Friday 9 December 2016

Where Can Reality Storms Happen?

A reality storm, as described here:

requires the coexistence of "space and time and myth" and/or of "conflicting realities";

temporarily relocates people from different times and places to the Worlds' End Inn.

This kind of storm is impossible in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol universe because, in that universe:

myths are not real;

conflicting realities do not coexist but succeed each other;

spatiotemporal displacement occurs only through the mechanism of a vehicle like a time shuttle or timecycle;

there is no inn at the end of the world.

This universe does include unstable space-time zones within which a time traveler might encounter or inadvertently cause a causality violation. Such zones are this universe's closest approach to a reality storm.

By contrast, in the Old Phoenix multiverse:

that which is a myth in one universe is sometimes a reality in another universe;

alternative versions of reality do coexist;

in some universes, magical events can include mysterious disappearances and reappearances, e.g., Holger Danske;

some conflicts are transcosmic;

there is an inn between the universes.

Thus, most of the conditions for a reality storm are in place.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But, in the Time Patrol series, wouldn't "deleted" universes continue to co-exist alongside the time line guarded by the Patrol? They would simply be no longer accessible by the Patrol.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
I think that a deleted timeline does not cease to exist from the point of view of its inhabitants but does recede into the past of the second temporal dimension. Along that dimension, the timelines succeed each other.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

A skull splitting concept, but I think I get it!

Merry Christmas! Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
I will reply with another post.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I will read it! I can tell how fascinated you are by traveling SF in general, and PA's "Guardians of Time" stories in particular.

For me, it was Anderson's Technic Civilization stories which gave me the most thought.

Sean