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Post by blahzor on Aug 25, 2020 1:44:04 GMT
I think we're so invested in Kat's divinity fate that Tom might just go "actually, no" and that's the biggest curveball this comic have thrown us One thing I can see is that perhaps Kat herself is not becoming a goddess -- her machine angel avatar is. The androids (which is what I'm calling the evolved robots, based on what Kat called them when she first got the idea) have an image of their angel, and that image is based partly on Kat and partly on the robots' (and later the androids') hopes and beliefs. Currently Kat's personality and goals align with the angel's, but if someday the androids' faith goes one direction and Kat's wishes go another, they could come into conflict. And one of them has divine powers while the other doesn't. That's one possible scenario I can think of, at least. you could put it a different way, ala Red Gets a Name chapter they are in the ether and their bodies are just doing work. Mecha Ra Kat is in the ether chilling while the body of Kat is doing all the science work |
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Post by arf on Aug 25, 2020 4:11:33 GMT
Something that's just occurred to me: if Tom is using Wagner's interpretation of Norse mythology (and it varies quite a bit)... Urd is Brinnie's Mum! |
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Post by Igniz on Aug 25, 2020 4:35:45 GMT
"You created a time paradox, the results of which caused a chain reaction that unraveled the very fabric of the space-time continuum, which could have destroyed the entire multiverse! Granted, the destruction was in fact very localized, limited to merely our own Gunnerverse, and all that was needed were the Infinity Gems, the Super Dragon Balls and several re-writes to put everything back together again.  " |
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Post by gpvos on Aug 25, 2020 9:30:33 GMT
Not exactly what I expected, but okay. KatVerðandi, I ship it.
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Post by blahzor on Aug 25, 2020 14:56:19 GMT
Not exactly what I expected, but okay. KatVerðandi, I ship it. so difficult to date the concept of Present you can never plan anything |
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 25, 2020 16:00:26 GMT
The Etheric police are just old British style coppers who come bursting in through the door with handlebar moustaches, white gloves, 1920s-ish uniforms and bumble around yelling “Raid!” and make extremely Dr. Who jokes. Let me have my fun. I think we're so invested in Kat's divinity fate that Tom might just go "actually, no" and that's the biggest curveball this comic have thrown us One thing I can see is that perhaps Kat herself is not becoming a goddess -- her machine angel avatar is. The androids (which is what I'm calling the evolved robots, based on what Kat called them when she first got the idea) have an image of their angel, and that image is based partly on Kat and partly on the robots' (and later the androids') hopes and beliefs. Currently Kat's personality and goals align with the angel's, but if someday the androids' faith goes one direction and Kat's wishes go another, they could come into conflict. And one of them has divine powers while the other doesn't. That's one possible scenario I can think of, at least. Basically like the stories about Coyote did not uplift one single ordinary coyote to become a god, but a new divine being is born instead. Makes sense actually. |
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Post by fia on Aug 25, 2020 18:36:26 GMT
Personally, I don't think the Norns thinking it's chill to send Kat back in time is so surprising given what we know about how odd the ether is. I keep thinking about Annie's conversation with the ROTD and how their "job" or role is basically to be dead spirits who scare people so they don't forget about spirits (i.e., not just specific spirits, but the supernatural/the ether as a whole). The supernatural is something that for some reason humans have to be thinking about all the time to make it work. That's Thing 1. Thing 2 is that maybe supernatural beings themselves, with all their power, are pretty indifferent to stuff that might make humans' skin crawl (see: the ROTD, the psychopomps, Coyote), even if Coyote's theory is right and they wouldn't exist without the human mind. The Norns are likely similar. Time is just something humans have to live in, while for them, they probably experience/know/perceive the block universe, where time passing is an illusion. I still think it's an open question whether the multiverse (what you all call "alternate timelines") is something you can stumble upon when you time-travel in GC; Kat seems to think so. I'm more skeptical. Contemporary philosophers of physics (and many physicists) suggest either presentism is true (only the present exists, time passes in that what is present changes constantly, and all other time is an illusion; I am not sure how to parse this with relativity, but anyway) or block universe theory is true (everything has/is/will happen(ed) in a sense and time passing is an illusion). Presentism wouldn't really allow for time-travel, because there would only be a now to be in, not a 'then', and the block universe would only allow for time travel that was deterministic/fatalist (like Anja said, if it will happen that Kat will learn to time travel, it means it has already happened that she has, or something like that), just like how travel in space can't happen to a space that doesn't exist (only one ordered set of events exists in the block universe, one would imagine). Because it matches our subjective experience and language, people on average tend to think as a baseline that we live in a growing block universe, where the past is always 'growing' and adding facts to it. Time travel in a 'growing' block would suggest those facts can be revised (because the present is 'adding' facts or events to the timeline as it 'moves'; so traveling back would mean altering the chain of events), and in so doing, alter the time-slices that follow, and in doing so, either (a) revise the universe timeline and 'erase' the growing present; or (b) split the universe into each possibility. In my professional opinion (a) is logically inconsistent and terrible. But time-travel movies love it. I also don't really understand how (b) could happen in a way that made sense of physics, (wouldn't everything have to be duplicated every time? how does duplicating every existing object even happen?) but apparently in Gunnerverse it is possible for certain divine beings to do something like it ((viz., how Coyote 'shifted' Annie into the present Gunnerverse)). In a sense time-travel in a growing block universe, plus certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, would have to mean every single possibility really exists. Kat's worst fears would be real – there would be a 'timeline' where Annie dies, or maybe infinite timelines. But if every single possibility exists, that sort of looks like a version of block universe, because not only are the currently observed events inevitable, so is literally every possible event, which comes to have probability 1; there would be nothing surprising about anything at all. Everything that happens would be inevitable. I like to call that 'block multiverse' theory. Jury is out on which time-travel theory Tom subscribes to. I'm hoping for the Block Universe, because it's less annoying. But knowing the typical view, it's probably some version of Growing Block... Maybe there's a central role for Kat in which 'verse ends up being the Gunnerverse? That would sure produce apotheosis. |
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Post by peter2 on Aug 25, 2020 19:05:40 GMT
If Kat has no memory of ever having done this before, it stands to reason that this would be the first time she’s ever done it ....
The past exists as unchangeable, whereas the future exists as a squirming mass of possibilities, on into the future to infinity.
If time travel did exist, the past could be changed, and we would never know it...
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 25, 2020 19:25:18 GMT
That bad, huh?
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Post by todd on Aug 26, 2020 0:00:06 GMT
If time travel did exist, the past could be changed, and we would never know it... Not necessarily. The people visiting the past could have been there all along, so they don't change history by their presence, but merely confirm it. The TicTocs seem to be such a case; their presence in the Court's past (particularly rescuing Annie) is already established. Thus, Kat sending them back doesn't change the past, but merely causes what had already happened. |
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Post by warrl on Aug 26, 2020 0:32:21 GMT
Yeah, cause and effect remain inviolate, it's just the order that varies unexpectedly.
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Post by zbeeblebrox on Aug 26, 2020 5:34:47 GMT
Haha "first time" you're funny Kat-loop-iteration-153
This whole story arc reminds me WAAAY too much of how I'd stress out over trying to get into the right classes in college with their seemingly impossible system, then finally break and lament my situation to my friends only for someone to go "oh, you can just walk into so-and-so's class on day one and ask to join, he always says yes"
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Post by Gemini Jim on Aug 26, 2020 6:00:40 GMT
Yeah, I'm still thinking time is not linear for the Norns. And Kat is completely misinterpreting the whole "younger than usual" thing. "Oh I forgot, you humans can only perceive time as moving in one direction." |
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Post by arkadi on Aug 26, 2020 10:02:55 GMT
why are the annies different color blobs. having them identical would still get the message across of who the blobs are Those are the most predominant color in their outfit This was my first thought. I assume the Norns know that Kat currently doesn't know that she is becoming a god, thus the comforting look from Verdandi. I think we're so invested in Kat's divinity fate that Tom might just go "actually, no" and that's the biggest curveball this comic have thrown us Not gonna lie, that would be one hell of a twist. |
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Post by peter2 on Apr 16, 2021 13:47:50 GMT
If time travel did exist, the past could be changed, and we would never know it... Not necessarily. The people visiting the past could have been there all along, so they don't change history by their presence, but merely confirm it. Peter 2 said; “Could” have or “would” have? Either way the past is set in stone as far as we in the present are aware. In which case, the future is also set in stone.... I prefer the liquid future scenario.♾ |
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Post by warrl on Apr 16, 2021 17:47:31 GMT
You can't have a fixed past, free will in the future, and time travel.
What if the time traveler from 2200 AD who in 44 BC convinced Brutus to murder Julius Caesar, chooses in 2200 not to go back and do that? Oops, he just changed the past by NOT time-traveling.
So to preserve that past, any decision, action, or random chance, from now until that day in 2200 that would cause that person to not time-travel becomes fixed. That physics teacher who got him interested in the field... the high-school chemistry teacher who, in one day, turned the physics teacher away from chemistry... the toddler with a cold who stayed home and thus didn't pass the cold on to the chemistry teacher's kid in day care and thus to the teacher causing him to call in sick that one day... the mother who decided to stay home from work for the day with her sick child... all this, and more, is now fixed.
Or, we can simply prohibit time travelers from taking any action, or even being physically present, in the past.
Or, we can adopt some variant of the parallel-universes thing, where everything that CAN happen DOES happen in one universe or another. (Usually accompanied by the notion that "sufficiently" similar universes merge - "sufficiently" being carefully undefined, because even on merely the galactic scale the entire history of humanity on earth has zero significance.)
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