thefarshore | (no subject)

Posted: June 8th
From: Asclepius

Something I've found myself quite interested in over the last few weeks has been a question of...well, I suppose our existence.

Pardon me if this question has been asked before, I haven't seen it. I'd appreciate a summary of that particular conversation, if it has happened before.

Now, as a bit of background--I am from...a fairly significant amount of time in the future. I state that vaguely because there are rules against discussing it, we accidentally time travel often enough that there's protocol in place. But I feel fairly confident after my research that I am also in what I would consider a parallel universe. Those are also fairly well-documented in my time. (I must say this is far more pleasant than the last one I was in.)

Anyway. If all that is the case, I have to wonder: why do the divisions of god and shinki fall as they do? Whatever power brought us here evidently can reach through time and both physical and metaphorical space. Infinite realities mean infinite possibilities that in one or the other reality, we are either alive or dead.

Please keep all specific instances and examples private if you wish to give them. I don't want this discussion to be the cause of harm to anyone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Considering those shinki in white claim that half of us are dead, maybe we should be collecting mediums instead.

What happened?

It's...a bit of a long story, with all the context.

But, for me personally, I was held prisoner in a slave labor camp, nearly killed, and had to shoot and killed the counterpart of one of my good friends in self-defense.

I'm sorry.

But there were counterparts of people you knew in that universe? Then if this world diverged from the one you knew at least fifty years in the past, and you're from some time in the future, it doesn't seem likely that this is the same world.

[If she's thinking about it correctly. But surely the vagaries of parents and grandparents still meeting -- and great-grandparents, or even more -- would depend on a thousand chance events. In divergent worlds, the more time that passes between the divergent event and the current day, the less likely that individual people -- individual chance genetic combinations -- would have counterparts in each world....]

He doesn't hold a grudge about it.

There is a counterpart of myself in that universe. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him as of yet, but from what I hear, we're not exactly similar.

[It's complicated. And the likelihood of them being genetically the same is astronomically low, considering Julian's own history. His genetics weren't left to chance.]

Nurture would make a difference.

But that can't possibly be the same timeline as this universe, then. What about other people here? Are others from different parallel worlds too? Even if only the "gods" remember, that's something.

And that reality is not exactly nurturing. He would have been a slave for most of his life.

[The mirror universe is not a pleasant place.]

I have to admit, that was one of my aims in asking this question. So far, I have encountered mostly skepticism.

These people swallow the idea that they're the embodied souls of the dead brought to Heaven to serve different deities, and they have trouble with the concept of parallel universes?

I find it just as surprising as you do, honestly.

Or, maybe it's just that very little can truly shock me anymore.

I'm still not entirely sold on that "souls of the dead" idea.

There's something bizarre going on, all right, but I don't know what it really is.

Neither am I, to be perfectly honest. It's just that's all the information we've been given to work with.

I suppose I shouldn't be so quick to discount it. But I've never been much for taking things at face value.

Taking things at face value is a good way to walk directly into a trap.

Which is to say, I'm not either. I still want some sort of proof. We know our names, after all. There has to be some record.

I think most of us are feeling the need to be at least a little cautious.

Those of us who happen to be gods remember everything. It's the only true difference I've seen, aside from the abilities we're granted.

[And the whole being, purportedly, dead thing.]

Yes. I can't figure out why.

If there's a reason for us to lose our memories, wouldn't it apply to all of us? Why are the "gods" exempt when there aren't any other differences?

One of the many questions I'd rather like an answer to, but aren't necessarily forthcoming, aside from 'it just is.'

I'd like an answer, too.

I'd at least like to know that someone has an answer.