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The Strontium Dog is Judge Dredd's future topic

Started by PsychoGoatee, 13 February, 2022, 02:02:46 AM

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Dash Decent

I vaguely remember a Dredd story about a Brit-Cit agent (based on a young Ipcress File type Michael Caine, - or perhaps Alec Guinness Smiley?) trying to find out some details in MC1 in order to avoid it happening in the future - at least in this dimension.  Didn't that imply there were different timelines and it wasn't necessarily something that happens in the future of Dredd's version of the world?
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Richard

That was The Americans by Al Ewing, in Meg 283.

JayzusB.Christ

Aye, it was brilliant, that one.  A proper old-skool Dredd with a nice nod to continuity (or at least lampshading the lack thereof).

It doesn't quite square up in my head, Judgement Day trousers of time or no  - Strontium Dog begins with the 2050 (IRRC) nuclear war creating mutants as if they were something new, but with Dredd in the past the world was obviously full of mutants already.  Also Brit-Cit turning back into Britain and looking a lot more like the Britain of our present than the Dreddworld version ever did. 

But don't forget that Nelson Bunker Kreelman is already known to Dredd! 
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

sheridan

The 2150 war is the one which sets off the Strontworld.

My take on it (without carefully examining the source material) runs along the following lines:


       
  • we've seen loads of mutants in the Cursed Earth, Oz and the surrounding oceans - not so many in other regions
  • what we've seen of Brit-Cit has been rather patchy -  while some parts are built up, other parts could still be rather rural
  • former Mutant Army members / mutant S/D agents are banned from Earth without special dispensation - meaning we haven't see a whole lot of Earth in Johnny's time.  Off the top of my head I can only think of Antarctic City and Milton Keynes


Anyway, I'm really hoping that Rebellion carry out a mega-epic event in our 2028.

Southstreeter

There are loads of mutants in SD that are older than Johnny (like, most of the mutant army in Portrait). So they must have existed in Britain well before 2050.

sheridan

Quote from: Southstreeter on 14 February, 2022, 10:09:42 PM
There are loads of mutants in SD that are older than Johnny (like, most of the mutant army in Portrait). So they must have existed in Britain well before 2050.

" not so many " does not mean the same as 'none'.

Link Prime

Quote from: sheridan on 14 February, 2022, 09:08:59 PM
Anyway, I'm really hoping that Rebellion carry out a mega-epic event in our 2028.

If so, it would be judicious if they had a Wagner script already in the can.

Robin Low

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 14 February, 2022, 01:26:12 PM
Paging Robin Low! Paging Robin Low!

Most people know where I stand. Most people don't care, either.

The fact is, if Strontium Dog is not Dredd's future, then Johnny Alpha cannot come back and help defeat Sabbat, in which case Sabbat almost certainly wins. The Alpha future has to happen or else the Dredd present won't be.

Making Strontium Dog the future of Dredd is not only logical, it's also entirely harmless. Come 2050+ we can still have our increasingly elderly Dredd pottering around in MC1. There are just a few more nuclear deserts.

However, it's not going to happen, although we might get an episode in 2028 or whenever in which it's referenced and then quietly brushed under the carpet.

It's a shame really, because it would make a great story. "Nobody ever knew who fired the first missile - but suddenly the whole world went crazy!" Actually, we do know. It was was Dredd, because who else would have the guts to burn the planet in 2050 in order to save it in 2114?

Regards,

Robin

Art

QuoteThat was The Americans by Al Ewing, in Meg 283.

At the end of the day I'd have to go with what Al said in this interview: Either continuity makes the story better, or makes the story worse. And if it makes the story worse, even by a fraction of a degree, you really don't need to bring it up.

Then again I am still a massive nerd and will totally base an entire story around something mentioned in Prog 3 and not really brought up again.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Robin Low on 15 February, 2022, 07:34:19 PM
The fact is, if Strontium Dog is not Dredd's future, then Johnny Alpha cannot come back and help defeat Sabbat, in which case Sabbat almost certainly wins. The Alpha future has to happen or else the Dredd present won't be.

And, again, this has been shown not to be how time travel works in the Dredd universe, repeatedly.
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Richard

Quoteif Strontium Dog is not Dredd's future, then Johnny Alpha cannot come back and help defeat Sabbat

I don't think that's necessarily right. Sabbat must have changed the timeline, because how could a world war and the destruction of whole mega-cities not change anything?

Dredd is certainly in Alpha's past, so Alpha can go back there, but Alpha is only one of Dredd's several possible futures.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 15 February, 2022, 08:12:21 PM
And, again, this has been shown not to be how time travel works in the Dredd universe, repeatedly.

To illustrate: City of the Damned never happened. Dredd returned from the future and eliminated the threat before it could occur. At the point where he took out Owen Krysler, the timeline diverged and City of the Damned ceased to be the future of Dredd's timeline.

However, when Dredd and Anderson jumped back to 'present day' MC-1 from the future, the timelines had not yet diverged, which is why Dredd still needed replacement eyes, and there's a zombie Joe in the Black Museum.
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Art

There was that terrible one where Dredd is The Terminator going to our near future to stop space bugs hatching in his present...

Tjm86

... not to forget (or perhaps we should ...) the one from the hotdog run where Dredd and the cadets get dumped in a whirlpool back to the day of the war ....

Roughly the same time IIRC.

Richard

In that last example Dredd didn't change the past.