TCotM: Tenebrynn's Idylls

[Knight Otu]

"Inducing fluctuations? That does not sound too good an idea to me, but I would like to believe that even our diminished minds are not too fragile. Before we subject ourself to those tests, do you have any records or chronicles readily available about the last decade?"

 

[Rystil Arden]

"So that's the interesting thing, I think...There certainly are books that one could peruse about major historical events, but I'm guessing that the tests will be easier, safer, and more conclusive if we perform them when the amnesia has not been partially obscured by relearning. Or in other words, the closer your minds are to the affected state that they entered when the malaise first set in, the easier it will be to determine the cause. On the other hand, if you recover much of the lost knowledge now or otherwise alter your minds again after the incident, there will be interference, and it will be harder to tell what was caused by the incident."

"Does that make sense?"

 

[Erekose13]

"I want my memories or my former life back. This gap or missing time is all consuming. I want to remember the things that happened in the last 10 years, either by getting my memory back or experiencing them myself for the first time. I want to know you Kiara, and to see my friends grow, to watch Rinaldo's kids grow up, or at least to remember it... I'll volunteer for the tests. Should the worst happen, Ashnar, you've come back from worse." volunteers Tenebrynn.

 

[Rystil Arden]

"The termination rate is minimal. If you'd follow me?"

*Laynie takes Tenebrynn to a laboratory with equipment where she can experiment. Kiara sits with incredible anxiety the entire time, waiting to hear some news, any news, afraid that the experiment might have been fatal.*

*Although it is extremely unpleasant and causes Tenebrynn's consciousness to temporarily dissociate and lose random senses, his sense of self, and other faculties, mixed in with trippy hallucinations, random colours, and weird distortions, eventually he is back to normal--well normal for the amnesiac state anyway.*

*By then, Elektra has been back for a while. As before, she was completely unaffected by this.*

*Laynie returns with the results:*

"Iiiiiinteresting," she holds the i for a while as she reviews the data, "According to the clustering schematic I'm using, your brain particles, indeed the constituents of your very mind, are abnormal...But not just abnormal--I expected to see the brain that should be there, but with memory loss. They aren't even the same...the temporal signatures are off. I don't know what happened to your normal mind, but your current mind has been physically borrowed from elsewhere--or elsewhen rather. Specifically, the past...But there are a few things that don't make sense about that."

"It mostly has to do with where whoever did this got a hold of those minds. It is by no means easily, especially considering the fundamental structure of time--each point in time has infinitely many branches, each leading to a possible future. But all those future share one past--the deterministic singular past that comes before that point. So, for instance, if we consider all possible futures, even silly ones like, say, a future that was exactly the same as this one except that I dyed my hair blue, then we have a conundrum, since two futures can't both have borrowed from the same past, since there's only one past between the two."

"To put it more concisely, this must be the only present, of all the infinite possible presents that share the same past up to the branching point when the particles were taken, in which you have come across this malaise. It also presents an interesting possible answer for Elektra, as well."

"What do you think?"

 

[Velmont]

"Ok, let's speak in a more vulgar way (vulgar like not using erudic terminology). What you are telling is that what might have happen, it is when we have dissapear, the Crux have sent our mind to one of the possible futur of the present we were in.

So, if Vanitri's fear are true, the Crux could have sent us to a futur we would like, which mean,s one where the four of us have survived up to now and have become highly successful. But considering from teh point fo view of the moment the Crux sent us here, that futur might, or might not be the one that will happen. If we ever go back to the moment we reappear, we could have a chance to find ourselves in this actual situation.

That means the Crux might be safe... and might not, as we don't know what happen in other timeline. Also, Lex is probably in another timeline where the Crux thought she might be more at ease.

Do I make sense?"

 

[Rystil Arden]

"It is true, the future is never set in stone. Frankly, I'm surprised that so many of you were afflicted with the past particles in just our one present. That leads to the provocative suggestion that this may be the best of all possible worlds..."

"But not for me?"

"Would it not have been better for you if you had gotten that professorship that year? I always wonder that."

"Not really. I've accepted it, and now I know I'm happiest where I am now. Things turned out for the best."

"Ah, but consider! What would your regressed mind think? You know, without the whole choice-supportive bias. Probably want to change your mind now, eh?"

 

[Velmont]

"If that's the best possible futur... what could happen if Joe's survive the Dracolich War... If we find as much information about our futur and use it at our advantage, could it be possible we could create an even better futur? For xample, on just like this one, but where Joe lives?" asks Rinaldo

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Joe died to save a large number of orphaned children whom he was protecting. You might be able to trade for a future where Joe ran away and let the children die, but even though are infinitely many futures, it does not follow that there exists a future for all possibile settings of all variables. For instance, it is quite possible that there exists no such future that is exactly the same as this one except that I dyed my hair blue. Why not? It could be a number of reasons. It might be the fact that I never really considered dying my hair blue, so I would only do it if a huge number of other factors also changed. It might be that my blue hair would cause a student to pay attention in my class more, for whatever reason, and then because he was paying more attention he suddenly realises an important magical breakthrough. We simply don't know the ripples that would be caused by any one action--it's basic chaos theory. Heck, it's possible that of all the infinitely possible presents, there are only a finite number, say 10, where the entire universe wasn't destroyed by some evil force or another and we are just lucky to be in one of those 10."

"Also, naming this the 'best possible present' is a bit facetious. It would imply an all-knowingness on the part of the arbiter, well unless there are only a few possible presents where the universe doesn't blow up. I would say instead that it is probably a local optimum, and there could be others that were equally optimal. Of course, a local optimum could be the global optimum, so this may be the best of all possible worlds. Then again, this entire train of thought is based purely on speculation that only the best world would experience the transfer of the mental particles from the past. Speculation is fun, though."

 

[Erekose13]

"Well I for one an just thankful that a headache is the worst I got from those experiments. Your theory, Laynie, suggests that we are both right. While our minds have travelled forward in time, they have replaced the minds of our present selves. So we did do all those things and meet all the people we've met, yet that is not us as we perceive ourselves at the moment. How do we send our minds back through time to that point? Or how do we reconnect with our minds in the present."

 

[Rystil Arden]

"Unfortunately, we lack the knowledge of two things: First, we have no idea where your present minds have been displaced while the past minds took hold. Second, we do not know how the effect is anchored here. I still don't think that the Crux has any sort of all-knowing intellect. If, indeed, it was the Crux, as seems likely, it must be some kind of reflex mechanism that reflexively anchored you to a time with a relatively extremely positive present."