Grand Unification Theory (Part 6)

Damn, been exactly a week since I did the last one of these...

I dunno, between discovering the joys of the "make a book", function on Wikipedia, and the misery of the heat wave, and the joys of the Higgs discovery, just haven't felt like it.

But, back to the grind....

Where'd I leave off?

Ah, right, stitching all of this together....

So, the multiverse is the universe, and magic is tech, and with those, everything glues together pretty well.

So...like I said way back here 5 months ago, alterni-verses that connect to other alterni-verses merge into that pile of alterni-verses, and since the multiverse is the universe, by transitive property, they're part of that universe.

So...since Marvel and DC hook up to each other, then "Hypertime", "Infinite Earths", "Marvel Multiverse", "Elseworlds", and "What If?", are all the same thing.

And, since Trek splices in, they're all "quantum timelines", and since "the mirror universe", cancels out into a quantum timeline, then "quantum timelines", are all mirror universes.

BUT....the thing about the mirror universe, was how identical it was.
It was different, but, the same.
All the same people, a lot of the same events, it's how the two ships were there at the same time beaming their crews up at the same time for the swap to happen for the episode to happen.

So....that meant, events were happening virtually the same (minus the key differences) up to that point, at least.

So, that means, anything that happens in an alternate time, in whatever franchise (so long as it Bacons back to Trek),  (usually) has a parallel in the mainstream timeline.

For example, the JJ-Abrams-Trek is an alternate timeline created by Nero and Spock, so, even though it's not how Kirk and company "really", had their origin story in the "original", timeline...something LIKE it must have happened, so it's close enough.

So, any, say, Trek novel, with a continuity glitch in it, can be explained away as an alternate timeline, and, since in the "proper", timeline, something like it very probably happened, the differences don't really make too much of a difference.

Alternate time just becomes a correction mechanism.

Or, look at say, Tenchi Muyo, alternate timelines all over the place, and then, Washu has an alternate timeline generator machine, and...that story was a recycled plot of a radio drama set in the OVA universe.

So, you could say Tenchi In Tokyo, and the manga series, are alternate timelines branched off of that one episode of Tenchi Universe, but, that episode is an alternate timeline off of an OVA-verse story.

But....all of those particular events could have all just as easily happened to the OVA-verse characters, with differences that aren't worth mentioning.
Indeed, they could be distorted recollections from Mihoshi's bimbo-brain ala "The Mihoshi Special".

Now, look at the Trek/X-Men crossovers.

X-Men/TOS, they get there with some overcombombulated trans-reality vortex....

...but then, XMen/TNG, they meet via a plain old-fashioned time warp.

And, the X-Men remember meeting Kirk.
So...they were in the same universe anyway.

Or else, the version of X-Men/TOS we saw was in an alternate universe where they were in an alternate universe.

...which means...every alternate universe story that requires an alternate universe, has an alternate-alternate universe where an alternate universe is not required.

Like...Supes and Hulk being in the same universe, and then, needing to cross a vortex to meet again.

Which means...there's an alternate-alternate universe, where the Supes and Hulk from the first bout just plain met up again without all the cosmic mumbo-jumbo.

And the differences aren't worth fretting over.

So....alternate-reality, shamlternate-reality.

We can actually now get rid of some of these shitty redundant alternate timelines we've got laying around.

All we gotta do, is find connections to characters/universes that both require, and don't require, alternate universes, and the non-portal crossovers cancel the portal ones out.

Well, the classic Marvel/DC ones do that for Marvel/DC just fine.

Top Cow and Image always seemed to pull off their crossovers without portals....

Well, I think a good way to really chip away at it, would be to jump into a big character pileup that required a multiverse.

And, I can think of nothing better, than "War Of The Independents".

Any two of those characters meeting outside of that reality warp, without a reality warp, the reality warp breaks down, and they just hung out.

Well, Cassie Hack, and Bomb Queen, there's two.

Grendel and Shi are there, and Shi met Daredevil, and Daredevil met Batman, and Batman met Grendel.

So, transitive property, they're in the same universe.

And, Cassie Hack met Eva, who met Ash, who met Danger Girl, who met Batman, so, all four (Cassie, Bomb Queen, Shi, Grendel) are in the same universe.

Maxx is there, and he met Gen13, who met Superman.

So...that's enough for me for that one.

Let's try another one..."Darkwing Duck: Crisis On Infinite Duckwings".

Well, you've got Batman in the stew....and Iron Man...so there's Marvel/DC, and you've got Dr. Who, who's recently met up with Trek.

You got James Bond, who co-exists in Alan Moore's "League-verse".

Good enough.

And, you've got Ash meeting Freddy and Jason, and also meeting Danger Girl, who met Batman, who met the Aliens and Predators, so...essentially, the whole horror-verse is interconnected on one playing field.

Yeah, that's enough threads for me to pull on.
I'm satisfied that it unravels.

The multiverse is the universe, alright
Indeed, I think just a facet of the singular universe.

The bit that covers the bullshit that writers leave behind.

So, next up, I'll try to weave all these bits and bobs into a cohesive timeline.

Not an exhaustive one, as that'd fucking kill me, but, the big chunks, I'll try to get to hang together well enough.