Wapsi Square Forum

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/be-quiet/

We'we Espworwing!

"Be vewy, vewy quiet..."

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Young Barbara.

Yeah, young Barbara for $500, Alex.

Definitely overlapping universes, stone tapes can't interact nor grab hands to make sure you don't get lost.

And I highly doubt this is a younger Barbara. I think in her universe it's a hotel in the off season, so limited staff and customers.

Overlapping universes feels likely, but it could be someone else in an extratemporal event. Definitely doesn't feel like a ghost in any regular sense of the word.

Opus the Poet wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:41 am Definitely overlapping universes, stone tapes can't interact nor grab hands to make sure you don't get lost.

And I highly doubt this is a younger Barbara. I think in her universe it's a hotel in the off season, so limited staff and customers.

I agree it doesn't seem to be a stone-tape recording.

However, it doesn't have to be an overlapping-alternative-universes situation. We have no good reason to believe that these are the only two phenomena which can create "ghosts", and we do have reason to believe that Time, in the Wapsiverse, is not a simple unidirectional flow (the Time Forest incident).

So, let's not succumb to Khan's Mistake (two-dimensional thinking).

I wonder if the so called alternate time lines are just memories of previous play throughs of the main time line during the calendar deal. We know there were 10's of thousands of play throughs before the one shown. So the flow of time may not match exactly giving us younger Barbra and an older Mindy existing at the same point in time.

oldmanmickey wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:31 am I wonder if the so called alternate time lines are just memories of previous play throughs of the main time line during the calendar deal. We know there were 10's of thousands of play throughs before the one shown. So the flow of time may not match exactly giving us younger Barbra and an older Mindy existing at the same point in time.

Actually*, it was 56 rounds, each comprising 1450 years. But regardless of the number of years in each cycle, it was still only 56 rounds, so only 56 playthroughs possible.


*Yes, I'm on the "A team" (the "Actually" team, for which I can't find a link, right now...)

oldmanmickey wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:31 am I wonder if the so called alternate time lines are just memories of previous play throughs of the main time line during the calendar deal. We know there were 10's of thousands of play throughs before the one shown. So the flow of time may not match exactly giving us younger Barbra and an older Mindy existing at the same point in time.

I don't think that the alternate universe are just memories of earlier Calendar Machine cycles. We saw our-Wapsiverse Daylla interacting directly with Dustin (Timmy's alternate-universe brother) and we saw Dustin interacting directly with his universe's Daylla after the resonance cascade reset the errant World Grid anchor.

So, that's evidence that the alternate timelines are "real"... and Tina's comments afterwards to Luci support this.

Now, an idea that was discussed by readers after the Daylla incident, is that the alternate timelines may actually be the 56 timelines that were believed lost by the Calendar Machine resets. That is, the timelines may have actually continued after the "reset" and were not obliterated... the Calendar Machine may actually have "respawned" new timelines that ended up running in multiverse-parallel.

If so, that would mean that Monica and Shelly (or their analogs) would have continued to exist in those timelines even though they failed to destroy the calendar machine! "Hunh... we didn't smash it, it switched on... why are we still here and alive?!?"

Hmmmm... this might explain an anomaly. Remember that Shelly-1 through Shelly-the-last all (or mostly-all) did enter the Time Forest. In the case of Shelly-the-last, this didn't occur until well after the Calendar Machine would have activated itself (if it hasn't been destroyed). Was that true in the other timelines as well?

Shelly-57 showed up after they'd tried to stop the Calendar Machine, but before the Machine would have reset. (Take a look in the archives; she set foot in the forest in mid-2011, over a year before the date of the machine's reset point.)

It's possible that each Shelly that showed up in the forest ended up getting stuck in the reset - but what exactly does that mean?

jwhouk wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:19 pm Shelly-57 showed up after they'd tried to stop the Calendar Machine, but before the Machine would have reset. (Take a look in the archives; she set foot in the forest in mid-2011, over a year before the date of the machine's reset point.)

Ok, thanks for the correction... so, the anomaly I was concerned about, probably doesn't exist in the first place. I had forgotten how much "lead time" the gang had, between when they shut down the CM and the point at which is was scheduled to activate itself.

Shelly went into the Time Forest every time prior to 57 - however, the previous 56 times, because of the machine, she was likely yanked out of the forest on 12/21/2012-a-thru-bd*, never to return until the next time they tried to do something with the Vimana cell.

The last time was the only time Shelly didn't get yanked out of the Forest because of the Calendar Machine, because she died there. When she touched the hilt of the sword, it sent her back into the "present" of 2011-Beta-Epsilon, and everything was renewed then.

* - I'm assuming that tries 27-52 were notated as aa thru az, and 53-56 were ba, bb, bc, and bd. Yes, I'm a nerd.

lake_wrangler wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:58 am

oldmanmickey wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:31 am I wonder if the so called alternate time lines are just memories of previous play throughs of the main time line during the calendar deal. We know there were 10's of thousands of play throughs before the one shown. So the flow of time may not match exactly giving us younger Barbra and an older Mindy existing at the same point in time.

Actually*, it was 56 rounds, each comprising 1450 years. But regardless of the number of years in each cycle, it was still only 56 rounds, so only 56 playthroughs possible.


*Yes, I'm on the "A team" (the "Actually" team, for which I can't find a link, right now...)

And, more importantly, those 56 rounds covered the same 1450 years, and we are now past the end of that period.

It could still be the "stone tape" thing, if Mindy happens to have some sort of ability to connect with and build on the "memories". Maybe the recording starts, her mind subconsciously incorporates the information, and then her perception of reality is changed and her mind builds a new reality that fits the recordings in somehow. Which might also be why she couldn't wake the rest of the gang: this whole event is happening only in her own consciousness, so she wasn't really doing anything to wake anybody up and her mind didn't see fit to have her experience her friends waking.

Still, more likely to be something else altogether. The idea that this is four-year-old Barbara, and that her experience with the mysterious lady with the lantern giving her a fruit tart was her meeting with future Mindy, does seem to be strongly hinted at. Though that would leave a rather odd time loop (Mindy brought the pastries because Barbara told her about being given one, young Barbara was given one because Mindy brought them), and leaves the question of where Mindy got the fruit tart to give to little Barbara (Mindy said that she brought some along, but she doesn't seem to have them on her at the moment).

jwhouk wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:48 pm Yeah, young Barbara for $500, Alex.

Or old Barbara, because Barbara's species ages strangely and she has a very messed-up timeline.

Dave wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:49 pm I don't think that the alternate universe are just memories of earlier Calendar Machine cycles. We saw our-Wapsiverse Daylla interacting directly with Dustin (Timmy's alternate-universe brother) and we saw Dustin interacting directly with his universe's Daylla after the resonance cascade reset the errant World Grid anchor.

So, that's evidence that the alternate timelines are "real"... and Tina's comments afterwards to Luci support this.

Now, an idea that was discussed by readers after the Daylla incident, is that the alternate timelines may actually be the 56 timelines that were believed lost by the Calendar Machine resets. That is, the timelines may have actually continued after the "reset" and were not obliterated... the Calendar Machine may actually have "respawned" new timelines that ended up running in multiverse-parallel.

Jin & Co. went through repeated time loops, but apparently time continued uninterrupted in the Library, the Time Forest, and probably other places. Which suggests that each universe could have its own separate time flow; in the universe that we're mostly following the time was repeated fifty-seven times, but in the universe of alternate Daylla it might have never been repeated at all.

Warrl wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 5:56 pm And, more importantly, those 56 rounds covered the same 1450 years, and we are now past the end of that period.

Unless we have a repeat of 1460 years, each iteration of which includes the 57 repeats of the 1450 years. . .

Catawampus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 9:49 pmOr old Barbara, because Barbara's species ages strangely and she has a very messed-up timeline.

Hmm?

What is Barbara's species, and when did we find out?

Catawampus wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2019 9:49 pm. . .

jwhouk wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:48 pm Yeah, young Barbara for $500, Alex.

Or old Barbara, because Barbara's species ages strangely and she has a very messed-up timeline. . . .

Maybe she ages backwards like what's-his-name in Ozzy & MIlly.

--FreeFlier

Pablo hasn't said what species Barbara is.

jwhouk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 7:01 am Pablo hasn't said what species Barbara is.

A "Walky"?

jwhouk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 7:01 am Pablo hasn't said what species Barbara is.

Catawampus's post sounded as if we knew...

AnotherFairportfan wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 12:45 pm

jwhouk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 7:01 am Pablo hasn't said what species Barbara is.

Catawampus's post sounded as if we knew...

Haven't a clue, though I think we can eliminate a few possibilities (probably not siren, succubus, vampire, or demigod). I was just hypothesising.