towerofanimus | CLOSED; weapons training

Characters: Zack and AUquius
Setting: Floor Fifteen
Format: Starting with actionspam, but I'll switch off.
Summary: ZACK FAIR got a SWORD!
Warning: None.

[Anyone who set foot in the workshop floor for the past few days would have almost certainly found Equius derping around, doing... um, something in there. There was a bit with a pointy metal shell that looked like a sword of some kind, but that was silly; anyone with eyes could see that he would have no use for it, frail and scrawny as he was. Unfortunately, everyone with eyes was wrong; it was a sword. Just not one for him.]

[On the third day, he finally stopped working for a while. Before now the only pauses had been to eat and sleep; unusual for him, yes, but the prospect of something to do was enough to make him throw himself at it with unusual vigor. He knew by now that the fourth floor up from here was a library with a row of terminals, so he skittered quickly up there and filtered something to Zack requesting his presence. He didn't particularly want to leave such a thing alone by itself in the other room. It wasn't as if the mechanical sword would just up and leave on its own, of course, but there seemed plenty of people well-equipped to carry it off from under his nose, and then he'd really be in trouble.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...Oh, sorry, yes. [He sighs.] Well... I'm not the expert on this, but it's fairly simple. Every time someone makes a big decision, the timeline of the universe branches out into two others -- one where they make the right decision, and one where they make the wrong decision. Every timeline with a wrong decision will eventually fold in on itself and die; that's why they're called 'doomed timelines', because there's no saving them. This means that, at any one time, there is only one timeline that will lead to the favorable outcome, and that's called the alpha timeline.

So, if someone important is lost and that makes your goal impossible, then it just means that you are living in a doomed timeline. And even if you --- in the strictest sense of the word -- are not there to see it, you still succeeded, one way or another.

[That takes a moment or two to make sense in Zack's brain, and Equius can probably see the proverbial gears turning as he puzzles it all out. It is simple enough, true, but the use of terms Zack hasn't used before still sends him for a loop.]

So...what you're saying is...if someone dies and they weren't supposed to, that sentences everyone else in that world to die, too?

[Because even if a "him" succeeds in something in one timeline or something, that's just...way too many people he could have helped. Man it's a lot to think on.]

Speaking only in the context of that timeline, yes, you're right. [He seems pretty unfazed by this.]

And there's no way to un-doom a timeline or anything? No way to get things better again?

[His being unfazed is a far cry from Zack at the moment; he appears calm, but he's definitely grasping at straws.]

No. That's why it's 'doomed'. I guess it's possible to escape the timeline you're in and move over to the 'safe' one, but I've never heard of anyone who has.

First time for everything, man. But I guess...if that other timeline's already going the way it should, then why risk screwing it up, too? Who knows if the doom stuff transfers with you, right?

That could be. Maybe moving from one timeline to another will just birth another doomed timeline...

...Regardless. Do you see where I'm coming from?

[Timelines, paradoxes, doom....geez. What a mess.]

Yeah, I get it. I still say you should try to save everyone you can, though. If you're gonna go out anyway, might as well help people along the way.

[He looks a bit baffled by that logic, but then, so would most trolls.]

...That sounds like far too much work. [It also sounds like a kind of good idea, but like hell is he saying that out loud.]

[Most trolls and most people; Zack's logic baffles everyone he meets no matter what he says, even if they agree with it on some level.]

Nothing worthwhile's ever easy, man. You gotta work for stuff if you really want it.

That's true, I suppose. But there are some things that just... can't be done. Or shouldn't be.

And how can you tell if something's one of those things? I mean, sure, you shouldn't take a bullet for no reason, but if someone's gonna shoot your friend or something, don't you think it's right to try and save him?

That depends on who's shooting. [Politically correct answers for the win.]

Well, yeah, sure, but he's still your friend. You wouldn't just let him get shot, would you? [Politically correct things and Zack are a bad idea. He'd tear down the world to save a friend.]

CLOSED; weapons training

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

flasdf sorry about that, Internet spazzed

no worries, no worries~ things happen. :3