12 KiB
The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover
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Author: u/traverseda With dread but cautious optimism*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5389450/1/The-Finale-of-the-Ultimate-Meta-Mega-Crossover
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Score: 10
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Created: 2015-07-19T18:59:02
Post:
Comments:
u/totorox92 [+4] Because I want to Know (2 hours later)
I can not wait to hack out of this universe. Farther up and further in!
u/Chronophilia [+4] sci-fi ≠ futurology (3 hours later)
There is no way out. The Land of Infinite Information already contains every possible universe. Even the ones outside it are inside it.
u/MugaSofer [+4] (18 hours later)
To the logically impossible universes!
u/gabbalis [+1] (2 days later)
It's not just turtles all the way down, It's an infinity dimensional turtle manifold!
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (4 days later)
It's turtles all the way up! Every turtle has to be infinitely strong to bear the weight of all the turtles above it.
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (2 months later)
I don't understand.
u/ancientcampus [+1] juggling kittens (a day later)
Love the reference. ;)
u/None [+3] (9 hours later)
So does anyone want to like explain this? Like wtf is actually going on? (Also, who the eff are half these people?)
u/Escapement [+8] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (a day later)
What is going on: A bunch of people are recursively finding out that their universe was a simulation on another universe's computer, which universe itself was actually a subset of a universe accessed by a magic spell, which universe itself was a daydream of a higher being... etc, etc, ad nauseam, for hundreds and hundreds of layers, each time picking up people who thought of that 'layer' of reality as the actual baseline. The settings that are awoken into explicitly on camera are the Zones of Thought by Vinge, and Permutation City by Greg Egan. The characters are from books, anime, games, etc. and even fanfic, and many of the characters hail from settings where dimensional travel is possible in one form or another - and they've been clumping together into a group to travel into different universes pretty constantly as a growing society.
As to who the specific characters are, well, from the reviews of the fic is a character list I cannot better (I don't know who the shaven man talking of neutrinos is either - anyone here?)
Pham and Ravna, of course (who were new to me, as stated)
Haruhi (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and sequel light novels/anime - Hruhi and Kyon (below) seem to appear here in a fanfic version, though)
Harold Shea (the Mathmagic series by Lyon Sprague duCamp/Fletcher Pratt)
Merlin (not the wizard, but Corwin's son from the second Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny)
Jake Stonebender (from the Callahan's Saloon series by Spider Robinson)
Xander Harris, Jedi? (from the Buffy/Star Wars x-over fanfic?)
Lazarus Long (from the classic books by Robert A. Heinlein)
Shinji Ikari x3 (originally from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime, of course, but here apparently in fanfic incarnations, from Thousand Shinji, Shinji and Warhammer 40K and, probably, Once more With Feeling (?) in particular)
Asuka Langley Soryu (also NGE, but which version? Maybe another fanfic, and if so, which one?)
Belldandy and Keiichi Morisato (from Oh! My Goddess manga/anime)
Alice (in a grown up version; originally from the classics Alice in Wonderland/behind the Mirror by Lewis Carrol)
Kyon (also from the Haruhi Suzumiya novels/anime)
Mr. Spock (from Star Trek, of course, but for completeness' sake: the (original) TV series by Gene Roddenberry etc.)
Oops, I also can't place the "tall man with a shaved head", even if his neutrino question seems... familiar.. somehow...
Sgt.(?) Vimes (from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett)
Miles Vorkosigan (by the appropriately named Miles Vorkosigan series by... mompls... ah, right, Lois McMaster Bujold)
Harry Potter ("boy with the scar on his forehead" is nowadays such an obvious description... ;) from the overly famous Harry Potter novels/movies by J. K. Rowling, of course)
Mr. Rogers ("man in the bloodstained sweater" obviously refers to the end of "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" by Lemon Demon, not to the original from the PBS children's TV series "Mr Rogers Neighborhood". EXTREMELY fitting, since the song/video is just as full of cameos as this story)
Tohsaka Rin (this one I had to google: from Fate/Stay Night which I don't know (yet))
John Constantine (blonde, trenchcoat, complainer; from DC comic's Vertigo line, Hellblazer and Books of Magic etc.)
Kenny (orange winter coat - from the South Park TV series, of course)
Belgarath (from the Belgariad and Malloreon Sagas by David Eddings)
Clarence Shandon (from the appropriately-named book "Silverlock" by John Myers Myers, another cameo-heavy story)
The Doctor (from the longest-running SF series ever, BBC's "Doctor Who", of course)
Daniel Jackson (from the Stargate movie/series, of course)
Dream (Morpheus, the Sandman etc., also from DC's Vertigo line Sandman, originally written by Neil Gaiman)
One of the Monty Python crew ('Get on with it!')
Nathan Brazil (from the Wellworld series by Jack Chalker)
The Nameless One (from the old but still GREAT D&D computer game "Planescape: Torment", the main character)
Prince Adam of Eternia (aka He-Man, TV series "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" etc. - "as if adressing an audience of six-year-olds" - LOL)
Neo (aka "Mr. Anderson" ;) from the "Matrix" series)
"Number forty-two! Maybe this time I'll learn the Question" - Arthur Dent (most probably, but could be any other of the cast of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams)
"Tvelve! Tvelve vorlds! A-ha-ha!" - who else? The Count (from Sesame Street by Jim Henson etc.)
"Seventeen is the mystical number" - Vlad Taltos? (from Steven Brust's "Jhereg" series)
Just Mentioned by Miles: Dorothy and Glinda (the Good Witch) - from the Oz series by L. Frank Baum and successors)
Maria Deluca (also new to me, as stated)
Xena, Warrior Princess (from the TV series, of course)
[...]
(Oh, and character note: Squirrel Girl is from Marvel Comics, a character with mostly trivial or ridiculous powers - except for her uncanny (humorous) ability to win any fight, with anyone, no matter how powerful - the Hulk, Wolverine, Galactus ... and obviously, here, God/Jehovah - OFF-SCREEN!)
Characters who show up at the end party:
Menolly (from the Dragonriders of Pern series' Harper's Hall trilogy by Anne McCaffrey)
An unnamed Lensman (or maybe "the" Lensman (main character), Kimball Kinnison, from (most of) the classic "Lensman" book series by E. E. "Doc" Smith and successors - there's even a (bad) anime around)
As stated, I unfortunately can't place the "sensuous woman whose deep oaken irises were marred by a single crimson-red dart."
For anyone curious, the exhaustive character list already posted was missing the woman with a blood-red dart in her eye; she is undoubtedly Phèdre nó Delaunay of the Kushiel series by author Jacqueline Carey.
Gillian Baskin (from "Startide Rising", one book of the Uplift series by David Brin)
u/FeepingCreature [+3] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
Re the tall man with the shaved head, I also don't know who he is but the "blocks 40% of neutrinos" is Scrith, of which the Ringworld is built.
u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (3 days later)
Shinji Ikari x3 (originally from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime, of course, but here apparently in fanfic incarnations, from Thousand Shinji, Shinji and Warhammer 40K and, probably, Once more With Feeling (?) in particular)
Huh. I thought these were Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion, End of Evangelion, and Rebuild of Evangelion, the three 'canon' works.
u/Escapement [+5] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (3 days later)
They are labelled: 1000, 4 x 10^4, and +1
As in:
1000 = Thousand Shinji
4 x 10^4 = Shinji and Warhamer 40,000
+1 = 1 more = Once More With Feeling
Corroborating evidence:
The sequel to Thousand Shinji, the Open Door, is on the Less Wrong fanfic favorites list, and on the Yudkowsky favorites list where he posted this story.
Shinji and Warhammer 40k is on the Less Wrong fanfic favorites list
u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (3 days later)
Oh neat. I must've misremembered the numbers.
The Asuka sounds like the Asuka from Rebuild of Evangelion, though.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+2] Champion of Justice and Reason (a day later)
Wow, that was really interesting.
Also, that line about "can't run a computer program without a computer" really seemed significant. Now that I think of it, what would a fundamentally basic universe even LOOK like? Maybe there ISN'T any fundamentally basic universe, and there are infinite levels of recursion in both directions. Although it might also be more of a hierarchical web, since there's no rule that says that all universes must contain only one simulation, or any simulation.
But infinity isn't a number, so how can existence be infinitely recursive?
I suppose maybe there IS a base reality, and it's a logically impossible universe. Or maybe everything that exists at the most basic level is pure abstract math or something. Wait a minute, what's the simplest possible operation that a computer can do? Because if if the more basic a reality gets, the more computing power it has devoted to it and any simulations within it, and the simpler their laws of nature/magic get. How simple could the laws of nature for a reality get as you go down to more and more basic levels? Isn't the most basic operation a computer can do a selection between 0 and 1, or on/off, etc? No wait, that's base 2. Maybe the most basic reality is a computer operating in base 1. But then, you couldn't really have enough detail to make a universe if your only law of nature is state={0 or 1}, and definitely not anything simpler than that, either. So what's the minimum amount of bits needed for something to be detailed enough to be considered a "universe"? I probably don't know what I'm talking about at all...
u/Chronophilia [+1] sci-fi ≠ futurology (4 days later)
Maybe this universe is the base reality! Who knows?
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Somehow this was very terrifying to me.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (a day later)
At least it makes sense, as opposed to the canon ending of Permutation City. To me, reading this was a huge relief.
u/ancientcampus [+2] juggling kittens (21 hours later)
For what it's worth, I have not read Fire Upon the Deep nor Permutation City. I enjoyed the story just fine when I read it last year. I'm optimistic that I'll have forgotten enough details that it won't spoil those stories if I ever get around to them.
u/traverseda [+2] With dread but cautious optimism (21 hours later)
It didn't for me, regardless.