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Post by veritasseeker90 on Feb 18, 2009 23:16:09 GMT -5
Not sure if this goes here...
But I was wondering what you all think about alternate dimensions and putting it into a book? I've read so many theories, from Einstein to others that I can't remember, that my head spins.
Does anyone understand what they try to explain to us normal folk?
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 18, 2009 23:19:42 GMT -5
Are you talking "Sliders" alternate dimension/universe (where the world is still our world, but with variations) or are you talking about physical levels of dimensions (where everything we know and cherish is totally skewed and crazy)?
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Post by veritasseeker90 on Feb 18, 2009 23:23:14 GMT -5
Any of them. I'm quite facinated by the whole idea of alternate dimensions in general, but I'm not that much of a person who can handle a whole lot of scientific terms and HUGE ideas and happen to understand them, all at once.
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Post by J Jack on Feb 18, 2009 23:43:47 GMT -5
Isn't that just displacement theories? Some theories state that there are innumerable amounts of dimensions where there are identical people but living in different situations. Something like a whole universe but each time a decision is made, there is another dimension where the opposite choice was made.
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Post by Divides the Waters on Feb 19, 2009 0:30:05 GMT -5
I believe in other dimensions. But I find the notion of multiple alternate realities nonsensical and fanciful at best.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 20, 2009 10:13:28 GMT -5
Yes....I can see it now a story set to follow a band of adventurers through multiple dimensions of inconsequential differences.
"Sweet tea!" Roger licked his lips and glanced suspiciously at the at the cold sweating tumbler of iced caramel colored deliciousness in his hand, "Wasn't this a Coke just a few moments ago in the other dimension?"
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Post by mongoose on Feb 20, 2009 23:16:09 GMT -5
I enjoy alternate reality things. You go through a portal, or you push a button, and there you are, an addition to dimension/realm/reality that is slightly different from your own due to some decision that was made differently, somewhere, by someone, earlier in the timeline. You interact with others in that dimension, hopefully not meeting your self or others who know you, and eventually you go back to your home dimension.
Simple, fun, adventure, fantasy or science fiction. Don't worry too much about how it works. Just address the philosophical, mental, social, physical or emotional implications for the characters, or use it as a backdrop for the theme of the story. I think most stories are not about the setting or even the plot, but about the internal struggles of the characters, after all.
I saw a movie starring a really popular actor (He also starred as Achilles in the movie "Troy") that was based in World War 1. But the movie wasn't about the world war, it was about a man who didn't fit in society, struggling to find his identity, his place, and a workable way of relating to the people around him. Star Trek isn't about the starship Enterprise, it's about the relationships of the Bridge and Engineering and Sick bay crew in stressful and unknown situations. The transporters, holodeck, and warp drives are just incidental opportunities to use special effects and show that it's taking place in a future that can be largly made up to fit the imaginations of the authors.
There are many other examples, and I think they are all the same in this regard. There's a few stories in which the setting is a significant character, as has been pointed out elsewhere in these forums, but those are relatively fewer and farther between. So I think it ought to be with most stories that include multiple dimensions. They aren't stories about multiple dimensions, so don't belabor the point. Just state that they traveled to new dimensions, play out the plot, make the point, show the implications of their actions and how the results affect the characters, and then bring them back to de-brief and wind up the story.
If you spend more than a page describing the phenomenon and the theory behind it, I'll be like O'Neal speaking with Carter. "nieh nieh nieh. Remember who you're talking to. Will it work?" And then I'll skip to where the action or character development picks up again, or will put down the book. I care about the characters, and how they feel, think, process and interact with the other characters around them. That's what I look forward to reading, whatever the setting, plot, or situation.
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Post by Christian Soldier on Feb 21, 2009 6:33:38 GMT -5
Good point, Mongoose. With Sci-Fi, you always have the option of simply not explaining how it works. You can treat much as you might treat magic in a fantasy novel. In fact, I agree completely with Mongoose on this one: it's all about the characters anyway.
So alternative dimensions? Why not? It's plausible. I would even go so far as to say probable that some sort of alternate dimension exists.
Another way to look at it is to ask if there are more than 3+1 dimensions to our own space. Could there be one dimensional beings in a 4th(+1) dimension that we simply can't see/sense?
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 21, 2009 7:55:25 GMT -5
Alternate dimension/universe stories are, to me, like a lot of time travel stories. They open up all kinds of possibilities for the author and for stories to be told. And they really allow you to do pretty much whatever you want (though maintaining an internal consistency is more vital in these stories).
The problem with both kinds is that they're often very hard for a reader or audience to keep track of. We don't realize how much we depend on time and reality remaining as we've expected it to be. But when you start messing with that, we quickly lose our bearings and the story can become nonsensical.
Consider this current season of Lost. With all the jumping around in time and place (due to the island's phasing in and out), it's become hard to make sense of it all. Of course that show has always been a bit difficult and always used flashbacks and such, but now it's gotten more difficult, imo.
Perhaps a good strategy would be to use a very small number of alternate realities or time jumps. Indeed, maybe just one would be best (like It's a Wonderful Life or Groundhog Day, though in the latter that one jump is done multiple times). The reader can handle one as the premise or mechanism of the story, but with each new jump you disorient the reader more.
Jeff
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Post by torainfor on Feb 21, 2009 11:13:33 GMT -5
My '08 NaNo is all over the place. It basically started as an attempt to figure out what exactly Capt Jack Harkness did as a time agent. Then it became an attempt to figure out a fiction that could reconcile the Biblical timeline with the possibility of a space opera. What would it look like if there really was an agency whose mission was to avert the catastrophic failure of human existence? How would each "rescue" they enacted snowball into the next threat? How could you learn from human history when it kept changing? And why would they do it, anyway?
It's on the shelf, currently, while I write up the Venus sequel. I hope I'm worthy of the plot when I do get back to it.
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Post by J Jack on Feb 22, 2009 11:44:55 GMT -5
That plot is always interesting, how much damage can a time agent do trying to help? Take out Hitler only to have Himmler take his place (a lunatic replaced by a madman to quote Valkyrie) and cause even more damage. What happens if you kill your grandfather, so on and so forth. I hope you get back to that, I'd love to see where it could go.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 5, 2009 8:30:33 GMT -5
I like your idea, torainfor. It made me think of another one.
What if there were some government agency in the far-far future that had a complex computer that could simulate with 99% accuracy what things in the past would lead to what other things, and how a change to those things would play out. That accuracy would degrade rapidly after the third or fourth generation of ramifications. Maybe they even somehow had access to multiple quantum realities/universes. And of course they have a time machine and the ability to affect things in the past.
They're basically presiding over all of time, looking backward at it, but sitting like a chess-master over the board or like a scientist over his lab bench. Their work is to tinker with the past to try to bring about positive outcomes.
Think of it as someone playing with the stock market. There are some best practices and good strategies, but at the end of the day it's a roll of the dice. Working with any complex system--be it the weather, the stock market, or time itself--is an exercise in chaos and unpredictability.
So each of the "agents" of this agency sits down every day to work on various pet universes trying to achieve desired outcomes. Like maybe one guy's job is to see what changes would have to be made to cause a civilization on earth to most quickly achieve spaceflight. Another guy's job would be to see what things you would do to an earth civilization to most quickly bring about a one-world government--or species-wide annihilation or utopia or a disease-free mutation of the species. With endless quantum universes to work with, it's okay if they blow it with their projects. Just wad it up and toss it in the shredder and start again.
To me, it seems like there are a number of directions you could go with this setup.
Perhaps your story is about one of these agents at the agency. Maybe he stumbles on to something, some pattern or strategy that seems to work for optimal results. Maybe he becomes an Ender-like character who is groomed to take on some bigger project.
Or maybe he becomes convinced, like Horton, that these universes they're disposing of so cavalierly actually have existence and sentience and importance, so he fights to save one or more of them.
Maybe the story is about the agency. Maybe it's some kind of shadowy, illegal thing, kind of like Nigerian Lotto scammers or Chinese sweatshops, and the universes aren't supposed to be used this way. But it's helping certain people because they (or the agency) are able to tap into the altered universes and extract something from them that can be of value in "the real world." Like maybe they create a universe of suffering and are able to send despots there as if into vacations in virtual worlds where they can live out their fantasies.
Maybe it's about someone in one of the quantum universes.
Maybe someone from one of those universes gets out into the world of the agency.
I dunno, most of my applications of this idea feel like they've been done before: Monsters, Inc., Matrix, Horton Hears a Who, Ender's Game, Minority Report, Westworld, Fantasy Island.
Still, it seems like there's room here to tell an interesting story. Indeed, you could almost make this the vehicle to tell an entire series or stories and spinoffs.
Anything occur to you?
Jeff
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 5, 2009 9:26:29 GMT -5
Ooh, I've got it.
What if our agency is trying this thing out for the first time? They've just taken the research-theoretical ability to do this and monetized it.
At first, everything is going great. They're creating all kinds of revenue from these sub-universes. They're selling them to researchers, hobbyists, fantasy time travelers, retirees. They're even giving some away to something like Make A Wish Foundation.
But then something begins to go wrong. A riot in one universe. A war in another. A shift or strike or rebellion in others. In each one, the catalyst is the rise of this new "religion."
Christianity is happening in every universe.
(Not that Christianity is a harbinger of war. LOL. I just mean that Christianity would cause a disruption and even a conflict with the more totalitarian universes created/run by the agency. Maybe the sign of Christianity's arrival in some of the universes would be a massive decrease in wars.)
So now our protagonist seeks to find out what's up with this thing. He doesn't realize at first that there's one cause to all of this in every universe. He's just trying to figure out what keeps going wrong.
So the story becomes his journey as he discovers that there is this one belief system--always led by a Messiah character though called by many names and taking many costumes--at the root of all the disturbances.
Ultimately, it's about Christ pursuing him. In the end, our hero has to decide whether or not to embrace this faith that is sweeping his universes. One way or another, this faith is going to sweep his universe too.
Pretty fun, I think!
Jeff
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Post by seraphim on Mar 5, 2009 10:46:03 GMT -5
A couple of more throw away ideas.
What if this massive cross dimentional event acted like gravity, pulling/colapsing all possible realities eventually back down to one?
What if this event also resonated forwards and backwards in time harmonizing/unifying the possible realities like the note of a great bell with all its overtones and harmonics resolving into a single sustained "tone"?
What if this agency "created" Islam as countervalent force...an attempt to break/redirect the wave?
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Post by torainfor on Mar 5, 2009 13:02:04 GMT -5
I do have a big machine that holds historical data, but the Analyzers (yes, capitalized) are people, usually autistic (ala Elizabeth Moon's "The Speed of Dark") who look for patterns and anomalies. The "new kid on the block" isn't autistic, but she's a good analyzer anyway. She reconfigures the data computer to show history as a trout stream, and her a fish, and uses variations in scent and taste and water temperature to track down causes and effects.
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