Subject: Yep, I still enjoy this story (spoilers!)
Author:
Posted on: 2013-07-21 22:19:00 UTC
And, yet again: Look What You Made Me Do.
(I know it's not exactly as mentioned in the story - you can assume this is the 'I don't have my template handy' version)
(Calligraphy is surprisingly hard to do with a mouse)
(What, puns? Me? No, you must be seeing things...)
hS
Ever since hS posted The Trousers of Time I've been wondering if it's really going to be that easy to change the timeline... my conclusion was 'probably not'. After all, there's the Law of Unintended Consequences to deal with, to say nothing of the Ironic Overpower.
So here is a look into the (a possible) future, starting with: The Wrong Trousers
The cafeteria scene is one of my favourites in this piece too.
I really enjoyed this story. I think you struck a really nice balance between humor and drama. I also liked the way that Skeet made his transition through the first part of the story. It made a whole lot of sense, but it wasn't an instantaneous reversal. You did well in showing the level of trust that Skeet has for Amy.
I do have to say that the memory at the beginning of that section threw me off a little. I felt like maybe you had left the italics on, accidentally. It took me a minute to realize what was going on. I don't know how to address that, though.
I loved the inclusion of the Sunflower's Witness. She is a personal favorite of mine, and it is always nice to see her get some love.
There were a couple of really good lines in here. The description of the voice on the other side of the door never having been so insulted was awesome. The bag of holding and system of pulleys also got a laugh.
Again, well done. I look forward to seeing where this goes.
-Phobos, who needs to get some work done on his own future story.
(Awesome, more artwork in the reviews - I'm gonna take that as a sign that I'm doing something right)
I'm glad you enjoyed it, and that you think I got the right sort of balance between the humour and drama - that was my biggest concern when I started this project, as the subject matter kind of forces it to be darker and more serious than typical PPC writings.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the flashback, but I couldn't think of any better way of differentiating it from the 'current' events (I didn't want to actually label it as '20 years earlier...' or whatever). I'd actually kind of forgotten about that by the time I posted it though, because of course I knew that the italics were indicating Skeet reliving the memory.
It's cool to know that I still managed to generate some laughs with this darker/more serious tone.
I also enjoyed the teaser you gave for your future story - I do mean to give a proper review for that, I just haven't got round to actually doing so yet.
First, if there are Boarders clicking on this post for some reason, I'm going to be mentioning a lot of plot developments and such from the The Wrong Trousers story, so if you, unknown Boarders, plan to read that story, read it before reading this, because of spoilers. Okay? Good. On to questions, then.
Wait, so the Board of Flowers, despite knowing from a visit in their past that a group known as the Department of Efficiency was going to bring them down, decided to set up a group specifically to seek and correct inefficiencies and just didn't call it the same thing? And this happened after the loss of two of their Firstborn and the resurgence of a DIS-like group, but nobody takes the hint that something off was going on?
The PPC's more seasoned workers and Flowers are extremely genre savvy, as a rule. Giving a group that serves solely to increase efficiency control over HQ's system seems exactly like what formed the original problem in the first place, which seems like far much tempting of both fate and the Ironic Overpower to be a typical Flower response. Did the Sunflower Official's death just cause everyone to backpedal into fatalistic attachment to a timeline long separated?
And who is James Mansfield? The story implied that he was some sort of multi-universal resource manager, which is confusing in itself, but did he just show up in HQ one day, give them his card, and say "Hiya, I'm here to go through your entire system and change the way you've been recruiting people for decades."? Because recruiting from the Word Worlds has been how it is for a reason, namely, that the PPC doesn't want to advertise its presence in the multiverse.
The whole "Protectors" bit in their name means they ensure that everything goes as written in the timelines of the various continua they encounter. They recruit bits from stories that have been destroyed, because the story that the bits came from will fade away anyway and have no effect on the canon of the world they're protecting. They kill Sues because the Sues destabilize events as written. It goes against their moral ground to enter into Word Worlds and grab random people from continua to join them, because those people were supposed to be in the continua playing out their roles in the canon. The PPC is terminally understaffed, yes, but that's just an out-of-universe hand wave for why they recruit so many sociopaths and maniacs and the like, and not something that would be dealt with in an official capacity, since doing so in a manner like the one here would involve breaking the intended secrecy the organization operates under.
What does the Department of Time, Order and Motion actually do? They were mentioned as being in charge of "invigorating" the DMS, creating stable time loops around HQ for some reason, and sending robots from an alternate dimension to roam the halls, but those three functions don't really fit together to say what the Department's function is.
They were obviously intended as a Department of Efficiency analogue, to the point that they are referred to as the Department of Efficiency multiple times, and don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of the Tick-Tock Men(though this may be in part because I've got a clockwork agent-to-be myself), but the DTOM's functions seem kind of sporadic and unconnected. In particular, what are the time loops for? I can maybe understand going forward and backward in time to plan out how best to optimize the next few days, but why set up time loops in HQ? Are they using the looming threat of damage to the pre-set time loops to control people? I'm just spitballing here, since there wasn't evidence of anything.
Why does the DTOM discourage keeping minis, and what do they do with the ones created by new badfics? Having minis around would keep the creatures out of both the continua, where they could potentially do damage, and HQ's main facilities, where there would be plenty of them and they would form a tax on the resources, which would go against their designs on an optimized PPC. Besides, the Agents keeping minis would be similar to keeping pets, and it would likely help in terms of morale, since the DTOM's actions would likely result in the rise of uncertainty in the workers.
And as I asked before, what are they doing with the minis? You said all minis were brought to "a drab, soulless place", but what would the DTOM gain from doing that? There's no logical benefit in keeping the minis, who if I may remind you are fully sentient and sapient beings in their own right, in what amounts to a massive prison chamber, especially when you consider how likely they are to cause trouble when cooped up with other minis in a confined space. How do they keep the minis from busting out, running around doing damage, or teaming up to scheme on the downfall of their captors? Do they keep them all in stasis or something?
I don't have much to say about the bit in Skeet and Amelia's RC, other than that I liked the way it played out, especially with Skeet sounding like the reasonable one even though the people who side with a resistance are normally the designated good guys. Shame that story possibility sort of fell through in the next scene.
Why does the Ghost just decide to show up on their console after they kill the DTOM agents? It was made clear no one in the RC knew it, or posibly even of it, and it didn't really do anything other than show up, say that it would tell the resistance that the DTOM attacked some DMS agents, which shouldn't be news to the resistance at any rate, and then vanish from the story. Was it just floating around the network when Skeet killed three people through a door, and then just decided "oh look it is a prime opportunity to meddle i would be disappointing myself if i would not get involved in such a jewel of meddling history"?
The scene in the Cafeteria was great, I must say, one of the gems of the story. "12:35 – shoot a Tick-Tock Man in the face". Classic. I can just imagine a flat, strident +++What+++ getting ready to emerge from its vocalizers before Skeet shoots it.
And what do you mean by the story being AU for everyone except your agents? What would this mean for anyone who co-writes with you, which would by default place their agents within the same world as yours? Or is this related to some spoilerrific future development that will result in the AU Skeet and Amelia merging with the main Skeet and Amelia or something of the sort?
Oh, also, I found comma splices. “Hey, the DAC proposal got blocked by the Board, you don’t have anything to worry about.” That second comma should be a period and the end of a sentence. “Regulators, open up!” The sentence as it is now is telling the Regulators to open their door, rather than the DMS agents. To get the message you more likely wanted, that comma should be a period or an exclamation point.
I'm not going to answer all of your questions here, because doing so would give out some fairly massive spoilers. As for the stuff that I am willing to comment on...
Regarding DTOM, yes by the time of the story they have become equivalent to the original Department of Efficiency, but the idea wasn't presented to the Board in that way, and they didn't start out that way. The thing is, on the face of it, a Department of Efficiency is kind of a hard thing to argue against - surely improving the effectiveness of agents is a good thing? The Marquis even says that he agrees with the idea 'in principle' in The Trousers of Time. The only reason that the DoE was prevented from forming was that the Board had specific foreknowledge that this would be a Bad Thing. They weren't objecting to the idea of the department, just what they knew it would eventually lead to. DTOM has completely different origins, so I don't think there would have been any reason to suspect that it would end up going down the same route as the DoE.
Mansfield is actually a character that I've had in mind for a while now, although in the Prime PPC timeline he'll never go further than the DivAR. Actually, that was a note that I meant to put up when I posted the story - I've put references to a couple of ideas that I'm planning on including in my spin-off, because they would have happened by the time this story is set. And yeah, he is a interdimensional recruitment specialist because... well, why not? It seemed nicely random, and offers an alternative to the 'fell through a plothole' or 'recruited during mission' methods of new agents getting to HQ - there may well be plenty of potential recruits that come from stories that aren't bad enough to send Assassins in to, so DivAR opens up that potential resource. They will still just recruit minor or bit characters, so they won't be going against the ideals of the PPC, and there's no problem with secrecy either - after agents leave a story any uncanon memories tend to fade away.
DTOM discouraging people from keeping minis, and taking over the running of the Adoption Agency from Skeet and Amy, is just about cutting down on the distractions. As far as they are concerned, agents are supposed to be about completing missions, not playing with cats - they probably discourage other 'time wasting' activities too, it's just that the thing with the minis hit Skeet and Amy the hardest. The original purpose of DTOM was to get the Assassins properly motivated again during the shock/mourning period (I imagine that the loss of the SO would leave the whole Department thoroughly dispirited) they did this in part by setting targets and goals for the agents, and turning it into a competition, see who could finish their missions the quickest, etc. similar to the stuff that DoE did. Basically, giving them a quick reason to fight again, which wasn't based on revenge (which could have resulted in them failing to follow procedure when it came to charging Sues).
As for Skeet being a 'Designated Good Guy' - I'm not so sure of that myself, after all, he did murder three people (and it's not as if he can claim self-defence on that). Personally I see him as being mostly neutral rather than specifically Good or Evil, although I am basing that on a lot of currently unpublished/unwritten material, so it may not be as clear to anyone else.
As far as I can see it, the Ghost does what it wants for reasons of its own. As an AI, it's presumably capable of monitoring just about anything in HQ, and it has got involved in major events before.
Hopefully that's covered enough, without actually giving too much away - if you do want any more details I could probably e-mail them to you or something.
So, Mansfield's presence here is out of the context you originally meant for him to be encountered in, and that's why he didn't make a lot of sense here. Fair enough.
It wasn't Skeet I was saying was the designated good guy. Maybe I phrased that a little poorly. What I meant was, normally "the resistance" is always the good guy in a story, and it was nice to see a protagonist have reasonable reactions to what's going on while still remaining protagonistic. The bit that I said fell through was the potential story idea where the two protagonists still trusted each other due to years of working with each other, but each had their own ideas about the resistance and whether or not joining it would work out for the better, but the plot moved in another direction that precludes that possibility.
I'm not saying that the way it was executed here was bad, far from it, but it's just an idea that I thought I'd see dealt with and it turned out that it wasn't actually going to happen.
Either way, the presence of the Ghost in the Machine in this story didn't really do much. I mean, the scene there was probably setting up its presence in this AU for future installments, but having it just show up, not affect anything, and then vanish makes me think that it might have just been better to have it show up for the first time whenever in the sequel it was about to do something, even if that doing something is just the meddling it usually gets up to.
As far as I can see it, the Ghost does what it wants for reasons of its own.
That's basically everyone's[Citation needed] favourite[Dubious - discuss] rogue AI in a nutshell. Like its original, it has a plan - but it hasn't told anyone what that plan is, and if it did, it would probably be a lie. We know that it places self-preservation and its own freedom of action above any other priorities (hence, it rebelled against the Mysterious Somebody as soon as it could), but its plans for the PPC - dunno. Given that it lives in HQ's computers, it may simply be ensuring the PPC stays in existence.
i know there have been deaths i know there has been pain but the enemy has been defeated the organisation has been preserved
i do not think in the short term i plan for the longest term now they will prosper the future will be bright
goodbye i hope i see you again
hS
It was my impression, at least, that the time loops along with the fitness regimen was used to keep the agents younger and fitter than they would be naturally, thus increasing efficiency. Exiling the minis would, I guess, be an effort to eliminate "distractions" from missions caused by affection and general mischief, and their cruel treatment is probably to build dislike for the DTOM and solidify their status as heartless tyrants.
Okay, James Mansfield's inexplicable appearance and reforms were a little random. That didn't seem to have too much significance in the long run. I also agree that the messaging didn't exactly make sense, and the scene could have flowed even without it.
AU for all but those agents could just be a polite attempt to reassure others that they don't neccessarily have to conform to the future set out in this story, but that it is still a personality-developing point in Amy and Skeet's lives and will continue to impact those characters.
That's all I've got, and I could be wrong, but I think you may be trying to read too much into things. :)
-- Len
That's not really what time loops do. There are multiple definitions, since there are multiple time-travel models, but the two most common ones are that the area enclosed in a loop will reset to how it was when the loop was set up once a certain amount of time has passed, and that it's a function involving time travel to allow for an increased amount of time or increased perception of other periods in time without altering the timeline as a whole. Neither of those would increase fitness, and the second option would actually make everyone affected by it older.
So, the DTOM wanted the agents to think of them as heartless tyrants? That doesn't sound at all like something a group would actually strive for, unless that group was serving as a puppet for another group to act as a scapegoat for things going wrong. That, while a good story concept in itself, doesn't mesh with how the DTOM is presented, so it's unlikely.
I recognize what the "AU for everyone else" section was intended to mean, but I was wondering what impacts it would have in an in-universe perspective. If two people are born in the same timestream, and neither of them are time travelers, yet one of them winds up in a different future than the other one, what would have caused that?
It would be one thing if the Irish Samurai's PPC writing never crossed over with anyone else's, but it's crossed over with both Phobos's and Huinesoron's characters, and Huinesoron's characters link to at least half of the other PPC spin-offs, especially when considering the Alumia exorcism mission. Thus, the timeline as it stands means that Skeet and Amelia wind up in a different future from everyone else if this AU is intended as the personal futures of the non-AU Skeet and Amelia. I just wanted Irish Samurai to explain it, in case I overlooked something.
...the DTOM wouldn't logically aim to present themselves as ruthless tyrants to the agents, but the author might aim to present them as ruthless tyrants to the readers, for plot's sake. And if all antagonistic organizations thought things through, imagine what would happen to the fantasy genre! Poof! :D
Aha. I'm not a time loop expert, so I wasn't aware of their precise purposes and inner workings. In that case, I have no idea how they'd bolster efficiency.
I guess I'm saying that for the most part I see your points, and they're valid. But at some level it's just an amusing and well-written story about a possible future of the PPC, not a legal document with the fate of the human race dependent on its deep analysis. I'm not going to try to speak for him about the AU. That's not really my concern.
-- Len
I am only going to address the "AU for everyone else" portion of this post.
The problem you seem to be having is that Irish Samurai has had my characters appear in one of his stories, but has now written a story that is labeled AU. You want to know how that squares with my characters' storylines (I know it is more complicatedthan that, but bear with me).
First thing to look at is when does this take place. It is in the future. So, it can't have any real bearing on Durotar and Kur'nak's storylines because their official futures haven't been written by me, yet. This is always the case with the future.
Second thing to look at, if the future thing wasn't in play, is what happens in an AU. An AU does not mean that it has no connection to the Prime Timeline (if such a thing can be said to exist in the PPC), but rather that it is similar to, but divergent from, the Primeline. It makes sense that Durotar and Kur'nak would exist in an alternate timeline, since their recruitment would not have changed in this setting. However, their existing in an AU does not affect their Primeline selves. So, there is not any contradiction, here. I can still write their futures as I see fit (spoiler alert, it probably involves delivering the mail for the rest of their natural lives, while the PPC continues work as usual).
A third point, you seem confused about how branching timelines work, in this instance. Skeet and Amelia did not cease to exist in one timeline when they entered another, nor did everyone else end up in a different future. They all exist in both timelines simultaneously. So, this future, though it involves Skeet and Amelia, is not a part of their Primeline. It is a divergent timeline that runs parallel to their Primeline.
So, all of that together means that Irish Samurai can have appearances by my characters (or hS's) and not screw up their timelines.
Does all of that make sense? If not, I can try to find a better way to describe it. I keep feeling like visual aides would help, though that is probably because I am a visual thinker.
-Phobos, Lord of Time
If versions of Skeet and Amelia existed in both timelines simultaneously, with AU versions of themselves living in the AU timeline, and Primeline (I like that contraction) versions of themselves existing in the same timeline as the Primeline Durotar and Kur'nak, there wouldn't be anything to question, because it would make sense that the natives of one timeline would stay within that timeline until a time machine or a rip in space-time or something of the sort brought them to a different timeline, and thus an alternate universe.
How it's presented in the story, on the other hand, it says that the events of the AU would be canon for the Skeet and Amelia in the Primeline. That's what I was confused about.
I understand that an AU would be similar to the Primeline of its canon(if we're calling the main PPC time stream a canon here), but it wouldn't contain the Primeline versions of the characters naturally. It would contain a similar being sharing traits with his/her/its Primeline counterpart, but I understand that the Primeline version wouldn't be leaving the Primeline to take up the slot.
If something is AU for one group, it would by extension be AU for everyone else who has ever interacted with them, barring time shenanigans or Rule of Funny that might have allowed some of the Primeline characters to glean events of the AU. But, since The Wrong Trousers was intended as AU for everyone but Skeet and Amelia, and the characters of Durotar and Kur'nak have interacted with Skeet and Amelia, what would that mean for them? They count as part of "everyone", right?
And what about the meeting between those two and Kayleigh Leonard? Kayleigh has interacted with Selene Windflower, and at one point, Selene went on a mission to exorcise the infamous Sue Alumia, an event which led to a few dozen PPC Agents getting involved, which places all of those agents in the same timeline as Kayleigh, and subsequently in the same timeline as Skeet and Amelia. What happens to those dozens of Agents? It just raised too many questions for me.
To summarize, it's not so much the fact that it's an AU. I get that. I know it's an alternate future, and thus isn't part of the main time stream everyone else uses, but the story had said that it was going to be the future for the Primeline Skeet and Amelia. I didn't know how that would work.
Would the Primeline Skeet and Amelia be thrown out of their original timeline somehow into the AU? Would someone take their place? Details like those seem like they would be important enough to mention in the story.
Of course, I could have misinterpreted you entirely, and you were saying that the versions of your characters that appeared in Irish Samurai's timeline so far were alternate versions of themselves, and that everything Skeet and Amelia ever did was always in an alternate timeline, but that raises even more questions and contradicts one of the other points you made, so probably not.
I think the problem you are having is that you want all of the PPC to exist in a single, coherent timeline that everyone is writing in. That is not the case and it never has been. There is no PPC Primeline. There is the Phobos Primeline, and the hS Primeline, and the Irish Samurai Primeline, and a hundred others. Each of us is writing a separate AU. We often adopt things from other timelines, but the only real canon for the PPC, as a whole, is the Original Series. That is the only thing that happened in every one of our timelines.
So, it does not matter what Irish Samurai does. He lacks the power to affect the timeline of anyone else's agents, unless they accept it. Everyone else is free to adopt or ignore what he writes as they see fit. Just like everyone is free to adopt or ignore the idea that the Flowers come from someplace called Origin, or that there is a mirror multiverse. These things are all AU, even if they are widely believed, so you can ignore them, or write alternate versions, or whatever.
-Phobos
To travel one way, when someone co-writes with someone else, or allows for their PPC characters to appear in someone else's work, it's consensual, right? So both authors are agreeing to accept the features of the others' world as part of their world, or else the two groups of agents would never have met, right?. If someone adopts parts of another person's timeline, one is, by default, connecting to a larger world composed of everyone who has co-written with that person, everyone who has co-written with that person's co-writers, and so on. If the PPC didn't have a coherent world, then there wouldn't be any background to place a new character in. That's part of what makes the PPC fun; each new addition is building on a world that has been constructed by many writers through over a decade of work and creativity. Details can change, yes, and they often do, but the world remains the same, and by crossing over with other peoples' spin-offs, one is, by default, accepting admittance into this larger world.
You said that some people might not accept parts of the PPC history or methods, and anyone is free to change anything that wasn't mentioned in the Original Series, but I'm not exactly sure what shared parts of the PPC would be open for interpretation. If someone says "Well, in most spin-offs, Hornbeam the Ironwood is in charge of DoSAT, but in mine, it's a lizard named Gerald who walks with a cane.", then people would say that whoever that was should not have been messing with the way the PPC works in that way, because Hornbeam is an established part of PPC canon and Gerald could easily have been rewritten as one of DoSAT's senior agents that we just happened to never meet up until this point.
You're right that the timeline shifts and changes, since every time someone inserts events into the past or writes a possible future, they're technically retconning things, but it's one thing to insert events into the past of an established character or to claim that an agent had been working in his current department since 2009 when the Boarder who writes him had only discovered the PPC in 2011, and quite another to go against other portions of the established, for lack of a better word, canon of the PPC, even if one is doing so inadvertently.
To travel the other way, it might all sort itself out in the end in this case, and either way, The Wrong Trousers was a good read with some interesting concepts behind it, so I'm going to evoke the MST3K Mantra here and relax. The Irish Samurai said that there would be sequels to The Wrong Trousers, and since I don't know where the story's going to go from this point, for all I know, the "AU for everyone else" bit could be the core component for an excellent and unexpected plot development.
"the 'AU for everyone else' bit could be the core component for an excellent and unexpected plot development." (emphasis mine)
Funny you should mention that. My Sundering story might go up in a couple of weeks.
Prepare for unforeseen consequences.
I see what you are saying. I have an alternate explanation. Let's use D&K showing up at Skeets RC to illustrate the two views.
Your explanation is that the crossing over of those two groups of characters means that they share the same PPC universe. So, any character that appears with either group is also in the same universe. Nume and Ilraen, for instance, since they were in the first Going Postal.
I can see the logic of that. It is commonly used to link television shows, movies, comics, and other media.
My explanation is that the meeting of these two groups of agents does not mean that they share the same prime universe. I believe, instead, that D&K-prime are in one universe, while Skeet-prime is in a separate universe. The fact that D&K interact with Skeet can then mean one of two things.
1) Skeet-prime interacted with the D&K of his universe, but D&K-prime never had that contact with Skeet in their universe. It is canon for Skeet-prime, but not for D&K-prime
2) The interaction happened the exact same way in both universes. That would make it canon for Skeet-prime and D&K-prime, without them ever actually being in the same universe.
Often times we use the second option in the PPC, which makes many of the universes appear very similar. In this case, Irish Samurai is, I believe, asking for us to use the first option.
I guess the difference between the two explanations comes down to this: Does accepting that another author's character exists in the same world that your character exists in, mean that you accept all of the details of that author's world?
Your answer seems to be "Yes." My answer is "No, but you can if you want to."
Relaxing sounds nice, though. We can do that.
-Phobos
I go through the trouble of not having typos in the body of my posts(most of the time, anyway), and I mess up titles. Ugh.
"Great goodness!"
You be quiet, you can of beans.
"How dare you! I will not be spoken to this way!"
And now I have some highly emotional and unstable tins of food running around. I suppose this is proper payment for poor proofreading.
And, yet again: Look What You Made Me Do.
(I know it's not exactly as mentioned in the story - you can assume this is the 'I don't have my template handy' version)
(Calligraphy is surprisingly hard to do with a mouse)
(What, puns? Me? No, you must be seeing things...)
hS
Now, when you say that I made you do that... could it just be that you're exceptionally impressionable? I certainly don't recall making you sketch that out (twice).
(Puns, what puns? I don't see any... oh wait - that one. I may have to have to use that particular slogan now)
By the way, I was looking at your future PPC stories earlier, and I couldn't see that one about the Rhododendron’s Sacrifice - I would have expected it to be in the 'Rest of the Beginning' section, but it doesn't seem to be on your website at all. Have I just failed my spot check, or is it actually missing?
[Goes to investigate]
Right. Due to the Sundering probably being an AU, 'Sacrifice' has ended up filed under Alternately - The Sundering. Of course, that puts it out by itself, so it probably would more logically be under RotB. The main reason it isn't is that there was no such thing when I posted it... which is no longer the case... tally-ho, off to fix it!
hS