DR2005 said:In the episode "Good Morning Peoria"
why did Al act as if he wanted to leap when he saw how much trouble it caused Sam
ProfessorLoNigro said:Actually, that scene is a glaring continuity gap in the show. In "Good Morning, Peoria" Al sees a blue glow around him and states "I'm leaping!" Yet, in the series finale "Mirror Image", Sam asks Al if he is surrounded by a blue light when he leaps and Al tells him he doesn't know because he automatically finds himself in the Imagining Chamber once Sam leaps. Interesting...but probably just an overlook by the writers.
QL Nut said:I've actually never considered this a continuity gap or mistake in the series. I always saw it as Al assuming that the glow was what it looked like to leap. It was an effect that never happened to him before (it was different than the black light in "Star-Crossed"). So, I think that he simply attributed a strange effect like that to leaping like, "Wow, I'm glowing! I must be leaping!" or something to that effect. Even though he didn't say it that way, it doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't thinking it.
ProfessorLoNigro said:Speaking of 'Leap for Lisa', I guess we don't know exactly how the timeline was changed after that episode - so maybe the QL universe was slightly different then before - i.e. Al doesn't know what leaping looks like for some reason. I wonder if Al, Gushie, etc. have memory of that leap or if because it affected someone in the project - and perhaps the project itself - it kind of just 'wrote over' history. Then again, maybe QL staff is immune to this problem. We see Al in 'Honeymoon Express' sitting in front of the Senate Committee and time changes around him, a different senator suddenly overseeing the committee as if she were there the whole time. Why isn't Al affected by changes in the timeline? Everyone else in the room seemed to be. Is it his exclusive contact with Sam that somehow shields him? To that point, is Al or anyone aware of the events that occured in 'Star-Crossed'? Did Donna just materialize out of thin air with a backstory at the project and everyone, or at least Al, went along with it? Sam certainly remembered her. Is he then not immuned? Questions, Questions...
ProfessorLoNigro said:McDuck and QLNut, that theory almost works for me, except I don't think that Sam is as protected from the rewriting of time as Al. When Sam gets home in 'The Leap Back', he has a full slue of memories about Donna, obviously he's been overwritten by the new timeline created from 'Star Crossed'. This would lead to theorizing that when Sam, as the leaper, gets back home, his memory is overwritten with the new timeline. However, this doesn't hold up for two reasons:
ProfessorLoNigro said:1) Black on White on Fire - Early in the episode, Sam makes an offhand comment while talking about his feelings for the girl in the episode, saying hed only felt that way about one other person, then straining himself to remember who. Al cuts off his thought. Obviously this was Donna he was trying to remember and I would argue that such a memory suggests he remembers her as his wife.
ProfessorLoNigro said:2) In MI, which took place after the Leap Back when Sam's memories would have been overwritten, he vaugely recollects saving his brother in TLH2. Wouldn't this information have been erased? Or maybe his 1998 memories vanished, replaced by his 'leaping memories' once he leaped again; Sam does state in TLB that he felt like holes in his head were filling up but that he was forgetting about leaping. The overwrite history effect. Could leaping again reverse it? Sounds right to me.
ProfessorLoNigro said:As for Al disappearing in Leap for Lisa, I think maybe it had to do with the high probability there was for his death. Only at 100% certainty did Roddy McDowall appear. Other situations perhaps are not so probably certain.
Thoughts?
Katar said:The only glitch in this idea is how Sam remembers Donna when he gets his memories back. It would make sense he didn't remember her because the Sam leaping never really married her. Still, we can assume God or Fate or Time gave Sam the memories of marrying Donna.
asearcher said:There is no way around Time Travel Paradoxes. You can see similar paradoxes in any timeline story (eg. Terminator, Back to the Future, Twilight Zone, Peggy Sue Got Married, and multiple other sci-fi scenarios). No device (multiple parallel universes, realignment of the timeline, co-existent timeline splits, perception of linear time when time itself is an illusion, etc.) ever fully addresses these contradictions.
asearcher said:Onto the concept of the blue light...
(from http://www.cakes.mcmail.com/cerenkov/cerenkov.htm)
Cerenkov radiation (Blue Glow in nuclear fission reactors) was discovered in 1926 by Mallet. It was observed that the light had a continuous spectrum, having no "dark lines" characteristic of emission spectrum. The radiation was extensively studied between the years of 1934-1938 by Pavel Cerenkov (1904-1990). During his research Cerenkov found that the radiation was not a fluorescence effect and that the light was partially polarised. Cerenkov succeeded in speeding particles up over 230,000,000 ms-1....This results in radiation moving faster than light.
Thus, the blue glow has a basis in Quantum fact but the red glow of the evil leapers is just a madeup device to explain the difference.
?I think Stephen and I may be onto something, Al,? Sammy Jo said.
?I?m willing to hear anything at this point! What do ya got?? Al exclaimed back.
?Well, perhaps Stephen could explain it best. Even I?m a bit confused by what he?s saying.?
Stephen stepped forward and enthusiastically began explaining his theory. ?Okay, well, Uncle Al, you?ve seen movies like Back to the Future, right??
?Uh?yeeeah,? Al replied somewhat puzzled as to where this conversation was going.
?Okay, I think the problem everyone?s having is that they?re not thinking fourth-dimensionally. Ziggy insists it?s 1995, right after Dad first leaped, right? Well, when he first leaped into Tom Stratton, he hadn?t changed anything yet. Every time he leaps into someone, he changes history and it creates a new timeline. In fact, the very act of taking someone?s place in time creates a new timeline, because Dad wasn?t there the first time. So, let?s say the original timeline where Dad started from is Timeline A. I?m betting that in Timeline A, me and Sammy Jo, and a bunch of other people either didn?t exist or weren?t involved with the Project. That could explain why Ziggy says we all don?t ?belong? here.?
Al thought back to what Ziggy said about Beth and Donna. It barely registered in his memory, but Sam had changed Donna?s past shortly after he first leaped, which is why they were now married. Could it be that at one time, Beth and I weren?t married? That would mean that?Sam changed that too! But?how did he do it without me or Ziggy knowing about it?
?Now, based on what me and Sammy Jo saw from the leap archives, we?re like 99.9 percent sure that Dad leaped back into Tom Stratton again. Ziggy keeps track of all the different timelines that have changed over the past nine years. So, since Dad?s mind has always been linked to you and Ziggy, then he?d be experiencing small pockets from previous timelines as well?meaning he?d be able to see you from nine years ago. Only the other Uncle Al is not really you, he?s another version of you from a different timeline?one in which history hadn?t changed yet. And that?s probably why Ziggy is getting all mixed up. The merging of the original timeline and the current timeline is scrambling her program. It?s like in that movie Frequency: she?s seeing two different timelines at the same time, and she can?t determine which one is the ?correct? one because she and Dad are linked to both of them now.?
The growing pain in Al?s head made him think for a minute that his biochip was failing again, but then he realized that the pain was a result of his brain ?melting? from Stephen?s explanation. ?Okay. Sammy, you think you can try giving me the Time-Travel-for-Dummies version, please??
?Well basically, we?re dealing with the potential for a major time paradox here. Normally, whenever a leaper leaps into someone, they bump that person out into the time period they came from. I think what might have happened this time was that Dad leaped into Tom at the exact nanosecond he leaped into him nine years ago. This could have caused the past and present versions of Dad to ?merge? together, and it could explain why no one got bumped into the Waiting Room. If that?s true, then he could become trapped in a causality loop, where he?ll keep reliving the last nine years of his life over and over again with slight discrepancies each time. If you pay close attention to the archives, some glitches occur where those discrepancies can be noticed. The problem is also compounded by the fact that he can interact with?you?from both 1995 and today. And the 1995 version of you would have no knowledge of the current timeline because you usually don?t become affected by changes until after Dad leaps out. Once your memories shift, you automatically phase into the new timeline.?
?Ya gotta think Star Trek, Uncle Al,? Stephen continued. ?There are like, these infinite number of potential timelines that get created when Dad changes history. It?s the ripple effect. Any one decision he makes moves the ripple in another direction. We don?t notice the changes, but because you?re linked to his brainwaves, it takes a moment for your memories to ?shift? into that new timeline. But it doesn?t mean that the old timeline is completely gone. A ?fragment? of it still remains with whatever leap Dad is on at the moment. So, if he?s reliving his very first leap, then he?s also going to see the ?fragment? of Timeline A that stayed behind the first time he was there. Even though he changed things, the changes don?t affect the ?fragment,? otherwise there?d be paradoxes every time Dad leaps.?
?It might be simpler to think of it like this,? Sammy Jo chimed in again after noticing Al?s bewildered expression. ?Dad leaped back to save Tom Stratton. The first time around, Tom died trying to break Mach Three. But once history changed, it created a ripple that affected everything from that point on. So, when it comes time for Dad to step into the Accelerator the second time 1995 comes around, there would no longer be a need to change history because in his timeline, Tom never died to begin with. That?s a paradox. Nature works around it by making sure that every time September 14, 1956 comes around, it will be the original version of Dad from Timeline A that leaps into him, in which Tom did die. And furthermore, each subsequent new timeline?s version of Dad would simply disappear from existence every time he steps into the Accelerator. So, for all intents and purposes, it?s quite possible that we?ll never technically be able to bring Dad back home, because it?s not really ?our? Sam Beckett anymore.?
Al felt like his head was about to explode. My brain hurts! These kids have way too much time on their hands! They need to get out more!
?Uncle Al?do you understand?? Stephen asked. ?I mean?we can?t make it much simpler than this?but?um?Uncle Al, why are you laying on the floor? Are you dizzy again? Do I need to get Aunt Beth to bring the smelling salts again??
Dman176 said:Like, the Back to the Future trilogy makes complete and total sense to me, even the "Alternate-1985" part, which a lot of people don't understand. The only part that really is inconsistent is when they all travel into the future. Why would Marty and Jennifer's older selves be there if they disappeared thirty years earlier? But, over the years, most people have just let that one slip by. (I did something similar at the end of one of my other stories, where Sam encounters his older self in the future, but I at least explained how that was possible.) Somehow, I understand this stuff in my head without even trying; and yet I can't tie anything more complex than a square knot. It gets frustrating sometimes to have all these amazing ideas in my head and knowing that I may have to either "dumb" it down for the readers to understand or include diagrams and charts! :roflmao:
It gets frustrating sometimes to have all these amazing ideas in my head and knowing that I may have to either "dumb" it down for the readers to understand or include diagrams and charts!
feldon29 said:Oh, it's clear that the time travel elements weren't really thought out, otherwise we wouldn't have the conflicts about whether it's Sam's body or just his mind, how Leon Styles ended up with a gun, and all the other PCR stuff.
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