Kikai Caldera 2012-12-19

[Dave]

Can someone let me into the confusion corner? I've finally gone over the edge with this.

An explanation, oh God, would be helpful D:

Let you into Confusion Corner?

The visitor's book at the desk shows that you entered Confusion Corner sometime next Wednesday, and will be leaving yesterday. The comments you will leave, say that you are enjoying the cookies you haven't ordered yet

[chibichibi01]

;_;

Y U do this to me?

[Dave]

;_;

Y U do this to me?

Only 'cause we like you

Don't feel bad if you're confused! Most of us are! For one thing, there's a lot that Paul hasn't yet revealed to us... and it's very possible that some of what the characters have said (and which many of us accept as "truth" within the strip) isn't accurate or has other interpretations.

For another thing... well, the situation is inherently rather confusing. Part of the story timeline flows backwards. Other parts of the timeline have repeated many dozens of times, with slight variations from one time to the next... there have been many "Shelly" and many "Monica" characters, of whom we've seen only a very few. The English language really isn't equipped to talk about convoluted time, such as we're being exposed to here... for example, there's no verb tense for the word "meet" which means "I would have met you tomorrow, in an alternative timeline whose existence has already been ruled out by an event which is yet to occur".

I don't know who would be more confused - the primary-cast Wapsi Square characters who are "living through" the story, or those trying to follow it from outside.

Fortunately, Confusion Corner has great coffee and cookies, and that makes up for a lot! Welcome!

[Yamara]

Can someone let me into the confusion corner? I've finally gone over the edge with this.

An explanation, oh God, would be helpful D:

A.) Well, first off... none of what jwhouk wrote was very accurate. (Sorry, man.)

B.) Maybe a brief, targeted Chronology will help...


ca. 10,500 BC Chimera created, destroys Lanthis

(Sometime in here, the Chimera is brought to heel, and the Golem Girls are separated from it, and are put in Tepoz' care.)

4354 BC Brandi finishes a "World Grid" that keeps Titans and their ilk off Earth by hiding vimana cells around the planet.

562 CE Mayahuel breaks the Calendar Machine, causing it to start time looping in 2012.

2012 CE Calendar resets Earth to where it was in 562 CE. This happens 56 times, history being different each time. All loops are happening inside Brandi's World Grid. The only person who experiences and remembers the loops--from inside the World Grid--is Jin. Phix experiences them from the outside, in the Library/Limbo, Shellinx (Shelly 57) from the Time Forest, the demons (and May) because the Demon Realm is "outside of time" and Nudge from jumping around across those planes of existence.


Bia and other Titans, and perhaps the apo sphinxes, have been prevented from simply appearing on (poiting to?) Earth by the World Grid. It must be a major handicap, or Brandi and the demons wouldn't have bothered building it, and there would be even more big players mucking about. Demons can still get there, and access is possible through the Library. Other access ports may exist, for instance the description of Monica and Shelly being doorways for demons and/or souls.


C.) So how does Shelly get born, if Bia is prevented from showing up and seducing her dad?

This brings up the issue of permission, something Titans aren't keen on asking. Bia could get to Earth if she had permission to enter the Library (one of the first things we learned about it), and possibly further permission to go from there to Earth. There's no reason to assume that all the "adventurers" Phix battled in the Library came from Earth-- many may have been seeking a passage to Earth! Since Phix is invincible in the Library, cross her, and that way past the World Grid is closed.

If and how this plays into the vampires needing permission to enter a home or suffer bloody tears will be interesting to see.

[MerchManDan]

Fortunately, Confusion Corner has great coffee and cookies

Also tea, but not usually this much sympathy.

[bmonk]

Really gets you thinking about Yellowstone Caldera. Won't blow up the planet, but I'd still want to be on a different one when it finally goes.

Some of us are close enough that it prolly won't matter much when it goes. By some calculations, it's 50,000 years overdue to go already. Others give it a couple 100,000 years more. Still, that just means it may happen in our lifetime, and it may not.

[bmonk]

If and how this plays into the vampires needing permission to enter a home or suffer bloody tears will be interesting to see.

Hadn't thought of that aspect until just now.
I wonder if a court warrant would be enough for permission. Or does it have to be a resident?

[Bathorys Daughter]

... The English language really isn't equipped to talk about convoluted time, such as we're being exposed to here... for example, there's no verb tense for the word "meet" which means "I would have met you tomorrow, in an alternative timeline whose existence has already been ruled out by an event which is yet to occur".

I suggest "myt" (pronounced might). And we call it Past Future Improbable Tense or Past Future Impossible Tense, depending on your level of pessimism.

[Dave]

... The English language really isn't equipped to talk about convoluted time, such as we're being exposed to here... for example, there's no verb tense for the word "meet" which means "I would have met you tomorrow, in an alternative timeline whose existence has already been ruled out by an event which is yet to occur".

I suggest "myt" (pronounced might).

That's really excellent!

Maybe we need some sort of consistent tonal inflection that could be applied to the vowels in verbs, for this sort of purpose? Linguists refer to systematic "vowel shifts" in which the pronunciation of vowels moves "up" or "down" in the sequence over time or between different dialects... maybe we can use something like that (vowel splitting) to indicate these weird temporal tenses?

And we call it Past Future Improbable Tense or Past Future Impossible Tense, depending on your level of pessimism.

I was thinking "excluded", but "improbable" and "impossible" certinly convey more meaning! I like it!

[Sphinx-Napped]

i understand... almost all of it... but got lost at which shelly put the isotope in the tree that was needed to power the cell and which shelly cut the tree down, since it seems that each shelly was responsible to carry the sword to the tree and chop it down so that the shelly that died would put the uranium isotope in the power cell , would be reborn in are shelly that now fully awakened and save jin,

so if this all was way to align each living person that we know now,


so my question is, is there away to unravel it all that been done?

[Mark N]

i understand... almost all of it... but got lost at which shelly put the isotope in the tree that was needed to power the cell and which shelly cut the tree down, since it seems that each shelly was responsible to carry the sword to the tree and chop it down so that the shelly that died would put the uranium isotope in the power cell , would be reborn in are shelly that now fully awakened and save jin,

so if this all was way to align each living person that we know now,


so my question is, is there away to unravel it all that been done?

You are suffering from a slight misunderstanding that Paul corrected for us before. The Shelly that we saw die in the time forest was not our Shelly at all. In fact Our Shelly is the only one (and the only others that were in each and every loop were the GGs and most likely Phix (since she was outside of the loops effect) and for at least the last dozen or so Monica, so there is no alignment needed. . All of the others were other people (probably not even named Shelly and the one from the first loop was a Comanche girl). The cell was most likely planted in a spot that the tree would grow around it and 80,000 years later it was ripe for the picken (I live in the American south) and the only one to chop the tree was the "Shelly" from the origin loop. You just have to remember that the forest follows the opposite direction of the arrow of time so the first was the last. (The Doctor would understand it)

[Dave]

i understand... almost all of it... but got lost at which shelly put the isotope in the tree that was needed to power the cell and which shelly cut the tree down, since it seems that each shelly was responsible to carry the sword to the tree and chop it down so that the shelly that died would put the uranium isotope in the power cell , would be reborn in are shelly that now fully awakened and save jin,

so if this all was way to align each living person that we know now,


so my question is, is there away to unravel it all that been done?

I think we'd need to ask Paul for a complete playbill of the Shellys to know for sure.

What we do know, I think, is that Shelly-1 was the one who chopped down the tree, recovered the plutonium, put it into the Vimana Cell artifact that she had bought with her... and died. If I've got this right, this Shelly was from the very first timecycle, before the CM looped time back and erased 1500 years of history for the first time. From her words, Shelly-1 was aware of the CM and what it would do, but I think she was truly the "first Shelly" - she had no predecessor.

Shelly-57 ("our" Shelly, from the final CM loop, who eventually manifested as a sphinx) was presumably carrying the unpowered (empty) V-cell that Bud had recovered from the sub, when she entered the Time Forest. I don't think we know what happened to it... whether it was lost during Shelly-57's 80,000-year exile and transformation, or didn't actully enter the Forest with her, or somehow time-merged and "became one" with the artifact that Shelly-1 brought, or ???. She is the only Shelly to have entered the Time Forest from a point after the destruction of the CM. I think I remember Paul saying that she's the only "Shelly" who was Bia's daughter... the other Shellys were part-Comanche but had a non-Titan mother.

From what Shelly-57-sphinx said, it seems that crucial roles were played by one or more of the "in between" Shellys. One brought the plutonium in its capsule and embedded it in the tree. One brought the sword blade and stuck it in the stone. One had planted the empty V-cell in the Irish graveyard. One reminded Shelly-sphinx to "taunt herself" with the "You swing like you're doing the dishes" jibe, to anger Shelly-1 into swinging hard enough to cut down the tree and free the plutonium. It's possible that these were all done by the same Shelly, but it could have been different ones as well.

We don't know how many of the "intermediate" Shellys (from -2 through -56) actually arrived in the Time Forest, and how many did something which actually moved the Big Quest forwards. Based on comments by Jin and Brandi, it seems that "Shelly" was not always a part of the inner circle during the time loops... in some loop cycles, someone else may have been the person to enter the Forest, or possibly no one did.

That's the best I can do, right now. Folks, please feel free to point out whatever I've got wrong or have missed! This time-travel stuff gives me a bad case of the []s in the best of situations!

[NOTDilbert]

Really gets you thinking about Yellowstone Caldera. Won't blow up the planet, but I'd still want to be on a different one when it finally goes.

Some of us are close enough that it prolly won't matter much when it goes. By some calculations, it's 50,000 years overdue to go already. Others give it a couple 100,000 years more. Still, that just means it may happen in our lifetime, and it may not.

If you're on the North American Continent, you're close enough. The ash cloud alone will erase the power and road grids, and make flying impossible. The continent will suffer 'volcano winter' for as long as the eruptions continue. The acid clouds will encircle the Northern Hemisphere, reducing sunlight and causing a (Mini?) ice age.

But all the runs at the ski resorts will be open!

[Bathorys Daughter]

... The English language really isn't equipped to talk about convoluted time, such as we're being exposed to here... for example, there's no verb tense for the word "meet" which means "I would have met you tomorrow, in an alternative timeline whose existence has already been ruled out by an event which is yet to occur".

I suggest "myt" (pronounced might).

That's really excellent!

Maybe we need some sort of consistent tonal inflection that could be applied to the vowels in verbs, for this sort of purpose? Linguists refer to systematic "vowel shifts" in which the pronunciation of vowels moves "up" or "down" in the sequence over time or between different dialects... maybe we can use something like that (vowel splitting) to indicate these weird temporal tenses?

I'm not sure how that would go. One thing that comes to mind, however, would be to pronounce this Y as if it had an extra vowel attached such as i as in my-i-t but said all at once as one word, myt = my-i-t (long i -myeyet.) Or and extra e as in my-e-t (long e). Again said all at once ... myt = my-e-t (long e - myeat).

[scantrontb]

if Dr. Who can't explain any of it to us with all of his vast linguistic knowledge at his command... what with his "wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, stuff" then how you expect US to explain it to ourselves?

[Bathorys Daughter]

I think I remember Paul saying that she's the only "Shelly" who was Bia's daughter... the other Shellys were part-Comanche but had a non-Titan mother.

Actually, I believe at least one of the other Shellys had Bia as a mother. According to the dialog, Bia had tried to create a Titan-Sphinx hybrid before our Shelly, and failed. It's not clear how many times she tried, but she succeeded this time because she used the male offspring of a true sphinx to breed with. We also don't know if any of the other Shelly experiments turned into a sphinx in the Time Tree Forest. Obviously those not having Bia as a mother didn't. Maybe some did, but were probably killed by the Apos since they didn't have a Creepy Girl protector. Or maybe some who turned weren't bound by the same laws our Shelly was and spread their wings, eventually going their separate way. For that matter, we don't know who Phix bred with either. Perhaps another Titan? Tales of the Time Tree Forest would make some epic spin off graphic novels (hinty-hint-hint).

[Julie]

Well... it depends how the various timelines are synchronized and overlaid.

As I understand it: the Calendar Machine was originally created during Lanthian or pre-Lanthian times - well before the Chimera incident which destroyed Lanthis, and thus well before Brandi was in a position to create the world grid. It didn't begin looping time until Mayahuel tried to destroy it (shortly before 500 AD??). This was just over 1500 years ago (as we see it)... which was thousands of years after the world grid was activated.

Each "Shelly" (or her analog) was born, lived, and entered the Time Forest from a period near the end of a CM loop, covering a few decades just prior to the end of the loop and the "time reset". As far as I can see, no Shelly was born outside of a looped (or to-be-looped) stretch of time.

Each "Shelly" entered the Time Forest at a different point in the Forest's timeline (which flowed backwards relative to ours, and over an 80,000 period in its own frame of reference). However, I don't think that we can say that this caused any "Shelly" to exist prior to the world grid - each instant of Time Forest time appears to have corresponded to a specific instant in the 56 (or is it 57?) CM-looped 1500-year cycles.

And, Julie, I agree with you - as I understand it, Shelly 1 died of radiation exposure, Shelly (or analogs) 2 through 56 either never arrived in the Time Forest or died there through some other cause, and Shelly 57 ("our Shelly") entered "first" but from the "last" CM loop, survived, became a sphinx, and returned to "our Shelly's" timeline when she picked up the completed Vimana cell and the timelines converged.

So, I just don't see a scenario in which we can say that any Shelly was born on Earth prior to the establishment of the world grid. In all of the CM-looped frames of reference, the grid went on-line in 4354 BC - a time which was prior to the startup of the looping and thus common to all of the looped CM cycles.

Oh! Thank you for the time-line clarification regarding when the machine started looping!! I'd missed that detail.

Fortunately, Confusion Corner has great coffee and cookies

Also tea, but not usually this much sympathy.

Actually, I have LOADS of sympathy for my fellow residents. I also have snickerdoodles for the ones I feel especially sorry for (which is saying something since those are my favorite, and as an only child I never was the best at sharing)...so chibichibi...come see me for some tea and cookies!

[Julie]

Oh, and the scale is open-ended, but logarithmic. So a VEI17 is possible, but would eject the approximate volume of the Earth from the volcano - inside out planet?
(Math: VEI8 is 1E3 cubic km, VEI17 would be 1E12 cubic km, Volume of Earth (from Wikipedia) is 1,083,210,000,000 cubic km (1.083E12)

Ouch. Not quite a VEI-17, but for an inside-out planet consider the Venerian global resurfacing event, which was exactly what it says on the tin. The best guess is that Earth's plate tectonic cycle keeps this from happening here; it would be nice to know more, since it's really the kind of thing that only has to happen once...

OKay...I'm sorry, but can the Pun Jar go after the people who put that global resurfacing bit together?

More evidence is needed to put the theory of global resurfacing of Venus on firm ground.

Seriously??

[Aleister Crow]

Really gets you thinking about Yellowstone Caldera. Won't blow up the planet, but I'd still want to be on a different one when it finally goes.

Some of us are close enough that it prolly won't matter much when it goes. By some calculations, it's 50,000 years overdue to go already. Others give it a couple 100,000 years more. Still, that just means it may happen in our lifetime, and it may not.

My luck? It'll be when I finally get to go camping there. The next "planet-killer" asteroid will come screaming down, hit Yellowstone dead on top of my campsite, and set the entire mess off.

The universe has been out to get me for decades. It's been subtle so far, but sooner or later it'll give that up and go for overkill.

[Dave]

My luck? It'll be when I finally get to go camping there. The next "planet-killer" asteroid will come screaming down, hit Yellowstone dead on top of my campsite, and set the entire mess off.

The universe has been out to get me for decades. It's been subtle so far, but sooner or later it'll give that up and go for overkill.

Be comforted. I'm sure that in a few tens of thousands of years, once the few starving and degenerate humans who manage to somehow avoid extinction have clawed their way back into the Midden Age (where they have advanced enough to start salvaging materials from our civilization's landfills), they will discover the gigantic impact crater / caldera, and name it after you. Like our young, exsanguinated Jane Doe, you will not be forgotten.

They'll probably spell your name wrong, though.