.
It seems to me we already knew about time travel of a sort anyway. For example, we have the story of Coyote creating the stars long after the stars began to exist. (As usual with time travel, we don't have enough verb tenses to handle this kind of thing...)
|
|
|
|
Post by avurai on Jul 9, 2020 21:02:32 GMT
What if Jones is a version of Annie who got sent back in time? She definitely has young Antimony’s unflappable demeanor, and perhaps if you strip her of her fire without killing her it leaves her immortal. My insane theory is that Jones is a construct of ethereal sciences designed by Kat, somewhat similar to Arthur, with Antimony’s consciousness sewn into it and then sent back in time to provide Kat with enough knowledge of the Court and worldly history to empower Kat with enough intel to make plans for the Tik Toks to follow. And Jones will only become aware of all of this in a few chapters when Kat figures it all out and demands a long storytelling sequence. In the ensuing conversation, Kat will gain enough knowledge from Jones to be able to program the Tik Toks to travel to specific places at specific times. And, if Annie’s crush really is Eglamore, it would explain Jones having him as her ‘companion’. And it means Annie was technically present when Mort died in World War II and even was responsible for him becoming a ghost instead of passing through to the other side, and even may explain his subconscious level of attachment to young Antimony, which has a poetry to it that I quite appreciate. Support of my theory in both these pages: Example 1, the last two panels. This might be literally what happened. Annie was stripped of her fire, her connection to the ether cut off, and then molded into a new form. Jones. Example two, this whole page. Annie has learned enough about herself to recognize someone who thinks they’re emotionless when really they just don’t understand their feelings. Or don’t want them to be there. And Jones takes a moment to recognize this thought. And she accepts it, even grateful to be made cognizant of it. I think this scene has a deeper meaning than assumed on the first read. Another fun piece of evidence? Look at the length of Jones hair. Who’s hair is currently that length? There’s only one. Except, well. There are two of them. But only one has that hair-length at the moment. |
|
|
|
Post by wies on Jul 10, 2020 7:30:58 GMT
I don't think that is what happened, but it is not unreasonable and I gotta give you kudos for taking the long shot.
Perhaps post this also in wild speculation so your idea will be found easier back if it proves to be true? (Edit: nvm, I saw that you posted it there also)
|
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Jul 10, 2020 10:16:49 GMT
Jones' body is unchangeable, indestructible, impenetrable even for x-rays and has existed without any kind of maintenance for 4.5 billion years (correct me if that's not Earth's actual age). If this body has been artificially constructed it must be from a point long into the future. And there is still no reason why anyone would create her and send her back to the formation of Earth.
Maybe the only reason that's needed to create her and send her back in time is the fact that she exists and has apparently existed for that long. Fulfilling a contract with the past, so to speak. It's not unreasonable to think in those terms now that we know time travel is possible in the Gunnerverse.
It seems hard to deny that she must have been sent back in time, based on her appearance alone. She was present long before any human beings existed, or any kind of terrestrial life for that matter.
It seems to me we already knew about time travel of a sort anyway. For example, we have the story of Coyote creating the stars long after the stars began to exist. (As usual with time travel, we don't have enough verb tenses to handle this kind of thing...)
Ugh, I really hope not. As I said in another thread, you take your protagonist's agency away and make them helpless puppets who are doing things only "because they already have happened, so I must make sure they do." Please no.
Although I see things like the mighty beings and Gods coming into existence through belief as something very different from time travel anyway. Coyote didn't travel through time into the past, he came into existence at the point when the myths said he did, early enough to witness the Great Spirit putting the stars into the sky.
And, not directed at anyone in particular, the ornithoid is called "Tic-Toc". Tik Tok is the spyware app disguised as video platform.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Jul 10, 2020 12:21:46 GMT
Anja: "We used to do it all the time, to help our friend Rothgo find his Nidus." Although I've been reading GC since about chapter 50, I finally registered for the forum in order to tell you wow, somebody else remembers "Into the Labyrinth!" |
|
|
|
Post by wies on Jul 10, 2020 12:56:43 GMT
Welcome, Gemminie!
|
|
|
|
Post by Gemminie on Jul 10, 2020 15:58:30 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by avurai on Jul 10, 2020 19:22:44 GMT
Maybe the only reason that's needed to create her and send her back in time is the fact that she exists and has apparently existed for that long. Fulfilling a contract with the past, so to speak. It's not unreasonable to think in those terms now that we know time travel is possible in the Gunnerverse.
It seems hard to deny that she must have been sent back in time, based on her appearance alone. She was present long before any human beings existed, or any kind of terrestrial life for that matter. It seems to me we already knew about time travel of a sort anyway. For example, we have the story of Coyote creating the stars long after the stars began to exist. (As usual with time travel, we don't have enough verb tenses to handle this kind of thing...)
Ugh, I really hope not. As I said in another thread, you take your protagonist's agency away and make them helpless puppets who are doing things only "because they already have happened, so I must make sure they do." Please no. I just never see why determinism is so awful to people, at least in the general sense. Whatever you’re gonna do, you were already gonna choose to do anyway. It’s not like you never make any choices. If you made no choices, it wouldn’t happen the way that it does. We live in a deterministic universe in real life, anyway, based on quantum physics. So long as the protagonist isn’t filled in on what’s going to occur in their own personal future, it really is no different from a conceptually free-will based universe. So, optimally, either we press forward in total ignorance and it unravels from the first person POV of all the players (i.e. we only discover the effects of the time loops once the personal choices have been made and we watch them unravel with the characters in real time), or it’s a detective story where the events have already occurred but the detective must figure out what said events even were. I find both of those perfectly compelling. Gunnerkrigg has always been about the slow doling out of information that only leads to more uncertainty. |
|
|
|
Post by Runningflame on Jul 11, 2020 0:49:14 GMT
Ugh, I really hope not. As I said in another thread, you take your protagonist's agency away and make them helpless puppets who are doing things only "because they already have happened, so I must make sure they do." Please no. I just never see why determinism is so awful to people, at least in the general sense. Whatever you’re gonna do, you were already gonna choose to do anyway. It’s not like you never make any choices. If you made no choices, it wouldn’t happen the way that it does. We live in a deterministic universe in real life, anyway, based on quantum physics. Not everyone--and indeed not all quantum physicists--would agree with that statement, though. With regard to time travel in fiction and the protagonist's agency... I'm torn. For example, take two books that both use the "It's already happened, so I will make sure it does" approach: I quite enjoyed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but I disliked the Newbery Award winner When You Reach Me, for much the same reasons that pyradonis mentioned. So I think my reaction depends a lot on how the story is told. In Azkaban, the time travelers go around saving characters we care about (including their past selves) and bringing clarity to several happenings that seemed like dei ex machina the first time around. That's very satisfying. In When You Reach Me, the time traveler does save characters we care about, but also goes insane from the time travel and ends up dead. And only toward the end do we find out his identity, and it turns out he was the older self of a character we've met as a child in the story. So I found the whole effect more horrifying than satisfying. |
|
|
|
Post by pyradonis on Jul 12, 2020 0:22:09 GMT
Ugh, I really hope not. As I said in another thread, you take your protagonist's agency away and make them helpless puppets who are doing things only "because they already have happened, so I must make sure they do." Please no. I just never see why determinism is so awful to people, at least in the general sense. Whatever you’re gonna do, you were already gonna choose to do anyway. It’s not like you never make any choices. If you made no choices, it wouldn’t happen the way that it does. We live in a deterministic universe in real life, anyway, based on quantum physics. So long as the protagonist isn’t filled in on what’s going to occur in their own personal future, it really is no different from a conceptually free-will based universe. So, optimally, either we press forward in total ignorance and it unravels from the first person POV of all the players (i.e. we only discover the effects of the time loops once the personal choices have been made and we watch them unravel with the characters in real time), or it’s a detective story where the events have already occurred but the detective must figure out what said events even were. I find both of those perfectly compelling. Gunnerkrigg has always been about the slow doling out of information that only leads to more uncertainty. But why does the detective have to find out? Why not just tell themselves "obviously, someone did this via time travel, so it's still gonna happen even if I quit looking for a way to do it and go smoke some crack instead"? Or actively fight against this "fate"? I'm perfectly fine with the first version you lined out, and I won't deny the second one can be done in a satisfactory way. The problem is if the time traveler has no real goal anymore, just doing things because they think the already did them... Like the items from the time loop puzzle in Monkey Island 4.
While navigating a swamp, the protagonist comes upon himself from the future. His future self gives him different items. Shortly after, the scene repeats and now the player has to give the protagonist from the past all the items in the correct order, or they are both engulfed by a temporal paradox. What was all the stuff for (except to make the puzzle a bit more challenging, of course)? Nothing. It just loops in time forever... |
|
