LATE Storyline submission (vacation anyone?): "Full Circle"

[ScrapPool]

I noticed that you made it so the start of life on earth was a paradox... which makes no sense.

(starts with adam and eve)
(adam and eve are born  and sent to outer space)
(they come back to earth many years earlier and start all the life on earth)

Question: what made them so they could CREATE the paradox?

I think it just doesn't add up.

Actually it isn't a paradox... in this story, Adam and Eve die soon after they crash to Earth, and the microbes (bacteria etcetera) on their bodies become the first reproducing life on Earth. These little cells then go on to evolve into all life. And eventually humans. It is not really that great a stretch of the imagination considering the time scales involved. So actually its not a paradox, but more of a self-fulfilling event.

It seems you didn't read the story you sneaky fish! Or at the very least I didn't explain it well enough or make it clear enough. 

[Rocket]

Actually it isn't a paradox... in this story, Adam and Eve die soon after they crash to Earth, and the microbes (bacteria etcetera) on their bodies become the first reproducing life on Earth. These little cells then go on to evolve into all life. And eventually humans. It is not really that great a stretch of the imagination considering the time scales involved. So actually its not a paradox, but more of a self-fulfilling event.

It seems you didn't read the story you sneaky fish! Or at the very least I didn't explain it well enough or make it clear enough. 

actually, i did read the story, and you just retold the paradox AGAIN.

maybe you should care to read my post again.

[ScrapPool]

actually, i did read the story, and you just retold the paradox AGAIN.

maybe you should care to read my post again.

Hmmm... tell me in your words what a paradox is... cuz I dont think were on the same page with that definition...

A paradox is a self-negating statement of logic or events which cannot have a solution. (In a general sense) The term paradox is also used to describe things which defy intuition.
Example: I am a liar, said the liar.

They didn't "create" a paradox, in fact that's part of the reason that I don't like temporal paradoxes, because if you look at the universe from a timeless perspective, nothing is "created" in time, it all just is. It's all explained in another time traveling movie/work of literature: The Time Machine.
The classic paradox example is the Grandfather Paradox.
Lets say you have a time machine and you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother. This would mean you were never born, which means you never came back in time, which means that you actually never killed you grandfather, which means that you actually were born and did go back in time and kill your grandfather which means you actually were never born and so didnt go back in time... and so on. This is an example of a self negating logical paradox.

Maybe im just being dumb but how is there a paradox in my story again?

A paradox as I term it isn't when you go back in time and change something so that you are now the cause for a past event, because in reality, you always were, you just hadn't experienced you "changing" that thing in the past yet... It's perceptual curse of linear storytelling... A conclusion that, unless stated explicitly, is up to the reader/viewer to conclude.

Although it is a piece of crap movie with horrid acting, I like The Time Machine, because it demonstrates the Novikov self-consistency principle, in which i am a believer whenever time travel is brought up. It says that if you go back in time, any action you take which might cause you to not go back in time in the first place has a probability of zero of happening. In the sense of the Grandfather paradox, it would mean that the quantum probability of you killing your grandfather is zero. Literally, your grandfather would be invincible until your mother/father was conceived. Of course he doesn't gain special powers that stop him from dying if he is shot or something, its just that no event happens which results in the death of your grandfather.

I think you mean "paradox" in the closed-time line loop, predestination "paradox" sense... (read first paragraphs of article). If this is the case, then it is not a bad thing, but rather a lovely twist of coolness!

[bb1]

Since he didn't do a good job explaining why it isn't a paradox, I will!

When the drive was activated, space was bent along with time FOR THAT SHIP ONLY. Natgeo did a good job explaining this on some naked science episode. As soon as they came out of the warp field or whatnot, they came out WAY back when (the amount of space they covered was relative to the time they travelled because of special relativity). So while time was going on for everything else, they were in fact the only ones moving through it.

They still existed as static objects except in a different time period...they didn't replicate themselves, go back in time, and see themselves doing stuff like traditional B movie time travel, they simply moved through it as if going down a winding road. There is no alternate universe or alternate timeline, just the road. When their remains are deposited at the end of the road, it sets up events that would happen later down the line on that same road... that same road (present) now being under construction


Whew! Fun stuff. Then the Cthonians leave with their story immortalized and those Greeks or whoever got the story of Adam and Eve from the legends told throughout the Cthonians (definitely exaggerated by this point) and boom religion!

I love this story so much I could cry.

[ScrapPool]

Since he didn't do a good job explaining why it isn't a paradox, I will!

When the drive was activated, space was bent along with time FOR THAT SHIP ONLY. Natgeo did a good job explaining this on some naked science episode. As soon as they came out of the warp field or whatnot, they came out WAY back when (the amount of space they covered was relative to the time they travelled because of special relativity). So while time was going on for everything else, they were in fact the only ones moving through it.

They still existed as static objects except in a different time period...they didn't replicate themselves, go back in time, and see themselves doing stuff like traditional B movie time travel, they simply moved through it as if going down a winding road. There is no alternate universe or alternate timeline, just the road. When their remains are deposited at the end of the road, it sets up events that would happen later down the line on that same road... that same road (present) now being under construction


Whew! Fun stuff. Then the Cthonians leave with their story immortalized and those Greeks or whoever got the story of Adam and Eve from the legends told throughout the Cthonians (definitely exaggerated by this point) and boom religion!

I love this story so much I could cry.

I r bad 4 explain stuff...

Aw that makes me all gooey inside!

[AHadley]

Hey, maybe the past is in read-only mode, look but don't touch.

[Mr X]

I'm not sure that any part of the human body could survive such an atmosphere, the genetically modified Scions on the other hand...

Actually, that could be quite good, because a loop then forms in which the scions exist because humanity created them, and humanity exists because they evolved from the Scions. They would evolve to not have biometal in their genetics because the micro-organisms that come from them wouldn't be able to find any on Earth.

[Angstromicus]

The paradox here is that the cause and effect relationship is broken. Event A - Adam and Eve, should be a cause. Event B, time travelling, should be an effect. But both events cause and effect each other. This is okay, though, since it is a state of equilibrium. Babylon 4 Babylon 5 did this so it should be okay for the story to do this as well.

[bb1]

It takes some mind grasping to comprehend it, gotta dig pretty deep before the click comes.

From what I've seen, those enviro-suits stand up to pretty much everything.. Miasma anyone?

[ScrapPool]

Hey, maybe the past is in read-only mode, look but don't touch.

In order for you to still go back in time in the first place, one would think that must be the case. One can influence the past, but one cant change it or else one's traveling back in time wouldn't have happened at all... if that makes sense.

It takes some mind grasping to comprehend it, gotta dig pretty deep before the click comes.

From what I've seen, those enviro-suits stand up to pretty much everything.. Miasma anyone?

Yea if these suits can survive Venus (mean temp: 461.85 degrees C), where lead melts and hardens daily, and Titan (mean temp: -179.5 degrees C), where it rains methane, in addition to whatever noxic shenanigans are happening on Miasma, I just assumed that they could survive an early Earth cool enough to have liquid water.  

The paradox here is that the cause and effect relationship is broken. Event A - Adam and Eve, should be a cause. Event B, time travelling, should be an effect. But both events cause and effect each other. This is okay, though, since it is a state of equilibrium. Babylon 4 Babylon 5 did this so it should be okay for the story to do this as well.

That's what i mean, its a self-enabling paradox, where one event predestines itself (eventually) through time travel, not a self negating paradox, as I though you meant.  

[ScrapPool]

A friend of mine was inspired by this story such that he drew a scene. To be truthful, he's not an expert illustrator. But to be fair, it is interesting to a degree.
I thought I might as well post it here... call it, concept art?
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5497/8209059.jpg

I think that's the Ark's hull crashed in the background next to the broken, falling moon. In the foreground we have what I am assuming is an Olympian (the name of this "piece" is "Olympian Summit") shaking "hands" in agreement with The Ambassador and The Lieutenant. to the lower right we have what would appear to be an Olympian tank or craft of some kind, and to the left we have a scion warrior and sentry. there is a little battle happening in the middlegound between ships of some kind.

I think I can safely assume that this is occurring during that speculative "junction mission".

[bb1]

Since this story tied for second, I will retype that big plot hole fixer I had from last time... later though, as it is late and I am tired.

If that thing in the back of that picture is a tank, I don't want to be anywhere near that main cannon when it goes off.

If you can work IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR into this story in any way, it will be complete.

[Angstromicus]

Don't forget to type it up in a text editor and save it first  .

[bb1]

Defeat 

[Avatar]

First of all, I liked it... I'm a sucker for time-travel stories and I think this one survives the initial round of "WTF?" thinking that such a story always brings on...   And to be clear, I think Adam and Eve starting the human race is a time loop and not a paradox.  A paradox is going back and shooting your Grandfather before your Father is conceived, while a loop is going back and actually becoming your Grandfather. (ewwww)  A paradox usually implies some sort of impossibility, a loop is just hard to grasp.

My vision of these races' themes would largely follow Avatar's, that is, Ancient Hadean ships are tan-ish, colored like many artifacts in BZ1. Hadean ships are asymmetrical and lustrous, yet centered around even numbers, and have thematically/primarily blue and green homing missile like projectiles. Olympian ships are black, red, and orange. They are symmetrical and rugged, but centered around odd numbers, and have thematically/primarily red and orange laser and blast like weapons.

I'll over look the reversing of the Ancients, as the Olympian artifacts are gold and shiny while the Hadean artifacts are black and red, not the other way around. No big deal, just switch sides of the planet.

I'll offer a few suggestions:

The ship passes through the moon, and yes the 'spacewarp' drive bit warps the moon around the ship but causes massive damage in the process.  Coming out on the other side it's immediately apparent that the ship is done for and the order is given to abandon ship... the incoming attack waves are just icing on the cake and a good example of Murphy's Law in action.  "Could be worse...  could be raining!"   (cue thunder). 

As to why it happens, there are a lot of ways to explain it. 
Maybe the Hadeans and Olympians are doing wormhole experiments of their own and space is warped in the vicinity of their planet, throwing off the ship's instruments. 
The ship is also, after all, the first of it's kind and maybe it's just not up to the task what with the experimental instruments and drive and all.
The ship could be time shifting the whole time the drive is active and the moon simply wasn't there a minute ago.

Love the approaching moon bit...  love it!  Very dramatic and the best motivator known to man. 

Abandoning ship consists of boarding the already packed Dropships and scattering to escape the incoming attackers.  Each Dropship already holds a mixed bag of Tanks, Troops, and a Recycler.  The escaping ships land at various places along the twilight zone, with many of them being destroyed in flight.  After this mass exodus some join up with Hadeans, some with Olympians, and it's up to the Player and his missions to sort it all out.  Guarding the Dropships will be necessary given the ending, as they'll be the only way through the wormhole.

Going through the wormhole at the end means hopping back in a Dropship and heading out.  Going through could also determine 'when' you come out the other side.  If Adam and Eve are the very last ones to go through it could be that the approaching moon warps the wormhole, and they end up waaaaaay back in time, much further than the other forces that went through earlier.  You could have the wormhole flickering, warping, and changing color to indicate this.  This is why they're back before the Hadeans and Olympians, before the planet is habitable, and able to seed the beginnings of life on Earth.  The warping wormhole could also be why their ship is trashed, and they could even leave it in orbit when they discover it's inoperable, something for the future Hadeans and Olympians to discover.

***

I have, btw, both Ancient Hadeans and Olympians fully operational although not completely done.  I plan on using a lot of DLL help to make them interesting...      I have some maps made as concepts for the Hadean and Olympian parts of the planet, but no missions scripted yet.  I have missions outlined in Word, but nothing coded.

I don't see this story as conflicting with my ideas all that much, as it takes place so far back in history compared with my own intended stories. 

I don't know how to explain them having biometal, and then not having it so that Nexus can invent it as stated in their records found in BZ1.  Maybe they don't actually know how to make their own but are using the huge amount that fell from the Ark III?  Maybe they devolve into savagery when they get through to Icarus and have to start their civilization all over again?  Losing their history and technology for a few hundred or thousand years adds a bit of flavor to the story anyway... 

Good work for a mod start...  simple enough to work with but interesting enough to allow for a lot of options.   

-Av-