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	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one
	Posted By: Forrest of B.org	Date: 7/10/04 7:42 a.m.
	In Response To: Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one (Steve Levinson) : Yes, and to clarify this a bit further, Blayne, you've taken information from : the final terminal of M2, which occurs just before the Pfhor release the : Trih'Xeem, and the final screen, which occurs in the distant future, : looking back at events that took place over the subsequent millenium or : so. The W'rkncacnter was never mentioned in M2 and your recollection of : T'fear's reaction to the ensuing chaos actually came from the Infinity : manual. Except that Tfear's references seem to imply that that IS at the end of the M2 timeline. : Sooo . . . the big question of the day is, did the events in the M2 final : screen actually occur, or did the release of the W'rkncacnter in fact doom : that timeline to ultimate failure? Although personally I have a real : problem with multiple timelines (actually I'm a proponent of the theory : that time is an illusion, but more on that some other time), I tend to : look at multiple timelines the way they are handeled in Star Trek (with : the one exception of the episode where there are multiple Warfs). Thus, : all of the timelines must come together in the end or lead to dead ends. I too agree with this, however, "the end" is a long long way's away. They don't have to come together until the closure, which leaves plenty of room for alternate realities along the way. : I : think that Marathon canon, as fickle as it probably is in reality, : probably supports the notion that events of the M2 final screen did occur. : The Infinity final screen occurred long after that, Durandal was still : clearly himself - not some weird merged Durandal Thoth entity - and he : clearly never escaped the closure of the universe. Except that Durandal at the end of Infinity WAS a merged Durandal/Thoth and could still speak as just Durandal perfectly fine. So consequently the end screen is most likely written by that same Durandal/Thoth from the last timeline, unless you want to say the end screen of Infinity is it's own entirely separate timelines. And who says he never escaped? He's speaking to us from the end, and has implied that he no longer "seek[s] to end the end a master", but he doesn't seem particularly concerned that the universe is ending or anything. I believe that he did escape, via Thoth's Jjaro technology (see below), and is now outside of time, and just happens to be visiting the Closure the same way we might watch a sunset. : So, how to put all these things together? There are two possible scenarios - : either the events of Infinity fixed the M2 timeline by containing the : W'rkncacnter across all timelines (if they are transdimensional creatures, : this makes sense), or the events of Infinity supplanted the events of M2 : with the exception of the M2 final screen. I favor the latter. : With the first scenario, : preventing the release of the W'rkncacnter allows the M2 timeline to : continue as if nothing happened and, since the other timelines were : generated by the release of the W'rkncacnter, they never actually : happened. It's a bit of a paradox, but one that was exploited a lot in : Star Trek TNG. Except that a paradox cannot, by definition, logically exist, so unless we are left with no option other than paradox we shouldn't assume that to be the case. : In the second scenario, only one timeline prevailed - one : in which the player was abducted by Tycho and in which the player : ultimately carried Durandal's primal pattern after his core was completely : destroyed. The player uploaded his pattern into Thoth's core, which is : where he would have resided at the end of Infinity as Lh'owon's star : imploded under Jjaro containment and the planet went cold. Except that Thoth clearly has access to advanced Jjaro long-range communications technology; the ansible he uses to call the S'pht'Kr. It's entirely possible that Durandal/Thoth could escape via that means, or if nothing else, left with the S'pht'Kr themselves. : Since the : latter doesn't sound too exciting, I tend to favor the former, which is : pretty much what the Rubicon team did, although they did slip in a place : or two by mentioning Infinity-specific elements in their scenario. : Still, I think that there is a lot that coul be done with the second option : if you assume that Durandal and Thoth get a divorce Only neccessary if you're wanting to fit perfectly with Rubicon, and possibly not even then. As I said before, Durandal/Thoth is still perfectly capable of speaking as just Durandal. : and Durandal finds : another ship to subvert Could always have taken the Rozinante again. : and if you assume that the player's god-like : status is only temproary, at the behest of the Jjaro. The player is said to be Destiny. That does not mean that he has supermajick powers or anything like that; just that he is Destiny. Everyone seems to assume that he is voluntarily travelling through timelines in Infinity, when, as I keep saying, it's pretty clearly Thoth's doing, because the timetravel always happens right as Thoth is uncovered. In Eternal, I take it straight from the end of Infinity (the opening words of the Prologue are "You are Destiny"), and on a long adventure across time and space that dwarfs the revisited-history of Infinity, the player finally comes fully into his powers by the very end, but only after some coaching from an old friend... see, Durandal/Thoth has used Thoth's Jjaro technology (his "ansible", which I interpret to be a Cybernetic Junction like the one in the player, albiet I stole that term from the references to a cyborg Drinniol elsewhere) to escape the confines of time. : Nah . . . let's : stick with option 1. However, because of the player's role in M2 and : Infinity - I believe that I mentioned this somewhere in the Rubicon : Volunteers series or elsewhere in this forum - the player would remember : everything. Isn't that Ironic - Durandal has no recollection of Infinity, : but you, the player, do? The reason that I believe that this would be the : case is that your movement among timelines was facilitated by the Jjaro : and made possible by your Jjaro implants. So at the end of Infinity, you : would suddenly find yourself back at the end of M2 at the moment the : Trih'Xeem was released. That seems very Star Trek cheap to me. To Ernie - in my vision of the Maraverse, Durandal/Thoth do not immediately leave the universe, or at least, not neccesarily. Somehow or another the events of the M2 screen do occur, Durandal comes across the Manus Celer Dei, returns to Earth and says hi; he may have just transferred into the MCD from Outside, or he may have come back to reality after leaving, or he may not have left just yet at the end of Infinity. I leave it unaddressed. Likewise the player does not immediately become a God walking the decks hurling lightning about, even by the end of Eternal he has just done his first, most basic trick under his own power. (I actually explain the pattern buffer / time travel quandry in Eternal - turns out it's an accidental interaction between the pattern buffering process and your Jjaro Cybernetic Junction - so even that is not self-powered, and all of Infinity and the rest of Eternal before the last teleport are all under the control of other entities). I think I would like to take this moment to voice my opinion that trying to build a self-consistant Extended Maraverse places too many unreasonable constraints on scenariowrights and that we should only worry about compatibility with our base scenarios' timeline. Since Ernie is making a Rubicon scenario I guess that requires compatibility with Rubicon, but Rubicon makes certain assumptions that I flat out disagree with and am not going to maintain compatibility with in Eternal.

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Replies:

	How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Ernie	7/10/04 12:56 a.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Bob-B-Q	7/10/04 2:49 a.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Steve Levinson	7/10/04 6:18 a.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Forrest of B.org	7/10/04 7:42 a.m.
	Nice commentary, Forrest *NM*	Steve Levinson	7/10/04 8:07 a.m.
	Thank you *NM*	Forrest of B.org	7/10/04 8:43 a.m.
	the "True" timeline removing possibilities...?	Ernie	7/10/04 8:12 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Me_43	7/10/04 6:51 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Steve Levinson	7/10/04 8:10 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Forrest of B.org	7/10/04 10:48 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Me_43	7/11/04 11:49 a.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Cheerful	7/12/04 1:29 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Forrest of B.org	7/12/04 1:45 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Yossarian	7/12/04 2:10 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Forrest of B.org	7/12/04 2:20 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Steve Levinson	7/12/04 1:58 p.m.
	Re: How the Minf timeline "fixes" the M2 one	Elliott	7/12/04 1:40 p.m.

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