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Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: da1edwin on August 04, 2009, 05:21:46 pm

Title: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 04, 2009, 05:21:46 pm
I downloaded Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius for the first time today and spent the past five hours beating it. What an experience. There are plenty of minor bugs and blips but I've never seen a user campaign like this. Major kudos to the team.

What happens at the end when Samuel Bei meets a technician named Eriana? What's the relation between this Eriana and his dead wife? I thought they could be the same person, but I doubt the alternate universe screwed with time that badly.

Am I right in assuming that Sam is of Chinese descent? He says his family was living in Guangzhou, and his mother has a Chinese name, but I don't know what Admiral Bei's full name is.

And what's the significance of the name "Age of Aquarius", anyway?

I wish there were a Blue Planet wiki to answer questions like these...but I guess it doesn't make sense when the project, especially War in Heaven, is still in development.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 04, 2009, 05:34:12 pm
Well, there's a fairly complete walkthrough of the campaign on the FreeSpace wiki.

My interpretation is that it's an alternate universe version of his own Eriana. History ran parallel, she survived on the Sanctuary, and now - as the Vishnans promised - they're reunited. But that's just what I think. What's your take on it?

Could you list off the bugs and blips? We want to fix 'em for the Director's Cut.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 04, 2009, 05:58:11 pm
Well, there's a fairly complete walkthrough of the campaign on the FreeSpace wiki.

Really? All I see there is a "General Info"/"Description"/"Player Comments"/"Related Links" page for it.

My interpretation is that it's an alternate universe version of his own Eriana. History ran parallel, she survived on the Sanctuary, and now - as the Vishnans promised - they're reunited. But that's just what I think. What's your take on it?

I didn't think that she could have survived on the Sanctuary. That is, of course, a possibility. I was thinking more along the lines of some great cosmic power, possibly the Vishnans, recreating this alternate Eriana as a means of restoring some semblance of normality to Samuel's life. Darius really did a good job of weaving a gripping story while leaving plenty of mysteries.

On a related note, I'll admit that I didn't realize that Eriana was the name of Samuel's wife at first. I kept seeing references to "Eriana and Mother" and thinking she was his sister or something, until he mentioned that his wife died on the transport.

Could you list off the bugs and blips? We want to fix 'em for the Director's Cut.

Ahhhhh, damnit. I wasn't keeping track, because I was so drawn in that I was just concentrating on finishing the campaign. Kind of like not being able to put down a great book, though finishing BP in one sitting wasn't quite as much of a beast as, say, watching the whole LoTR movie trilogy at once (I'll never understand how people can actually do that). Basically, there were a few spelling errors, plus the missing briefings which are probably already fixed by this point anyway. I seriously can't make a list now. But I'll probably go back through missions later and make notes. Also, can we really call it a Director's Cut when Darius is pretty much Producer, Editor, Director, and Final Cut simultaneously? : P
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: NGTM-1R on August 04, 2009, 06:01:29 pm
My interpretation is that it's an alternate universe version of his own Eriana.

I always assumed Eriana and the younger Bei were both Lost Generation, and grew up away from Sol, or at least were born far away from Earth. Maybe if the Sancturary was evacing people as they fled, but...
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: -Norbert- on August 04, 2009, 06:27:38 pm
If the Eriana on Sanctuary is a "dark universe" equivalent of his dead wife (and not just the same name), she must have been the child of some of the awake crew of the Sanctuary, born while they hid inside the nebula.
There are after all 32 years between the first great war (the time the civilians got frozen on the Sacntuary) and the second great war.
If it would be the same Eriana, that would mean that Bei is either dating a child, or was merried to a woman twice his own age.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Aardwolf on August 04, 2009, 07:17:48 pm
If it would be the same Eriana, that would mean that Bei is either dating a child, or was merried to a woman twice his own age.

Oh hey, I can has a more sensible explanation!

Eriana wasn't one of the frozen people. The Sanctuary can't all of been people in cryo-stasis... I mean, there's the captain/comms person, turret gunners, fighter pilots.

It makes sense, whereas, as you so plainly pointed out, your explanation is freaky.

Edit: oh, and as for this:

My interpretation is that it's an alternate universe version of his own Eriana.

I always assumed Eriana and the younger Bei were both Lost Generation, and grew up away from Sol, or at least were born far away from Earth. Maybe if the Sancturary was evacing people as they fled, but...

The Sanctuary wasn't in/from Sol, IIRC... it was a last ditch effort by the non-Sol Terran survivors outside of Sol.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 04, 2009, 07:22:33 pm
If the Eriana on Sanctuary is a "dark universe" equivalent of his dead wife (and not just the same name), she must have been the child of some of the awake crew of the Sanctuary, born while they hid inside the nebula.

That sounds reasonable to me. I believe that's what Aardwolf is saying as well. And I'm guessing NGTM-1R is correct about neither of them being Sol natives.

Good luck getting straight answers out of Darius, though.

Of course this leaves the question of what happened to alternate-Sam and his family...maybe the elder Bei died in the fleet, so para-Sam was never born?
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Aardwolf on August 04, 2009, 07:23:59 pm
:bump:

(because i updated my previous post before noticing your reply)

Edit: in response to

If the Eriana on Sanctuary is a "dark universe" equivalent of his dead wife (and not just the same name), she must have been the child of some of the awake crew of the Sanctuary, born while they hid inside the nebula.

That sounds reasonable to me. I believe that's what Aardwolf is saying as well.

Good luck getting straight answers out of Darius, though.

No, -Norbert- said the surviving Eriana was the daughter of someone on the Sanctuary, I'm saying she *was* ... ah, but now I'm starting to realize that either she must have been somewhat older than Bei, or they're both older than I thought...

So in other words... damn, yeah, I'm probably wrong  :ick:
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Snail on August 04, 2009, 07:33:48 pm
Of course this leaves the question of what happened to alternate-Sam and his family...maybe the elder Bei died in the fleet, so para-Sam was never born?
SAM HAS AN EVIL TWIN
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 05, 2009, 12:12:50 am
Hmm...is there an alternate-universe version of the Sanctuary? The Orion that, since Lucifer went down, was never converted into a refugee ship?

Anyway, General Battuta, I just remembered - shouldn't the player be invulnerable in nightmare missions (and flashback missions, though I think he's already invulnerable during the flashback of his mother's and wife's deaths)? I remember getting killed by one of the Lucifer's beams as it was firing at the Orestes. While this isn't strictly a bug I think that if you're in a mission that isn't actually happening, you should be spared the trouble of death. (I noticed this sort of nightmare-real-death issue in the Babylon Project's Raider Wars, but that's no longer in development, so I just sucked it up.)

And I'm pretty sure there was a discrepancy in Mina Taylor's name somewhere in the campaign, where her name was given by first initial, middle initial, last name, and the first initial wasn't M.

Edit: Whoops, I found the AoA walkthrough on the wiki. I thought it would be linked to directly from the main AoA page. Grr.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 05, 2009, 12:33:09 am
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 05, 2009, 12:50:19 am
as the Vishnans promised - they're reunited.

But it still is not the same Eriana, even if she looks like her. If you could swap the memories of the other one into her, it still wouldn't be her. Just a clone, like a copy with the same body and genetics, memories and personality, but not the same awareness (consciousness). Like if I had a clone of myself and my memory was copied to him, we would still have a separate consciousness and confined to our own bodies. I know in the alternate universe version, Eriana doesn't have the same memories, but I was making an example that even if she did, it wouldn't be her but more like a copy who thinks she is the same person.

So if I was in Samuel's shoes and encountered a parallel universe version of someone I loved, it wouldn't feel the same since I know it isn't the same person, even if she was identical both physically and personality-wise. Just seems like the same person, thinks she is the same person, and acts the same.

And this is sort of the reason behind my alternate interpretation above (that the Vishnans created alive-Eriana as a deux ex Vishnans)...I feel that it would have been cruel for the Vishnans to bring back someone who was the same person as dead-Eriana, but with a wholly different set of memories. There's something incredibly creepy about meeting a woman who died and whom you were married to, but in a parallel universe, is neither dead nor your wife (yet). I'd rather meet someone who reminded me of my dead wife, and perhaps even brought back memories, but someone who I knew wasn't the same person.

Can someone explain to me the significance of the name "Age of Aquarius"?
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: -Norbert- on August 05, 2009, 03:15:29 am
Perhaps Darius likes the song from the musical Hair....
After all the UEF does sound a bit like a bunch of Hippies  :P
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: NGTM-1R on August 05, 2009, 03:32:16 am
And this is sort of the reason behind my alternate interpretation above (that the Vishnans created alive-Eriana as a deux ex Vishnans)...I feel that it would have been cruel for the Vishnans to bring back someone who was the same person as dead-Eriana, but with a wholly different set of memories. There's something incredibly creepy about meeting a woman who died and whom you were married to, but in a parallel universe, is neither dead nor your wife (yet). I'd rather meet someone who reminded me of my dead wife, and perhaps even brought back memories, but someone who I knew wasn't the same person.

The concept of Sam turning up as a shellshocked pilot because of who he's hanging out with or having a terribly twisted relationship with alt-Eriana amuses me. And in retrospect, I think you're correct: it's also terribly painful to contemplate, something that Should Not Happen.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: SpardaSon21 on August 05, 2009, 11:11:54 am
Well, alt-Eriana could be someone named Eriana who has just a name in common with Bei's dead Eriana.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 05, 2009, 11:17:17 am
I think it has to be a case of convergence. She is Eriana, with a similar personality and everything. Of course she's had different experiences, and those differences probably torment Sam, but my feeling is that it would be kind of weak if she was just another woman named Eriana.

I don't know if the Vishnans could fabricate a person, though. I've always thought that they were Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, not gods.

All this is not canon.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: SpardaSon21 on August 05, 2009, 11:29:39 am
The thing is, alt-Eriana can't be Bei's Eriana since both Bei and Eriana are from the Lost Generation, and alt-Eriana was born before the Great War happened.  Unless, of course, Bei and Eriana are both senior citizens, which I doubt.  Still, even if they were old, alt-Eriana would only be a fraction of Bei's age since she was born pre-Great War.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 05, 2009, 11:32:12 am
Whuh? No, alt-Eriana could've been born on the Sanctuary at the same time original-Eriana was born in Capella or wherever.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: SpardaSon21 on August 05, 2009, 11:59:50 am
Makes sense.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 05, 2009, 02:40:58 pm
Speaking of the Vishnans, why would they call themselves that? Is it really plausible that they had a knowledge of human Aryan mythology, and the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva triumvirate?

As I understand it, names in the canonical Freespace universe were taken entirely from ancient Terran civilizations: Terrans identified themselves with the Greeks, then told Khonsu about Egypt and had the Vasudans all take Egyptian names. The Terrans then named the Shivans after a mix of Semitic (mostly Jewish, but with the occasional Arabic name like Azrael) mythology and Indo-Aryan (mostly Hindu) mythology. If the Vishnans are in fact advanced aliens and not gods, how would they know about all these Terran naming conventions? And why would they speak to the Shivans in Terran terms, before returning everyone to the original universe?
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 05, 2009, 03:14:15 pm
Whatever communication occurred was, I'd guess, on a level more primordial than language. Not to say that there's some kind of primeval ur-meaning; simply that the Vishnans probably had complete access to Sam's mind and knowledge and were able to build an interface of sorts. Thus the term 'Vishnan'. You'll note it sounds as if Sam coined it himself, if I recall correctly.

As for the communication between the Dante and the Preserver, we don't know from what kind of POV that was observed, but I think it's safe to say they weren't talking to each other in English.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 05, 2009, 05:13:27 pm
I agree with General Battuta. Any sufficiently advanced technology can easily be mistaken for magic. :p
They might be godlike to us, but who's to say they don't have the ability to read Terran computer files (or, as Battuta suggested, Sam's brain) and discern from it an appropriate name? Perhaps they identified with the Hindu god Vishnu, much as Khonsu II identified with ancient Egypt, and adopted the name for use during communication with Terrans. It's also equally possible that Sam thought of it, and it just stuck. It did almost seem like he coined it himself, as the good general mentioned.

Battuta also has a point about the communication between the Preserver and the Dante. I don't recall the conversation ever being acknowledged by Sam or anyone else, so it's reasonable to assume it wasn't in English. Darius probably didn't want to break the fourth wall by outright saying that they were communicating in an alien tongue, if he had considered it at all. :nod:
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: The E on August 05, 2009, 05:20:40 pm
Yeah. The only thing that was communicated to the humans was the "We've opened the gate" bit, I think.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 05, 2009, 07:26:01 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 05, 2009, 07:34:09 pm
All that is real, is real. You draw a false dichotomy between the material and the spiritual.

Or at least that's the Vasudans' take on it.  :p
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 05, 2009, 08:43:40 pm
All that is real, is real. You draw a false dichotomy between the material and the spiritual.

Or at least that's the Vasudans' take on it.  :p

In other words, the spiritual is just very advanced technology. It might be some form of psychic ability or somesuch, but there is a scientific explanation for it. It's no act of divinity.

Did I get that right? :lol:
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 05, 2009, 08:56:04 pm
The human mind is a limited computational system—limited not only in the volume of data it can process, and the complexity of the connections it can assemble, but, perhaps, in the very order of phenomena it can comprehend. You can no more feed a digital computer a program to describe a human emotion than you can explain to a human some of the things the Vishnans perceive.

The Vishnans may be 'very advanced technology' in the way that a modern warplane runs on heap big medicine, if you take my meaning. There may be paradigms of thought and existence out there that we do not yet parse well.

People like TrashMan tend to turn up their nose at the notion of 'energy beings', but it's very likely the Vishnans are something far more than that trope.

This is all my take on it, not official commentary.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 05, 2009, 09:06:43 pm
Well said, and seconded. :yes:

As Q once said, "Why must you humans think so four-dimensionally?"
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 05, 2009, 11:16:04 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 05, 2009, 11:47:43 pm
Good luck getting any answers. :P
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: eliex on August 06, 2009, 12:19:22 am
Although we don't know the specifics, I believe 3 chapters of BP are planned. It is almost certain that the Shivans and Vishnans will be involved in a resolution to humanity's potential to become the Great Creators.

Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: -Norbert- on August 06, 2009, 03:36:00 am
Or perhaps the GTVA wins, slaughters everyone on Earth and Humans become the replacement for the Shivans. :drevil:

No I don't really think that will be the case, but I have to say it does sound interresting...
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 06, 2009, 07:20:34 am
BP is indeed planned as a trilogy. And humanity's potential to become the Great Creators will probably be further explored in the third chapter, if not in WiH.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 06, 2009, 08:20:11 am
Or perhaps the GTVA wins, slaughters everyone on Earth and Humans become the replacement for the Shivans. :drevil:

No I don't really think that will be the case, but I have to say it does sound interresting...

Well, the Shivans were kicked out of their position as the Destroyers by the Vishnans. So while this would be an incredibly depressing and unlikely end to the series, it does seem like someone has to take over as the Destroyers eventually.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 06, 2009, 08:27:23 am
In one universe.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 06, 2009, 10:05:55 pm
And on Eriana and Sam's ages... even if they were children of Great War vets, making them around 50 years old, that's probably much younger than it seems to us. You've got to remember, it takes place around 2385. With medical technology over 300 years more advanced than our own, people probably live much, much longer. Same deal with Halo, as a matter of fact. Sgt. Johnson is 82 by the time that
he dies at the end of Halo 3.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 06, 2009, 11:39:50 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 06, 2009, 11:55:49 pm
Erm, did you see how old Bones was in the very first episode?

Besides that, it never makes mention of any of the original crew dying from old age. It's entirely possible they're still alive, as Bones was.
That is, with the exception of Kirk, but that's a different story. Specifically, Star Trek: Generations.
But that's irrelevant - Star Trek is not FreeSpace.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 07, 2009, 01:37:54 am
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: -Norbert- on August 07, 2009, 04:17:43 am
If you mean the Episode where Q let him jump through three different timeframes (past, present and future) then you can't take that as reference, since the future Picard had some kind of incurable illness.
I remember MacCoys age being mentioned in film 6 "the undiscovered country", but I can't remember what it was. But it was certainly below 100 for sure even though he was about to be retired.

But regardless of how old Humans can become in the FreeSpace universe, it would still leave Eriana and Sam with decades of difference in age if the parallel universe Eriana is the same as his wife.
If they are the same that would mean that Eriana is 32 years younger than at the wedding while Sam is 18 years older. That's 50 years difference!
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 07, 2009, 07:47:57 am
...wut.

Didn't we already establish that para-Eriana could have been born the exact same year as our Eriana? Aboard the Sanctuary?
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 07, 2009, 09:21:54 am
Just because Tell and Iwakura are sons of Great War vets doesn't mean everyone on the sanctuary is. :P
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 07, 2009, 01:02:01 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 07, 2009, 04:48:41 pm
...instead of Bei's parents being in Capella or whatever system they lived in, they returned to Earth as it was being destroyed and stayed on that side of the node. Then the young parents boarded the Sanctuary and gave birth to Eriana later on.

Wait what? Eriana didn't become Eriana Bei until she married Sam. They're not siblings. :wtf:
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 07, 2009, 05:16:28 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Droid803 on August 07, 2009, 05:30:23 pm
Eriana is Sam's wife.
Wasn't this discussion went over a while ago?

EDIT:
Before we go any further, Eriana was Sam's wife.  :P

Funnily, we also went over the "Terrene" thing.

I was going to say the same thing. 'Terrene' isn't exactly wrong in this sense, but it is rather like using a sentence like "I would as lief drive the Haywain to town as the Phaeton" in the 21st century.  It made me think of old science fiction novels such as something by E.E. Doc Smith when I saw it here. :)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Leeko on August 07, 2009, 08:54:04 pm
Eriana was his wife, she died on the transport exiting Capella. His mom, Mei Ling, was also on the transport. They both died. :(
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 07, 2009, 10:11:47 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 07, 2009, 10:43:48 pm
As long as they had a soul and are not deleted from existance, we can feel a little better about it, and this campaign isn't supposed to be pure sci-fi and physical, I feel.

It was a sad part of the campaign when you combine the sad scenes with the sad music of BPtheme3.

His mom's last name looks Chinese, though in that era, they wouldn't be called Chinese, probably.

Plenty of religious people today believe in a soul and/or afterlife, but that doesn't stop them from being sad when people die. :p

Sam's parents both have Chinese names, or at least romanizations of Chinese names. In that era, they might not be called Chinese, but Sam does state that he had family living in Guangzhou, China. Sam's grandparents may or may not have been Chinese, depending on how many generations of his direct bloodline weren't born on Earth. I find it interesting that even when the GTVA hasn't even had contact with Earth for 50 years, they still have Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian names amongst their ranks. And presumably Terrans have been spacefaring for much longer than that.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 07, 2009, 10:46:31 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 07, 2009, 10:51:20 pm
You don't have to be religious to believe in something non-physical. So many people get religion confused with belief and spirituality. Religion is just the practices and rituals and belief the story happened exactly the way it is said to, but not a belief in something after death. But also, some people can believe in a story of a religion and not be religious.

Right, but I never said that one has to be religious to believe in something non-physical. I've recently begun to think of myself as a pantheist, which does involve a sort of belief without any religion. Anyway, you're right, the campaign definitely has spiritual overtones. (Just look at the whole Vishnan-Shivan thing.)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Luis Dias on August 19, 2009, 10:38:02 am
I'll probably get heavy flames for saying this, but I really don't mind. Eriana's story sounds to me completely deus ex machina. It's an impossible story. OK, I get that probably a girl was conceived in different universes at somewhat the same hour of the same day, some time after Lucifer did destroy the Earth in one of them and didn't in the other. Just the chance of this event was staggering low. To call her that name was also improbable, but bearable. In very different situations, parents would give their kids different names, but it could be argued that such name was decided many years before in her mother's head (or her father's).

What's really inconcievable is that it would be exactly the same Eriana with the exact same genes, with the exact same education (read, "brain states"), that is, the same person. This because every fertilized egg is different than any other. So the chance of Eriana being in one universe and in the other is too friggin small to be left as "luck". There's luck and there are miracles. And then there are badly placed deus ex machinas, in "oh well, isn't that lucky, you found your girlfriend here too!! And she loves you!"

Impossibly convenient... Not the only thing that erked me in a beautiful campaign that TBP is, but since people are discussing it, I thought I should say what I thought about it.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: NGTM-1R on August 19, 2009, 10:39:40 am
Man has a point. Mainly about education, mind.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Darius on August 19, 2009, 11:12:01 am
One person in one reality does not necessarily have the same education and experiences as the other person in another reality. It actually runs counter to the mythology of the BP universe. Genetics and physicality is one thing, shared experiences among dimensions is another.

It's also not stated that she is the same person inside as the woman Sam knew. Indeed, he's most likely going to have to start from scratch regarding any developing interpersonal relationships as he would any other person he has just met. At the most basic level, he's getting to know a person who bears a striking resemblance to a person he once loved, which is enough to spark an initial interest in that girl. :)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: -Norbert- on August 19, 2009, 03:21:09 pm
Quote
What's really inconcievable is that it would be exactly the same Eriana with the exact same genes, with the exact same education (read, "brain states"), that is, the same person.
It wasn't even mentioned wether she looks similar to Eriana or not.
The only thing Sam mentioned in his diary is, that he met a girl called Eriana, that they seem to have hit it off and that he is going to show her the town his ancestors came from.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: High Max on August 19, 2009, 05:19:49 pm
;-)
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Scotty on August 19, 2009, 06:05:52 pm
Yes, we have established that she is not the same person.

For the most part, protons are the same.  They are all made up of two up, and one down quark.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: da1edwin on August 19, 2009, 06:28:16 pm
Here's a question: Is every proton the exact same? I know there are many more than just one and that makes them seperate and different in that sense, but I'm wondering, are they all the same in every other way?

Depends on what you mean by "the exact same". Protons are fermionic and thus obey the Pauli exclusion principle, so their quantum properties must be different. (The exception would be in a singularity such as the center of a black hole.) However, every proton is composed of two up quarks and one down quark, as Scotty said. So your question is a bit like asking whether two identical cars (of the same model) are the same: yes, they're the "same", but at any given time they are in different places, with different passengers inside, moving at different velocities, and filled with different amounts of gasoline.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: General Battuta on August 19, 2009, 06:56:34 pm
Your body at time A is made of enough different material from your body at time B to be considered 'a different person'. But the patterns of information are conserved. That's what qualifies the car, or the protons, as 'the same'.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: eliex on August 19, 2009, 11:00:17 pm
I've noticed that Darius' dual Eriana's twist is similar to the X-Men's aftermath Dark Phoenix Saga where the protagonist somehow meets a near exact copy of their deceased lover and eventually turns it into a relationship.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Luis Dias on August 20, 2009, 03:24:39 pm
It's not the same person if they have seperate consciousnesses. Am I the same as my clone with my memories installed into it? Yes and no. My consciousness won't jump to its body when my body dies. If I was only phsyical, then I wonder why my awareness would have to be born in the body I'm in now instead of some other body. What would determine what body and brain my consciousness would be born into? Maybe I'm more than just a body then.

Here's a question: Is every proton the exact same? I know there are many more than just one and that makes them seperate and different in that sense, but I'm wondering, are they all the same in every other way?

Is that what happens? If so, I take it back about education. My main point was about genes, though. The probabilities are something in the order of ten to the gazillion of these same parents producing a twin sister to Eryana. And oh yeah, I calculated that. On my gut.
Title: Re: AoA ending questions (spoiler warning)
Post by: Scotty on August 20, 2009, 06:30:59 pm
You are forgetting the
Spoiler:
"alternate" part in "alternate universe."  Just because she died in his does not mean she died in that one.

spoiler tags for anyone who hasn't gotten that far.