Finally...a continuity glitch explanation

[Guijllons]

Actually no-one knows what would happen if you go back in time and change things because it has never been done.

Nah, that's like saying that space travel is impossible because it hasn't been done, or horseless carriages are impossible because they haven't been done. It's absolutely feasible to realise how things work without having a practical test. And if anyone figures out how to rally do it, they will know exactly where they are going and what they are doing to the nth degree.

Personally I belive that history is constant and only the moment we experince right know exists. Past, present and future is something that mankind has made up to explane our lifecycle. With this theory timetravel is impossible since there exist no past or future, only present.

Time loops have been theorised to exist. Time is a tricky bugger, the easy way is to say that time is a present, or series of snapshots for us, or anything else that experiences change, we will never experience any speed up or slow down of time because it's our own time that we're measuring. However, we do know that time, or rate of change, isn't a universal constant, the faster we move, the heavier we get, the slower electrons move etc. We still experience change at the same rate, but we're actually moving through a slower relative time to someone who is static. But, you say, once a moment is past it is past. Our current perception of time is that it travels from point A to point B and we're in the middle. We have a static moment of time then for point A, and another for point B. this creates a series of 'instants' that we pass through. How do we know which way these instances are traveling? Through our own perception of the passage of time? Who says we're not traveling the wrong way? In fact, we could even be traveling at an angle to time, shifting minutely through dimensions as we travel forward in our own experience.
What I mean is, a 'now' is only a state of perception. Our time moves forward, but this does not mean that the past no longer exists.

 

[Shi_Vral]

Just to chime in, seeing as how I wrote a paper on the subkect of time travel for a Science Fiction Survey Course I took, there are more than 2 schools of thought. Another school of thought is that each "moment" of time exists independantly of every other, and that travel to a specific moment is possible. This really builds on the "new timeline" idea, in that when you change something in that moment, it creates a new time line, but its different in that your "origianal" time line is still your time line. The idea for travel in this case is that you build a machine that can trasport you to a specific moment, and then you can return to the moment you left + how ever long you were gone, so as to keep you time consistant (keeps you from having to remember that the 10 years you just spent studying dinos seemed like no time at all to your family). Anyway, there is a great book called "Corrupting Dr. Nice" by John Kessel (the guy who taught my survey course) that deals with this theory. I worte my final paper comparing three of the major ideas of time travel (the one in this book, and the two discussed here so far), and that was just scratching the surface. Because time travel beyond our normal progression has never occured, it makes it almost imposible to determine exactly what will happen when someone finds a way to travel through time backwards (forwards is less impressive, mostly all you will be able to do is skip beyond the end of your live, and the problems there are covered by many books that deal with living forever. Also, you can do this just by building a ship that travels at close to light speed.)

 

[Guijllons]

Well, if you're studying it.. You may wanna read Julian Barbour's "End of Time". It's a fascinating theory, and it looks like you've covered some of this yourself already.

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

So, Guij and Warrior - ignoring that Millar's concept of time travel may be wrong since at this point it's moot anyway, would you agree that this explanation fits?

I belive that your theory can be right. A comic book follows the rules that the author has set, not the rules of real life (see laser blast in space in Star Wars for example). :wink:

 

[Guijllons]

E's theory of the Thing smacking a dinosaur and the world getting all shaky? Nah

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Nah, that's like saying that space travel is impossible because it hasn't been done, or horseless carriages are impossible because they haven't been done. It's absolutely feasible to realise how things work without having a practical test. And if anyone figures out how to rally do it, they will know exactly where they are going and what they are doing to the nth degree.

I never said it was impossible. I have always been open minded that other things than that I belive in can be the right thing. It is very possible that time travel can be done and if I'm alive when it's proven to be fact then I belive in it. It just that by the facts of today and by my own logic I have chosen to belive that it can't be done. This is what I think, this is what I belive in....... atleast for now.

 

[DIrishB]

Here, finally, is an explanation for the continuity glitches in the UU. You know, stuff like Reed attending college with Tony Stark, the UFF appearing before the Ultimates (quiet, Irish ), etc.

The culprit? Ben Grimm.

When the UFF went back in time and Reed told Ben not to step on any plants or anything because it would have ramifications throughout the rest of history, he was right. But Ben had already socked the T Rex.

It fell, plants were squashed, and history was altered.

I want a No-Prize.

ahem....no comment.

 

[eroz]

I belive that your theory can be right. A comic book follows the rules that the author has set, not the rules of real life (see laser blast in space in Star Wars for example). :wink:

Yeah.. this is the only approach we can take. Otherwise if we want the comics to be like the real world......there won't be any superhero or mutant team comics.

 

[ultimatedjf]

E's theory of the Thing smacking a dinosaur and the world getting all shaky? Nah

Well I'm assuming that this did cause Ben to see those people poking that giant maggot. Right?

 

[Guijllons]

Well I'm assuming that this did cause Ben to see those people poking that giant maggot. Right?

Hmm, see, now you got me thinking. The first thing that crawled out of the water.. Namor.. did the FF cause something odd to happen? Did they somehow make Namor happen? Did Millar just reinvent the entire UU without us noticing?

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Yeah.. this is the only approach we can take. Otherwise if we want the comics to be like the real world......there won't be any superhero or mutant team comics.

Well duh. :lol:

 

[moonmaster]

I tend to agree with the idea that each moment is its own place and we're simply passing through it. Popular examples of this theory:

Watchmen: Remember the way Doc Manhattan speaks about the past and the future? "10 minutes from now your recieving the necklace I bought you. 1 hour from now we're making love," or something like that.

The Langoliers: Has anyone else ever read this? Its a Stephen King story where a commercial airplane passes through a mysterious storm and all of a sudden the pilots are dead and they can't make radio contact. They land at an airport but find it mysteriously empty. The food in the airport isn't necessarily stale, but it doesn't have any taste. Matches don't seem to be able to light and no matter what they try, the lights and electricity won't come on and feul won't burn. And most disturbing of all, there's a horrific buzzing noise that seems to be building from the horizon. Basically, they figure out that somehow they've become stranded in a moment that has been passed through. The buzzing turns out to be these terrible beings that destroy these empty moments. When they pass over things they simply cease to exist. They have to pass back through the storm and they end up back at the airport and once again, the place is deserted and they believe they failed. Then they figure out that they're in a moment that hasn't been passed through yet. After a while people suddenly begin to fade into existence all around them and eventually the moment comes back to life and everything goes back to normal. It was a very good story and it turned me on to the "passing through" idea.

Time travel into the future is possible. Time slows the faster you go. If you were to go into space and fly around at 99.9999999% the speed of light for 5 minutes, theoretically when you return to earth 100 years could have passed. Traveling into the past would involve possibly bending space time into a loop that, when traveled through in a certain direction at a certain speed, you could go back in time. The only problem with traveling backwards is that most scientist believe it would require and extremely rare substance called negative energy.

 

[Lynx]

Well, I'm going to stay out of the theoretical possibilities of time-travel ('Cause I get enough of it in College Physics class), and say that E's suggestion may be dead-on. It wouldn't be any more of a cop out then the "General Ross and Hammerhead are alive. . .just because" explinations we got from Ellis and Bendis repectively. At least this explination has more substance then dead people comming back to life because the author wanted them to. I didn't mind those explinations simply because they WERE discussed and it is possible for both men to have lived through their specific ordeals. So, I'm all for the T-Rex Effect!

 

[Guijllons]

I think Ellis's resurrection of Ross story was spot on.
It just plays Ross to be too tough and crazy to die at all.

"Is he dead?"
"No sir, he'd just too damn crazy to die"

 

[TheManWithoutFear]

I think Ellis's resurrection of Ross story was spot on.
It just plays Ross to be too tough and crazy to die at all.

"Is he dead?"
"No sir, he'd just too damn crazy to die"

I agree with that. I totally buy that a character like Ross just simply survived an explosion because he's one of the biggest tough asses in the Ultimate Universe that isn't a superhuman. I had no problem with their being no huge reveal or something different about Ross just that he's tough.

 

[Bass]

I think Ellis's resurrection of Ross story was spot on.
It just plays Ross to be too tough and crazy to die at all.

"Is he dead?"
"No sir, he'd just too damn crazy to die"

I agree. I loved that.

And do you know why?

It covered up a continuity glitch in three amazing ways:

Firstly it was economic. It didn't explain the continuity glitch in a 17-part crossover of bollocks. Just a few lines.

Secondly, it was actually enjoyable. A lot of the time people cover up continuity in dull exposition, endless prose that says nothing. This was actually entertaining and a dramatised exposition (or in this case, comedic exposition) which set up/paid off Reed's inventions so he could go into the N-Zone.

Thirdly, it was insightful. Continuity glitches are generally covered up by saying, "No that did not happen. It happened this way, actually" and just removes something old and puts something new there and doesn't make a lot of sense. This however, not only did get rid of the old, Ross still got blown up. But ADDED something new and also developed Ross' character as well by making him this hardnosed crazy son of ***** that everyone is terrified of and they think he can come back from the dead.

How elegant is that? Damn fine way to wrap up continuity glitches.

 

[ProjectX2]

All this time-travel talk puts me off writing my original time machine comic thingy.

 

[vintsukka]

Ah, my favorite subject...

There are two major theories in this area thou.

Then of course there's a third theory as presented by Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which states: "There is no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end."

The idea here is that if you travel to the past, then it has already happened and everything you change has already been changed. This of course raises the question of free will, because if a person from the future has traveled to the past, then it means that he/she will travel to the past.

 

[Fredrik Martinsson]

Yeah there are many theories about timetravel (thats why I wrote two major theories since those are the ones most speculated about). Another theory that has not been brought up yet is that you can't change history because the universe repeats itself. In a biljon years or so the universe will explode and erase itself but that explosion will also be the big bang that creates the universe at new and so the circle will begune again.

For the record, I hate that theory.

 

[TheManWithoutFear]

Ah, my favorite subject...


Then of course there's a third theory as presented by Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which states: "There is no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end."

This is good. Because if you think about this theory you have to picture a puzzle that's pieces will never change. Meaning some things are going to happen regardless. So if E's speculation pans out we could say that the pieces of the Ultimate Universe puzzle are set in stone, such as characters. Ben knocked the dinosaur down but that didn't erase the existence of Johnny. But maybe the picture on the puzzle does change a little bit and parts that are blue turn red. Like Reed and Tony going to college together.