I’m at the Ottawa Comiccon this weekend! Come find me in Artist Alley at table 2608. I’ve got about a bazillion buttons to assemble before I head north, traveling with Crystal Yates of Earthsong, so… back to work!
I’m at the Ottawa Comiccon this weekend! Come find me in Artist Alley at table 2608. I’ve got about a bazillion buttons to assemble before I head north, traveling with Crystal Yates of Earthsong, so… back to work!
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I still don’t understand why they jumped away. They were on the verge of mounting some sort of rescue for the Hiawatha survivors, and then suddenly there was a decision to jump instead. It makes no sense to me. And they still haven’t worked out where they are after this jump.
Yeah, I kind of thought that, even with all that’s happened, the “where” would be a bit more of a concern for everyone by now.
I think the jump was a reasonable decision. They were in no position of doing anything meaningful for the survivors without taking way too much risk and one of the causes of this is an information imbalance. They really needed the info on the disc. At the other hand they learned that the survivors are not in direct life threatening danger, so time was not critical.
The issue of where are they is more interesting. Especially that the explanation of sensor and computer back out after the jump was rather weak technically, giving the impression that it was just an arbitrary plot element to postpone the topic.
Some of the characters seemed to share your uncertainty about why the General decided to jump. While I don’t know what Tara has in mind, I think it may be relevant the decision to encrypt the Hiawatha’s logs was apparently made by the General’s husband. She’d have at least some idea of why he might have decided to do so, which may explain why she places a very high priority on getting those files decrypted as soon as possible.
But if they jump back, who’s to say they even end up in that universe? Couldn’t they end up somewhere totally different?
But with limited data, is it safe to assume the M-theory (Multiverse Theory or Multiple Universe theory; see also “Many-worlds interpretation”) holds true to the reality in this comic? Do we even know if there is more than two universes in this comic? Just because they found one alternate reality universe, this does not necessarily prove that INFINITE alternate realities exist. For all we know, the only universes that exist are the one they came from and the one the Hiawatha crashed on. Or, maybe there’s only a half dozen – or some other finite number.
Anyway: Consider the fact that the Galaxion went to the same parallel universe as the Hiawatha – the earlier ship. Either they happened to recreate the conditions perfectly to end up in Hiawatha’s universe, or they would have to make adjustments to the drive to end up elsewhere. And, again, that’s assuming such is even possible (assuming there’s more than two universes).
I find it easier to imagine that if alternate universes exist (either irl or the comic), then there will be an infinite number of them.
However, an infinity of multiverses wouldn’t necessarily require some kind of excrutiatingly improbable coincidence for the Galaxion and Hiawatha to have transited to the same one. The ‘distance’ of the jump might be a function of some pre-existing resonance – either between the two universes themselves, or within the specific design of the jump engine. Our intrepid heroes may even eventually figure out how to tweak this resonance to their best advantage (or eliminate it entirely – thus achivieving their initial goal – superliminal travel in just three boring spatial dimensions). Think of it as replacing a simple resistor with a potentiometer to make a fixed-frequency radio into a tunable one.
Alternately, with an infinitude of parallel universes, maybe they didn’t jump to the same universe as the Hiawatha at all — maybe they jumped to the same universe as some other universe’s version of the Hiawatha.
But that way lies madness, of course.
I used to lean towards the many-worlds interpretation (infinite universes). But now I believe that if alternate universes exist (simultaneously to ours), there are only a small number of them. That said, I do believe that there were other universes or realities that existed prior to our most recent Big Bang.
The Big Bang itself isn’t a completely guaranteed theory, either. It’s just the prevailing theory among cosmology for our universe’s origin. I’m sure if we dug into it, we’d find alternative theories that may also be plausible.
I really personally think, that rather than an infinite or finite number would be of major importance. Sad to say, one of my kids favorite cartoons simplified a theory I have been more in line to believe for a very long time. The number would not be infinite, as that would pose that the universe came from something, regardless of matter/energy or whathaveyou, this would mean most of our scientific theories would be irrelevant and completely wrong. For, if it came from something that existed prior, that would mean that time has no beginning nor end, and as such alternate realities would be a far cry from what we see, and we would likely be living more in lines with the mythos of Doctor Who, which I do enjoy watching but find more than a bit weak oftentimes in the scientific explanations but great in the story content. Now back to my main point, if any of you have seen the movie Phineas and Ferb and the Fourth Dimension, I can’t remember if that is the exact title, as I try to just remember the general name of either characters or the show itself, and not specific episodes or movies, I don’t work in cinema anymore, so no thank you. The theory within the film though, is that each alternate dimension/reality has a specific connection to two others, skipping dimensions like in Sliders, is not something that can just be done, you have to either expend very little energy to move to the next and continue for simplistic explanations in a circle or some other geometric shaped course, or find a way to basically tear the shared portion of reality between two, similar to Green Lantern, when Hal Jordan had to save a planet by exerting an insane amount of energy from his side, and a light amount of further energy from the originating side to travel in the reverse as that would be similar to traveling against a current. I often come back to theories of either spherial or circular in nature primarily due to the fact that most scientific discoveries, gravity, light, fusion, atomic level atoms and so much more are some cylindrical shape, even if not a perfect circle, none of them ever have the weird shape of a rectangle or rhombus or what have you. Creatures are the only ones who create sharp edged ones. So, following this extremely long theory I have written out, I believe they traveled to the correct dimension that the Hiawatha did, but now I think they are in a completely different one from both, not necessarily a bad thing, but now that encrypted data is crucial, and if anything similar to this is correct, it will add further suspense as they will not be able to find immediate access to the materials and labor they are used to from home to put the ship back together before they figure out how to either get back to the Hiawatha or back home to give all of this information to the agencies so that a proper engine can be made and our beloved captain enters a semi-permanent partnership with the general whereas they both are able to do what they love, one favoring command and control and the other exploration and discovery. I think personally that would be awesome, but I could also be talking so backwards related to the story that I am so far off base I just confused everyone.
Oh, and a side note, Deirdre, thank you for having that name, you are only the first person I have ever found that shares my youngest daughter’s name. Thank you, when she finds out after she is back from summer vacation with family out of state, I will share this section of comments so she gets a giggle.
Finger crossed that Anna has better fortunes this time around, unlike poor Patty…