“Time & Tied” PARTS 9 & 10
- Original Date Of Completion: JAN 25, 2001
- What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
- Hard Date Change: Used to be Sun. Sep 23, 2001
- Other changes of note:
-“Teaser” was moved to end of part 8
-Julie having a cell phone was a bigger deal
-Carrie lacked self awareness of impulse control issues
TIME TRAVEL
Time travel has always been my thing. I don’t remember exactly when that happened, but to give you an idea, my first full length self-illustrated story was (to my recollection) a time travel story written for a middle school English class. I still have it somewhere. A man invents a time machine, goes back in time, accidentally picks up a cab driver, and they end up in a greenhouse of the future. The tale ends when the professor’s future self is able to send them back.
Question for you now: Is that a paradox? After all, if the professor left the present, surely he can’t still be there in the future. That is, unless he returns to the present - but then is that future he saw really the future that is going to happen? I’m not suggesting I was consciously aware of those questions back in Grade 8, but rest assured, such thoughts were on my mind in 2000 when writing this serial. To that end, if the paradox of the apple in the latest parts bothers you… it was designed to do exactly that.
My point is, I’ve done actual research. With that said, I’m not going to claim I’m using hard science everywhere - for instance, the narrative will eventually lean towards the usage of wormholes, which science says has it’s own problems. As do many other interpretations, frankly. If you want to delve further into temporal mechanics, I’ll point you at “Can We Time Travel?”, the writeup of a panel I went to at CanCon 2014. Alternatively, just enjoy this fiction story!
Unrelated, you might have noticed my ‘What I Was Doing’ (above) has shifted - I completed my last University exams in December of 2000. This due to taking an extra semester, completing a music minor along with my Bachelor of Mathematics - technically I was class of 2000 but my grad ceremony was in 2001. I suspect the life shift (and the holidays) was part of the reason for the larger skip between episode writing here; this was the first episode to take me over a month to complete. Granted, I also had to avoid contradicting any facts from the previous parts.
ABOUT PARTS 9 & 10
Spoilers (up to part 10) follow. (Yes, that now includes all earlier parts.)
Regarding the time travel plot, I’ve now introduced the two widely regarded theories: The “Frank” argument (self consistency) versus the “Carrie” argument (parallel timelines) - and right now, both should seem valid. After all, perhaps Julie’s chemistry plan did take place, but you as the reader don’t know, because you’re following Carrie’s revisions. Or perhaps it never did, because Carrie’s trip was always fated to take place, as Frank argued. Which do you think is likely the case here?
I will eventually make clear what rules the “Time & Tied” universe follows. And we will also get some clarity on “Shady” - who apparently gave Carrie his time machine? And who is now making crank calls to Frank? But I’ve been hitting the time travel pretty hard to this point. My hope is you’re now invested enough to stick around for the answers - I want to show what impact those answers might have first.
After all, the time machine is affecting the non-time-traveling characters too, notably Julie. What’s the deal with her? Is she buying into Carrie’s explanations? And does she have both Clarke and Luci working for her? That’s what I’ll address next - Carrie is not even going to appear in the next episode. But before you read, I’d love to hear your thoughts, be it on either those questions or my earlier time travel remarks!
Episode 5 was originally called “Time Doubt” (a pun on ‘timed out’). This means “Present Tense” was the new title (as things were a bit tense), even though I used it as the initial title this time around.
Coming This Friday: Phil Doubt
(This is starting to serve as a reminder to upload to Wattpad. If you want to investigate there.)
