Subject: Therefore...
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-13 16:48:00 UTC
... there is no precedent to using a CAD to identify someone's canon-of-origin. There may be evidence to indicate that it can't be done, per the Wiki article 'CAD'. So the idea of pointing a CAD at an agent to figure out where they're from seems to be unsupported in the canon.
hS
Or rather, the Real World. How would an agent describe it? How would it be viewed by someone who did come from world one versus someone who experienced a Godzilla attack in New York?
I'm leaving it as no one in PPC knows where Larry actually comes from, but what are the limits on this? Does he need to come from someplace that's not in the CAD's database, or just out of that story's influence?
Like, I imagine that it doesn't matter if you're from Sherlock!America or World One unless you're a fan of the Huffington Post and happened to hear about a certain detective.
I'm thinking about having Nathan and Dwight not be from World One either, but they managed to figure out that they're from the middle of huge bit areas in canonical worlds.
... of CADs being used to determine where someone who is neither a character in their own story or a canon comes from?
hS
I think I might have seen someone point a CAD at themself to make sure it wasn't broken... I think DIC stories I've read just rely on Intel figuring out what's being crossed and finding agents who don't need to take CAD readings.
I did mention in the "My Little Ponies turn human on Earth" story that an agent wants to rely on observation because "I don't think the CAD can handle this" and the other agent judged the characters as acting plausibly. But that's still in alpha besides I'm not sure when I'll know what I'm doing.
... there is no precedent to using a CAD to identify someone's canon-of-origin. There may be evidence to indicate that it can't be done, per the Wiki article 'CAD'. So the idea of pointing a CAD at an agent to figure out where they're from seems to be unsupported in the canon.
hS
What would happen if an unrecognized canon dropped through a plothole and was accepted as an agent? I think I've seen that somehow it's important for Boromir to have his canonical death and remain dead in the story, not just make everyone think he's dead. What if a canon drops in when their story still needs them to be there?
Personally, I think the only distinction between World One and any other version of Earth is just that WO is "closer," in the sense that a disproportionate amount of agents come from there. I don't think it would feel particularly different from the majority of other (non urban fantasy) versions of Earth to most characters.
Honestly, if you're getting confused about "World One," you're overthinking it. The very concept of "World One" is just a placeholder name so we, and "RealWorld" agents, can talk about the so-called "Real World" without confusing/insulting a Narnian agent, who would see Narnia as the "Real World."
If you're wanting to do Despatch-style missions (I think that was you, yes? Apologies if I'm wrong.), then you don't necessarily need to depict World One. You can just send the author avatar through a portal, or whatever. You also don't necessarily need to say the self insert is even from World One, depending on what the fic allows. The fic in my second mission is (in reality) a Mary Sue story written in the real world about the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes continuum. However, for the mission, which I'll link to below, I instead chose to treat the story as a Despatch-style situation, where the author was a (modern-day) inhabitant of the AoSH continuum, who created a story with herself as self-insert, which let her go back in time to visit Holmes. I was able to this because the insert never refers to Holmes and the other characters as fictional. She is surprised to see them, but only how-did-I-get-here surprised, not this-has-mind-destroying-existential-repercussions surprised. She also claims to be from the future, not from another world where Holmes is fictional. Obviously, something like this depends on the fic you're missioning. Here's that mission:
http://doctorlit.dreamwidth.org/3091.html
Um. Sorry. This post got kind of long. I hope I've at least answered something. Is there anything I can make more clear?
I know there is a Megamind fanfiction about 9/11... And I think the MIB cartoon addressed it...
Basically I'm thinking that there are fictional worlds where nothing significant happened on September 11 of 2001. (Obviously this is only remarkable in continua that were both published and set afterwards, and there are probably only a few examples that actually address it directly.)
My point is that some worlds are defined by what did happen and what didn't. Biggest problem with SuperWhoLock is that Watson didn't mention hearing about whatever Supernatural happened that the world should have noticed.
If you have to interview someone to see what world that they're from, you could probably ask about significant events to get an answer.
(Since I'm the person who invented the designation 'World One', I suppose I'm the best qualified to comment...)
The 'World-number' designations were instituted by the Weeds, while they were off exploring the Cascade. Their mapping led to the creation or definition of doors into HQ and the extended Cascade (scroll down to 'Relative Dimensions' for the complexity of what, exactly, HQ is), and those doors are numbered.
The numbering system for the doors is world-country (or other sub-unit)-number. So, door 1-Cym-3 is World One - Cymru (Wales - they use the local name) - Door number three, indicating there are at least two other Welsh doors. Other known designations include 1-Sch-2 (Switzerland, World One - this door opens into HQ near the Department of Finance), and 2093-Ann-2, where World 2093 is the world of Minecraft, and 'Ann' is the savefile name (Annuminas, in this case). The story behind that door will no doubt be posted in the fullness of time.
So why is World One... World One? Quite simply, because it's the first universe ('World' is a misnomer; the entirety of, say, Star Wars has a single 'World' number) the Weeds had occasion to catalogue - in other words, it's the universe they started in; the universe of Origin and the 'Real World'.
And it is special. As far as the Flowers are aware, it's the only universe in what we term the Prime Multiverse which isn't a Word World. To the best of their knowledge, all non-Word-World planets they've opened portals to lead to the same universe - World One. It's the only universe they know of based on atoms, not words.
This perspective informs Multiverse Theory (first section). The Prime Multiverse consists of World One - the Real World - surrounded by a bunch of Word Worlds which appear to be created by it. That includes all the alternate versions of Earth - such as Godzilla's world - and any other fictional worlds, such as Middle-earth. So Godzilla!World would have its own World number, and its own doors (potentially).
The only non-World One 'Atomic Worlds' the PPC knows of are the alternate multiverses described in Multiverse Theory. So the EPC, for instance, has its own 'World One', a non-Word-World which created its own multiverse of Word Worlds (such as the critically acclaimed sci-fi show Master Who). But it's next to impossible to access those - certainly your standard portal won't get you anywhere near them.
Of course, this nice neat Real World > Word Worlds picture breaks down slightly when the details of portals are taken into account... specifically, written portals (which make up every single portal the PPC creates, though a few legacy natural plotholes are still found in the fabric of HQ - they lead to Reality Rooms) are capable of breaking into World One, which the theory says shouldn't happen; they should only lead to Word Worlds. It's almost as though the 'Real World' is just a fictionalised version of some world where a bunch of people, let's call them the 'PPC Board', sit around writing stories about the PPC... <>>
hS
My own character, Jumper, is a multiverse traveler who goes from fictional world to fictional world. Here's the kicker though: that are, indeed, atomic worlds. The difference here is, where Jumper is from, authors/directors/poets/creative individuals, are inspired by real, actual worlds. Authors can create whatever they like, and take as many artistic liberties as they wish, but the Inspiration Worlds do exist. This means that some books are very close to their inspiration world (such as Tolkien's works, where his works are neigh onto encyclopedias) or drastically different (such as Eragon, which is much more consistent in the Inspiration World). He does come to the PPC, through a type of plot hole, and begins to learn of World Worlds, and how they are different from his Inspiration Worlds.
Sadly, as I have been extraordinarily lazy recently, he is not part of PPC canon yet. He will be, mark my words, but not yet. This will complicate the PPC multiverse models a little, but make things interesting when I get to writing him and his adventures outside of the PPC. However, first, I have a crossover mission to get onto.
All right, just one diagram...
This is an out-of-universe compromise theory between current Multiverse Theory, your Inspiration Worlds, and the Sakai/doctorlit 'all worlds is reals' idea. Essentially, it goes like this:
There is the Real World (black). We live in it. To the best of our knowledge, it is the only universe that actually exists, with the others all being fictional constructs. Yuo can believe whatever you like, but at the end of the day, this universe is the only one that can be scientifically verified to exist. It's also entirely unknown (and unknowable) to the PPC. They can't interact with it, because any interaction would necessarily involve the 'Real World' being written - which would make it actually World One.
World One (blue) is a fictionalised version of our world. Specifically, it's the one we as PPC authors have created - one identical to ours in every way except for the fact that plotholes occasionally take people to HQ, agents stop by for visits, fangirls can sometimes break into canon worlds, and there's a PPC city in New Caledonia. This is the universe the Flowers come from, along with most agents. As far as the Flowers are aware, it's the only Atomic world.
Separate from World One, and untouched by the plotholes of the Cascade - in fact, entirely inaccessible to the PPC - are the Inspiration Worlds (light blue). These are also Atomic worlds (though the term is inaccurate - see below), and have their own independent existence. Through some means unexplained by PPC science - because they don't know it exists - they can form links with World One, allowing authors to create stories.
Those stories are canons (red). They appear when they're written, and it's possible to create multiple canons out of a single Inspiration World: Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales is a distinct, cohesive canon which is utterly irreconcilable with LotR, yet clearly comes from the same Inspiration World.
Then there is fanfic. Fanfic is created in much the same way as canons, except that instead of some mystic (pun intended) link, the World One authors are inspired by reading/watching/hearing about the canon. There's a purely artificial distinction between 'fanfic' (green) and 'secondary canon' (orange) - the latter is pretty much fanfic which is acknowledged as official. The Movies fall neatly into this spot.
Obviously, secondary canons can also have fanfic written about them, and even secondary canons of their own, such as the games which spin off and alter the Movieverse. But then, so can fanfics! OFUs are all fanfic of both OFUM and their host canon. It's absolutely possible for a fanfic to have two or more inspiration (lowercase I) canons.
Tangled up in all of this is feedback. Everything feeds back into the world that inspired it, and the world that created it. World One's J.R.R. Tolkien became more hobbitlike after he started writing about hobbits. New Zealand has practically turned into Movieverse Middle-earth in places. The Myst idea of stories slightly altering their inspirations indicates there's feedback from canons to Inspiration Worlds - and there's no reason that can't include the idea that agents from canons, while technically recruited through red or green worlds, are 'echos' of a light blue character who is drawn through into the PPC and 'merged' - for want of a better word - into a single 'real' person. That would allow people from fictional worlds to be 'real' without contradicting established canon.
Not shown on the diagram is the heirarchy of Word-detection. It runs like this:
-Agents can see the Words in fanfic (green, potentially orange though I don't think that's been attested).
-Agents generally can't see the Words in canons (red), though Flowers can sense them.
--Red, orange, and green, therefore, are all classed as Word Worlds by the Flowers - because they can sense the Words there.
-Not even Flowers can feel the Words in World One (blue), even though it is a written world. The same would apply to Inspiration Worlds (light blue) if they ever accessed them.
--Blue and light blue are therefore classed as Atomic Worlds by the Flowers. They're wrong, but it's their mistake. It probably has something to do with that being their 'native' level of reality.
-There are no Words in the Real World (black) - as far as we know! To the best of our knowledge, this is the only true Atomic World. The Flowers, of course, know nothing of its existence.
Though actually... the non-interaction of World One and the Real World may not be quite that absolute. Swan's Egg features interaction which didn't involve fictionalising the Real World - because the only interaction between the fictional PPC agents and us took place right here on the Board, in the form of written posts. Of course, the posts for the PPC were written by me - but they're a written world anyway, so they were always going to be.
RPs wouldn't count, because they involve creating fictionalised personas. Agent LJs might be interaction, if authors reply to them as themselves, rather than in-character. Agent Lou talks directly to me-as-the-narrator, without me making a fictionalised appearance. So there are ways to do it. But anything that involves writing the Real World makes it, instantly, into World One.
hS
Is a good definition of World One? "That place that has fictional accounts about most of the other Worlds."
I always wondered if HQ is considered "World 0". Just a suggestion. If you want to talk PPC cosmology I made a much longer post below.
In the Myst series, which has Word Worlds of its own (after a fashion), a major point was that capital-'W' Writers did not create the places described in their Books, but simply established links to worlds that had previously existed. I think that World 1 is similar, in that all of the canon worlds are as real as 1 but don't really have any reference relating them to it until their stories are written*. World 1 isn't "special" except as a place where many such links originate.**
This seems to fit with the origins of the PPC in that the Flowers directly entered World 1 from outside of it without anything about them first being written here.
The long and short of is that explaining World 1's basic nature would be as "simple" as explaining any alternate universe: "It's just like your Earth was in 2014, only there are no Forerunner ruins"; "It's just like your Earth, only wizards don't exist"; "It's another world called Earth, where there are only Men and everyone uses something called "electrical technology" instead of magic." Explaining the existential aspects requires a good understanding of the weird stuff up above, but once that's done there really isn't much to it other than "World 1 is what's on the other end of one of your connections and they were the ones who initiated it."
*I don't think they're fully-formed but inaccessible, but that's where things get weird. I'm imagining them in a sort of possibility flux where they aren't fully-realized so much as just potential- if you have a background in computer science you can think of them as constantly-shifting garbage data that has yet to be referenced, with the canon work acting as a pointer or filesystem that makes them comprehensible and stable; if you have a background in physics you can think of them as in a state of superposition, or as a quantum foam; if you have no background in either of these areas I don't really know how to explain it and it's probably too esoteric to matter anyway so why did I just type this monster paragraph?
** This does imply that when an author changes things in a story, the old story is still around and the "changed" one is just a slightly different universe that has always been that way, that the pointer "Star Trek" now direct to instead. That in turn opens up the possibility of "cloning" vast numbers of essentially the same character or object by collecting instances of them from other versions of their story that are only slightly altered... in the Myst series Linking was elastic in that very slight changes could be written and propagated through the Link to actually alter the world they were in, whereas large ones would just change the Link to point to a different world.
The problem with explaining the Real World, at least to me, is that anything we have to compare it to is a man-made creation. Trying to explain what World One is like to someone in Godzilla!New York would boil down to "it's like your world, but no giant monsters destroying cities." Personally, I think the best way to handle that would be to show said Agent the source material for their world, explaining that in our world, they don't actually exist. Of course, being told that you don't exist might cause some mental issues in the form of an existential crisis, but the concept of alternate universes is confusing at best anyway.
Basically I tried to have Kim from Ghostbusters!New York try to explain to a stranger, who might be from any reality that has the Ghostbusters movie, what World One is.
It does bring up a question with Larry. He's not from World One, but no one knows where he's from. If he was from Potter!Nebraska, would a CAD be able to tell? (I'm thinking of having him come from the SkinDeep universe, which afaik doesn't have any fanfiction, so it wouldn't be loaded in the CAD, and there would be people who hadn't heard of it.)
I'm writing a story where Hillary and a replacement!Moebius from SIAT accidentally end up in headquarters. I've seen agents welcome random plothole-travelers with open arms. My big problem is having Hillary get back to her own world without being nueralysed and without making anyone involved look like idiots. DEM-level luck optional.