Ruby City Inbox

[callbacks]

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[callbacks]

my mom was here for a couple days and while she was she made me a camera
but i only have the one roll of 35 mm film inside it and no way to develop my photos or make prints
i know basically what sorts of things i need particularly on the development side
i set up my own darkroom as a kid
but the actual equipment making process is a little beyond me
im not gonna ask you for an entire print processing studio for a single night of dirty dancing but do you think you could help me figure out at least an enlarger and film?

[uncertainrelation]

Why, certainly. I suspect the most difficult part of the endeavor will be collecting the materials necessary; the actual assembly shouldn't be anything too tedious at all by comparison.

[callbacks]

yeah
i know my bros working on setting up a power grid for the city though
ill see if hes tripped over any extra plastic or silver we could use

[uncertainrelation]

Ah, you have a brother here?

...Or is that "bro" as in the vernacular, a mere close friend of yours?

[callbacks]

no hes







brothers the simplest way to put it

[uncertainrelation]

...Ah.

Yes. Sometimes it is, isn't it...





Not really your brother, but the real explanation would take far too long and get into far too many unnecessary complexities, is that it?

[callbacks]

genetically hes my father but that is so not our relationship
and were also from different iterations of our universe so our firsthand experience of each other is limited
long lost brothers is the closest approximation i can make to cover both our relatedness and our unfamiliarity

[uncertainrelation]

...Is this the first place you met each other? Or did you encounter each other elsewhere, somehow?

[callbacks]

i saw him once
we were on our way to his timeline
but we didnt talk then
from what ive gathered on his end a different version of me did make it to his universe and they got to know each other some but ive also popped into ruby city a number of different times without memory
i mean probably likewise different versions of me but who knows

[uncertainrelation]

Good lord. There've been other..."versions" of you here before?

...Have you by any chance found yourself suffering from nosebleeds at all, since arriving here?

[callbacks]

no?
why would i

[uncertainrelation]

Because that's what happens when the mind tries to reconcile conflicting sets of memories. That is to say, experiences that are both yours — yet not yours.

[callbacks]

but its not like i remember anything those other mes did
shit if i did thatd be messed up
would i have to remember every goddamn doomed daves shit timeline??? fuck

[uncertainrelation]

Well, that IS the question, isn't it. Were you not bombarded with the memories of those...other Daves, as you so aptly put it? You weren't left perceiving both sets at once?

[callbacks]

naw
actually thats never been the case for me
even when i was running around as thirteen of me at once the only way id know anything if all those loops were stable is if a future me told me
and hed only tell me because hed already been the me that got told
that kind of self fulfilling shit is annoying so i avoided it whenever possible
and then like
in doomed timeline situations
well usually the whole point of me turning up from one of those was to give me just enough information not to do whatever idiot thing would fuck everything up so
they didnt usually get the chance to impart much more than that
hm i guess rose remembers shit from davesprites timeline but i dont know exactly how she did that besides it having something to do with our dreamselves

[uncertainrelation]

...All right, I'll confess, you started to lose me somewhere around "thirteen of me".

Though I suppose the ability to reconcile all of that has something to do with your time powers? If that's the case, then perhaps you do simply have some sort of natural immunity to the phenomenon. Perhaps you simply manufacture memories at an extraordinary rate, preserving your mind from the stress of trying to perceive thirteen conflicting sets of memories at once.

[callbacks]

why would my brain get other memories anyway though
i mean
im me
but once theres another me that i can perceive hes by definition an other isnt he?
were the same guy but no longer living the same existence

1/2

[uncertainrelation]

Well, because of the overlap you would experience in —

Here, just a tick, let me try to map this out.

[uncertainrelation]

All right, to begin with, can you see this diagram?

[callbacks]

yes
dude you have very nice handwriting

[uncertainrelation]

Yes, thank you. It served me very well while I was at Cambridge.

In any event, let's begin with a few presumptions about this diagram. Let's stipulate for the sake of discussion that the black line in the center is "the universe".

[WELL JEEZ, ROBERT, JUST LEAP RIGHT INTO IT, WHY DON'T YOU.]

Let's also assume that Dave 1, in blue, is the Dave that corresponds to that universe. Which is to say, in the natural state of things, there is for every discrete universe a single discrete Dave that corresponds to that universe. Yes?

[callbacks]

sure that all makes sense so far
so the blue line and the red line are different possibilities for the black universe line
which i guess id normally call the alpha timeline?
no wait
the blue line is one me and the red line is another me and they both correspond to the universe line?
if so thats a very different way of conceptualizing this stuff than im used to

[uncertainrelation]

No, no, you're getting ahead of yourself. For every universe (black line), there is a single Dave. If you'd like to call him the Alpha Dave for the sake of your understanding, that's perfectly fine, but be careful not to apply assumptions to that Alpha Dave that aren't part of the thought experiment.

Now, then. For this given universe (black line), Dave 1 (Alpha Dave) makes a given decision at the juncture we've called the Divergence Point. For ease of comprehension, let's assign the outcome of his answer to something simple and polar — the answer "yes".

Therefore, in this particular universe, Alpha Dave reaches the Divergence Point, is presented with a choice, and answers "yes". This is where the visual grows a bit deceptive, because as rendered, his divergence is shown by a deviation upward. But don't be fooled by that, because Alpha Dave's line still maps perfectly onto the black line of the universe IN ACTUALITY, because being the Alpha Dave means that all of Alpha Dave's decisions are the "correct" decisions for that given universe.

Following so far?

[callbacks]

yeah
thats how i understand alpha dave works
so what about dave 2

1/2

[uncertainrelation]

Magnificent. Then let's update our diagram a bit — I understand this may seem tedious in terms of laying the groundwork, but we're quickly coming to the point.