IDE/Theory Thread 24: The Pink Moon's moon is Io

[cyberHeroine]

I think you're thinking too linearly. They exist separately from a temporal point of view, so there is no point in time where one exists and the other does not, yet one can end without affecting the other.

[atomicCascade]

At this point, the Troll's incipisphere is probably empty, other than some meteors, so why even bother with it? I mean, i's practically begging to be eaten by LE.
Oh crap.
IDE: LE is going to eat the troll's incipisphere, and we get to watch it happen.

[Doom Zero]

Are you sure they are completely separate universes? I know they aren't linked temporally or physically, but I thought they were definitely still connected in some way, since one apparently never exists without the other, the Scratch resets them both...
I guess really I don't have any evidence for this, it's just how I've always interpreted it.
So the Trolls' Incipisphere still exists even though the universe it is linked to was destroyed? That seems... odd for some reason.

Think about it like this.
Paradox Space is basically reality. In it are bubbles. Those bubbles are either player sessions or dream bubbles. Imagine Paradox Space like an endless, black sea. There are occasionally islands jutting out of the surface. These metaphorical islands are player sessions and dream bubbles. If you leave one island, you can travel to another. The waters are treacherous and the wind is uncooperative. It's easy to get lost at sea.

Paradox Space is everything. In it are incipispheres. In these incipispheres are frogs, one per incipisphere. These frogs contain universes inside them. Universes contain galaxies, galaxies to solar systems, solar systems to planets. On these planets are players who start Sburb and get teleported to an empty incipisphere. It's not new, it hasn't just been created. It's always existed, waiting for the players destined for it.

So, think of it like a hierarchy. Paradox Space -> Incipispheres -> Universes.
Just because a universe contains a means of entry into an incipisphere, that doesn't mean the incipisphere is affected when the universe is destroyed.
However, if a session is successful and the Incipisphere spawns a universe, theoretically that universe could be affected if the incipisphere is destroyed.
Universe A -> Incipisphere A -> Universe B -> Incipisphere B.
If Incipisphere A is destroyed, theoretically Universe B, being contained inside Incipisphere A's frog, should be destroyed as well. However, Incipisphere B would not be destroyed.

Can you imagine what would happen, if that were the case? All one would need to do is find the very first Incipisphere and destroy its frog, and every universe in existence would be destroyed. That would be catastrophic. So basically what you have to understand is that they cannot operate like that because if they were, all of existence would be destroyed if the original Incipisphere was destroyed, and that'd make for a really bad story.

[fractalVacancy]

Can you imagine what would happen, if that were the case? All one would need to do is find the very first Incipisphere and destroy its frog, and every universe in existence would be destroyed. That would be catastrophic. So basically what you have to understand is that they cannot operate like that because if they were, all of existence would be destroyed if the original Incipisphere was destroyed, and that'd make for a really bad story.

On the other hand... if it works like that, all of existence would necessarily have to be destroyed first if Lord English (the logical candidate to do so) were to consume the original Incipisphere, because he constantly works backwards in time. Except that "time" doesn't exactly make sense in that case given that we're operating between universes, so some sort of meta-time would be required and then oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

I think Hytheter's missed the point a little, yes - though it is a hard concept to grasp - but saying there's no connection is a little disingenuous. After all, the only travel between Incipispheres and universes that doesn't pass through the Furthest Ring occurs from a universe to the Incipisphere that contains/will contain players from that universe (through entry items) and vice-versa (through Skaian defense portals) (except in the particular case of a successful session allowing its players to enter the universe they created - how does walking through a door in the middle of the Medium get you inside a universe-frog, anyhow?).

I'd figure something along the lines of the creation and destruction of an Incipisphere and its originating universe being circumstantially simultaneous. Assuming circumstantial simultaneity isn't a complete load of shit that Scratch fed us.

[Stormspirit]

On the other hand... if it works like that, all of existence would necessarily have to be destroyed first if Lord English (the logical candidate to do so) were to consume the original Incipisphere, because he constantly works backwards in time. Except that "time" doesn't exactly make sense in that case given that we're operating between universes, so some sort of meta-time would be required and then oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

Lord English would never be foolish enough to consume original Incipisphere; it would kill him. He was either created in the very first one, or one of its offspring. Consuming it would be the same as consuming himself. He would die before he even existed.

[fractalVacancy]

Lord English would never be foolish enough to consume original Incipisphere; it would kill him. He was either created in the very first one, or one of its offspring. Consuming it would be the same as consuming himself. He would die before he even existed.

To be fair, though, that seems like it might be the ultimate logical endpoint of LE's existence in such a set-up. He appears at the end of the universe and then consumes it backward in time. If that applied to all universes in sequence, then the logical conclusion is him continuing to consume until the only thing left to consume is himself (or something whose consumption would result in an end/retconning of LE's existence).

[Stormspirit]

To be fair, though, that seems like it might be the ultimate logical endpoint of LE's existence in such a set-up. He appears at the end of the universe and then consumes it backward in time. If that applied to all universes in sequence, then the logical conclusion is him continuing to consume until the only thing left to consume is himself (or something whose consumption would result in an end/retconning of LE's existence).

He only consume a universe when he is summoned. Then he goes back into the timeline of that very same universe to prepare for his arrival. Personally, I think he can travel within a universe's timeline even after consuming it.

And that is exactly why Lord English supports the purpose of SBURB; it gives him new universes to devour without having to rely on what could possibly be his own end.

[LMLYP]

psssssssst

we dont even know that lord english eats universes

the phrase "realities he has marked for predation" hints at it, thats all

you can prey upon something without consuming it

[cyberHeroine]

And on a different note, the obvious is finally confirmed. Aranea is indeed Mindfang. Or at least, appears to be. She's not making much sense, really...

[Stormspirit]

psssssssst

we dont even know that lord english eats universes

the phrase "realities he has marked for predation" hints at it, thats all

you can prey upon something without consuming it

Then what is the point? Predation is clearly defined as something, an animal or otherwise, feeding upon its prey, usually killing it beforehand. Which is exactly what Lord English does, as far as we know. Predation always end in death.

[Legendary]

Oh wow. This uh... This is awkward.

See, I've been posting thread titles that are supposed to be ridiculous. You know. CD is the real final boss, John'll sink all the ships, the Honeybee Professor will be the first PS char involved...

Hmm.

[OrangeAipom]

psssssssst

we dont even know that lord english eats universes

the phrase "realities he has marked for predation" hints at it, thats all

you can prey upon something without consuming it

lord english is much smaller than a universe i don't think he can eat it

[cyberHeroine]

lord english is much smaller than a universe i don't think he can eat it

Not all in one go, obviously. A vulture can't eat a whole elephant, either. It's specifically said that Lord English picks over the carcass of the dead universe.

[unbeliever536]

Different things in Paradox Space (frogs, incipispheres, universes, etc) are temporally unrelated. That's how Skaia can just "pick" when to send the meteors without changing the meteors themselves. The meteors just come in at different points in history, rather than travelling back from the point of player entry for different periods of time (ie, at time of impact, all heroes are the same age on their personal chronologies). An event like the passing of a meteor from an incipisphere into a universe does not occur at any particular "overall" time, only at a particular time on that meteor's individual timeline.

Time is always measured relative to a particular event. When did Dave and Rose create the Green Sun? When the Tumor went off. In a particular universe, time can be measured from universe start, and so always has a frame of reference. But in overall paradox space, there is no frame of reference like that. The explosion of the Tumor definitely happened after Jack got his fourth prototyping; that was the reason Dave and Rose piloted it into the Furthest Ring. But the Green Sun it created was there already; it was powering Jack, and Becsprite before him.

e:
Jegus fuch that went in late.

And on a different note, the obvious is finally confirmed. Aranea is indeed Mindfang. Or at least, appears to be. She's not making much sense, really...

She's Mindfang as much as Dirk is Bro. We are (as a great many people predicted) dealing with dead A1 trolls. Given this, it's pretty obvious that Meenah is A1 Condesce (if she isn't, I will walk into the story and personally slap the Hussitar). We might even see A1 versions of Darkleer, Dualscar, Summoner, Disciple, and (maybe) Psionic, which would give us the A1 versions of the ancestors of every corpsetroll.

[OrangeAipom]

all trolls escape scratch?

[ICEE]

Not all in one go, obviously. A vulture can't eat a whole elephant, either. It's specifically said that Lord English picks over the carcass of the dead universe.

We can't be sure if that's a metaphor or not. I never thought he actually literally EATS a universe, but he is the death of it. The universe is consumed in the sense that it is used.

[atomicCascade]

Different things in Paradox Space (frogs, incipispheres, universes, etc) are temporally unrelated. That's how Skaia can just "pick" when to send the meteors without changing the meteors themselves. The meteors just come in at different points in history, rather than travelling back from the point of player entry for different periods of time (ie, at time of impact, all heroes are the same age on their personal chronologies). An event like the passing of a meteor from an incipisphere into a universe does not occur at any particular "overall" time, only at a particular time on that meteor's individual timeline.

Time is always measured relative to a particular event. When did Dave and Rose create the Green Sun? When the Tumor went off. In a particular universe, time can be measured from universe start, and so always has a frame of reference. But in overall paradox space, there is no frame of reference like that. The explosion of the Tumor definitely happened after Jack got his fourth prototyping; that was the reason Dave and Rose piloted it into the Furthest Ring. But the Green Sun it created was there already; it was powering Jack, and Becsprite before him.

e:
Jegus fuch that went in late.




She's Mindfang as much as Dirk is Bro. We are (as a great many people predicted) dealing with dead A1 trolls. Given this, it's pretty obvious that Meenah is A1 Condesce (if she isn't, I will walk into the story and personally slap the Hussitar). We might even see A1 versions of Darkleer, Dualscar, Summoner, Disciple, and (maybe) Psionic, which would give us the A1 versions of the ancestors of every corpsetroll.

I agree. But why just them? It's entirely possible that we will meet all of them, and see how A1 went down. Thiugh it will pribably be awkward for the troll's who still have desendants.
IDE: Shipping will happen between the ancestors and the descendants. It will be gross. Battle stations for the anti-shipping coalition!

[ICEE]

I think it would be interesting to see a very brief discussion of how the trollcestor scratched session went down. Perhaps narrated by one of them, and displayed in a similar manner to Scratch's troll ancestor "fanfic" pages.

[linkman0596]

And on a different note, the obvious is finally confirmed. Aranea is indeed Mindfang. Or at least, appears to be. She's not making much sense, really...

she's pre-scratch mindfang, who mindfang would have been had she grown up in the peaceful troll's universe.

[unbeliever536]

I agree. But why just them? It's entirely possible that we will meet all of them, and see how A1 went down. Thiugh it will pribably be awkward for the troll's who still have desendants.
IDE: Shipping will happen between the ancestors and the descendants. It will be gross. Battle stations for the anti-shipping coalition!

Well, Terezi is technically Aranea's descendent, just not the descendent that mirrors with her, like how John and Jade are Jane's descendents, but only John mirrors her in terms of location and upbringing.

"Just them" because it would offer symmetry; we have the five (or six) living trolls and the seven (or six) ancestors of the dead ones. You also don't need any more ancestors to get the entire span of troll history from the Sufferer to the arrival of Lord English (though Darkleer and Dualscar are made redundant by Aranea under that metric).

[czimgreen]

Think about it like this.
Paradox Space is basically reality. In it are bubbles. Those bubbles are either player sessions or dream bubbles. Imagine Paradox Space like an endless, black sea. There are occasionally islands jutting out of the surface. These metaphorical islands are player sessions and dream bubbles. If you leave one island, you can travel to another. The waters are treacherous and the wind is uncooperative. It's easy to get lost at sea.

Paradox Space is everything. In it are incipispheres. In these incipispheres are frogs, one per incipisphere. These frogs contain universes inside them. Universes contain galaxies, galaxies to solar systems, solar systems to planets. On these planets are players who start Sburb and get teleported to an empty incipisphere. It's not new, it hasn't just been created. It's always existed, waiting for the players destined for it.

So, think of it like a hierarchy. Paradox Space -> Incipispheres -> Universes.
Just because a universe contains a means of entry into an incipisphere, that doesn't mean the incipisphere is affected when the universe is destroyed.
However, if a session is successful and the Incipisphere spawns a universe, theoretically that universe could be affected if the incipisphere is destroyed.
Universe A -> Incipisphere A -> Universe B -> Incipisphere B.
If Incipisphere A is destroyed, theoretically Universe B, being contained inside Incipisphere A's frog, should be destroyed as well. However, Incipisphere B would not be destroyed.

Can you imagine what would happen, if that were the case? All one would need to do is find the very first Incipisphere and destroy its frog, and every universe in existence would be destroyed. That would be catastrophic. So basically what you have to understand is that they cannot operate like that because if they were, all of existence would be destroyed if the original Incipisphere was destroyed, and that'd make for a really bad story.

What?
The Incipispheres do not contain Universes. The incipispheres are the "sburb universes".
So there is no hierarchy. The Paradox Space contains Frogs and Incipispheres.
Frogs are, as you said, literally universes. With galaxies, solar systems and planets.
An Incipisphere contains the Medium(Skaia, Prospit, and those 'planets'), and the Veil(including Derse).

So a universe is linked to an incipisphere through the players' dream selves, and through the Reckoning. (Maybe we'll find out of some new connections in the future?)
To me, it seems like there is a relative temporal link between a universe and its incipisphere. If a player goes to sleep two times with a certain amount of time in between, that same amount of time will separate the moments when the player wakes up in Derse or Prospit.

[Doom Zero]

I'd figure something along the lines of the creation and destruction of an Incipisphere and its originating universe being circumstantially simultaneous. Assuming circumstantial simultaneity isn't a complete load of shit that Scratch fed us.

You know what? The first post on page 100 of the last thread outlines my basic feelings on the matter of circumstantial simultaneity.
It is absolutely a load of shit. Any one event is simultaneous to another event, from the point of an outside viewer, such as the audience of homestuck. Any one of us could pick two pages of homestuck and say "the events expressed in these pages are circumstantially simultaneous."

Completely horseshit. Let's not even get into that topic at all.

Also, I've always wondered what LE's goals are. Can anybody really give me an answer to that? LE embodies destruction, doesn't he? Except, he's called into a universe when that universe dies. So if the universe is already destroyed, and has to be destroyed, when he gets there... What is his goal? After he sets up all the events necessary to summon him, then what? There's simply nothing left for him to do except perhaps fuck with people in that universe. That's not threatening, that's just mean. An unstoppable demon isn't too bad once you realize that if he already exists in a world, he's already won. If he's in your universe, you know that he's already been successful in setting up the events that lead to his arrival, so what could really be worse than that?

That's not threatening. Once you accept that the worst literally must happen in order for time to keep working, there's not much else that he can do. Does he just have a list of terrible things, ordered by worst thing to least harmful thing? "1: Cause the destruction of the entire universe, check. 2: Steal candy from every baby, check. 3: Ensure thousands of people are miserable, check"
Like, if he exists in your world, he's probably already done everything in every single point in time that can fuck up a universe while still allowing his summoning to occur.

What more can he do to a universe, if he's already in it? Does he literally eat the universe? Is that actually a bad thing? If the universe dies when he gets there... Let him have it. Why should we care about a universe that is destroyed? He can eat it, it's not like it was going to do anything else. There is pretty much nothing he can do to it on a cosmic scale that is anywhere close to threatening. Yes, the universe is going to die and it's his fault... But there's nothing you can do about it, and if you were to succeed in doing SOMETHING about it, you break time.

[Thedude3445]

My new headcanon is that all of the ancestor trolls are going to be british and will type vaguely like that. I am still counting UU/uu as ancestor trolls and I will not speculate any further on that issue.

You know what? The first post on page 100 of the last thread outlines my basic feelings on the matter of circumstantial simultaneity.
It is absolutely a load of shit. Any one event is simultaneous to another event, from the point of an outside viewer, such as the audience of homestuck. Any one of us could pick two pages of homestuck and say "the events expressed in these pages are circumstantially simultaneous."

really the only point in that at all was so that all of those timers counting down to 0:00 could all lead up to a ton of cool events that ended up being [S] Cascade.

[d2r123]

We can't be sure if that's a metaphor or not. I never thought he actually literally EATS a universe, but he is the death of it. The universe is consumed in the sense that it is used.

It means that the scratch does not effect dream bubbles or the furthest ring. If the scratch effected the furthest ring, four of our heros would be gone anway. There is an ide that the dreamers only last so long and can only get so far from their point of death before they fade into madness and then empntyness but the time means nothing from outside and only the distance matters. This means you have to be "close" to an insipisphere to contact that insipisphere's dreamers.

IDE: Through some sort of counter intuitive method, insipisheres do have a static reletive location within the farthest ring which is at least static enough that it can fasilitate both of our crew's contacting a1 trolls at the same time.

IDE: Menauh was the scratching troll.

[Doom Zero]

It means that the scratch does not effect dream bubbles or the furthest ring. If the scratch effected the furthest ring, four of our heros would be gone anway. There is an ide that the dreamers only last so long and can only get so far from their point of death before they fade into madness and then empntyness but the time means nothing from outside and only the distance matters. This means you have to be "close" to an insipisphere to contact that insipisphere's dreamers.

IDE: Through some sort of counter intuitive method, insipisheres do have a static reletive location within the farthest ring which is at least static enough that it can fasilitate both of our crew's contacting a1 trolls at the same time.

IDE: Menauh was the scratching troll.

Honestly bro
The name is Meenah.
Seriously I just
I am so very very upset with you right now
how did you misspell Meenah
it is like, literally the easiest name to spell phonetically.
"What was that troll's name again? mee-nah? I'll just spell it like that and see if it's right. Oh, it is. Okay."

That's just so... ugh.