Subject: At the center of all lies the Dark Tower, do it please ya.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-06-01 06:58:00 UTC
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
(I finished the last Dark Tower novel recently. The ending was pretty disappointing. The rest of the series was good enough that it was worth reading, but it's weird for Stephen King to drop the ball like that. Then again, he has always been best at short stories.)
Time and Motion Study: Space
(Note: this is intended to ultimately be the first of three essays; the other two will cover some details of portal travel, and time travel in the PPC. Further note: this is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive - I'm doing my best not to invent much new stuff. Third note: the 'voice' was originally going to be Agent Morgan, but rather moved away from her. It's definitely an in-universe document)
'Time and Motion Study: Space' is my attempt to get a solid, coherent Multiverse Theory worked out. It draws on several sources, primarily:
-Tawaki's Mirror Multiverse arc.
-Lily Winterwood's Generic Surface Blackout story.
-Lily's (yes, again) IAHF, specifically the linked chapter.
There's also references to Jaycacia and the 2004 Badfic Game, and Luxury's backstory.
So, my question is: what have I missed? What have I said that doesn't make sense? And, if we've got any physicists in need of something to do, what are the theoretical underpinnings possibly-Morgan refuses to discuss? ;)
hS
Relative Dimensions is in the same document as Space and, and continues the discussion. What exactly are the 'shields' that caused so much trouble when they went down in the Blackout? How do they work? And how, if HQ is scattered across the multiverse, do people keep doing things like knocking down walls into the RC 'next door'?
'Space and' was written to make sense; it's a working model of the PPC Mulit-Multiverse. As implicitly requested a few times, 'Relative Dimensions' doesn't. It's a convoluted tangle of logic designed to keep your head spinning long enough that you don't notice it's complete gibberish. It's true - but only if you don't think about it too hard.
(As ever, I'm quite willing to make changes based on other ideas people throw around. Oh, and the reason for the HITeG manifold in the first place - the idea of the shields simply being scifi energy/particle shields seemed so boring. So I figured we could have something a bit more mind-expanding)
hS
It certainly has the feel of something that's been edited, added to, modified, and generally abused for decades.
The new theory came in after the Blackout took the HITeG down and completely failed to cause massive temporal disruptions, and also after someone noticed that all those former PPCers were still in synch - and, for that matter, the League of Mary-Sue Factories.
The new theory is vastly simpler to state: PPC HQ is in a separate timeline - from the outside. From the inside, it's in synch. Perfectly simple, beautifully elegant, and horrifyingly convoluted.
hS
(I'll update the doc tomorrow, with this and owt else that comes up)
At the same link
Rather than editing the text itself (much), I've added four 'technical notes' at various points in the document. They cover such facts as the lack of difference between Word Worlds and World One, the nature of Creativity Shields (that was a fun section), the structure of the complex of multiverses, and the mechanics of Bridge formation. And all of them feature a healthy helping of 'dunno'.
hS
I'll try explaining it, hoping it makes sense 'cause I would need some sort of 3D modelling to show it.
Basically, the "nexus" in every multiverse is the World One, and the sub-universes (the Word Worlds) all depend from it somehow.
The PPC doesn't exactly have a place in the "web" of multiverses, because as we know PPC HQ has "pieces" in every universe, but so far the model isn't much different from Huinesoron's.
The difference comes on how the multiverses are placed, as I don't exactly like the "random places in the void" idea either.
So let's try to envision the multi-multiverse as something like this:
Where every triangle is the base of a pyramid with the vertex at the centre of the icosahedron. Every multiverse is housed inside one of the pyramids, with the World One near the vertex and the other worlds coming down from it towards the base. The PPC-like organization, so, actually permeates most of the pyramid.
It also means that every multiverse has some "big" points of contact with some other multiverses corrisponding with the sides of the pyramid (the Prime Multiverse has apparently at least those with the Steampunk and Mirror, and a much smaller one with every other multiverse at the vertex (Shipverse?)
This results in easier contact between multiverses sharing sides, explaining why we had several encounters with the EPC but only Lux falling in from the Shipverse.
What is keeping the multiverse together at the vertex, though? I'd say either the Real World or some other kind of dimensional nexus.
I hope this makes sense?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
(I finished the last Dark Tower novel recently. The ending was pretty disappointing. The rest of the series was good enough that it was worth reading, but it's weird for Stephen King to drop the ball like that. Then again, he has always been best at short stories.)
He does flat out tell you you're not going to like the ending if you read any further...
Also: the Icosahedron is hereby renamed the Rose. Because with an opening like that, how can I not?
hS
Pretty much everything following Algul Siento felt really rushed. Considering how much page space was dedicated to developing the characters of the Algul's leadership, compared to the two half-donkeyed fight scenes against Mordred and the Crimson King, it feels like VII should have been split into two books, with the last one expanding on the King way more. And making him, you know, actually threatening and monstrous?
I actually didn't mind that final scene after the "warning." It makes a disturbing amount of sense to me, and it was hinted at pretty heavily in nearly every scene Roland shared with Walter. I'm convinced the Crimson King was also aware of the recursion, but couldn't figure out how to tell Roland, since telling the truth would make Roland automatically assume it was a lie. That's why he spends his time on the Tower balcony going back and forth between trying to kill Roland and begging him to stop and listen, even after he had been reduced to a pair of eyeballs and Roland was already inside the Tower.
Random Fan Theory: I believe the thing in the tunnels under Castle Discordia is the same one as the one from Children of the Corn. The monster in the latter definitely seems like a holdover from the receding of the Prim, with the movies implying it had been around since before Europeans colonized the Americas. It's called He Walks Behind the Rows (of Corn), but in the movie version, the little psychic girl writes it as "He Who Walks Behind the Rose." And if you equate Roland with representing the quest to reach the field of roses, that's exactly what the one in Dark Tower VII was doing. Of course, this assumes that HWWBtR moved, one way or the other, between In-World and one of the Earths connected with the Tower, but that's far from unusual for this series.
I quite like this idea, pretty much for the reasons that hS laid out in his reply.
That's exactly the sort of extended theory I'd imagine people in HQ concocting, too. Remember, there were a lot of deep theoretical reasons why there could only be two multiverses - but then we discovered there were at least four. So someone needs to come up with a theory that says how many there are - and the icosahedron model certainly seems possible!
That would make for twenty multiverses - a fairly large number that means we won't run through them soon. It eliminates the Void as the primary background; instead, it makes each plane of interaction a 'Void between the Verses'. Bridge-type mergers would simply be the wall breaking down; perhaps a Bridge shuffles the internal portions of the pyramid, dragging two connected parts closer and closer to the wall until they touch.
Each multiverse would have three close contacts - Prime and Mirror, at minimum, have these, and Dafydd's trips to Steampunk suggest it does, too. If there were a consistent way of tunnelling through the wall, experiments could be done to map the Icosahedron - but I don't think that's possible yet.
As for the centre... making it the Real World would be a bit dubious, since the Prime Multiverse is very nearly our own (and also since it would claim the Real World has an in-story existence, which it, y'know, doesn't. Fictional people can't actually travel to reality). There may be some kind of nexus, or it may simply be an artefact of the model - it might not actually exist at all.
Of course, the question for the theorists then becomes, how do we know it's an icosahedron? How can we prove it? We could go into different multiverses and see which ones are easy to access from there - again, if we had easy trans-multiversal travel tech. Which it seems Dafydd does... perhaps he borrowed it from Lou? Doubtless the theory team need to talk to him.
hS
Maybe the real world is the outside of the d20 icosahedron? From our perspective, all the fictional stuff is contained by our reality, and since fictional people can't cross into reality, it might be like a solid container, holding all the wibbly-wobbly multiverse stuff in.
The various word worlds, fanfics, and other whatnot in there can't be accurately represented by Euclidean geometry, in all likelihood. Saying "quantum entanglement" below got me thinking about it, and it seems to me that it's the only concept that even begins to explain how crossovers of all kinds can happen. And no one's brought up various word worlds existing in other word worlds yet—like how we know Harry Potter exists in Doctor Who (I think?) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and probably others, too.
~Neshomeh, who totally tricked herself into participating in this conversation.
Though, of course, the image of the Icosahedron as an actual d20 calls to mind the ending of Men in Black... which is entirely appropriate, really.
Entanglement - probably not technically quantum, but of some kind - is definitely the best word to describe the leeching/parasitism mechanism. As for Word Worlds in other Word Worlds, simple - Doctor Who is heavily, ah, abstractly canonically entangled (so the term is 'ACE', and 'ACEd') with World One. That includes J.K. Rowling - so the idea of the Harry Potter books existing there just means that the series of books is being 'puppetted' - ACEd - by Doctor Who.
Possibly more difficult is the fact that the Doctor appears in person in Young Wizards (and no doubt elsewhere). Do we have to claim that YW and DW are the same continuum? Nah - we just say that a portion of High Wizardry became ACEd with a portion of Doctor Who. The Doctor (baseline) wasn't affected by it, because it was only one instance.
As for Euclidean geometry - probably not! But that's what models are for. Space-time can't be accurately represented by a rubber sheet, either, nor electrons by discrete point charges in mysterious 'orbitals', but that doesn't stop us using them - and doesn't stop them being a very good model.
hS - gotcha!
I'll try explaining it, hoping it makes sense 'cause I would need some sort of 3D modelling to show it.
Basically, the "nexus" in every multiverse is the World One, and the sub-universes (the Word Worlds) all depend from it somehow.
The PPC doesn't exactly have a place in the "web" of multiverses, because as we know PPC HQ has "pieces" in every universe, but so far the model isn't much different from Huinesoron's.
The difference comes on how the multiverses are placed, as I don't exactly like the "random places in the void" idea either.
So let's try to envision the multi-multiverse as something like this:
Where every triangle is the base of a pyramid with the vertex at the centre of the icosahedron. Every multiverse is housed inside one of the pyramids, with the World One near the vertex and the other worlds coming down from it towards the base. The PPC-like organization, so, actually permeates most of the pyramid.
It also means that every multiverse has some "big" points of contact with some other multiverses corrisponding with the sides of the pyramid (the Prime Multiverse has apparently at least those with the Steampunk and Mirror, and a much smaller one with every other multiverse at the vertex (Shipverse?)
This results in easier contact between multiverses sharing sides, explaining why we had several encounters with the EPC but only Lux falling in from the Shipverse.
What is keeping the multiverse together at the vertex, though? I'd say either the Real World or some other kind of dimensional nexus.
I hope this makes sense?
NOTE: I am not a physicist but I play one on the internet and so can't really comment on the accuracy of theories and whatnot. Everything I'm about to talk about is from my perspective as a writer and a consumer of many kinds of speculative fiction.
First off, I'm quite glad to see something like this being written for the PPC. There's always a part of me that is curious about the nitty-gritty regarding how a universe functions. Yes, I know, "just repeat to yourself it's just a show/book/game/whatever," but sometimes it's really hard. I like facts, dammit!
Multiverses and how the PPC fits into them is something I've been thinking about for a while now -- going all the way back to before my departure from the Board, actually. I even had a draft of a mission where several of my agents encountered versions of themselves from an alternate PPC. While the story ultimately foundered and was abandoned, I knew I still wanted to touch on the concept of multiverses. That little bit with the Department of Improbable AUs in my first post-return story was meant to sort of set the groundwork for future stories running along those lines.
I like how the theory you've presented here seems to use both the idea of the conventional comic-esque multiverse (big different worlds) as well as the Trousers of Time ("for want of a nail" types of changes). It explains a great deal but still leaves room for possible expansion. It's definitely not the neatest implementation of alternate universes, but let's face it: as soon as the concept of alternate universes comes up, things are going to get messy regardless.
I'd always seen the PPC as an entity existing in its own Word World/pocket dimension, but I think this is the first time I've seen it really (sort of) confirmed. Does that mean that the in-universe concept of the PPC being threaded through other Word Worlds has been, like the theory of a geocentric earth, debunked? Or is there some other explanation? Or am I possibly misinterpreting that (which I suppose would be another explanation)?
I can't say I'm too keen on the Void between Verses. I can't quite put my finger on what about it bothers me. I guess it seems oversimplified, like you (or the IC writer of this document) are trying to force our rather limited perception of matter and space onto a concept that is already doing some pretty crazy things with accepted science. But again, I'not a physicist.
I have a few more points I'd like to touch on, but as they pertain to some of the things that doctorlit brought up in his comments, I'm going to redirect them to that portion of the thread.
Part three of the essay series will deal more with the Trousers of Time. Again, it will be descriptive, not prescriptive - though, equally again, a fair amount of that will be from stuff I wrote in the first place. ;)
The nature of the PPC was (as presented here) a point of contention between the Two and Many Multiverse Theories. HQ is threaded into portions of canon worlds; that's indisputable, because the people who did the threading (such as the Weeds) are still around to confirm it. But, the whole complex is linked and covered under a HITeG Manifold (which will be further described in Part Two). Essentially, that means that HQ is 'inside' other worlds in the same way that the inside of the TARDIS is 'inside' a police box. There's definitely some connection - but it's not wrong to describe it as a separate dimension, either.
As for the Void: that's another established fact. The name comes from IAHF2, which is where it's described as a canyon. Lou sees it as a desktop on which comics are being made (though I'll not that she's travelling between parallel PPCs in the same multiverse). The idea that different people perceive it different was meant to demonstrate that, well, '[the theorists] are trying to force our rather limited perception of matter and space onto a concept that is already doing some pretty crazy things with accepted science'.
And remember: this is all theory. It's someone in the PPC trying to come up with a model that fits all the known facts, and doesn't exclude any of them. That doesn't mean it's right, and even if it is, it doesn't mean it's complete. (Also, there's the perpetually-unmentioned deeper theoretical basis...)
hS
The comparison between the PPC and the TARDIS helped. I can wrap my head around that. And yes, I know the Void is established fact. I read the links provided. It just... I don't know, feels like it's missing something to me. Maybe if I mull it over some more I'll warm up to the concept.
And yes, again, I know this is not established rock-solid gospel from whence all future stories must flow. This is not my first time on the PPC wild-speculation rodeo.
The point here seems to be less "this is ironclad how it works" and more "here's my personal speculation/hypothesis about how it works given the evidence we've seen IC."
...that "this is ironclad how it works." I'm just looking to further my knowledge of the PPC based on what is IC believed about the world as well as maybe spark a bit of back-and-forth.
I love stuff like this. My question is, how do we know that the PPC is/belongs to the Prime Multiverse?
1/ This is an in-universe text on Multiverse Theory, by a member of the PPC. Obviously, they're going to claim they're the Prime version.
2/ Well... they are the Prime version. They're the version J&A created, and the version we all write about. The Prime Multiverse canons are our canons - Doctor Who exists, while Master Who and The Unnamed Academian do not.
3/ 'Prime' is just a name, as much as 'Mirror', 'Steampunk', and 'Ship'. The TCDA would (and do (TCDA Board) describe the 'Prime' Multiverse as the 'Electropunk' Multiverse.
As to the offshoot/alternate/AU PPCs within the Prime Multiverse... well, that comes down to timeline shenanigans. Since they exist in the same multiverse, they're not actually spinoffs - they're alternate timelines. They're created by... well, this will be detailed massively in the third part of Time and Motion Study, but the essence of it is that there are two forms of time travel in HQ. One just takes you back in time; the other creates an alternate timeline. The Prime timeline is the one which hasn't had any of the second kind of time traveller intervention.
Which actually means that the 'Prime' PPC is not the base timeline, since the 'Door to the Future' RP altered it. The base timeline, until something crops up further back, is still technically the Sundering. But the Prime timeline is the one we write in - the one that's now been altered once.
hS
Do the offshoot PPC's know that they are offshoots? Are they under the impression that they are the Prime 'Verse?
Speaking of Multiverse theory, I have a question regarding the PPC and my upcoming series, Imaginations Collide.
The PPC as it is today is basically fanfiction stuff, right? Imaginations Collide is also basically fanfiction stuff. So, since both are capable of interdemensional travel between different fandoms, each would theoretically be able to ravel into the universe of the other, right?
I was under the impression that it was okay if I did it, as long as certain requirements were met in the representation of the PPC, stuff like that. Nobody has directly asked me to drop it.
The first MM interlude was posted in 2007 - on the last day of 2007. So I guess regardless of when it happened, the PPC found out about it in '08.
hS
I've been imagining the physical aspect of things very similarly to some of your graphs, particularly the fanfic "worlds" being bubbles attached to the main worlds. I don't see them as separate worlds, but rather as a more direct attachment to the original world, directly affecting the real contents. (I know the argument has been made in the past that the fics happen separately from the main fic, mostly to explain why three thousand Sues and five hundred agents aren't all crowding around the Council of Elrond at once; personally, I think this is avoided by a fail-safe on the Sues' end. The last thing the average most-special person wants is another most-special person getting all up in their glitter.) When agents do the typical mission thing, what they're doing in the end is popping that added bubble and making it take all the bad stuff away from the actual world as it disappears.
I also agree with the final Multiple Multiverse Theory, in the sense that there are simply lots and lots of different versions of the same stuff floating around out there. I'll get into that a bit more later.
The one place where my personal views contradict what you're presented here (which I know doesn't really count for anything) is the idea that the "Word Worlds" are created from World One. I believe that all worlds exist, and have always existed since they were Created, independent of one another. The reason that some worlds have stories about the events of other worlds is because, despite the separation between our homes, everyone everywhere is still basically a "person" at heart; most of us are far more similar than we are different, regardless of whether we're human or Vulcan or centaur, or whatever. This allows "authors" (including writers, producers, actors, game designers, whatever) to catch tidbits of information through little connections with the people of other worlds. You can see similarities between authors and parts of their stories everywhere: J.K. Rowling said Hermione is similar to herself as a young girl; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was personally acquainted with Dr. Joseph Bell, who is very similar to Sherlock Holmes; many PPC authors in our world write about an agent who is extremely similar to them.
And yes, that's another part of my belief in the system: the version of Earth that we live on is not deserving of the title "real world," not because it isn't real, but because every world is equally real. We've already seen missions involving the real world written in the real world (and my Sherlock Holmes mission, where the "Sue" turned out to be a fan author from the modern period of Holmes's world). Even though we, as a community, no longer write real person missions, I'm sure the actual PPC still does them, as they have no reason from their perspective to treat it any differently than any other world. Additionally, this means that other worlds have stories written about ours, which seem as fictional to them as theirs do to us.
Anyway . . . this probably doesn't help you at all. Sorry. I just wanted to share my feelings on the topic.
Yes, this is what doctorlit actually believes about reality. Please don't judge him too harshly for it, as he gets bored VERY easily.
P.S. What was that Protectors of the Plot Discontinuum? I don't remember hearing about that anywhere else.
Last questions first: the Protectors of the Plot Discontinuum.
First questions second: the diagrammed version of fanfic-Word World relations is a bit simplified. I've added an explanation section and diagram to the doc, with the writing running as follows:
This is in actuality somewhat oversimplified. The effect is not limited to some vague ‘destabilising’; it’s more akin to fanfic creating a puppet with a loose connection to the original. While one such puppet being jerked around won’t change the canon much, many of them being pulled in the same direction will drag the canon around after them.
And, curiously, this effect is not limited to the Word Worlds. The Department of RPF have long known that ‘real’ world people can be affected by badfic; indeed, every ‘girl falls into Canon X’ story can be deemed to affect the author who bases the ‘girl’ on herself - this explains the strong emotional reactions they often have to their character being maligned. In fact, there is a strong argument to be made for Word Worlds simply being parasites writ large - think of the alterations to New Zealand following the release of the Lord of the Rings films. One could claim them to be simply a sensible business decision to attract tourists - but one could also claim that the increased mischievousness of twins across the multiverse is simply whimsy. That there is a ‘reasonable’ explanation does not exclude the base cause being fanfiction.
The only alternate explanation which really fits the evidence is the Suedom model, wherein the canon simply loops endlessly, and different badfics happen on different iterations. I'm avoiding that because a) #Idon'tlikeit, b) it seems fairly brutal on the canons, and c) it requires a lot of pinpoint time travel. ;)
As to the idea of all the worlds being equally extant... well, part of that (RPF) has been mentioned in the above expansion, and actually expanded a little. But your main thesis... doesn't work in the context of the PPC. J.R.R. Tolkien can power HQ by spinning in his grave because it's his creation that's being mauled. And, well, in all the PPC missions, we've not only never seen, but never seen mentioned, a mission into a story written anywhere other than World One. It just... hasn't happened. Which, to a physicist, strongly suggests it can't happen.
Then there's the fact that a qualitative difference between Word and Atomic worlds is a firm part of Origins, to the point where Reality Rooms work because Mary-Sues - from Word Worlds - can't survive in Atomic worlds, because their plotholes stop operating.
So no: in the PPC universe, the creative process is definitely one-way. New creations can change the canon - this is clear from the way Legolas is now blond, and was shown in HFA when a new book came out (I forget which): new characters appeared in the canon. (Though of course HFA is a fanfic itself, gold rather than red)
And on a personal note: your theory removes all creative power from authors. As someone who likes to think of himself as rather creative, I find that to be a fairly big flaw in the argument. ;)
That said, the distinction between Atomic and Word Worlds isn't as ironcast as the writer makes it sound. The example of RPF, and Word World parasitism, shows they are of fundamentally the same kind - and plotholes from the Cascade, which ought to only appear in Word Worlds, showed up around Origin...
... all right, I'll spill. From an out-of-universe perspective, written worlds fall into (at least) three categories:
Cat. 3: Fanfic. These are the stories where Agents can read the Words. They're total parasites, with no stable existence - once the author insert (of whatever kind) is killed, the dimension dies.
Cat. 2: Word World. The original canon. Here Agents probably can't read the Words (I don't recall seeing it, anyway), but Flowers still detect them. While still somewhat parasitic, they're pretty stable; a PPC agent couldn't do something to kill a canon dimension.
Cat. 1: World One. The 'real world' of the PPC Multiverse. Neither Flowers nor agents can detect that it's made of words - but, er, it is, because we're the ones writing them. ;) Origin falls into this category - I mean, come on, it has natural plotholes. Even if you can't actually sense Words, that's a big hint that they're there.
Cat. 0: The Real World. Our world - our actual world, not the fictionalised one where there's a PPC city in New Cal. As far as we know, this isn't a Word World at all. (;^-^) Nor has any PPC character ever set foot in it - because there's no such thing as portals from fiction into Actual Reality. Again, that we know of... and if there was, you couldn't read about anything that happens on this side of it, because this side has no Words, and no narrator...
hS will stop here because words
World -1.
Yes, someone had to do it.
World 1-1
-Phobos
I'm a bit of two minds about this. I recognize that for the sake of practicality all the fanfiction our agents spork has to come from World One. Then there's the spinning authors* and Reality Rooms and whatnot.
On the other hand, I don't really like how it makes the PPC World-One-centric. Having World One be the source of all creative energy and change makes the Word Worlds, in my mind, be less important. Plus, think of it from an in-universe perspective:
World One Agent: So you're my new partner, huh? Cool! Where're you from?
Word World Agent: Pittsburgh, in... uh, what did that Flower call it? The Marvelverse?
WOA: Neat! Where I come from, the Marvelverse is just a comic series.
WWA: Just a... what?
WOA: Yep! World One! All these other universes we're going to? On my world, they're just stories!
WWA: ...
I don't know about you, but if I were an agent from a World Word I'd kinda annoyed with all these World One jackasses who say that my family and friends, my home, and my entire universe were just made up by some random person to entertain the masses.
I don't know how to reconcile those two points. I suppose the rules of the fictional universe can only be taken so far in the PPC before it runs headlong into the realities that we the authors have to deal with.
Eh. Maybe it's just the name I don't like.
*I must admit, I'm not really a fan of the "dead spinning authors generate power for the PPC" thing. It strikes me as being both a bit weird and slightly disrespectful. But that's beside the point.
It's a shame that this fic was allowed to drop off the Unclaimed Badfic list, since it was literally about a plot to destabilise canon by writing a bad script within the fic itself. Or something. (The bad SPaG makes it hard to tell what it's about.)
If anyone had claimed it, they would've been the one to decide how bad writing from fictional universes is treated. But it's probably too late now.
Doesn't mean no one can claim it. It just means that it sat there for so long it's reasonable to assume no one was interested, so we might as well free up the space. If that changes—if you want it, say—there's no reason in the world you can't spork it. {= )
~Neshomeh
I'll toss it onto my personal list and maybe later I'll create someone who would get assigned a Doctor Who fic.
As it is, I could iron out the SpaG to make it easier on someone else, but it doesn't seem too bad. Noticing things suddenly lurch into existence seems like they are trying to be bad.
At first chapter and by your description, I'm not going to be able to handle it for a while, and that's if I improve at all.
Considering that "there is no outside of Headquarters" according to a "things I'm not allowed to do" list, I imagine that agents from World One eventually begin to doubt that they aren't from a word world. Especially if people from various "real" word worlds start referencing a popular fiction that doesn't exist in World One.
I have an agent from a theoretical Ghostbusters fanfic. She's from a "real" world that had a sudden spike in supernatural problems and a giant marshmallow monster in New York rather than a film about it happening. (They also didn't have the tv series with a model T and a guy in a gorilla costume.)
I have an agent who has no clue about how his word world differs from World One. (Muggle in an American Harry Potter ripoff.)
The other two probably come from a "real" world that is separate unless World One has room for non-PPC creatures and machines that deposit people into media.
I mean, Star Trek includes Earth, but people from there would have a hard time claiming it was 'the real world'.
There's a reason I coined the term World One: while you can slap the word 'real' on any world you like, World One is a specific designation. It means the world where the PPC city in New Caledonia is situated, and which the majority of agents who claim to come from 'the real world' originated. But to people like the Weeds, who spend their time moving around worlds (rather than just fanfics like most agents), it's known by its number.
The number actually originates in the designations of the doors of HQ (on which, given the whole 'there is no outside, sort of', more will be said later); door 1-Cym-3, to pick the random example, is World One-Cymru (Wales)-third door. So there are at least three doors in Wales in World One. (The image on the '1-Cym-3' wiki article also designates World One as 'Primary Earth')
Other worlds, Earth or otherwise, are also numbered, and most also have a long Continuum Identification Code. My theory is that the Weeds invented the numbering system while they were out exploring, completely separate to the CIC system that was developing back in HQ.
hS
To pluck a purely random example, Printworthy has near enough that exact conversation:
Printworthy continued to silently sit for a good while, until at last he spoke, terror quivering in his voice. “That’s it isn’t it? Plotholes. Entering fanfiction. Your comment on the author’s ability to make good names. It all comes together, doesn’t it?” He looked up into Marvin’s face, eyes wide and scared. “Marvin, tell me the truth. Am I…Could it be possible that I…”
Printworthy could not bring himself to finish the sentence, though Marvin knew what he was going to say. He sat down next to the unicorn and sighed. “Yes. I am so sorry, but you are a character from a fanfiction. I don’t know which one, I can’t even tell you if it’s a good or a bad one, but definitely one of them.”
That's been happening in PPC stories for a very long time. I mean, you can concoct a theory of the Multiverse that contradicts that. Of course you can. You can also concoct one which says they're all actually garden chairs. But it doesn't fit the previously-described facts of the PPC.
hS
I'm not talking about characters recruited from badfic like Printworthy or Xericka. They are aware that they were "constructed" by an author. That's why there are such things as badfic character support groups in the PPC.
I'm talking about agents from Word Worlds who entered the PPC as agents from World One did: falling through plotholes, mysterious advertisements, or what have you. Characters like the Notary or Cali Still or Gremlin. Characters who by all accounts lived perfectly normal (for a given definition of normal in their universes) lives before accidentally stumbling into the hallways of Headquarters. Were they constructed by an author? Well yes, obviously. Us. But they don't know that.
...okay, this is getting way too meta for me. Forget I mentioned anything.
One more passing thought on this part of the discussion. If nothing else, this whole concept would make for a lot of in-universe debates about reality and perception and the nature of creativity. You know, the kind of debates that start off only a few steps removed from stereotypical stoner talk.
AGENT 1: What if reality... wasn't?
AGENT 2: Wasn't what?
AGENT 1: You know... real. Not as we know it, anyway.
AGENT 2: ...you are blowing my mind right now, dude.
AGENT 3: Did you idiots eat all my pretzels again?
Morgan is acutely aware of the problems of being from a canon world. She's not a canon character - she's part of the background, part of the living world that exists beyond the word of canon. But despite that, her world is still fictional.
She wrote an essay on it: Gallifrey Stands. Because of what's happened to Doctor Who since the series was revived, her personal history has been fundamentally changed. In 2004 she was a member of the ancient and noble(ish) order of the Time Lords; in 2005 the Time Lords had, in some sense, never existed. That doesn't happen in World One; there is nothing that can change history - or backstory, as it were.
I'm certain there are other examples - non-fanfic characters who are aware their homes are fictional. I can't name any off the top of my head, though.
hS
I had read both "Gallifrey Stands" and the bit during the Blackout it covered, but had forgotten about them. I can't see everyone from a canonical world taking it so easily (particularly not at first) and my own head-canon regarding reality and fictionality is always going to be at least a little different, but I concede the point.
Although I will say, as an historian, that can happen in non-fictional realms. Not so dramatically as a massive universal retcon, but history can be altered in the minds of the people. Bias, mythologizing, and outright lies can create new "facts" capable of supplanting the old.
As I said right at the start, this is both descriptive and in-universe. It's possibly!Morgan's view of things - not a Fundamental Truth. (Also, it really doesn't matter to Multiverse Theory whether World One creates Word Worlds or they're both ACEd with each other - the diagram looks the same either way, and the theory is mostly involved with multiple multiverses, not the intricacies of one)
You have a fair point about history - which always simply comes down to what's reported and how. But it doesn't generally result in someone suddenly acquiring a whole new set of memories. (Though, that said, editing our own memories to fit... I understand it's pretty easy to persuade people they remember meeting Bugs Bunny at Disneyland...)
hS
I mean, yeah, if someone took the actual coffin of the actual J.R.R. Tolkien and hooked it up to a generator, that would be pretty horrifying. And also pointless, since authors don't actually spin in their graves in reality.
It would also be a pretty messed up existence if your office building were actually a maze unless you hadn't noticed.
But that's just how HQ works. It runs more on narrative laws than physical ones, so goofy figurative expressions we would normally never blink at take on a surprising life—and that element of surprise is what (theoretically) makes it funny. Which is the whole point.
Threads like this always bug me a little precisely because, even though it can be fun to think and talk about these things, analyzing and applying rules to a universe that runs on puns and taking things too literally does tend to make people forget that it's all supposed to be for snorts and chortles. {= /
~Neshomeh
I take your point that trying to explain something fundamentally inexplicable can make people forget it's supposed to be funny - but quite frankly, I'm having heaps of fun doing this!
And... well, leaving the PPC as a mass of unrelated puns is (was) certainly one possible way to develop it - but I subscribe to the idea that figuring out the 'rules' actually makes for more jokes down the way. If I hadn't decreed that HQ ran on dead authors spinning in their graves, we could never have had CAL-9000 - or the 'power'-obsessed Slaver Sunflower - or the idea that both of those are fed up to the respective idiom with people coming in to pay their respects to the generators. (Or, indeed, a certain agent named Tequila Sunrise)
The Department of Redundancy Department was a hilarious one-line joke - but turning it into an actual department, with rules and desks and 'logic', gave us Rosalind and Haar. I'm quite fond of them.
And so it goes on. The TCDA could join in the Blackout because someone (...me) had fleshed them out enough that they were an actual organisation, not just 'hey the PPC could be steampunk'. FicPsych is immensely funnier now that it goes far beyond 'we bring Legolas in because Sues make him crazy'. The question of 'how does HQ handle security?' led to the humorous UST (er... Unresolved Pollination Tension?) between the Tiger Lily and Captain Dandy.
Ultimately, my view is that the more things you stake out a basic ground-rules background for, the more you can play with that background. Without the idea that there's a 'Void between Verses', Lou could never have wandered past a Star Wars comic set.
hS
On the one hand, while explaining the real world doesn't make it less real, explaining the joke tends to make it less joke-y. But on the other hand, the joke is only funny the first couple of times you hear it anyway; once you start taking it for granted that agents have to distract themselves to get from place to place, it's not a joke anymore, it just is. Like when watching a whole lot of Monty Python or reading a whole lot of Discworld books in a row, you start to see the pattern, the element of surprise is lost, and you gradually laugh less.
The trick is finding new jokes, or new ways to play on the old ones. If explaining things lets that happen, it's good. But if making the DoDAEG a place that agents can get to, rather than some kind of metaphysical quantum entanglement thingy, leads one to wonder what the characters who live in a universe where this is actually happening think about it, which leads one to wonder what we would think if it were real, which leads nowhere good... yeah.
The problem(?), I think, is getting good character-writing to exist harmoniously with wacky literalisms. If our characters are expected to behave like real people, they're not going to take to these things well—but they have to, or it stops being fun, and everything turns into a grimdark psychological horrorfest. And I'm guilty of these tendencies myself: I'm currently trying to balance the need to get on with a mission against the needs of real people to eat food; and how can you possibly be a good pet owner if you have to leave them in an RC for an undefined period of time, anyway? You could be gone for days, even weeks! It doesn't work!
... Unless you just stop thinking about it and hit your characters with an SEP effect or something so they can stop thinking about it, too. Which feels pretty cheap, but hey, if I don't draw attention to it, who's gonna notice, right? (Oh wait, I just drew attention to it. Damn!)
I dunno, I'm just rambling at this point. But I think what I'm trying to say is that I, and PoorCynic, and probably plenty of other people, are a lot better off leaving the jokes as jokes and not asking ourselves or our characters to confront DoDAEG or the DRD/RDR in the flesh, so to speak.
Or the actual nature of the multiverse. My personal in-universe theory on that has always been that it's all real, but whether or not it's also fictional depends entirely on where you're sitting. And Jenni dares anyone to ask her if she cares one whit whether anyone sees her as fictional from their perspective. Go on, tell her it's a paradox for her to exist both as an independent being and as a figment of my imagination at the same time. See if she cares. She dares you. ^_~
~Neshomeh
An elf, a man, and a dwarf walk into a bar...
You're dead right that repeating the same joke makes it boring, or at least predictable. Sometimes the memory of the original makes you laugh anyway ("This... is an EX-PARROT!"), but sometimes you just gloss over and move on.
So do you go off in search of new, unrelated jokes - or do you try to delve deeper into the ones you've already got? You talk about Jenni later - she's one obvious 'joke', but you didn't just send her on her way after using it a few times. You've explored it (or let her do so), finding new ways to make her a part of the humour. That's what I try to do when I set to work expanding things - find or create new inlets for jokes. (Among other things, having a Multiverse Theory lets someone be really distraught when they find out it's wrong...)
I'm dubious about your assertion that, to continue the example, everyone would be horrified at the concept of the DoDAEG. Why? They're not actually digging up the authors - they're still in their graves. I'm not even certain the connection is physical. And the fact that they're spinning in the first place is the fault of the Suvians, not the PPC. All we're doing is using the effects of badfic to fight badfic - with the specific assistance of the creators of the canon.
And, of course, in the Real World we burn dead dinosaurs and very-recently-dead trees to achieve the same ends... where's the moral high ground, again?
I mean, yes, PPC agents aren't psychologically normal - they take unpaid jobs going up against armed opponents while working for the world's scariest garden - but I don't think there's any reason for them to all break down into tears of despair. The PPC is weird, but past the unpaid-risk-of-death part, I don't think there's much horrifying. We kicked the Great Unclean One out, remember.
(As for food, sleep, weekends, hobbies, and pets - yeah, those get glossed over, it's true. But most pets are minis, and they're pretty sentient... maybe they just have stacks of smoked bacon in the RC? Anyway, most of those things are glossed over in the vast majority of fiction as it is. Most fictional characters have magical digestive systems, I figure)
As for Jenni... Lou says hi. ^-^ She'd like to know if anyone's got a theory for how she managed to live in my head, specifically request being in a PPC story, and then exist solidly inside that story while still being also in my head, and also in several alternate PPCs at the same time, as different versions but all with direct access to me... maybe ACE again?
hS
(Ouch - it was a mithril bar)
I just see creativity as a different process than is typically understood. I know this is becoming a cliched thing to say, but when I write, I don't feel that I'm causing anything to happen. Instead, I'm just recording things that happened--I can't explain how I know they happened, but I do know. (Simplest explanation: Agent Doc seems to be a version of me from another Earth, so I'm in tune with his mind and what happens to him. Then again, Vania is more and more becoming the real main character of my spin-off, so, eh.)
In point of fact, during a very restless night's sleep that I just woke up from half an hour ago, I flat-out dreamed a new interlude that I'll need to write down the line. Since dreams are not conscious thought, how did I "make" those scenes up? Far from devaluing creativity, I'm suggesting that writers/creators of any story have such a strong imagination that they are able to see beyond the mundane reality of their world (for given values of mundane in some worlds) and see things far outside their immediate experience and familiarity. To use a Middle-earth analogy, the author's mind is traveling past the curve of their own world and heading "east" to another level of existence.
As to the Department of Dead Author Electricity Generation: Professor Tolkien would have a strong connection to Middle-earth regardless of whether or not it came out of his head or he mentally discovered it. Heck, perhaps there are a handful of different versions of each other in DoDAEG, from different versions of Earth.
But again, this has just been my feelings on the subject; I never expected anyone else to agree to it, or to suddenly subscribe to the Church of Fiction Doesn't Exist.
I really don't have much to say, otherwise, except that your description of the Void between Verses brought the 'backstage' from American Gods to mind, for some reason.
Nice!
-Aila
