Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[Fifthfiend]

Come to think of it, how did John die / the doomed timeline even happen given that John needs to be there to create everyone in the first place?

Or is that just WEIRD TIME SHIT and don't think too hard about it?

[Geminex]

Come to think of it, how did John die / the doomed timeline even happen given that John needs to exist for everyone to get created in the first place?

Ha. I'm pretty sure that, since John never survived to create paradox clones, they were never paradox clones to begin with. I think that when John created paradox clones, that was the point when they had been paradox clones all along. Before he did that, they were normal.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I like to think that since John died, the ectobiology duties just got passed off to Rose or Dave. The teleporter to the lab was on Rose's planet after all, so Rose had access to it. Really, we don't know and probably never will.

[katiuska]

Originally Posted by Geminex

But Bec existed in that timeline!

I mean yes, John died and Jade as well, probably, but Bec existed, didn't he? He was the planet's, and Jade's, guardian.

Unlesess you're saying that his being Jade's guardian depends on weird time shit that's gonna be caused by John and/or Jade later?

Well, I'm saying his being important depended on Jade entering the Medium, because otherwise he'd be stuck on Earth, out of the reach of the agents and not having any direct influence on the game. I have no idea how in the hell everyone was created in John's absence, but then again, all he did was press a few buttons, so I guess anyone could do that.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

Come to think of it, how did John die / the doomed timeline even happen given that John needs to be there to create everyone in the first place?

Or is that just WEIRD TIME SHIT and don't think too hard about it?

The alternate timeline could actually be considered as still being part of the stable time loop that created them, as it was necessary for alternate future Dave and Rose to exist in order to save John so that he could later create them all in the first place.

Originally Posted by Geminex

Ha. I'm pretty sure that, since John never survived to create paradox clones, they were never paradox clones to begin with. I think that when John created paradox clones, that was the point when they had been paradox clones all along. Before he did that, they were normal.

And you call my theories unsupported.... Look, let me run the whole thing down for you:

• Lord English will come into existence. This is unavoidable, and the only way for it to happen is if the universe ends.
• If Snowman dies, the universe ends.
• The reason for this is because Doc Scratch imbued her with that ability in order to further his own goal.
• Doc Scratch's goal is to summon Lord English.
• A rift is torn open from the kids' session to the trolls' session.
• Jack Noir and the Black Queen are kismeses. Their hatred is a hatred undying, unstoppably drawing them together in an eternal, inescapable death grip across untold vastness of distances.
• The Draconian Dignitary created Bec. He did so under orders from Jack Noir, and sent Bec back in time to the location where Jade would eventually come to live. This was done for a reason.
• The wearer of a Ring of Orbs takes on the properties of everything the players prototype. That is the reason Jack had Bec created.
• According to Karkat, today is the day Jade fucks everything up.
• The plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister!

Is Jack's plan to kill Snowman? Oh lord no. It's unlikely he even knows she exists at this point in the story. Is it Doc Scratch's plan for Jack to kill Snowman? Obviously.

[Geminex]

Look, I read the comic as well. Hell, I reread it twice, I could probably have found those pages quicker than you. I'm aware of all those facts.

I'm just saying it doesn't really fit together. Why would Doc Scratch want to end the universe via Snowman? It's a certainty (pretty much THE certainty) that the universe will end eventually. Lord English is omnipotent and time-travels. It doesn't matter when he gets summoned because all he needs to do is travel to the beginning of time in order to have existed all along. Why the whole elaborate set-up?

Not to mention that I don't think that 'being Kismesis' is gonna be enough to get Noir to kill Snowman. I mean, weird time shit screwing up the whole 'cause-effect' logic that we're so used to? Sure. A pretty weird virus (if I understand ATH correctly, that shouldn't have done anything at all) being executed and dooming the guardians of 11 trolls? Ok, I can dig it.

But I don't think that Kismesis, however powerful, will either be enough of a motivation for Jack to cross universes, nor that it'll be enough of a 'fateful force' to simply cause him to... what're you proposing anyway? That he coincidentally create a scratch and cross universes, only to happen upon Snowman there? whatever it is, I don't think mere kismesis would be enough to justify it.

And finally, like I said. How's Bec gonna get prototyped? He'd have to be doomed, and how do you doom an omnipotent being?

The theory's interesting, and I'm sure that what actually happens won't turn out to be all that dissimilar, but while you've recognized a lot of the fixed pieces, the connections just don't seem to make sense.

I think we need to know more about the kids' plan and the actual nature of the scratch, stuff will be a lot clearer.

[Loyal]

Jack Noir and the Black Queen are kismeses. Their hatred is a hatred undying, unstoppably drawing them together in an eternal, inescapable death grip across untold vastness of distances.

This is where I get skeptical. I get that they hate-love each other, but I can think of absolutely no reason why that'd be sufficient prompting to go dimension-hopping in an attempt to kill every iteration of Black Queen he may or may not be able to get his hands on. Kid-session Jack already killed the Black Queen of his own universe - why would he care about another?

For that matter, do the people of the Medium, Prospit, and Derse know about the nature of the game? Does each Jack Noir know that he is merely one of many Jacks? If someone told Kid-session Jack that there was another universe, with another Jack Noir and another Black Queen, why would he care?

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Geminex

I'm just saying it doesn't really fit together. Why would Doc Scratch want to end the universe via Snowman? It's a certainty (pretty much THE certainty) that the universe will end eventually. Lord English is omnipotent and time-travels. It doesn't matter when he gets summoned because all he needs to do is travel to the beginning of time in order to have existed all along. Why the whole elaborate set-up?

There's a difference between "the end of the universe" and "the end of the universe as we know it." When scientists talk about the end of the universe, they just mean the eventual extinction of all life, the extinguishing of all kinetic energy, and all the matter floating about in space just sorta falling apart and fading to blackness. The thing is, the universe continues to exist, it's just that everything's completely dead in it. It's just pitch black space.

For Lord English to come into existence, everything else has to literally cease to exist. All reality must be torn asunder and unmade. No more universe. At all. Ever.

The way this happens is already predetermined, and Doc Scratch knows it. So he's just putting everything into place for the end times, because it's his inescapable destiny to do so.

But I don't think that Kismesis, however powerful, will either be enough of a motivation for Jack to cross universes, nor that it'll be enough of a 'fateful force' to simply cause him to... what're you proposing anyway? That he coincidentally create a scratch and cross universes, only to happen upon Snowman there? whatever it is, I don't think mere kismesis would be enough to justify it.

I don't know for sure what motivates him to go dimension hopping. He might be trying to find more rings in other sessions in order to gain more powers. He might be lured there by Doc Scratch. The reason for it hasn't been revealed yet.

The kismessitude's involvement is why he kills her. Not why he finds her.

And finally, like I said. How's Bec gonna get prototyped? He'd have to be doomed, and how do you doom an omnipotent being?

By prototyping it with a kernelsprite? Apparently it's Jade's fault that it happens, it may be something as simple as her having the bright idea to create a kernelsprite with god powers. It may be something else entirely.

The theory's interesting, and I'm sure that what actually happens won't turn out to be all that dissimilar, but while you've recognized a lot of the fixed pieces, the connections just don't seem to make sense.

I think we need to know more about the kids' plan and the actual nature of the scratch, stuff will be a lot clearer.

Actually, I heard the theory from Fencer, who got it from the MSPA forums when DD was creating Bec. After further examination of the evidence, that seemed to be the most likely scenario.

There are missing links still, but that hardly disproves anything. It's like looking at human evolutionary fossil record, and saying that because a couple hominid species that complete the chain haven't been found yet the whole thing is unsupported.

[Geminex]

There's a difference between "the end of the universe" and "the end of the universe as we know it." When scientists talk about the end of the universe, they just mean the eventual extinction of all life, the extinguishing of all kinetic energy, and all the matter floating about in space just sorta falling apart and fading to blackness. The thing is, the universe continues to exist, it's just that everything's completely dead in it. It's just pitch black space.

For Lord English to come into existence, everything else has to literally cease to exist. All reality must be torn asunder and unmade. No more universe. At all. Ever.

The way this happens is already predetermined, and Doc Scratch knows it. So he's just putting everything into place for the end times, because it's his inescapable destiny to do so.

Well, if you want to get really astrophysical about it, the end of the universe will take place in one of two ways.
If there's enough matter in the universe for the universe to be constantly expanding, that's pretty much what will happen. The universe will constantly expand, entropy will increase further and further, until it dies a heat death, matter and energy get distributed uniformly thoughout space until they're infinitely 'dilute'.
The alternative is that the universe is contracting, in which case we're gonna have a big crunch in a few tens of billions of years, followed, quite probably, by another big bang.
But anyway.

I wasn't taking a scientific standpoint when I said that the universe ending was a certainty. I was simply stating what we knew from the comic. The universe will end for a given value of end. Sollux seems to be pretty sure of that, and since ATH has (Universe) as a possible ending entity, and ATH seems to be something of an all-powerful programming language (it's what actually summons lord english, it seems, so if it assumes that the universe is gonna die eventually, the universe will die eventually). That's why I spoke of the certainty, and why it was technically unnecessary for Scratch to tie Snowman to the end of the universe (come to think of it, he probably used ATH for that as well).

Import Snowman (S)
~ATH (S) {
}Execute ([Operation to destroy universe, probably symbolized by the white cue ball]);
THIS.DIE() ;

Anyway, whatever value of 'death' we're using, the one that ATH assumes [~ATH (U)] and the one that summons English [again, ~ATH (U)] are the same. There's no need to speed it up!
Mind you, unless you're saying that the whole Snowman's-Death-Ends-Universe bit is the only possible reason the universe will end...
Which would be valid, I guess.

It'd just raise the question of, if Scratch can tie the death of the universe to an entity, why on earth would he choose Snowman? And once he did, why would he wait for Noir to kill her? She doesn't seem omnipotent. In the intermission, when she appeared in the middle of the gunfight, people immediately stopped shooting, for fear of killing her. I'm pretty sure she's mortal, if powerful. If you're omnipotent, why not just kill her yourself?
Just makes no sense.

And you're right. Jade's 'involvement' may be to prototype Bec. It may be something else. As it is, all we have to go on is the assumption that Jack Noir must have had a reason to have Bec created, which is nicely countered by the fact that, from what we know, it's impossible to prototype Bec.

There are missing links still, but that hardly disproves anything. It's like looking at human evolutionary fossil record, and saying that because a couple hominid species that complete the chain haven't been found yet the whole thing is unsupported.

With all due respect but...
what?
That's just... that's just not correct at all. Hell, it's downright insulting.

You have a hypothesis. You're supporting this hypothesis with evidence.
I am pointing out that your evidence is flawed, because you are making unreasonable assumptions, linking evidence in ways that don't make sense.

You're right, there's evidence yet to be uncovered. But there's no reason to believe that it's more likely to support your theory than refute it, because hey, your theory isn't that well-supported to begin with.

...

Incidentally, when's the next game of Nuklear Wright planned?

[Fifthfiend]

I think the major problem with POS's theory is fuck POS, also everybody, everywhere hates POS. Also I hate POS.

RE-FUTED.

EDIT: On a marginally more serious note, do the kids not know at this point that typing changes the shit they gotta fight? Have the trolls not mentioned it? Have they not noticed the jester-hatted, cat-whiskered ogres?

I'm not saying it won't happen, cause Jade does some dumb shit, but that'd be some pretty A-level dumb shit.