***ONCE AGAIN DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ FAS YET****


****SPOLIERS AHEAD****


***LAST WARNING!!!!!****






As I was working tonight (I work the night shift so I have lots of time to think) if the Time Travel Engines have been shut down so no time travel was possible, does that mean that all the time travel that was done since Friday made the Chronogaurd did not happen?

So doesn't that mean that the world should have been covered in the pink goo that Aronis was going to unleash if Thrusday did not shoot herself, or that Thursday should not exist since the engines were shut down since she would have shot herself!?

Does anything I just said (typed) make sense to anyone else but me?

I think I get it. But, I also think that it was stated that time wasn;t linear, so even if the time engines were shut down, all that stuff that happened before has still happened. Also, we know that Thursday travels back to help herself, so that must happen as well. Maybe we haven;t seen the last of the Chronoguard.

It does state that there were odd leftover effects of time travel, and presumably the continued existence of Thursday (& the world) is one of them. People can still remember chronoguard apparently, and Thursday's dad still exists, and was employed, and wasn't turned into an apocalyptically delicious pink ooze, so...

It's basically best not to think of these things.

(See, I'd assumed the way Thursday would get time travel would be to sneak into Verne while no one was looking...)

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Turn the silliness to eleven!

or you can work on the basis that NONE of it ever happened and as a result of the absence of the Chronoguard, none of the previous 4 books actually happened at all and TN is simply a very strange woman in a little room somewhere with a very vivid imagination...... ;)

But if we get that revelation at the end of a book, we'll get the pitchforks and rotten fruit and attack relevant people. Or I will, I really dislike "all just a dream" resolutions.

I will be fine with "the It Was All Just a Dream plot was All Just a Dream", though.

Incidentally if "Do Not read if not read yet" refers to this fforum thread, that's like, an Auditor Trap or something, right?

Barefoot Andy Wrote:
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> Incidentally if "Do Not read if not read yet"
> refers to this fforum thread, that's like, an
> Auditor Trap or something, right?


I see we have another Pratchett fan here, eh? =-)

Ah but that's the point - it's NOT a dream - she can remember it but no-one else can.

Sneaky hunh?! :p

Umm... when I dream I can remember it (sometimes) but no-one else can.

I can cope with the effects of the chronoguard remaining, even though time travel was never invented... but the fact that Granny Next somehow traveled/travels/will travel back to visit 80s Thursday suggests to me that we haven't heard the last of the time travel plot device.

Incidently one device I do expect to see in future novels is something that eats footnotes...

Rob

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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

robcraine Wrote:
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> ... but the fact that Granny Next somehow
> traveled/travels/will travel back to visit 80s
> Thursday suggests to me that we haven't heard the
> last of the time travel plot device.
>
> Incidently one device I do expect to see in future
> novels is something that eats footnotes...
>
> Rob


Oh, yeah. I forgot about that! Hmmmmm... can't wait for the next one! =-)

It'll have to be something that takes into account the presence of footnotes in the American versions of books. Maybe it's a regional thing, like overabundance of the letter "u" in Britain?

I thought that was because there was a "u" shortage?
I don;t think this is the last of the missing footnotes. I have a feeling they might show up in the next book.

well obviously the missing footernotes were the result of the first footernote specific virus - it didn't affect the US version because their footernotes use a different frequency and version of software.

However, with the advent of triband footernotes, we could potentially see cross-infection as footernote technology advances......

I think it was a glitch in the filter for protecting the Spelling of british footnotes. Presumably the software was written by an american developer.

(Just yesterday a friend who is working in technical writing reported that a Translation Management System her company employs distinguishes three versions of english: british, american and developers'.)

I thought it was that the world as it was the moment time stopped -- far in the future, but the moment when the timeline had reached its end and the time-travel formula hadn't been invented -- that everything that had been, stayed as it was, and the lack of time-travel only affected things going forward? That everything that had already happened thanks to time travel stayed as it had been -- like the continued existence of Goliath, which had only returned two days before, or whatever -- even though in the future, time travel didn't exist.

That makes sense in my head, but it might not to anyone else.

I agree - the question of Granny Next definitely bears answering in some future book.

And another puzzlement: Friday said that ChronoGuard needed Mycroft's recipe for unscrambled eggs in order to invent time travel, and they spent a great deal of energy trying to track it down, but I couldn't help thinking isn't that Aornis's power? Reversing entropy? and isn't she currently languishing in a ChronoGuard-controlled prison? I kept wondering when somebody was going to put that together (especially since Aornis had already hinted that she expected a jailbreak with outside help), but it never seemed to come up. Of course, Friday did say something about her not having the power to control coincidences "any more," but without explaining why or what that implied. Elements of a possible future plotline, anyone?

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Metaphors be with you!

Eeek! How did I not make that connection? The world may still be in danger yet!

Umm, If Aornis is in a permanent Chronoguard time loop, isn't that going to collapse now chronoguard have stopped working?

Or if she's now being held as Thursday's daughter, is she held some other way? Or just deaded?

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Turn the silliness to eleven!

The loop did collapse, and now Aornis is held in a conventional prison. How they keep her from manipulating coincidences and/or memories to break out, I have no idea.

Hmmm, Depending on how her power works, they might have weird device that turns her chance against her, and then keep her in a field. Somehow have it that the chance of anyone being held for any length of time is negligible, twist her thing around, so that astounding coincidences stop her escaping.

BA, I had an exhausting weekend so my brain is very fuzzy, but I think what you said may be very interesting. I'm just having trouble figuring it out at the moment....