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Rumda posted:That would require the sceptre to actually have precognitive powers of it could actually tell you when you die why would it need to do a simulation of the universe because it’s the most thorsby way of doing things? if the scepter is creating a simulation which then disappears when you go back to reality it IS predicting the future, it’s just doing it on an ongoing basis. Remember the visions are actually instant in the “real” world. I dunno, I could be wrong, but I think the stars going out is a precursor to the vision ending.
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May 21, 2019 17:53
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Hm that is a good point - the dude who kept killing himself in his simulations could have been killing himself at pre-determined times so that's why the stars always went out on the same date, but this time he's in Lyndon's simulation so the stars have gone out on a different date. But it'd be a pretty bad predictor of how someone dies if that variable keeps getting tossed into the simulation. It seems like it'd really throw people off and make them act weirdly.
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May 21, 2019 17:57
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The stars being an effect of the simulation ending is likely, but that doesn't discount the possibility of some wizard making a universe ending spell and being delayed in casting it because of changes to the timeline.
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May 21, 2019 17:57
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:because it’s the most thorsby way of doing things? if the scepter is creating a simulation which then disappears when you go back to reality it IS predicting the future, it’s just doing it on an ongoing basis. Remember the visions are actually instant in the “real” world. That just means it has a vast degree of processing power. The stars disappearing being a sign of the simulation going on too long and it only stimulating a set area of space is more likely
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May 21, 2019 18:04
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It reminds me of the nuclear war from Transdimensional Brain Chip
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May 21, 2019 18:04
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Well the two things he mentions in his diary are the stars going out and tsar being assassinated. Audrey says the tsar wasn't assassinated and the stars went out on a different day. So that implies that the diary guy has been working to try and prevent both of those events, and succeeded with the tsar at least. Maybe his efforts to prevent the stars going out delayed them. I'm hesitant about the stars dying just being part of the simulation for two reasons: one, Thorsby is usually good at thinking of exceptions, and it would be weird for all the stars to go out in a simulation when nearby ones, planets, and so on, would still be part of the simulation; and two, stopping a universe-ending plot is the kind of climax that would make a good end to a comic.
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May 21, 2019 18:20
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Trixie Slaughteraxe for President of the universe
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May 22, 2019 04:49
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The stars probably disappear the same number of days after the simulation starts as incoming starlight runs out. in Ivar's diary he's describing the results of all the tests he ran on day 197, so of course the starlight runs out on the same day in each sim. The diary hasn't got yet to the tests he ran the next day, which has the stars going out on day 151 of year 784. The simulation Lyndon is currently inhabiting started several months after day 197.
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May 22, 2019 18:24
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Sam Hall posted:The stars probably disappear the same number of days after the simulation starts as incoming starlight runs out. in Ivar's diary he's describing the results of all the tests he ran on day 197, so of course the starlight runs out on the same day in each sim. The diary hasn't got yet to the tests he ran the next day, which has the stars going out on day 151 of year 784. The simulation Lyndon is currently inhabiting started several months after day 197. The simulation has been running for like 5 years man and we know it’s a simulation because of the little yellow dude’s cryptic comments about the bad thing he knows and Lyndon being the most important person on earth I still say the stars going out mean that things are winding down and Lyndon’s gonna die soon
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May 22, 2019 18:26
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Sam Hall posted:The stars probably disappear the same number of days after the simulation starts as incoming starlight runs out. in Ivar's diary he's describing the results of all the tests he ran on day 197, so of course the starlight runs out on the same day in each sim. The diary hasn't got yet to the tests he ran the next day, which has the stars going out on day 151 of year 784. The simulation Lyndon is currently inhabiting started several months after day 197. It's possible, but we discussed this earlier in the thread and since it was like five years before the stars went out there should have still been some stars in the sky, because some stars are closer than 5 light years, and other planets in the solar system reflect our own star's light and look like stars in the sky to someone on Earth. Thorsby is usually good at remembering exceptions like that, which is why I'm not 100% sold on the finite starlight as an explanation.
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May 22, 2019 20:31
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I suppose a possible explanation is that while planet Earth has stars within 5 light years, planet whatever might not.
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May 22, 2019 21:18
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Why didn't whatever it is effect the sun? I just checked, and there's daylight out the window in comic 370. Maybe whatever it is hasn't reached the sun yet, but every other star seemed to disappear simultaneously.
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May 22, 2019 21:57
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I like the idea that the simulation copies everything in a 5 LY radius, including any traveling photon, but not the more distant stars that emitted them. This way, all starlight gets turned off at the exact same time.
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May 22, 2019 22:40
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Cat Mattress posted:I like the idea that the simulation copies everything in a 5 LY radius, including any traveling photon, but not the more distant stars that emitted them. This way, all starlight gets turned off at the exact same time. 
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May 23, 2019 00:16
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if the simulation knew he would die soon it wouldn't need to simulate his life leading up to his death!
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May 23, 2019 02:16
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pathetic little tramp posted:Yeah I think we're in reality, not a simulation - what the thread got right was that people do use the sceptre to try to tell the future, but I think there's something else that we're not guessing that explains the vanishing stars that just happens to be an event that is going to happen no matter what the sceptre says. This is absolutely a simulation. It's the most parsimonious explanation for the timeskip, the stars vanishing being a thing, Lyndon being the most important guy in the Universe etc. etc.
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May 23, 2019 04:20
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Cat Mattress posted:I like the idea that the simulation copies everything in a 5 LY radius, including any traveling photon, but not the more distant stars that emitted them. This way, all starlight gets turned off at the exact same time. cant cook creole bream posted:Or even simpler, the simulation stretches out in a ball with a radius of a few light years from earth. While the last paragraph is contradicted now, I still take the honor to have called that first. But as it was stated then, it does imply that that solar system only has that one planet.
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May 23, 2019 06:00
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Relevant Tangent posted:This is absolutely a simulation. It's the most parsimonious explanation for the timeskip, the stars vanishing being a thing, Lyndon being the most important guy in the Universe etc. etc. The little creature freaking out because he realized he wasn't real.
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May 23, 2019 14:29
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I think we're all on the same page. The only remaining question is: Did they have a plan based around keeping Lindon alive (as in: using him to pass back info), or were they keeping him alive (and as healthy as possible) only to prolong their own simulated lives?
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May 23, 2019 22:52
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they are trying to turn lyndon into one punch man
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May 23, 2019 22:58
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382 Well that solves that.
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May 24, 2019 01:40
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I don't think it makes sense for the stars thing to be directly caused by the simulation because that negates part of the point of the simulation: predicting your own death. Because presumably your personal history in a world in which the stars suddenly and inextricably went out would be different than one in which they didn't. If the stars hadn't gone out to warn Audrey, she never would have rescued Lyndon, for example, and his upcoming death would almost certainly have been vastly different. So I think that the stars are related to, but not directly caused by, the use of the sceptre.
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May 24, 2019 01:55
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Repeated, excessive use of the sceptre is draining the stars dry?
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May 24, 2019 01:57
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The day they go out is being pushed further back, tho, instead of being brought forward. EDIT: the day that the stars went out advanced by a single day as soon as his diary advanced a single day, so that points to it being caused by his use of the sceptre and being on a set timer from the moment you touch it, which goes against what i said. But that does make it a very bad tool for accurately predicting futures past a set point. Old Kentucky Shark fucked around with this message at 02:09 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 02:03
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The Lone Badger posted:Repeated, excessive use of the sceptre is draining the stars dry? That doesn't make sense, because that would mean the time would be getting shorter instead of longer as the Scepter is used. It seems more likely that this is something that isn't directly related to the scepter.
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May 24, 2019 02:08
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Bobulus posted:I think we're all on the same page. The only remaining question is: Did they have a plan based around keeping Lindon alive (as in: using him to pass back info), or were they keeping him alive (and as healthy as possible) only to prolong their own simulated lives? Feels like the latter, to me. Also the star thing could easily be the lightcone for the universe contracting towards whoever touched the scepter as they approach the moment of death. The little dude didn't know when the stars would go out, just that they would. As for that changing the outcome, that's the entire point of the scepter. I feel like the stars vanishing combined with the year long time skips should prove that the stars are connected to the scepter rather than some outside event. Relevant Tangent fucked around with this message at 04:32 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 04:23
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I assumed it was the latter until the diaries showed that the ambassador /is/ willing to die to get information to another him. And not just in the abstract "a me will die" but in the real "this me right here will die".
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May 24, 2019 04:32
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Sure, but right now Lyndon is the person who will get the data, throwing him off as much as possible is extremely useful.
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May 24, 2019 04:34
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we haven't seen the ambassador since lyndon was first captured, he might be out of the picture by now and everybody else is just self-preserving. Unless they're waiting for a specific event I don't see the advantage of just keeping things going for as long as possible; they must already have something that's worth sending back, and any new information they can gather at this point isn't going to be useful for over half a decade. also the stars didn't go out until 2143 days after lyndon had touched the sceptre, so something is definitely different from when the ambassador first started experimenting.
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May 24, 2019 05:32
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Sam Hall posted:The diary hasn't got yet to the tests he ran the next day, which has the stars going out on day 151 of year 784. Oh, well would you look at that. break-up breakdown posted:also the stars didn't go out until 2143 days after lyndon had touched the sceptre, so something is definitely different from when the ambassador first started experimenting. I count 2150, assuming all the time skips add up? Actually I count 3 years + 1055 days, we don't know for sure that this planet is Earth and that its years are 365 days long. If it IS Earth then there ought to be stars inside of 2150 light-days, so we shouldn't really take that for granted. Let's see, the ambassador's test ran 6 years minus 47 days from start to lights out... oh THAT's where you're getting 2143 days from. Okay, so if the stars in Lyndon's simulation and the ambassador's timed out after the same interval then 3y+1055 = 6y-47; so y = 367.333. Diabolica isn't on Earth, its years are 367 days long with a leap year every three, the scepter simulates a volume 2157 light-days in radius and there are no other stars within that volume.
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May 24, 2019 07:24
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oh i misread i though the stars in the ambassador's entries were dying 150 days after he touched, not day 150 of 758. so diary starts on day 197 of year 779, assuming earth years code:
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May 24, 2019 07:49
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Sam Hall posted:the scepter simulates a volume 2157 light-days in radius and there are no other stars within that volume. They have a sun that is still working after all the other stars had vanished.
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May 24, 2019 08:56
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the sun and maybe some other nearby bodies are still being simulated
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May 24, 2019 09:10
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Dragonatrix posted:They have a sun that is still working after all the other stars had vanished. How far away do you think the sun is?
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May 24, 2019 10:44
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Relevant Tangent posted:How far away do you think the sun is? Approximately 140 millions times less far away than 2157 light-days.
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May 24, 2019 12:05
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I wonder if Thorsby knows we're here doing all the math on the scepter and lightspeed. I wonder if he likes us 
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May 24, 2019 17:13
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It is me thorsby. You are all wrong and I hate you all.
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May 24, 2019 18:05
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383 Long story short, socialism will save lives.
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May 27, 2019 05:02
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To be fair, it's also Lyndon's fault.
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May 27, 2019 05:14
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I just realize that these diary entries take place over the course of two days. This dude just spent a weekend experiencing his own suicide dozens or hundreds of times in a row.
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May 27, 2019 05:39
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