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Post by obsidalicious on Oct 6, 2017 21:03:28 GMT
When....I'll call him Prime!RetconJohn......When Prime!RetconJohn went back to meet Terezi after confronting Typheus, he sort of created another retcon john. We don't know what happened to him; whether he went to see Typheus and had the same things happen to him or if he did something else. When Prime!RetconJohn stole the ring from that one time line, he sort of created another time line (one where Aranea can't steal the ring, come back to life and cause Game Over) with another retcon John in it. When John did the major timeline changing, he replaced the old timelines with the new post-retcon one. Any John from any intermediary state will have been erased from existance. And the duplicate John he did ultimately create we know exploded with his planet. He's talking about this John here, not the one that died on LoWaS. Note that this (John) even says "i do hope i get to still be relevant", which is pretty baity foreshadowing if Hussie never had any intention of doing anything with him. Plus, by merely possessing the Retcon power, I'm pretty sure John is immune to such erasures. After all, Prime!John is still around even though he's wiped out his own origins at least three times now.
As for the wider discussion here, I think the kids motivation for partaking in the Masterpiece is indeed the biggest hole that the Epilogue will have to address. Even if they address the 'why' another important question is 'why there'. Why did the kids chose that particular point in time to attack Caliborn. It's obviously a terrible idea to fight him after he's obtained his JuJu and invincibility. So either they did no research and are genuine morons, or they are willingly sacrificing themselves because temporal causality demands it, which firmly puts us in the "English Wins" scenario. Unless of course, it was their master plan to get sucked into the JuJu, so they could fight Lord English in Vriska's timeframe in Act 7's scene. But Lord English is even stronger there, so no idea what their logic behind that is. Also, lets not forget the B2 kids in all of this. Left alone in Caliborn's Dead Session. Travel between Sessions is difficult at the best of times, so what is their escape plan? Ordinarily, I'd say time travel could get them back no problem, but if this comic has established anything, it's that the vast majority of characters are either mortally afraid of time travel and/or keep forgetting that it's even an option.
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The One Guy
Rust Maid
Posts: 1,148
Pronouns: he/him/his
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 6, 2017 21:23:34 GMT
When John did the major timeline changing, he replaced the old timelines with the new post-retcon one. Any John from any intermediary state will have been erased from existance. And the duplicate John he did ultimately create we know exploded with his planet. He's talking about this John here, not the one that died on LoWaS. I'm aware of what John he was talking about. What I'm saying is that after John changed reality such that the events leading up to John being there never happened, this John was erased from existence. I mentioned the one that died on LoWaS because he was the John from the final result of the retcons, and thus the only one (aside from the ones we followed) to not be erased. This, however, I had forgotten about. It could be just a case of a dark humor red herring, but I'm forced to admit that seems unlikely. And it wouldn't even be that hard to explain away his survival, given that he could have been on LOWAS when the main John pulled it out of reality. So ok, I do concede that there is one John out there that is a loose end, but only one, because: There is no evidence that possesing the powers makes him immune from them. Prime!John as you called him wasn't in the timelines as they got erased. It's like when the Dave that became Davesprite went back in time to initiate the split that doomed his timeline. He didn't have immunity to the timeline's ending just because he could time travel, he just wasn't in the timeline when it ended. Time travel and retcon power are not the same, but I feel the same principle applies.
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Post by Gab on Oct 7, 2017 13:33:10 GMT
Well, there's no way to know if the Muse killed her brother before they entered, the way Caliborn killed Calliope. If she waited until after, there would be no Dead Session and she'd still have a Skaia. This is hypothetically true, but it's a fact that Calliope played a dead session.I wonder if a session still qualifies as Dead if all players but one are killed post-entry. Such foresight is pretty typical of Skaia, so I could see that being the case. It would probably have to be pretty shortly after, though, or else it would just become a null session. As for your other point, it seems you and I have some pretty different stances on the comic, the fandom, and what makes them fun. Not that I don't want to see all the mysteries and loose ends explained. I've vouched more than once for the idea of a sburb manual, and that's something Andrew will probably never make. I thought Act 7 made it pretty clear how the ending was going to shake out and I'm sticking to that until proven otherwise. And I do truly believe it makes for better conversation, and I think it will make people remember it for a longer time, too. All the theorizing about stuff we don't know for sure I think has ended up being a lot of fun, and something inspiring to see from the fandom, even if I personally only took a small part of it. You're probably right that the conversation isn't really going to come to an end. But I don't personally get as much out of the back and forth on whether any given developments were good or bad, so I don't want that to be all anyone talks about for the rest of the fandom's life. Note that this (John) even says "i do hope i get to still be relevant", which is pretty baity foreshadowing if Hussie never had any intention of doing anything with him. This, however, I had forgotten about. It could be just a case of a dark humor red herring, but I'm forced to admit that seems unlikely. And it wouldn't even be that hard to explain away his survival, given that he could have been on LOWAS when the main John pulled it out of reality. So ok, I do concede that there is one John out there that is a loose end, but only one, because: There is no evidence that possesing the powers makes him immune from them. Prime!John as you called him wasn't in the timelines as they got erased. It's like when the Dave that became Davesprite went back in time to initiate the split that doomed his timeline. He didn't have immunity to the timeline's ending just because he could time travel, he just wasn't in the timeline when it ended. Time travel and retcon power are not the same, but I feel the same principle applies. It's worth noting that the other part of that quote is, "but i will understand if that turns out not to be the case," and that in my opinion is the more relevant part. It's the other John admitting it's okay if he ends up being overwritten or loses his status as "the important John," which is a nice character moment and maybe foreshadowing for something else. He went to Typheus who may have elected to destroy him, as he's done pretty much every other time a John came to see him that needed to die, as in Davesprite's timeline, and as in the retcon reality. John isn't immune to the retcon either. This sequences proves that.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 7, 2017 22:15:13 GMT
Well, there's no way to know if the Muse killed her brother before they entered, the way Caliborn killed Calliope. If she waited until after, there would be no Dead Session and she'd still have a Skaia. This is hypothetically true, but it's a fact that Calliope played a dead session.Calliope puts up a pretty graphic but she, weirdly enough, never comes out and says she played a Dead Session. Everything she says is a hypothetical. (In stark contrast to how she describes her defeating her brother, which is still vague in terms of how it happened but much more definitive tense-wise.) It's left vague whether she knew all this because she got the information first hand, or whether she found out some other way. And there would be plenty of other ways to find out: dreams, dreambubbles, this Calliope stumbling upon Rose's journal too, a cue ball... As for your other point, it seems you and I have some pretty different stances on the comic, the fandom, and what makes them fun. No. I'm just well aware that any theory could be wrong, and there's no way to confirm a theory correct without proof. Or in other words, there's a difference between debates, theorizing, and fanwank. Not that I don't want to see all the mysteries and loose ends explained. I've vouched more than once for the idea of a sburb manual, and that's something Andrew will probably never make. I thought Act 7 made it pretty clear how the ending was going to shake out and I'm sticking to that until proven otherwise. And I do truly believe it makes for better conversation, and I think it will make people remember it for a longer time, too. But you don't even know what the conversations would be like if it turned out there was far more to the ending. You won't even entertain the idea that it could be better or invite more or better questions and discussions. What if said more conclusive ending turns a crap load of shit on its head and is so fucking outrageous that we're given a multitude of more things to discuss, debate or argue about? More reasons to comb over the story and look for the clues that set up this ending, more insight into things like classpects or Sburb itself, and thus more things to theorize about? There's no g uarantee that's going to be the case, but it's a possibility. There's a tension you feel when you con tinually don't know what's going on, and there's a release of that tension, as well as a jolt of excitement and sati sfaction when you finally have the full picture instead of a bunch of disparate puzzle pieces. Homestuck has always used and thrived on that build up and release of tension. Until the very last Act, out of nowhere, for no discernible reason. All the theorizing about stuff we don't know for sure I think has ended up being a lot of fun, and something inspiring to see from the fandom, even if I personally only took a small part of it. You're probably right that the conversation isn't really going to come to an end. But I don't personally get as much out of the back and forth on whether any given developments were good or bad, so I don't want that to be all anyone talks about for the rest of the fandom's life. That's all anyone talks about now though. I mean, the arguments boil down to 'we know enough to confirm that everything is good forever' and 'we don't know enough to confirm everything is good forever' and whether or not that's good or bad. That's about it. Just phrased differently every time somebody picks it back up again. We were given so little hard information that there's not much else we can argue about. This, however, I had forgotten about. It could be just a case of a dark humor red herring, but I'm forced to admit that seems unlikely. And it wouldn't even be that hard to explain away his survival, given that he could have been on LOWAS when the main John pulled it out of reality. So ok, I do concede that there is one John out there that is a loose end, but only one, because: There is no evidence that possesing the powers makes him immune from them. Prime!John as you called him wasn't in the timelines as they got erased. It's like when the Dave that became Davesprite went back in time to initiate the split that doomed his timeline. He didn't have immunity to the timeline's ending just because he could time travel, he just wasn't in the timeline when it ended. Time travel and retcon power are not the same, but I feel the same principle applies. It's worth noting that the other part of that quote is, "but i will understand if that turns out not to be the case," and that in my opinion is the more relevant part. It's the other John admitting it's okay if he ends up being overwritten or loses his status as "the important John," which is a nice character moment and maybe foreshadowing for something else. He went to Typheus who may have elected to destroy him, as he's done pretty much every other time a John came to see him that needed to die, as in Davesprite's timeline, and as in the retcon reality. That still leaves that particular John unaccounted for though. Let's say Typheus did destroy him and he's no longer a loose end. We don't know that. We were never shown that and it was never confirmed to us. Until that happens, he's a loose end in need of tying up. And he's a particularly important loose end because of what the retcon powers allow a person to do. If there's still a retcon John out there, he can unmake everything that the snapchat kids have accomplished by mistake. Or, he could very well be the John in the masterpiece. We don't know.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 8, 2017 0:56:26 GMT
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=009515
Two caliopes, a red, and a grey (defined by their text colors), are talking to each other. Red is saying that she defeated her brother, had an unwinnable session, and had to take Echidna's offer for a new session. That's pretty much exactly what a scratch is, and we were told that if you don't sink a planet, you scratch. So we have a scratch mechanic, even if it is not "drag a quill across a record". (Well, ok, Echidna killed her right there, and her soul had to wait. So that was her scratch -- just a simple reset button.)
Hence, C1 Caliope won but lost; C2 Caliope lost, and yet won.
It sounds to me that "Muse" is the name you give to the one that speaks in red text?
End credits: At 5:33, we have "Come at me bro" from Caliborn. Then Gamzee adds in the "Come to my dark carnival" Fine, I'll do it A threat to the bunny
And then the credits end.
From there, go to the claymation masterpiece, as an earlier Caliborn gets a time-view of something that happens later. (The battle happens after the end credits; Caliborn's time abilities let him see it earlier.)
Why did the children go at Caliborn's power? I don't know. But the time loop that is Skaia says that this is when they went.
What happens to the B1 kids after that? They don't get seen until the Juju is used against LE, and then they are off-screen. We don't see the victory battle.
What happens to the B2 kids after that? Open question.
Why not bring the trolls with them? No clue. They didn't.
Oh, that's easy. It's far enough in the future that the sun is becoming (has just become?) a red giant. It's far enough in the future that humans are dead.
Note that when the sun finishes the "Red Giant" stage, at least for our sun (not sure about the C sun), Earth will spiral into the sun and go kabloom.
Destroying the power of the first guardians allowed the Jacks that had first guardian powers to be defeated.
Nope. Last we saw, Terezi was still looking for that girl. And Gamzee ... did we see him in the claymation? I know we saw rabbit and cal.
(... still looking for that blue jean baby queen ...)
Caliborn's session is C2 earth long after the death of human civilization.
Getting there is Time Travel from "now" to "distant future". Return home was supposed to be Time Travel back. But the time player got taken out.
The B2 kids are stuck there until whatever comes next.
The two different retcon John ... I had forgotten that completely, sorry. No comment until I get back to that in the re-read.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 8, 2017 1:17:22 GMT
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=009515
Two caliopes, a red, and a grey (defined by their text colors), are talking to each other. Red is saying that she defeated her brother, had an unwinnable session, and had to take Echidna's offer for a new session. Uh...no. That's not what it says. At all. On the page right after that one it says Muse!Calliope went to Echidna and made a deal with her. The deal was that the Denizen would end her life despite her being God Tier if she would wait for our Calliope in the dreambubbles. There is nothing in that about a new session at all. Nowhere, anywhere is a new session mentioned. End credits: At 5:33, we have "Come at me bro" from Caliborn. Then Gamzee adds in the "Come to my dark carnival" Fine, I'll do it A threat to the bunny And then the credits end. From there, go to the claymation masterpiece, as an earlier Caliborn gets a time-view of something that happens later. (The battle happens after the end credits; Caliborn's time abilities let him see it earlier.) Actually, no. From here we go to the snapchats where the kids are happily living their lives and still not giving a shit about Caliborn. Why did the children go at Caliborn's power? I don't know. But the time loop that is Skaia says that this is when they went. What happens to the B1 kids after that? They don't get seen until the Juju is used against LE, and then they are off-screen. We don't see the victory battle. What happens to the B2 kids after that? Open question. Why not bring the trolls with them? No clue. They didn't. You do realize that your re-stating of these loose ends is not making them any less loose, right? Oh, that's easy. It's far enough in the future that the sun is becoming (has just become?) a red giant. It's far enough in the future that humans are dead. Note that when the sun finishes the "Red Giant" stage, at least for our sun (not sure about the C sun), Earth will spiral into the sun and go kabloom. So...the literal gods on the planet couldn't do anything to save the planet or the people on it? If that's the case, it needs to be shown. Destroying the power of the first guardians allowed the Jacks that had first guardian powers to be defeated. For one, why would Muse!Calliope care or even know about that? For two, no, that's not the case, as PM defeated Bec Noir before Muse!Calliope destroyed the Green Sun. Nope. Last we saw, Terezi was still looking for that girl. And Gamzee ... did we see him in the claymation? I know we saw rabbit and cal. The Gamzee in the fridge. We don't know what happened to that Gamzee or if he's the same one in the claymation. Seriously, I don't want to be rude, but I really think it would benefit you to finish you're re-read before you make any more theories because you are getting a lot of things really wrong.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 8, 2017 3:58:49 GMT
Uh...no. That's not what it says. At all. On the page right after that one it says Muse!Calliope went to Echidna and made a deal with her. The deal was that the Denizen would end her life despite her being God Tier if she would wait for our Calliope in the dreambubbles. There is nothing in that about a new session at all. Nowhere, anywhere is a new session mentioned. Perhaps we have a misunderstanding here then? (Perhaps I misunderstand some skaia mechanics?) What do you consider a "new session" to be / what do you consider a scratch to be? What do you call the situation with Red Caliope? As I understand it, her old timeline went one way. Then, a new timeline was created, where something else happened. She was on hold from A until B would happen. What do you call this? And, does the lack of someone saying "so a new session happened" mean that it did not? If a new session happened, how would it be described? "She killed me. Then, I waited for you to arrive" fits "I was killed. The universe was reset. The new me was different, had a different history, had interactions with you that I did not, and made different choices. Those choices led to you finding me here. Now I continue". That -- a different history, with different choices, and different outcomes -- is my understanding of a scratch, sans meteors. And you only have meteors if you have a battlefield with prototyping (again, my understanding -- no meteors in B2 because they did not prototype). I have not seen the snapchats. I was under the impression, from what I've read elsewhere here, that the snapchats were 25 "photos" taken from earth C, and were some of the stills seen in the end credits -- but they were a subset of the stills in end credits. If this is not what they were, then were can I see these new photos/stills? And if you are only looking at what was published on the website, why would you not come to exactly the conclusion I did? It isn't a loose end if the answer is "Because this story is a no free will closed time loop. You did this because you did this". A "loose end" is something that isn't even answered within the time loop. We don't know what happens after B2 kids defeat Caliborn in the distant future. We don't know if someone eventually finds Vriska and the B1 kids, or if they get sucked into the black hole. If something was done, but we don't know why? That's not a loose end. Why do you have to show the heat death of the universe? :-) There's one Gamzee in this timeline, as I understand. The only Gamzee that ever died did so in a doomed timeline that is now gone (Game Over). That timeline wasn't even a normal doomed timeline -- it was just an alpha timeline that was retconned. No doomed timeline, no dream ghost in a dream bubble, no trace. Just not existing anymore. Hussie mentions at one point that the clown never dies. This Gamzee will just wait around for a very, very long time, until finally Caliborn comes out, at which point he joins this dark carnival. How is this even hard to follow? Seriously, do we have any evidence that Gamzee did not become a God and just hide it? He never has anything to make a death, heroic or otherwise. Yes, the others don't think he's a god, but we've even had other people talk about a coward making it to god level -- I think here we have one. Probably.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 8, 2017 5:43:39 GMT
Uh...no. That's not what it says. At all. On the page right after that one it says Muse!Calliope went to Echidna and made a deal with her. The deal was that the Denizen would end her life despite her being God Tier if she would wait for our Calliope in the dreambubbles. There is nothing in that about a new session at all. Nowhere, anywhere is a new session mentioned. Perhaps we have a misunderstanding here then? (Perhaps I misunderstand some skaia mechanics?) What do you consider a "new session" to be / what do you consider a scratch to be? For one, using the scratch construct to initiate the scratch. You know, like the A1 trolls and the B1 humans had to do? And if Muse!Calliope's session was a Dead Session, she wouldn't have even HAD a scratch construct, as there'd only be a planet for her, and the scratch construct is exclusively found on Time player worlds. What do you call the situation with Red Caliope? A doomed time line and then death. As I understand it, her old timeline went one way. Then, a new timeline was created, where something else happened. She was on hold from A until B would happen. No. There was no new time line. She. Just. Died. That is all that happened. That is all Echidna did. She just killed her. And, does the lack of someone saying "so a new session happened" mean that it did not? That and no other proof that it did? Yes. I have not seen the snapchats. I was under the impression, from what I've read elsewhere here, that the snapchats were 25 "photos" taken from earth C, and were some of the stills seen in the end credits -- but they were a subset of the stills in end credits. If this is not what they were, then were can I see these new photos/stills? And if you are only looking at what was published on the website, why would you not come to exactly the conclusion I did? I didn't come to that conclusion when I watched the credits. Because we don't see the kids deciding to or going off to fight Caliborn, the ending was at best ambiguous. It isn't a loose end if the answer is "Because this story is a no free will closed time loop. You did this because you did this". Then there wouldn't be any doomed time lines, and we know that isn't the case. If something was done, but we don't know why? That's not a loose end. Not necessarily. And in this situation, it's not just a lot of whys that we don't know, but also a lot of whats. Why do you have to show the heat death of the universe? :-) For one, this isn't a universe, it's a world. For two, because inhabiting that world were eight immortal fucking gods who should've been able to prevent everyone who lived there from dying out. So why didn't they? There's one Gamzee in this timeline, as I understand. Well then we need to see how he got to Caliborn's session. Last we saw him he was in a fridge in the Medium. Seriously, do we have any evidence that Gamzee did not become a God and just hide it? We also don't have any evidence that John can't turn into a pink elephant when nobody's looking, but I think it's pretty safe to say that's something he can't do.
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Post by obsidalicious on Oct 8, 2017 7:33:27 GMT
Just to help this discussion along, here is an archive of all the snapchats, which extend beyond the ones seen in the credits. Other notes for discussion: Gamzee's fate is of particular interest because his timeline was never fully sorted out: Which came first(from his perspective) his time with Caliborn, or his time in the B2 Session? In both sub-timelines, Gamzee seemingly dies at the end of both of them: Getting cut in half by Dirk in the masterpiece, and being at ground zero of Union Jack's deathplosion in Collide. This in and of itself would seem to suggest that it's two separate Gamzees, but once the Retcon power got involved in events, genuine paradoxes and causal errors are sticking around, so we can't rule out that it is still the same Gamzee whose personal timeline has become utterly broken. On Earth's Extinction event: The god tiers have many powers that would trivialise most disasters, up to and including stellar turmoil. But even without them, this is a highly advanced, space-faring, peaceful conglomeration of species. They don't just die out without good reason. I also don't think Gamzee is God Tier. Very specific circumstances and items are required for the process. The only opportunity he would've had was back in their original session, and back then he was still on the Trolls' side and not crazy, he wouldn't have hid the fact from them.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 8, 2017 20:31:57 GMT
I'm pretty sure I remember it being hinted at, that there were trolls that made god-tier and never bothered to tell anyone.
As for earth's extinction: Nothing says that they did not move on / leave to other planets. We're talking 5 billion years before the sun goes red giant, and then the earth is not immediately swallowed by the solar atmosphere (it has to suffer the increased drag effect from the larger sun first). Whether you just wreck the ecology, or the ecology dies off normally, or people just leave, etc.; even without any of that, what's the likelyhood of a single species lasting 5 billion years without being out-evolved?
Thanks for the snapchat archive; I did not know about that little moon escapade. But I do see Gamzee out and about in there, wishing people happy halloween. So I think it's safe to say that he's there.
Has to be more. Has to do something to rewind time far enough back, and then change what happens, such that on pass number two, both cherubs do different things.
Whether that's a doomed timeline, or a full scratch? If a scratch requires a time planet, fine; I thought we found out during Caliborn's session that in that special one-planet session, all you have to do is not sink any of the 15 pool planets for a scratch.
Free will:
The alpha timeline contains no free will. It is a self-fulfilling closed loop paradox. The only time it gets changed is by retcon, and even there, John is doing what he was told by Terezi, he is not doing new stuff of his own choosing. And the new, resulting alpha time-line is also a self-fulfilling, closed loop paradox. It just results in Terezi getting some strange things happening in her past, so she approaches things a little different, and a climatic showdown being interrupted by someone coming out of nowhere to where neither of the two fatal outcomes were taken, and a different result comes out.
Hmm. Free will leads to doom? Is that the "moral" of the story? If so, then what does it mean that you needed a lot of ghosts to stop LE? That you have to have lots of imagination, and "what-if" about free will, in order to be able to reach your destiny of destroying the bad things in life? Probably not.
...
So the dates on those snapchat posts. Either the last panel of "end credits" is somehow *after* the moon event (perhaps the snapchat images were time delayed?), or else the kids all returned from their defeat of LE. And, how did the Felt come back into re-existence?
In collide: I see Gamzee at 6:10-6:15. Where does he show up after that? (Hmm, 6:12 ..) Ahh -- 13:37 (... not 10:25, not 4:13 ...) The icebox seems to be with the Dave/Dirk pair, and that ... is resolved at 15:33 with a slice, then some teleportation snatch/grab/heal, then a big giant kaboom ... and all I can say is, we don't see the body :-). (Appeal to the trope, this is a weak argument).
The Felt: They are "made" by Caliborn while he "wins" his session. They are seen in Collide. Yet they are killed off by Jack Noir / Spades Slick in the intermission -- this is the Troll's B2 agent jack. How do they make it into the end credits/snapchat pics?
Act 7, not collide, is where the green sun is black-hole'd. This is where LE is finally taken down. The blackness of the void of the farthest ring is destroyed, and we see the green sun being dissolved into the black hole (never mind the time shenanigans that would require).
You know? For Caliborn's goal of causing more destruction than anyone else? He suceeeded.
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Post by Gab on Oct 8, 2017 21:13:23 GMT
Calliope puts up a pretty graphic but she, weirdly enough, never comes out and says she played a Dead Session. Everything she says is a hypothetical. (In stark contrast to how she describes her defeating her brother, which is still vague in terms of how it happened but much more definitive tense-wise.) It's left vague whether she knew all this because she got the information first hand, or whether she found out some other way. And there would be plenty of other ways to find out: dreams, dreambubbles, this Calliope stumbling upon Rose's journal too, a cue ball... How many ways can this statement be interpreted? And how else would she gain knowledge of how a Dead session works? Keeping in mind, as she says, she has never left the place the others found her since she died. You also seem to suggest Calliope put up a graphic of a Dead Session with her symbol over the planet for the sake of being misleading. To what end?
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 9, 2017 0:55:28 GMT
Calliope puts up a pretty graphic but she, weirdly enough, never comes out and says she played a Dead Session. Everything she says is a hypothetical. (In stark contrast to how she describes her defeating her brother, which is still vague in terms of how it happened but much more definitive tense-wise.) It's left vague whether she knew all this because she got the information first hand, or whether she found out some other way. And there would be plenty of other ways to find out: dreams, dreambubbles, this Calliope stumbling upon Rose's journal too, a cue ball... How many ways can this statement be interpreted? Well, at least two: literally and hypothetically. This is actually really neat, and I only picked up on it relatively recently, but notice how she says she killed her brother: Unambiguous past tense. She doesn't offer up much in the way of details as to how she killed him, but she's definitive in saying that she did. The way she speaks of her meeting with Echidna is similar: Simple past tense again. Compare that with what she tells our Calliope about the Dead Session: Here, she doesn't tell us that she didn't solve it. She doesn't tell us she was stuck forever in a spent Dead Session. Instead, she repeatedly uses the word could. If nothing else, it's a really cool, subtle little detail that I'm happy to have noticed. And how else would she gain knowledge of how a Dead session works? Keeping in mind, as she says, she has never left the place the others found her since she died. I listed a couple of ways she could've gained said knowledge. She could've seen it in her moon dreams, in the dreambubbles (as Roxy proved, you don't have to lose one of your selves to be able to travel through them) Rose's Journal could've still found its way to her somehow, or she could've even stumbled across a stray cue ball. Hell, Aranea never played a Dead Session, but she was able to find out everything about them, which might even have been a hint or foreshadowing. You also seem to suggest Calliope put up a graphic of a Dead Session with her symbol over the planet for the sake of being misleading. To what end? I never saw any reason to trust Muse!Calliope implicitly. We just don't know all that much about her; just what she tells us, and that isn't very much at all. We don't know what her past was like, how she killed her brother, what her motives are....You asked to what end she'd want to trick our Calliope. To be fair, to what end would she want to undo the Green Sun? Did she want to? Did Echidna ask her to? We don't know. I've mentioned before that I have my own crazy theory about her actually being behind everything (for a lot of reasons, the least of which is that it would be so deliciously meta if a Muse, someone who inspires narratives, was the villain of a story in which the characters were trapped in a narrative) but even if that was complete bull crap that had not a single shred of veracity to it, Muse!Calliope would still be a very big unknown. We know so little about her that she could easily turn out to be far more sinister than she appears.
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Post by well hello there on Oct 9, 2017 13:34:26 GMT
I'll post this one post, and then I'll leave you not-anonymous guys to have serious not-anonymous conversations. I don't come on Omegaupdate often but for some reason I decided to check it out here, so I didn't bother with an account. Anyways, enough about me...
Something I thought of (I don't think I've ever seen this idea in a theory before) is that after the beta kids spend a lot of time inside that white house juju, maybe they might all get retcon powers like John did? After all, he only had to stick his hand in it to get them, so spending possibly years, maybe even millennia inside it could easily give them that. If all four of them had the power of retcon, they could easily create a big glitch in PXS and kill Lord English, no problem.
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The One Guy
Rust Maid
Posts: 1,148
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 9, 2017 19:05:18 GMT
My take on a few of the things being discussed: Does it really matter if the situation with the Universe C session is technically a scratch or actually a doomed timeline or something? Either way it's a case of a timeline split producing different Calliopes. So while calling them C1 and C2 may not be exactly consistent if it's not the result of a scratch, it still works as a way to designate the two different sessions. I don't really think Gamzee dies in Union Jack's explosion. He can survive getting riddled with bullets, so why couldn't he pull an Indiana Jones and survive getting blasted away from an explosion in a refrigerator? That would explain why he's still alive to meet Caliborn and die in the masterpiece. I guess you could call this a loose end given we don't see it, but putting the pieces together it makes sense, and I wouldn't be surprised it this comes up in the "epilogue" even if not much else is resolved. The ending of the credits did seem to be pretty obviously implying that was when John decided to fight Caliborn. It's not explicitly stated, but I feel like we're intended to use Occam's Razor and make the connection. As for the snaps that came after that, I always just assumed they were intended to take place before this point. After all, you may notice that we haven't actually gotten the snaps at the end of the credits as actual snaps yet... There are many ways Earth would be abandoned by the time the Cherubs arrived, whether the civilization wiped itself out, was wiped out from external forces, or simply left since the sun was getting dangerous, but I don't really see it as a loose end not knowing why, as put simply, it doesn't really matter. And for what it's worth, assuming the various theories that the kids in the masterpiece are different than the ones we see aren't true, then the gods won't be around to protect it. I always assumed that Calliope made the black hole as a way to trap Lord English; if you can't kill him, trap him eternally, and the juju helped "pocket" him in the hole. Granted the fact that the confrontation is left inconclusive leaves this as no more than a theory, and I agree that LE's fate is probably the biggest lose end, but I'm just throwing that out there. Here, she doesn't tell us that she didn't solve it. She doesn't tell us she was stuck forever in a spent Dead Session. Instead, she repeatedly uses the word could. She uses the word could because she was describing the options available to her. She's stating that in the position she was in Caliborn's route was unavailable to her, thus she could either wait around forever and or go to Echidna. It's true she didn't say which choice she took, but if she had taken the first option, she would still be in the session and wouldn't be around to do the stuff we saw her do. Besides the first option isn't really an option when you think about it: Even if she chooses this option, every moment she waits is a chance to change her mind, and given infinite time, it becomes inevitable that at some point she would change her mind. So despite her speaking in hypotheticals, there's really only one option she could have took.
Also, as a bit of a side note: I wonder if a session still qualifies as Dead if all players but one are killed post-entry. Such foresight is pretty typical of Skaia, so I could see that being the case. It would probably have to be pretty shortly after, though, or else it would just become a null session. I would argue not. While Skaia is indeed capable of such foresight, the nature of a session seems entirely based on the state of what enters (with the exception of a null session, but literally the only defining factor of a null session is that the players don't win). Furthermore there's the method of entry; a dead session has a unique form of entry that only really can be done once per session. That said, I doubt we'll get any further information on this, so it's really up to headcanon at this point.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 10, 2017 1:14:52 GMT
My take on a few of the things being discussed: Does it really matter if the situation with the Universe C session is technically a scratch or actually a doomed timeline or something? Either way it's a case of a timeline split producing different Calliopes. So while calling them C1 and C2 may not be exactly consistent if it's not the result of a scratch, it still works as a way to designate the two different sessions. It's inaccurate. As far as we know as of now, the Cherub session was never scratched. It doesn't work as a designation because it's not true and confusing. If you want a way to distinguish the time lines from each other, you could just say 'Caliborn's time line and Alt/Muse/Other!Caliope's time line'. Easy and more correct besides. Not to mention I find that particularly, personally annoying because my preferred theory is that Muse!Calliope is actually post-scratch, because that opens up a really interesting can of worms. By contrast, what does her being pre-scratch give us? What does it add, to her character or to the story? And come to think of it, how would it even be possible for her to both scratch and die by Echidna so that her ghost would be preserved? Besides even that, in a Dead Session there only would've been her planet, and the scratch construct is always on the Time player's planet. So Muse!Calliope couldn't have played a Dead Session and scratched. The ending of the credits did seem to be pretty obviously implying that was when John decided to fight Caliborn. It's not explicitly stated, but I feel like we're intended to use Occam's Razor and make the connection. As for the snaps that came after that, I always just assumed they were intended to take place before this point. After all, you may notice that we haven't actually gotten the snaps at the end of the credits as actual snaps yet... We still wouldn't have been given any real reason for everyone to want to go fight Caliborn, or a reason why they wouldn't have brought the trolls with them, which was the reason I didn't think that ending meant that's what they did. And so far, that appears to be correct. There are many ways Earth would be abandoned by the time the Cherubs arrived, whether the civilization wiped itself out, was wiped out from external forces, or simply left since the sun was getting dangerous, but I don't really see it as a loose end not knowing why, as put simply, it doesn't really matter. And for what it's worth, assuming the various theories that the kids in the masterpiece are different than the ones we see aren't true, then the gods won't be around to protect it. How can it not matter? We know that not only do the kids have the power to stave off a lot of natural disasters, move every living thing on earth to a better planet, or move the planet to a better location, we know, like obsidalicious said, that the races inhabiting the planet proved themselves more than capable of establishing space travel in their former homes and incarnations. So, why does it appear none of this happened? We need to know what the reason for this is, because if we don't it doesn't make any sense. And I mean, this planet in this universe was what the kids and trolls have been fighting for since their home planets were destroyed. How can its unexplained destruction and their equally unexplained disappearance not matter? If it doesn't, why should we have ever cared about them managing to procure it in the first place? I always assumed that Calliope made the black hole as a way to trap Lord English; if you can't kill him, trap him eternally, and the juju helped "pocket" him in the hole. Granted the fact that the confrontation is left inconclusive leaves this as no more than a theory, and I agree that LE's fate is probably the biggest lose end, but I'm just throwing that out there. Even if that were the case (and I'd wonder why Muse!Calliope would care) that doesn't mean he wouldn't still be a problem. His time line is non-linear, so even if you kill him or trap him in this part of his time line, there's nothing stopping him from causing trouble for you before you did that (for him) and after you did that (for you). It's why the only surefire way to get rid of him for good is probably to pry Cal out of the loop with the Crowbar, or some other Juju breaking device. Plus, it gives a more important and more satisfying reason for that thing to exist in the story. Here, she doesn't tell us that she didn't solve it. She doesn't tell us she was stuck forever in a spent Dead Session. Instead, she repeatedly uses the word could. She uses the word could because she was describing the options available to her. She's stating that in the position she was in Caliborn's route was unavailable to her, thus she could either wait around forever and or go to Echidna. It's true she didn't say which choice she took, but if she had taken the first option, she would still be in the session and wouldn't be around to do the stuff we saw her do. Besides the first option isn't really an option when you think about it: Even if she chooses this option, every moment she waits is a chance to change her mind, and given infinite time, it becomes inevitable that at some point she would change her mind. So despite her speaking in hypotheticals, there's really only one option she could have took. But why is it different? Why does she describe everything else that happens to her in definitive past tense, except when she's talking about a hypothetical Dead Session? She could've said that she definitely triggered one, but she doesn't. She could've said she definitively tried to solve it and failed, but she doesn't. Not to mention, she never tells us how she killed her brother, so we don't know she killed him the same way our Caliborn killed our Calliope, or if she did it before they entered the game the way he did. Her not filling in the details leaves us to assume she did what Caliborn did....when there's nothing Muse!Calliope says that actually confirms that. I'll post this one post, and then I'll leave you not-anonymous guys to have serious not-anonymous conversations. I don't come on Omegaupdate often but for some reason I decided to check it out here, so I didn't bother with an account. Anyways, enough about me... Something I thought of (I don't think I've ever seen this idea in a theory before) is that after the beta kids spend a lot of time inside that white house juju, maybe they might all get retcon powers like John did? After all, he only had to stick his hand in it to get them, so spending possibly years, maybe even millennia inside it could easily give them that. If all four of them had the power of retcon, they could easily create a big glitch in PXS and kill Lord English, no problem. It depends. Some have theorized that the whole reason John is able to obtain that power is because of the B1 players being trapped inside the Juju. That the retcon powers are an amalgam of the attributes of Breath, Space, Time and Light. If that is the case, escaping the Juju wouldn't grant them any retcon powers, as they ARE the retcon powers. But if that's not the case, the kids would still have to escape first.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 10, 2017 3:03:26 GMT
I read this as "I had a choice; I could do A or B". Not a hypothetical "what-if". Which choice did she take? Since "you stand in my memory of her lair", then she did go to the mother of monsters. Otherwise, there would not be a Caliope's memory of her lair.
So, pretty clearly, she had a choice to visit the mother; and now you're in the memory of that visit. Therefore, she visited.
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Do we have dream bubble instances of the troll ancestors from their scratched session? Yes. Therefore, scratched sessions do leave behind remnants just like dream bubbles and dead timelines.
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The One Guy
Rust Maid
Posts: 1,148
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 10, 2017 3:27:29 GMT
My take on a few of the things being discussed: Does it really matter if the situation with the Universe C session is technically a scratch or actually a doomed timeline or something? Either way it's a case of a timeline split producing different Calliopes. So while calling them C1 and C2 may not be exactly consistent if it's not the result of a scratch, it still works as a way to designate the two different sessions. It's inaccurate. As far as we know as of now, the Cherub session was never scratched. It doesn't work as a designation because it's not true and confusing. If you want a way to distinguish the time lines from each other, you could just say 'Caliborn's time line and Alt/Muse/Other!Caliope's time line'. Easy and more correct besides. Not to mention I find that particularly, personally annoying because my preferred theory is that Muse!Calliope is actually post-scratch, because that opens up a really interesting can of worms. By contrast, what does her being pre-scratch give us? What does it add, to her character or to the story? And come to think of it, how would it even be possible for her to both scratch and die by Echidna so that her ghost would be preserved? Besides even that, in a Dead Session there only would've been her planet, and the scratch construct is always on the Time player's planet. So Muse!Calliope couldn't have played a Dead Session and scratched. A. Even if the timeline split is not the result of a scratch, one could make the argument that the designations of <letter>1 and <letter>2 are instead used to represent multiple iterations of the same session, regardless of why. While the idea that Muse!Calliope's timeline came after does make for potential confusion, it would just mean that that one is actually C2 rather than C1 like we thought. B. Dead sessions are very different than regular sessions. It's not particularly outlandish to think the way to scratch might be different as well. C. Why would her coming second really change anything? What "interesting can of worms" does it open? Because as far as I can tell it doesn't really matter. D. Why wouldn't it be possible to scratch a session before dying to preserve one's ghost? That's pretty much exactly what the alpha trolls did after all! There are many ways Earth would be abandoned by the time the Cherubs arrived, whether the civilization wiped itself out, was wiped out from external forces, or simply left since the sun was getting dangerous, but I don't really see it as a loose end not knowing why, as put simply, it doesn't really matter. And for what it's worth, assuming the various theories that the kids in the masterpiece are different than the ones we see aren't true, then the gods won't be around to protect it. How can it not matter? We know that not only do the kids have the power to stave off a lot of natural disasters, move every living thing on earth to a better planet, or move the planet to a better location, we know, like obsidalicious said, that the races inhabiting the planet proved themselves more than capable of establishing space travel in their former homes and incarnations. So, why does it appear none of this happened? We need to know what the reason for this is, because if we don't it doesn't make any sense. And I mean, this planet in this universe was what the kids and trolls have been fighting for since their home planets were destroyed. How can its unexplained destruction and their equally unexplained disappearance not matter? If it doesn't, why should we have ever cared about them managing to procure it in the first place? For one thing, how do we know this didn't happen? One of the options I listed was that they evacuated the planet after all. For another, they are powerful, but not completely omnipotent. They can't prevent every possible scenario that goes wrong. But ultimately, the reason it doesn't really matter is because the future of Earth C seems to be deliberately open-ended. The cherubs are set so far into the future as to preserve this open-endedness despite giving info about how earth ultimately ends up. She uses the word could because she was describing the options available to her. She's stating that in the position she was in Caliborn's route was unavailable to her, thus she could either wait around forever and or go to Echidna. It's true she didn't say which choice she took, but if she had taken the first option, she would still be in the session and wouldn't be around to do the stuff we saw her do. Besides the first option isn't really an option when you think about it: Even if she chooses this option, every moment she waits is a chance to change her mind, and given infinite time, it becomes inevitable that at some point she would change her mind. So despite her speaking in hypotheticals, there's really only one option she could have took. But why is it different? Why does she describe everything else that happens to her in definitive past tense, except when she's talking about a hypothetical Dead Session? She could've said that she definitely triggered one, but she doesn't. She could've said she definitively tried to solve it and failed, but she doesn't. Not to mention, she never tells us how she killed her brother, so we don't know she killed him the same way our Caliborn killed our Calliope, or if she did it before they entered the game the way he did. Her not filling in the details leaves us to assume she did what Caliborn did....when there's nothing Muse!Calliope says that actually confirms that. Ok, so I went to actually read that part, and I'm now more convinced than ever that she was in a dead session. Before the part you point out she says: Clearly past tense, and her next few lines detail why she wasn't strong enough (Unlike her Lord of Time Brother, a Muse of Space couldn't do it. Then after the part you quote she says: This is once again in past tense, detailing the choice given by Echidna, who she literally talked about having the choice to see in what she said before that. In context, she's using hypotheticals to explain her reasoning for making the choices she did, not because she wasn't actually faced with such choices. I think you're reading way too much into the fact that she used the word "could" a few times.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on Oct 10, 2017 9:23:27 GMT
It's inaccurate. As far as we know as of now, the Cherub session was never scratched. It doesn't work as a designation because it's not true and confusing. If you want a way to distinguish the time lines from each other, you could just say 'Caliborn's time line and Alt/Muse/Other!Caliope's time line'. Easy and more correct besides. Not to mention I find that particularly, personally annoying because my preferred theory is that Muse!Calliope is actually post-scratch, because that opens up a really interesting can of worms. By contrast, what does her being pre-scratch give us? What does it add, to her character or to the story? And come to think of it, how would it even be possible for her to both scratch and die by Echidna so that her ghost would be preserved? Besides even that, in a Dead Session there only would've been her planet, and the scratch construct is always on the Time player's planet. So Muse!Calliope couldn't have played a Dead Session and scratched. A. Even if the timeline split is not the result of a scratch, one could make the argument that the designations of <letter>1 and <letter>2 are instead used to represent multiple iterations of the same session, regardless of why. While the idea that Muse!Calliope's timeline came after does make for potential confusion, it would just mean that that one is actually C2 rather than C1 like we thought. I started using A1/A2 etc. to refer to pre-scratch and post-scratch because other folk around here were doing that before I did. Far as I could tell, it was the accepted, quickest way to refer to pre-scratch and post scratch timeliness. And as I've said, there are easy alternatives that are more specific. B. Dead sessions are very different than regular sessions. It's not particularly outlandish to think the way to scratch might be different as well. There's no proof that's the case. So unless I see some, I can only assume they work the same way. C. Why would her coming second really change anything? What "interesting can of worms" does it open? Because as far as I can tell it doesn't really matter. For at least two reasons. For one, everything that happens in the masterpiece, which would suggest unless the time line split somewhere, everyone get's sucked into the Juju and Li'l Cal before Caliborn could perform a scratch. So either there's time line shenanigans or the B2 kids found a way to do it, and either possibility would be fun to explore. (There's also the matter of a First Guardian. You're supposed to get a new one post-scratch. Does that still happen even though there apparently wasn't one for C1 earth?) For another, I've always liked the idea that the 'glitch' visited upon Universe A that Scratch described as LE's calling card was LE's calling card because it happened in his Universe. Something in C2 affecting C1 would be very interesting and very cool to see. Plus, even without that glitch, we haven't seen a Universe yet that didn't have some bleed over. B had it too in Jade and Jake's correspondences. It would be awesome if it turned out some of the things that wound up in C1 were actually sent from C2 like the Zilly weapons.....were supposed to be. D. Why wouldn't it be possible to scratch a session before dying to preserve one's ghost? That's pretty much exactly what the alpha trolls did after all! The Alpha trolls had a bomb that Meenah was careful to time as the scratch was happening to kill them all. (Even the God Tiers) Muse!Calliope was killed in Echidna's lair, and it's kind of hard picturing her running out to scratch the construct (which again, by all indications wouldn't be there if she started a Dead Session) and then have the time to run back to Echidna's lair to die. Plus the picture in my head of this happening spoils the hell out of the drama. It would also be weird as the possibility was brought up (Aranea knew just about everything about the cherubs but not that they were post-scratch? She never even suggested the possibility?) and I still fail to see what that would've added to Muse!Calliope's story in particular and to Homestuck's story in general. There's also the matter of the First Guardian, as I mentioned. It could just be C2 earth doesn't get one because C1 earth didn't get one but the cherubs' planet is weird because it already technically did have a FG....so it's too complicated to just hand wave. How can it not matter? We know that not only do the kids have the power to stave off a lot of natural disasters, move every living thing on earth to a better planet, or move the planet to a better location, we know, like obsidalicious said, that the races inhabiting the planet proved themselves more than capable of establishing space travel in their former homes and incarnations. So, why does it appear none of this happened? We need to know what the reason for this is, because if we don't it doesn't make any sense. And I mean, this planet in this universe was what the kids and trolls have been fighting for since their home planets were destroyed. How can its unexplained destruction and their equally unexplained disappearance not matter? If it doesn't, why should we have ever cared about them managing to procure it in the first place? For one thing, how do we know this didn't happen? One of the options I listed was that they evacuated the planet after all. If that happened, we need to see it or be told it happened. Otherwise we have no way to know that is, in fact, what happened. For another, they are powerful, but not completely omnipotent. They can't prevent every possible scenario that goes wrong. I for one would find it supremely dissatisfying if the kids who died, ascended to godhood, created the Green Fucking Sun, bred into being a god damned universe (in the trolls' case, TWO) and had the power to literally retcon anything that could go wrong out of existence on their side couldn't save one measly planet full of people. At least not without a decent explanation, which so far we do not have. But ultimately, the reason it doesn't really matter is because the future of Earth C seems to be deliberately open-ended. The cherubs are set so far into the future as to preserve this open-endedness despite giving info about how earth ultimately ends up. I don't care about open-endedness, and up until Act 7 neither did Hussie. Why is that more important than the planet that the kids worked almost the entire comic to get? If you destroy what our main characters have been questing for for literally years (both in and out of comic) I think it's not asking too much to know why, especially since they have everything they need to prevent it from happening. And as has been said, even if the kids failed it wouldn't be hard to show the folk that lived there just booking. But why is it different? Why does she describe everything else that happens to her in definitive past tense, except when she's talking about a hypothetical Dead Session? She could've said that she definitely triggered one, but she doesn't. She could've said she definitively tried to solve it and failed, but she doesn't. Not to mention, she never tells us how she killed her brother, so we don't know she killed him the same way our Caliborn killed our Calliope, or if she did it before they entered the game the way he did. Her not filling in the details leaves us to assume she did what Caliborn did....when there's nothing Muse!Calliope says that actually confirms that. Ok, so I went to actually read that part, and I'm now more convinced than ever that she was in a dead session. Before the part you point out she says: Clearly past tense, and her next few lines detail why she wasn't strong enough (Unlike her Lord of Time Brother, a Muse of Space couldn't do it. She says being strong in general was not enough because a Dead Session's challenge would've been tilted in the favor of the Time Aspect. I don't see how that contradicts what I've been saying. Then after the part you quote she says: This is once again in past tense, detailing the choice given by Echidna, who she literally talked about having the choice to see in what she said before that. I suppose in the end it's a matter of interpretation; as I've said it isn't hard evidence of anything at all. Still, I find it, plus her extreme vagueness, very interesting. Also it's just a cool thing to notice.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 10, 2017 17:09:23 GMT
In a very real sense, all that is required is that at some time in a few billion years, the kids died a heroic death while saving people.
Let me find that page where Caliborn learns about his scratch system.
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Post by keybounce on Oct 10, 2017 17:14:23 GMT
Ok, so first, what is a scratch? It isn't the record player.
ROSE: To understand what happened, it really helps to understand exactly what a scratch is. ROSE: When John severely damaged the Beat Mesa on your planet, and sent it off to Skaia to release its temporal energy there, you could view it as a kind of "request." ROSE: We were asking Skaia to change everything at a fundamental level, and we gave it the energy to do so. ROSE: But Skaia is a very passive entity. It only "knows" and "sees," but it never quite "acts." ROSE: When it is asked to change everything, there is only so much it has control over. ROSE: In fact, it has control over exactly one thing. The defense portals. ROSE: It can decide to send important meteors to different points in time than originally planned, thus creating alternate realities. ROSE: Offshoots of promise, rather than futility. ROSE: And it turns out the most important meteors of all tend to be the ones delivering the young players to their planet.
Here's the key line: ROSE: We were asking Skaia to change everything at a fundamental level, and we gave it the energy to do so.
A scratch isn't something about the time player / records.
A scratch is nothing more than "Hey, skaia, you need to change where you send the players, and here's the energy to do so".
So the first question is, could the mother of all monsters initiate that?
... For that matter, can there be a scratch if there is no reckoning / meteors?
Still looking for Caliborn's arrival on his planet.
EDIT: Found this:
AG: I sought advice from Echidna, and she told me how to scratch the session to give us another chance. AG: 8ut the choice to do so came with accepting the annihilation of our existing forms. In the new instance, we would lead completely different lives with no memory of what happened. AG: So we did, and created A2. Your instance, your world, and your game in which we were all inexplica8ly created in the first place.
So again: It's "we've lost, go to Echidna, she tells us how to proceed / what we have to give up". Same as with Red Caliope.
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The One Guy
Rust Maid
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Post by The One Guy on Oct 10, 2017 17:50:40 GMT
C. Why would her coming second really change anything? What "interesting can of worms" does it open? Because as far as I can tell it doesn't really matter. For at least two reasons. For one, everything that happens in the masterpiece, which would suggest unless the time line split somewhere, everyone get's sucked into the Juju and Li'l Cal before Caliborn could perform a scratch. So either there's time line shenanigans or the B2 kids found a way to do it, and either possibility would be fun to explore. Ok, I conceede that that would make things interesting, but at the same time, it also acts as evidence against Caliborn's session being pre-scratch, as there's no indication of any such complications. (There's also the matter of a First Guardian. You're supposed to get a new one post-scratch. Does that still happen even though there apparently wasn't one for C1 earth?) That's actually a good point, and acts as evidence against the split being due to a scratch. It wouldn't be any more or less interesting based on who was pre- or post-scratch, though. For another, I've always liked the idea that the 'glitch' visited upon Universe A that Scratch described as LE's calling card was LE's calling card because it happened in his Universe. Something in C2 affecting C1 would be very interesting and very cool to see. Plus, even without that glitch, we haven't seen a Universe yet that didn't have some bleed over. B had it too in Jade and Jake's correspondences. It would be awesome if it turned out some of the things that wound up in C1 were actually sent from C2 like the Zilly weapons.....were supposed to be. I'm not sure I get what you're saying here. Weren't the Zilly weapons created in B2, sent back in time in B2, then sent to B1 with the Bunny? Also, the glitch is all about the players being ectobiologised post-scratch. Given that the cherubs weren't ectobiologised at all, how could it possibly be present in the cherub session? D. Why wouldn't it be possible to scratch a session before dying to preserve one's ghost? That's pretty much exactly what the alpha trolls did after all! The Alpha trolls had a bomb that Meenah was careful to time as the scratch was happening to kill them all. (Even the God Tiers) Muse!Calliope was killed in Echidna's lair, and it's kind of hard picturing her running out to scratch the construct (which again, by all indications wouldn't be there if she started a Dead Session) and then have the time to run back to Echidna's lair to die. Plus the picture in my head of this happening spoils the hell out of the drama. There are many different options other than Calliope running back to Echidna's lair as fact as she could. If the scratch mechanism is different for dead sessions, it may be easier to complete near Echidna's lair. Echidna could have left her lair to kill her. She could have set up an automated system to initaite the scratch. Echidna could have initiated the scratch after killing her. I could go on. Besides, who cares if a scene is dramatic if we don't even see the scene anyway. But ultimately, the reason it doesn't really matter is because the future of Earth C seems to be deliberately open-ended. The cherubs are set so far into the future as to preserve this open-endedness despite giving info about how earth ultimately ends up. I don't care about open-endedness, and up until Act 7 neither did Hussie. Why is that more important than the planet that the kids worked almost the entire comic to get? If you destroy what our main characters have been questing for for literally years (both in and out of comic) I think it's not asking too much to know why, especially since they have everything they need to prevent it from happening. He didn't care about open-endedness until Act 7 because the story wasn't over yet. Of course what happens in the story is not open-ended because, well, it's part of the story. In a sense the story ends with Earth C; what happens to it after the end is no longer part of the story.
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Post by Gab on Oct 10, 2017 18:47:49 GMT
I never saw any reason to trust Muse!Calliope implicitly. We just don't know all that much about her; just what she tells us, and that isn't very much at all. We don't know what her past was like, how she killed her brother, what her motives are....You asked to what end she'd want to trick our Calliope. To be fair, to what end would she want to undo the Green Sun? Did she want to? Did Echidna ask her to? We don't know. You didn't answer the question. You don't trust her, but you haven't actually given a reason why not to. I mean, aside from not knowing much about her, which is maybe debatable, but I mean a reason to actually find her suspicious.
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Post by obsidalicious on Oct 10, 2017 19:31:42 GMT
I wonder if a session still qualifies as Dead if all players but one are killed post-entry. Such foresight is pretty typical of Skaia, so I could see that being the case. It would probably have to be pretty shortly after, though, or else it would just become a null session. Just to throw another spanner into this discussion, there is precedent for Skaia getting things wrong about these things. In the B2 Session, there was a tablet written by the ancient consorts describing the order of the planets, as well as the lantern puzzle which supposedly matched the various deaths and rebirths of the players, but both ended up being incorrect, apparently caused merely by Dirk's machinations to get closer to Jake. This always bothered me to be honest. I'm fine with Skaia having limits in its knowledge of course, but of all the things to get wrong, why would it be this and not, say, something related to time travel or retcon shenanigans?
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Post by keybounce on Oct 10, 2017 22:58:37 GMT
So it appears that Caliope considers her "other self" to be just a doomed timeline. UU: i have reason to sUspect there may be another iteration of myself oUt here. UU: one from a doomed timeline, who has kept hidden for a long time, jUst like i have. www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007515
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Post by keybounce on Oct 11, 2017 0:20:32 GMT
So on the whole "why couldn't the gods keep the planet fertile and alive forever" question, Aranea had this to say: As it happens, our heroine's m8 discovered Earth, long after it had journeyed to a new sun, and long since new civiliz8tions had risen and fallen. Now on the 8rink of destruction from its dying star, its 8arren accommod8tions were ideal for a young cheru8. There he deposited his single egg and flew away, never to return. No cheru8 ever spawns more than one offspring at a time, for it is every cheru8's destiny to grow up alone. Or alone on the outside, at least. ... and, first question: What happened to his Mother? She was able to defeat his father, perhaps she could have scolded caliborn / put him in time out? Second question: Caliborn's species is an interstellar traveling creature; we never see this from him at all. Why? ... Cherubs exist in the interstellar space of the C universe. Hmm. Since the planet has not been destroyed, does that mean that the area is claimed by a "good" protector cherub (at least during the time when the characters / people are alive?) Or ... --- Ok, HERE is the relevent text: ARANEA: The player chooses to walk away from the tempt8tion of power. To surrender all am8ition, and to welcome death. ARANEA: In exchange for this pledge comes a promise. The player's sacrifice is assured to 8enefit all who will ever live. ARANEA: In death, the player would later 8e in the position to help 8ring an end to a force of unfathoma8le evil and destruction. ARANEA: A force which was unleashed, for instance, 8y someone who once opted for the other choice. www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007897
And I was wrong -- sinking these planets is a bonus, failing to sink them is not a scratch.
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