Grrl Power #651 – Obtuse loop
Maxima probably needs to issue a standing order about not being cryptic in the field. She’s intelligent, but in a world of super powers and aliens and all that good stuff, your’re gonna get situations that even the most on-top-of-it commander will need help making sense of. That’s why you have specialists in the first place. Just need to make sure they’re not being cheeky at crucial moments.
I was trying to figure out how to word Harem’s “new information” without either spelling out what she’s trying to reveal, but also without being obnoxiously obtuse. I think quite a few of you will guess, and if you do, then I uh, invite you to buy yourself something nice, I guess. The prize budget over here is limited.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this but with harem slipping through a dimension rift discombobulated her I assume she’s discovered she’s multiversal and therefore that there is a multiverse out there.
That was my first thought, too: that the portal didn’t just move to another location in space, but either to another location in time or to a parallel universe.
In John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, it’s postulated that faster than light transport works partly by moving a starship to an alternate universe.
Of course, if this really is a parallel universe, then this means two things: first Sydney can’t just level up to Warp Speed and fly home, because the Earth she’d return to isn’t the one she left. Second, it means that perhaps the planet she’s on now isn’t actually destroyed, in her universe.
Now my head hurts.
There was a webcomic called “Starslip Crisis” that used that FTL method. But finding a universe that’s identical except for your ship’s location is hard so often they did “close enough”. It wasn’t close enough when you travel to a universe that’s the same except for your ship’s location is different and someone else is dead who wasn’t when you left.
I’m also glad to see that Sciona and her soul invasion didn’t possess all of our heroes once they crossed into our world. Something I’m sure is happening out there somewhere. I was worried Sydney would have to make it home only to have to fight against half of Arc!
She’d win, though.
I admit that my first thought was that they were not just in an alternate plane, they were on *Earth* in an alternate plane — so it would be easier to get to Sydney because she’s not several hundred light-years away in an unknown direction. Maybe it’s easier to get a locator for nearby branes than it is to scan several million cubic light-years trying to find Syd.
I think that’s not likely, upon consideration; unless they couldn’t see the sky (and constellations), Xuriel would have known immediately that they were on the same planet. And the possibility that the Alari homeworld is an alternate-reality Earth but not the particular alternate-reality Earth they fetched up on seems ridiculous. And if that *were* a possibility, I think Sciona would have realized what had happened, and not just accepted that her world was gone.
I think the folks who are thinking time-travel are on the right path. I admit that I have *no* idea why that would make things easier for Xuriel to figure out a fix. I’d think “somewhere unknown out in space”, *and* “somewhere in the possibly-remote future” would make the search space *larger*, not smaller.
If it’s time travel did Harem get memory from the future?
THAT is the right question, Detective.
Same with alternate universes. She should know something, anything at all, about what led to this.
Nobody yet suggested that this is a result of Krona doing screwy stuff, at least on this page.
The thing is, space and time are intrinsically linked. Like objects can’t exist in the second dimension can’t exist without the third, objects in the third dimension can’t exist without duration. So transiting through space also means transiting through time.
Because of this, wormholes don’t just connect two different points in space. They connect two different points in time. They could have traveled a week into the past or a thousand years into the future. However, since Harem didn’t act all loopy last week, we can only assume that the portal took them to a point in the future, as seen from Earth’s perspective.
I’ll also point out that since the events on the Alari end of things have already happened, that this leaves out any possibility for going into the past to stop the planet from being destroyed. Opening another wormhole to the same general location in space is going to open it to the same time period… and if it didn’t, and ARC could travel to a different point in time, they’d just participate in events that already happened.
Time Travel, how does Harem get new bodies? Time, so for there to be too many, a lot of time has passed… it’s entirely possible that Scion isn’t from “Another World” but “Another Time”.
Time Travel may be easier.
“Too many” could be one too many.
Actually nobody got any extra bodies. Nobody traveled in time. No extra dimentions were used/harmed in the process either. It’s pure Harem quantum effects. There can be only one.
Well I would say now she ‘splits’ them off her current one. she says she ‘teleports’ – same thing.
That how they do it right now with protons for quantum tunneling network
However; Harems is a wee bit more sophisticated that what is happening now in real life physics.
I would say a different dimension/universe because Sciona used the Brane Ripper #610(not Brain) to create the Skybreaker #623 and those names do not inspire any time travel but they do inspire ripping a hole in the membrane between dimensions/universes especially if the blood ritual got screwed up like in #632-3. While the portal was still open the quantum entanglement of Harem linked all 10 together so it probably screwed with all of them across both universes. This would also explain why Sciona had recent contact with the Alari homeworld just a few days prior and now everyone is dead in THIS universe not her home universe.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Interesting – so Earth may have just been invaded by defeated Alari souls, just before the still-powerful Alari launch their assault. Would be interested in seeing what they have to say to each other – “hey guys, maybe rethink that idea about firing that one guy we weren’t cutting in on the profits.”
Wrong use of membrane. The specific use of the term “brane” automatically invokes M theory. It is an attempt to unify all versions of superstring theory, by adding an additional n-dimensional structure, a membrane or “brane” for short. M theory requires many more than 4 dimensions; depending on the physicist working the problem, as few as 11 or as many as 40 or more. In general, the “extra” dimensions are assumed to be compactified or folded into an n-dimensional manifold, OR compactified ON a manifold. For the simplest case of 11 dimensions, this manifold would most likely be a Calabi-Yau or G2 manifold.
Either the compactification or the manifold itself could be what makes the search easy/hard. Hard to figure out, but once determined, easier to reach.
…huh?
Sometimes smart people can be so smart they can’t communicate anymore. Also, re: the comic, it’s not helpful to others when experts think only parts of their ideas out loud.
Most of my thoughts (time travel/alternate dimension, there are spirit invaders/refugees now) have been covered.
I’m just thinking that Maxima is now realizing that Sydney has started to become her weirdness translator, and that may become part of her job in the downtime between missions.
Ten bucks and a fig newton says spacetime curvature.
There is SO MUCH Space/Time Curvature in this comic. Waka Waka!
It’s all wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.
hehehe, Probalby why ‘he’ does like crossing his own stream. Quantum Migraine anyone?
You guys keep naking scifi show/movie puns and it’ll be Judgment Day for the both of ya. I wont even expkain how it will happen but I will give a hint….. MAGNETS.
Really! Cool! I’ll take one of each! :p) No, I only Just found this – no I am not affiliated at all
So, “our” Harem got confused by having too many bodys. But there is only one Daphne. Does thas mean each of her too many Daphnes were equally confused?
Presumably yes, however it’s not clear yet when the extra Daphne is going to be present, so maybe the ‘now’ Daphnes were fine while this Daphne was on the other side of the portal but at some unknown time in the future they’ll all be affected.
Great Scott!
Its Astounding!
And now we see why Maxima misses Sydney…. no one picked up on her BTTF reference, and you KNOW Syndey would have!
No, that is the callsign for the lightning-generating member of ARCHON
who happens to be a BTTF reference, Guesti. so stop being anal.
And she’s been established for some time now, Sydney has already met her so would not bat an eyelid over it
Yes, Jiggs got the name from BttF (because Lloyd kept mispronouncing it), butt Maxi was not making a BttF reference here, she was simply asking if Jiggs would work
Guesticus is not being anal here, just being accurate. Maxima is referring to Jiggawatt being the power source – she is not making a reference to BTTF even if Jiggawatt’s name is spelled like that because of BTTF.
Why can’t it be both? Any nerd responding to an off-the-cuff request for a gigawatt power source is going to at least think of the BttF quote, and if they actually had someone on the team named Jigawatt who actually could function as a gigawatt power supply it would be nearly impossible not to make some a double reference with that perfect setup.
All failing to see the big picture.
In all the Harem’s no matter what…something links them
In a linear fashion.
Five poiints would allow for some damn precise triangulation.
Harem has the point in space where they were and sydney’s stuck.
Which would help dabbler when she calls help.
(see my joke last page last comic about Dabbler making a LONG distance call)
No triangulation would be possible for two reasons.
1. Entanglement is not a vector, AFAIK. You can only triangulate a vector.
2. Earth isn’t big enough. To triangulate on 61 Cygni, which is relatively close, you require precision equipment and waiting six months to get all the way across Earth’s orbit as a baseline. Baseline of a few hundred miles would take a really good interferometer, and Harem certainly is not an interferometer.
3. For all we know she might not even sense the actual spatial directions of her other selves, just whether they are there or not.
But Harem is capable of teleportation to places that she’s been too before, so theoretically she could teleport back, un-teleport one of two of her other forms, then bring Sydney back as a carry on to Earth again
Well, my comments aren’t posting. If this doesn’t come through, I’mma just give up.
Your comment just took a detour via a time warp. This is entirely normal. DON’T PANIC!
Comment eating is mostly harmless.
Keep your towel handy. It’s good for wiping off the sweat of anxiety when that happens here.
I get that occasionally as well.
Post a comment, page reloads, no new comment. Wait a few mins, then reload page, comment appears.
It usually means the server is a little busy, or the reloaded page is being taken from a cached copy somewhere along the route, or less often something else entirely.
The quickest way is to go onto another page (comment or comic) and back again. Your comment will be there, as soon as you get back.
Unless the comment has actually been eaten. But that is very very rare. And usually only if the client-side of the equation is suffering extreme lag. I.e. a very slow computer or bad ISP problems.
I think you made it pretty clear that there was time travel involved.
Yeah, that seems most likely. Probably the portal brought them to the future given that Sciona was all “I was in communication with them days ago…”, so it being the past wouldn’t make any sense.
Then again, parallel universes are also possible…
Malfunction wormhole was how Dabbler described it. Wormholes are not fixed in the time dimension, there’s equations for it, but they boil down to “where/when do you want to go”.
(Now, given symmetry, I’d expect the time passing for the observer inside the wormhole to take as long as the length of the journey in light years, but that’s not how fiction wants to describe it – a thousand year old puff of dust arriving after a wormhole journey of 1000 light years is not good fiction, but it’s likely the real world answer.)
Anyhow, it grabbed them up while malfunctioning and they had to chase it down to get back. One end was fixed, the other was all over the place. Given the nature of the past (just NOT going there, it gets past complex), it was probably a projection a short time into the future, and Harem was too many, and a duplicate besides. And not in control enough to shut down a different body and get back IN control.
So, OK, projection into the future, maybe a week or maybe a year, doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Sydney isn’t in danger – YET. If it’s a short enough time, they can just wait till they catch up to her and drag her back!
Okay, taking bets people.
All theories so far:
1: They traveled into the not too distant future.
2: They traveled to a parallel timeline where while Earth was okay, the Alari homeworld was invaded by other aliens.
(both options by the way make the soul container thing complicated for Sciona)
Or I suppose there is another option.
Quantum Feedback Loop: Harem’s “copies” are an artifact of her teleportation. Passing one through a portal created a double teleportation resulting in an extra her being produced back on Earth as her teleportation field reacting with the unstable portal tried to correct its self.
(although not sure how this option would have been terribly useful in their situation).
This is basically what I’m thinking. The portal made a copy of Harem (or copies of all of those who went through, but since each of Harem’s bodies is quantumly entangled with each other, a copy of a new body would still be quantumly entangled with her own mind)
Problem is, the most likely place for the ‘new’ Daphne to appear, is where her portal-hopping self had been, and seeing how where she had been is literally rubble, and Peggy didn’t mention finding a Daphne, then the ‘new’ Daphne is a dead Daphne (hey, she often wondered what it would be like if one of her died… for SCIENCE!!!)
Time Travel or Alternate Universe both seem plausible.
Points in favor of Alternate Universe are that we have foreshadowing of AU tripping adventures for Sydney and it removes all Dabbler knowledge/Xenovarchy issues.
Points against AU is that depending on how seriously Dave is taking the Harem Quantum entanglement science, there is no reason what-so-ever to think Harem would (or could) auto-link to AU Harems.
That’s right… didn’t someone say that the Wearing The Cape crossover is canon in Grrl Power? (As an aside, Team-Ups and Crossovers is how I found this webcomic. Also, I really want to see the TUAC story here, from Sydney’s point of view.
I’m a big WtC fan, but the time isn’t right yet.
Sydney visiting The Dome should happen…
AFTER the show debuts in her reality.
AFTER Astra has visited GP.
AFTER the 3rd season mid season cliffhanger… Or 4th.
Alternate Earth
Alarihypothesis confirmed.*pumps paw emphatically*
And you know what this means? Two Sydneys!
Alternate Dimension Confirmed? Are you sure?
Here is why I think it’s a time travel:
1. Complete Alari world destruction occurred impossibly fast – this wasn’t a planet destruction, it was a systematic biological life elimination – something that the Alari would be at least fighting back with.
2. Daphne’s echo – she appeared and connected to her “mind”, while she was already in existence. This does allow for alternate dimensions as well as time travel
3. The reflection of Dabbler into realising that retrieval would in fact be simple. All you have to do is wait for the correct time, and then Daphne can vorp to where Daphne is just before she leaves through the portal, nab Sydney and vorp back – no time lost for Sydney.
Time travel would account for Sci having been in contact with her people just days ago
Daphne can not *VORP* live external matter, and Sydney exceeds her weight limit anyway
Yes.
But only to be cryptic. Because one of the most credible theories of time travel (in genuine physics) is that if you did travel in time you would essentially be going to an identical alternate reality, at some point ahead (or behind) of your own point in your timeline. So whilst I feel comfortable that it is probably an alternate reality, I was hedging my bets because my statement also allows for time travel, as a sub-set of that.
Not only that but it is the cleanest sort of time travel, for story telling purposes, because you do not get the paradox problems. Any changes you make will only affect the course of history in that alternate reality, not your own. Of course a lot of fiction chooses not to take that route, simply because they do want to play with the paradoxes.
You are entirely correct that time travel could account for this (and your other points). However so can alternate realities. In this case the alternate reality that they travelled to did not have an identical Alari homeworld.
At some point (perhaps in its recent history) an event occurred differently in their universe to ours. Ultimately ending up with their planet being systematically destroyed, in a prolonged attack. Whilst the Alari homeworld in the team’s native universe is probably still fine and wondering where the heck Sciona is.
To give an example of such a divergence it could have been Sciona herself. In that universe when she faced the decision of ‘shall I travel to Earth and see if it is a viable invasion target?’ Sciona may have simply decided not to. Innumerable different paths could then occur.
But an obvious one, to pick as an example, would be that Sciona chose a different planet to scout out. Namely the one belonging to the people who built that mothership. And her usual diplomatic skills resulted in the events we saw.
Correct. The one flaw with time travel though is that the brains would be in completely different states. Future or past Harems would have either more or less memories than the present day one. So their brains could not be quantumly entangled. Even though they are the same person, their brains are different, so the quantum enganglement does not exist.
The plan would fail, I’m afraid, as Harem is incapable of carrying Sydney (or anyone else). Her power simply is not strong enough to carry Sydney, the most she can carry is Peggy’s sniper rifle, which is only a fraction of Halo’s weight. However she could just influence events in some way to ensure that Sydney does not get left behind.
Sadly though Harem’s teleportation range is limited. Whilst she can go from the Archon HQ to the East Coast or West Coast locations she is familiar with, she is not capable of much beyond that. So could not even reach the Moon, let alone the Alari homeworld.
Opal might be able to though, with her portals. Which Dabbler would be aware of (albeit not necessarily knowing her range limits). So if the wormhole went somewhen into the future your plan would be good, with that modification.
There is a reason why Dabbler would make the same statement though, if she thought it was an alternate Earth universe. Namely because, on that alternate Earth, the artefact that they need could still be accessible. Perhaps still safely locked in the Dark Reliquary (or in Sciona’s base but hopefully not having ended up being buried under a mountain).
If Harem is still in touch with her other selves, on that Earth, and assuming everything else is pretty much the same,* then she can get the Dabbler of that world to use the artefact to establish a wormhole to the Alari homeworld.
With Sydney safely back on the alternate Earth, they then just have to figure out how to get her back to her native one. There are two possibilities. One being that Dabbler can work out how to get the artifact to do that.
However that may not actually be possible. Dabbler knows where the Alari homeworld is, from her general knowledge. But just because Harem knows the thoughts of her alternate selves, does not mean that they have any way of telling where that alternate Earth is in comparison to Sydney’s native Earth!
Without being able to give the dimension traveller’s equivalent of co-ordinates, Dabbler could not program the can-opener to open in the right world. But at least Sydney would not be stranded on an alien planet, even if she was not back on precisely her own one.
However in a few months time she could still be there, playing a table-top game, then reporting in to Archon HQ and having Maxima welcome her as ‘the Big Guns’.
Of course there is the issue of the Sydney of that world. Did she ever find the orbs, or is she at home playing World of Warcraft, as a civilian? Did she find the orbs, but die in the fight against Vehemence? Or did Krona fail to set a checkpoint, so the Sydney of that world never survived against Sciona?
Or, when Anvil is fist bumping our Halo, is her alternate self in the next room, chatting up Leon, and trying to keep her rival Halo’s hands off her Leon?
* Which is very likely as the Harems of that alternate Earth need to be absolutely identical to the ones on this Earth, in order to be quantumly entangled.
[quote]Correct. The one flaw with time travel though is that the brains would be in completely different states. Future or past Harems would have either more or less memories than the present day one. So their brains could not be quantumly entangled. Even though they are the same person, their brains are different, so the quantum enganglement does not exist.[/quote]
You can’t be quantum-entangled with an alternate universe self, either. Quantum entanglement is literally two parts of a whole reacting to each other. If she travels to another universe, the other parts of her whole are still in this universe. So she would still be entangled to this universe’s version of herself.
This is something that SF authors almost always get wrong.
One of the main theories, about how alternate universes may exist, is that every action, with more than one outcome, creates a new one. If you face the choice of turning left, at the end of a street, or right, a new universe is spawned. One where you went left the other where you went right.
In this instance there is a key possibility, regarding the wormhole, after it goes unstable from Buster being blown up. It could either connect through to Alari, or it could fail to do so. This creates a new universe. One where the connection is made. One where it fails. Everything in the universe is exactly replicated, in both instances. Except for that one difference.
The very act of creating the alternate universe is duplicating Harem. Thus satisfying the criteria that she is quantum linked. Her unique properties simply make her aware of this duplication, whereas everyone else does not notice it. We never do.
Well, that last point is a bust. We already saw Sydney alone floating above the crater, surrounded by her shield. Harem would have to teleport there AFTER her past self leaves, and somehow avoid falling into the still-glowing crater of death. Still, I am on board with the time travel theory.
That last comment was responding to Foz.
Not a problem at all, as long as at least one version of her ends up at the Under the Sea
of Molten Lava in a CraterDance, she won’t biff her own existence.Her kids are probably still going to have issues either way though, which will undoubtedly require more shenanigans.
Ah, feels like only yesterday I predicted Harem was due to multiply soon. Which may be because I just finished reading the comic the other week and then went on vacation from the Internet, so it feels like only yesterday I read all of it.
Still, I’ll be very surprised if this isn’t how she usually reacts to her multiplications.
Do you think she’ll max out at 7 Harem’s total? Coincidentally, the number of orbs Sydney has … – https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2371
Would be hard to guess. Since her theoretical max physical strength doubles with every body it could get exciting, especially as the one sketchy graph we’ve seen indicates her divisions are accelerating with age. I’d like to see more characters be better than Max at at least one of the things she can do, so I hope it goes a lot further. . .Solomon’s legendary harem had 700 women, so that might be the mark to meet.
Or wait, maybe at some point she gains enough bodies that reabsorbing them stops being like sensory deprivation to her and she can start developing some strength multiplication tactics. . .
“Harem’s kicking herself for not getting a selfie on the other planet.”
That’s easier for her than most people. We’ll know if she says “ow!” apparently out of nowhere :)
Her calm and happy reaction to the fact that there were too many of her suggests that number six Harem has arrived/appeared, however the process works.
If it was a copy (using time travel, alternate dimension or parallel universe as explanation) Harem would know the difference because all five bodies are connected/linked. And then you would expect her to say there was a copy of her . The same applies if she senses Sciona and co. (Alekay) and sees them somehow a kindred spirits. She should still either know who they are or at least react more guarded.
If there is a number six Harem on Alari (Biblioholic) she should be ‘safe’ (Sidney’s bubble) or else the Harem present probably would freak out. But even if so I would imagine the present Harem would show at least some anxiety with a ‘sister’ on a far away planet. And if Harem is taken over by Alari ‘ghosts’ I doubt they would draw any attention to themselves by saying ‘…there were too many of me!.’
Oh, and she could just simply be pregnant… (just a thought)
I’m just going with the easy guess, that she had a new bud or that is there is now an extra Harem. It has to have happened several times before, and it just happened here at a bad time.
So…
My two guesses:
A: They were in a parallel reality (it was a brane ripper afterall, not a warp drive… and some of those souls were Harem’s parallels)
B: Harem is the same species as Sciona and never knew it.
My money’s on A though.
Mmm, not following the logic … ahh, you are assuming that Harem would need to be near to her counterparts to pick up their thoughts, ergo that plane must have alternate versions of Harem?
That is not necessary. The nature of her quantum entanglement is such that it could work across the galaxy. So if they went to an alternate dimension, where there is an identical Earth and a nearly identical Alari homeworld (except the one they saw had just been destroyed), there would be another bunch of Harems on Earth that she would be picking up.
With it sounding like she was still in contact with her normal other selves, presumably either through the wormhole, or perhaps even because her quantum entanglement will not be broken in other dimensions.
The latter being the more hopeful option, because if it ever breaks, the reason does not matter, it cannot be restored. Not if sticking with the physics described, anyhow. Obviously in the super genre there are always other powers which might be able to fix the unfixable.
Not assuming distance was a factor at all. More assuming it could be some trait of the species (implying how Sciona could communicate back home before she left). But she got there, and they weren’t there. Could be she was communicating with Harem the entire time and didn’t know it (maybe Sciona is secretly a Harem?) but while they were in the soul battery, they really couldn’t activate the link.
It’s a stretch, mind you, and like I said, parallel realities is my larger bet.
As for quantum entanglement across dimensions… the science on that gets… weird. And I don’t have enough PhDs to make a good prediction on what would happen there, only guesses. Time is quantumly entangled as well (Like your hand last second is quantumly entangled to your hand in the next second. Time is actually a sequence of quantum entanglements), and each parallel universe would be it’s own series of quantum entanglements, and Harem’s entanglements are a sub-entanglement in our universes’ sequence of entanglements and that’s how they’re able to make closed time loops in laboratories now by entangling particles in a loop; so if she’s entangled between five selves, that must mean they have some internal temporal loop entanglement going on as they progress through our universes’ entanglement… breaking from our universes’ entanglement though doesn’t mean they could re-entangle with harems in the other timeline since natural entanglement generally requires a very close initial proximity… but if the parallel realities are close enough to where she could, that’d mean there’d be gravity between the two parallel realities to keep their timelines almost identical, which in turn means I’m very confused by what it all means at this point of the comic. And I forgot where I was going with this. O_o
Oooh.
So they went back in time some not huge amount then.
Time or alternate reality. There is not much difference between the two actually, if time travellers just go to an identical world, in an earlier or later timeline. Which is the only clean way of resolving the possibility of paradoxes.
Which is necessary, as physics indicates that time travel is possible.* So theories which prevent us having weird paradoxes are yay!
That way they can kill ‘their grandfather’ (in that universe), and history would unfold differently, without a corresponding version of themselves being born. But not affecting the time traveller themselves, as the history of their own timeline is unchanged, in their native universe.
* Detractors, who wish to argue the case for pseudo-physics, that upholds some other hypothesis, may present their case. ;-)
I’m pretty sure the Lighthook is already using psuedo-physics, why can’t the tele-orb? :)
Lol.
Inter-dimensional travel. Hugely complicated time rifts. Harem numbers 6 & 7?
I like the idea of a multiversal Harem.
oh this is evil.
A quantum particle can travel backwards in time. Well maybe sort of.
What if the single particle(P) could be seen at two separate P{x,y,x,T} spaces in time? Part of them is ‘outside time’.
That’s why when you wiggle one ‘end’ of it it wiggles the ‘other’. You are wiggling the same particle
Harem is one that has 5[x,y,z,T} locations in space time, normally for her the (T) part has been mostlythe same. the difference is normally so small that ‘at light speeds’ it is not noticeable
Harem saw 4 of ‘herself’ through the portal (normal) and 5 of herself via ‘normal space distance+700 lightyears)’ where the portal could not adjust for say a week. so the ‘echo’ is her seeing something normal time AND normal time + a week. a informational loop. So for a bit she could ‘see’ through time, at least until the portal collapsed.
Yoinks Skoob, I think ya’ll need a skooby snack!
excellent hypothesis
That was my thought. The proper term is “speed of light delay.” Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light through space-time. Not matter, not energy, not gravitational distortion… not information.
Wormholes get around this via one of the three loopholes created by the last three words of that law. Space-time can do whatever it wants, giving rise to the first two loopholes. You can shrink space-time via antigravity so that there’s less distance to travel and expand it behind you again (gravity drive, see Schlock Mercenary and some interpretations of the impulse engine from Star Trek), or you can bend space-time until where you are and where you want to be are adjacent (wormholes). The third is to say, “Screw you, space-time! I’m using a better space-time! With blackjack! And hookers!” (Hyperspace/subspace travel. Star Wars and Star Trek are famous for them.).
If it is time travel, as many propose, it really make thing easier: they just have to wait :)
Wait, does that mean they went to another time or dimension, butt they are now back to their time or dimension?
Forget about what that means for the Daphne’s, what about Sci’s spooky friends? Does that mean she has effectively increased the number of Alari in this time or dimension? o_O
Clearly the correct incantation involves a jump to the left and a step to the right.
How Convenient that Sydney figured out her Life support just before being stranded on an alien planet :P. Also I’m going to officially call it at this point, the final orb is some sort of Matter Replicator. It’s the last thing she really needs to be a space ship. Some way to provide sustenance for the crew… Also there are waste elimination issues since they’d eventually pile up inside a force field, so perhaps it’s matter reclaimer as well that recycles biological waste into new things. Though you might be able to vaporize the waste with the PPO… Anyways Some sort of way to get food is my guess.
Anyone else noticed how Daphne was checking her phone when she mentioned she had new information?
Might need 1.21 Jiggawatts if things get interesting.
Well they do have a space Jigawatt lounging around… Beep! Beep! Beep!… backup is here !
interesting fact: https://www.myfluxcapacitor.com/gigawatt-jigawatt
I’m wondering if, during the brief moment of transit between Earth and Sciona’s planet, it counted as “unporting” a Harem, so that the remaining four were able to manifest a new fifth, and then when they arrived on the planet, there were now six.
The good thing about this possibly being a time mismatch is that it doesn’t necessarily matter how long they take to get setup. If the time mismatch isn’t moving in unison with the present time, and Harem gained the memories of her future selves about the exact date and time, then they could arrive seconds after they left… In time to hear the end of Sydney’s curse.
Heck, arguably, if the time isn’t too far ahead (it’s at least within Harem’s lifetime) they can even set a date to show up just in time to rescue her.
It’d be interesting if Harem HAS gained memories from her future self, although it’s more likely she’s only transferred surface/immediate thoughts. Still… If my future self knew my past self was coming, I’d memorise a lotto number and think it over and over again when the join happened… Heck, she may even remember exactly what they did to rescue Sydney.
However, for some of those reasons, I strongly suspect that it wasn’t a time lapse but an alternate dimension… In either case… Imagine of one of her other-world selves decided to de-teleport and hitched a ride back with her…
Actually only 11 in the same current universe and time frame – 4 on earth – with ‘matching’ one on Alari, the 5 on earth via a time displacement (but only while the portal was open) all one Harem (via quantum entanglement) and still (one mind – like highlander :) )
Eg she experienced another (5-self) time but shifted by the difference the portal was ‘broken’ in time. could be 2 min or 5 years
hm, technically Harem could be the equivalent of a Quantum starfish. Eg you could cut or or kill on of her and as long as there is another one of her around, she could potentially just ‘grow/teleport’ another. She could also be tree based eg like the Aspen trees. Maybe have Hydra lineage/based since there is allowance for ‘monsters’
She might also be effectively immortal too … well kind of… have to take out all of her at once.
*snort* just thought of something funny if my ideas are right about Harem.
Only one of her ever has to go to the bathroom.
Nope they all still need to. She has five bladders when she is 5 people. Five people need to eat – just not necessarily at the same time. Five people need to sleep – just not at the same time. Five people need to shower. Hopefiully, fir some rwleafing, at the sane time.
And 5 people need to use the bathroom.
Being able to teleport though, she probably never has to wait in line, just pop back to her own room at the base. Unless she needs to return someplace she’s not familiar enough with, but even in that case she’s probably not often more than a couple line-of-sight hops to a restroom and back.
Correct. Someone with a different type of duplication power could get away with the trick described though. If duplicates combined into an ‘average’ version of the two (or more) states. All five are busting to go to the loo, but only one stall available? No problem just combine and run in.
Harem though does have five different bodies, and each stays in exactly the same state it was in, when it comes out of being stored using her power, as when it went in. Full bladder going in, full bladder coming out.
However Harem can use her power to solve the problem I described above (ignoring her ability to teleport to a loo somewhere else). She can put four of her into storage, so that there is only one needing to use the available facility. Then, without exiting, she just keeps swapping bodies, until the crisis is resolved.
Meanwhile there will be much pounding on the door, by other people in the queue!
Couldn’t this just mean that she has a sixth self. Of course I’m not sure what Dabbler’s response is about.
On a side note, could Harem teleport to the planet with equipment to help make a portal. I would think that creating a portal would be easier with the right equipment at both sides
Well I think Harem already knows how Syd got back. Harem just may not have the skill to be able to ‘accurately ‘ teleport in the right direction and distance it takes to get where Syd is.
Faces are drifting again. Daphne looks strange.
Dammit. I’m predicting that the solution will be something that I did not predict.
Anyway new predictions:
Since Harems doubles are quantum entangled while the workhole is not,there woukd be a point in time during which there are ‘two’ blonde harems, lasting however long it takes to go 700 light years theough a stable wormhole. So maybe dabbler can make something or Harem can form more copies on the other planet during that interim to get sydney something to reopen a portal from her end
If Harem is temporarily tied to that planet dabbler can use that quantum entangled point of reference to open a portal using the sky ripper without being able to make the necessary sigils.
what if the ‘universal can opener’ got lost/destroyed inside the closing of the portal?
The council said that artifacts in that vault were ‘difficult to destroy’, but I bet tossing it in a damaged time space rip would do the job. We never saw where it dropped when the explosives etc all went off.
Please, someone break out the “Sliders” references.
Sigh…. fiiiine. But nothing about Kromaggs ok?
What if you could travel to parallel worlds? The same year, the same Earth, only different dimensions. A world where the Russians rule America… or where your dreams of being superstar came true… or where San Francisco was a maximum-security prison. My friends and I found the gateway. Now the problem is… finding a way back home.
My native Earth never had Britain with any female prime minister, let alone two. Plus South Africa and America didn’t have black presidents.
It is surprisingly hard to tell if those changes were due to sliding into alternate realities or just simple time travel.
*demonstrates tail wagging through time, at one second per second*
No one actually tail wags through time at one second per second. Every single fundamental particle of your being has its own worldline and the likelihood that any two particles are stationary relative to each other is both miniscule and near-instantaneous. Your worldline is an approximate average of all these component worldlines, therefore it only approximate to one second per second. Not to mention that what constitutes you is continually changing due to fundamental interactions and the gain/loss of particles through more macroscopic processes.
Imagine flipping a coin. Heads is one outcome, tails is the other. But what’s the real difference between the two? An uncountably high number of tiny differences. So there’s not just two potential timelines created, but a near-infinite number. Science Fiction doesn’t tell you that (usually).
Mine is a superpower. I control it by wagging my tail.
*demonstrates*
See I am now moving forwards at one second per second.
It is dizzying, but I can sustain it, with effort.
*leans against a table, and mops brow*
I always like to imagine that the Quinn who created a temporal gateway, not a dimensional gateway, was the original Quinn, and all the other dimensions were caused by his travels in time, altering little things here and there.
Oh heck ! Do you know how many lawyers would be around? *shudder*
Two Panders? What a wonderful worlds.