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Bongo Bill posted:Edit: Religious notions of predestination and causality are difficult to apply when actual literal time travel is involved. Au contraire, time travel makes them all the easier. After all, if you see your future self do something and are now compelled to do that thing via time travel to maintain causalty, the question is raised "who decided that such a thing should be part of causalty"? It isn't you. Whomever is 'writing' time, whomever has control of destiny on that level (and it must be someone, for in nature it would be simpler to have no loops), that is the one we call God (big ups to Aquinas). There's only two entities with that sort of power in the story (No, not Hussie, please ignore the man behind the curtain). First the game of Sburb, which had the power to create the players in paradoxical loops of self-creation. Second is Lord English, who overwrote much of the loops of the first entity to ensure his own creation. Until some character finds out how he has weilded this power and how to usurp it, I can't see how anyone could beat LE. And if it turns out that for some reason Lord English doesn't have control over causality and these loops all just 'happened' because that's how the story 'goes', indirectly implying that the only God is the authour, I'm going to be kinda disappointed.
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Feb 3, 2012 20:59
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That's a suitably Thomist interpretation, but, as such, it leaves out an explanation for the driver of causality that the story's themes have already strongly suggested. Hussie's already ruled out further intervention on his part, and English's power has been shown to be vast but not infinite; his manipulation subtle but not entirely omniscient. Rather than say it was God or Fate or some other synonym thereof, apply the materialist perspective. What transpires is simply a result of causality playing out in the only way it can. Nature - not conscious nature, but the mere behavior of natural laws - is the only author (excepting the literal one). Time bullshit introduces the possibility of the actors acting upon themselves, creating exactly the sort of loop that the story thrives on. Material determinism seems more appropriate to employ than the more religious versions thereof precisely because time travel keeps leading mundane inevitabilities. Babbling with large words is its own reward.
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Feb 3, 2012 21:25
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While I understand the criticism as it applies to the material universe, it seems somewhat graceless for causality considering it'd be much easier to just not have time travel at all. Once you have time travel, having time loops being completable by all sorts of different kinds of agency (such as a fatalist who does what time wants, or someone who tries to defy their fate and ironically ends up achieving it) as well as the existence of 'beta'-timeline doomed to destruction for the express purpose of propping up a particular version of the alpha... I suppose it could possibly be explained as Sburb being the quasi-organic product of a universe in order for it to reproduce (Creating an absolute but unconscious authority) meshed with Lord English's meddling (A not-quite-absolute but conscious authority) might explain the needless complexity of causality, although there'd have to be particular indicators of such once the players start messing with Lord English (never mind the idea that a universe naturally, organically evolved a reproductive method that involves a detailed personal quest that interacts with sentient beings). Or to put all this simply, if it was just nature at work, there'd be no need or explanation for why certain loops exist, no way to trace them back to a single 'necessary' strand rather than as being part of a conscious being's agenda.
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Feb 3, 2012 22:50
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It's just determinism. Sburb is basically the process of reproduction and evolution, but for universes rather than organisms. There's no guiding hand directing evolution, and there's no guiding hand directing the events of Sburb. Things happen because there's no way they can't happen.
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Feb 4, 2012 00:07
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Kit Walker posted:It's just determinism. Exactly! Trying to put an ultimate cause or origin, or perpretator on the events in Homestuck is thinking too linear. Time loops are called loops for a reason--they have no beginning or end.
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Feb 4, 2012 00:29
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This has probably already been said, and more concisely, but I love to ramble on about time poo poo. The thing you need to really remember, I feel is that when time travel and time loops are so involved in events, effect following cause isn't always the case. It is totally the case where the cause of an event can occur after the event itself, and indeed that an event can influence or even be it's own cause. The kids had dreamselves because one day they would play Sburb, yeah, that may seem odd. But then, you need to remember that the kids only exist in the first place because of Sburb! They are creations of the game itself, sent back in time by the session in order to ensure it would be spawned in the first place. Just like the Reckoning sent back the Frog Temple, which contained the computer code for the game to be programmed in the first place. The whole thing with Beta Timelines is that Beta Timelines are doomed because they are flawed in regards to temporal consistency. When John was killed by his Denizen a Beta Timeline was created, because he hadn't yet performed the ectobiology necessary for his own existence. The kids became a paradox and the timeline died. Every occurrence of a Beta Timeline we've seen has resulted because in said timeline time loops cannot occur, much of the events we've seen so far are "pre destined". Even the Scratch was predestined, as evidenced by the existence of Liv Tyler in the story at all.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:00
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Can we think of paradox space and timelines in terms of evolution and natural selection? It's already been stated that there's a split timeline for each decision. These decision points are analogous to differing genetic mutations in the next generation. The alpha survives because it has the decisions that are most advantageous to its survival. I guess there's no selective force other than causality, though. Maybe Lord English counts as one? Does he eat beta-timelined universes? Does he try to inject as many decision points that can lead to beta timelines as possible in order to create more food? Hmm.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:11
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Doesn't that mean that there are literally an infinite amount of Beta timelines, then?
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Feb 4, 2012 01:12
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Prison Warden posted:
Also, this means that the 8 people created by SBURB presumably don't actually have a genetic relation to anyone outside of that group. Apart from Dad, I guess, being John's half-brother/son. John's genetic lineage is loving confusing given that there's like, 4 people who share his blood not including himself.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:12
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You know, considering that the 8 kids grew up in a society that puts something of a stigma on being raised by anybody besides the two people who produced the gametes that formed your zygotic being, the kids have taken "surprise! You're an ectobiological freak of nature who weren't even born on earth! Also, you were set up to play this game whether you wanted to or not!" rather well. Then again, four of them were raised by single parents and the other four either by their brother, or their grandpa, or a dog, so I guess they were already used to breaking family conventions to begin with. Wait a minute, who raises Jake?
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Feb 4, 2012 01:22
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Lady of the Beech posted:Doesn't that mean that there are literally an infinite amount of Beta timelines, then? Yes, and this has always been the case. The thing is, we don't see most of the beta timelines because they don't really matter.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:26
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Lady of the Beech posted:You know, considering that the 8 kids grew up in a society that puts something of a stigma on being raised by anybody besides the two people who produced the gametes that formed your zygotic being, the kids have taken "surprise! You're an ectobiological freak of nature who weren't even born on earth! Also, you were set up to play this game whether you wanted to or not!" rather well. From the things mentioned by Jake, I'm assuming it was Grandma Jade, until she bit the dust. After that, and barring GCAT, nobody. Just like Roxy and Dirk.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:26
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King of Solomon posted:Yes, and this has always been the case. The thing is, we don't see most of the beta timelines because they don't really matter. Yeah, that's what I thought. Reason why that particular one mattered was because Dave wanted to stop John getting killed from happening, and doing so involved time-jumping into the Alpha timeline, since apparently that was supposed to happen for temporal success since John is innately a naïve and gullible idiot. ^ The familial subplots this time around are really rather sad, aren't they?
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Feb 4, 2012 01:28
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Lady of the Beech posted:Yeah, that's what I thought. Reason why that particular one mattered was because Dave wanted to stop John getting killed from happening, and doing so involved time-jumping into the Alpha timeline. I imagine that doesn't happen too often because Beta Timeline selves are doomed from the get go. Davesprite lived through kinda unrepeatable Kernelsprite Shenanigans, and has pretty vigilantly focused on properly maintaining his time loops since. And Aradia has those hundreds of Beta Aradias who fought the Black king and died against Bec Noir
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Feb 4, 2012 01:31
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I was of the idea that due to the nature of paradox space the only possible Beta timelines are ones that put an influence back on the Alpha. As in, there are no other branches. Beta-John probably breaks this idea, though, depending on the rest of his story.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:37
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I don't think there's necessarily infinite beta timelines. I was under the impression that beta timelines only exist when at least some of their events are relevant to the alpha timeline.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:38
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Supercar Gautier posted:I don't think there's necessarily infinite beta timelines. I was under the impression that beta timelines only exist when at least some of their events are relevant to the alpha timeline. Well, if you want to get all technical about it, if there were infinite beta timelines of which only a few had time travel back into the alpha, that would be indistinguishable from your version from the viewpoint of the alpha timeline. We can't really give either hypothesis the nod.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:49
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Lady of the Beech posted:Wait a minute, who raises Jake? I'm still wondering who raised Jade. I had assumed that Grandpa had raised her up until a point where she was more self-sufficient before Bec took over, but when we learned the real sequence of events, she looked like a toddler when Ol' Harley died. Who taught her to talk and gave her an education, potty training, fitting clothes? Did Bec do a lot of teleporting of instructional videos or something?
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Feb 4, 2012 01:52
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Midnight Raider posted:I'm still wondering who raised Jade. I had assumed that Grandpa had raised her up until a point where she was more self-sufficient before Bec took over, but when we learned the real sequence of events, she looked like a toddler when Ol' Harley died. Who taught her to talk and gave her an education, potty training, fitting clothes? Did Bec do a lot of teleporting of instructional videos or something? Bec was her Lusus. If the trolls ended up able to speak and dress themselves after being raised by spidermoms and crabdads and psychic dragons and poo poo, then it should work for Jade. And Jake has an entire island full of them! He could have any Lusus he wanted, as long as it shared his blood colour. So crabdads only.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:58
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Midnight Raider posted:I'm still wondering who raised Jade. I had assumed that Grandpa had raised her up until a point where she was more self-sufficient before Bec took over, but when we learned the real sequence of events, she looked like a toddler when Ol' Harley died. Who taught her to talk and gave her an education, potty training, fitting clothes? Did Bec do a lot of teleporting of instructional videos or something? I don't know, but it is indeed a miracle that she can communicate with other people at the level she does. Realistically she would be something of a wolf-child. Maybe Bec kidnapped babysitters or something?
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Feb 4, 2012 02:03
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Prison Warden posted:When John was killed by his Denizen a Beta Timeline was created, because he hadn't yet performed the ectobiology necessary for his own existence. I recently realised that wasn't the reason for that timeline becoming doomed. John died there because it was a doomed timeline, not the other way round. The instant that the timeline became doomed (measurable by the kids no longer being able to talk to the trolls) was when John went through the gate, but something else happened at that moment. The actual reason for that timeline being doomed was this:  Calsprite = No more Cal = Cal doesn't get to Alternia = No Doc Scratch That was the reason that timeline got doomed. Holy poo poo that's a huge amount of time for a payoff like that and it hasn't even been explicitly pointed out.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:11
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Jade did have prophetic dream visions and has been implied to be some sort of psychic. Not to mention grandpa was doing some sort of time/space traveling. Not to mention she wasn't that young at the time. On the other hand, her only human contact was through the internet, so it is still kind of miraculous.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:17
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KoB posted:No, he would have to have been holding the camera in his mouth. Do you really expect me to believe that, Hussie??
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Feb 4, 2012 02:17
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Well, with how much time Jade spent asleep, I figure she was raised by Prospit and its citizens just as much as anyone else.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:26
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The image on the newspaper isn't a photograph, it's an artist's dramatization of the event. The artist is Dersian Andrew Hussie.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:29
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YggiDee posted:Well, with how much time Jade spent asleep, I figure she was raised by Prospit and its citizens just as much as anyone else. That's pretty genius actually.
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Feb 4, 2012 02:35
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And it was the best rap-off ever.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:21
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Nooo, poor Squarewave.  I hope he'll be alright.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:24
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So that page was pretty great. Shame so little of it was the proper rap-off though.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:25
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ActionZero posted:I recently realised that wasn't the reason for that timeline becoming doomed. John died there because it was a doomed timeline, not the other way round. The instant that the timeline became doomed (measurable by the kids no longer being able to talk to the trolls) was when John went through the gate, but something else happened at that moment. The actual reason for that timeline being doomed was this: Huh, yeah I guess the Calsprite prototyping did happen before John shot off. I think there are multiple POTENTIAL alternate timelines that dont have an affect on the alpha, Delta Timelines if you wish. Though I guess there aren't seven billion dead versions of all the kids so maybe not.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:26
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King of Solomon posted:So that page was pretty great. Shame so little of it was the proper rap-off though. Maybe this will be like the rooftop Strife, with Dirk spending a whole (sub-)act rapping in successive Flashes.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:31
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This song is so Toejam and Earl I can't even deal with it here lies Snollygoster couldn't deal
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Feb 4, 2012 03:37
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I love this song. It's so groovy. I'm still listening to it in another tab.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:40
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This might be my favorite strife song so far.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:47
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Lady of the Beech posted:I love this song. It's so groovy. I'm still listening to it in another tab. Me too! Apparently its called Anbroids, by Malcolm Brown.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:48
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I assume Squarewave set one of his and Sawtooth's music videos to play on the big screen just now for added rap-off legitimacy. Alternatively, the screen is just aware of any potential rap-offs in the vicinity and changes its cycle in accordance with thrown downs being initiated.
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Feb 4, 2012 03:52
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This better be Dirk's theme song because it is SO ILL and it is also HOT PHAT poo poo "YO."
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Feb 4, 2012 04:02
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What is that first TV background of Sawtooth and Squarewave? I want that as a background.
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Feb 4, 2012 04:14
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poo poo's Genesis as gently caress, man, I love it.
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Feb 4, 2012 04:17
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According to my calculations, Squarewave just got "the served".
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Feb 4, 2012 04:31
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