2000 AD Online Forum

2000 AD => General => Topic started by: zombemybabynow on 14 September, 2009, 10:26:15 AM

Title: Time Bomb
Post by: zombemybabynow on 14 September, 2009, 10:26:15 AM
I'm sure this would be done in us comics rather than 2000ad but, have you ever thought that Alpha could be brought back to life re. a time bomb scenario?!

Just a thought I had whilst reading this weeks S/D
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 11:37:50 AM
Quote from: zombemybabynow on 14 September, 2009, 10:26:15 AM
I'm sure this would be done in us comics rather than 2000ad but, have you ever thought that Alpha could be brought back to life re. a time bomb scenario?!

Just a thought I had whilst reading this weeks S/D

Yes, just to die again. The use of time weapons to resurrect the deed tend to only work for about 10 minutes and then they end up being killed again. I believe because "Time has a way of reclaiming its own" or something along those lines any way
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: zombemybabynow on 14 September, 2009, 12:10:31 PM
Cheers for that info.  I can see by your icon your possibly an S/D expert, in which case; would you be in support of a campaign to get a supporting cast member, (if not wulf,) to say cumcumber?

I miss cucumber!!
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Dark Jimbo on 14 September, 2009, 12:19:15 PM
Trouble with that is you'd have to bring the Strontium Dogs back first to do it, and their story's been on haitus for so long now it's highly unlikely they'll ever be back.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: WoD on 14 September, 2009, 12:50:38 PM
Seen a lot of time bombs recently in the SD stories...or is it just my bad memory?
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Colin YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 12:59:22 PM
Quote from: WoD on 14 September, 2009, 12:50:38 PM
Seen a lot of time bombs recently in the SD stories...or is it just my bad memory?

And with the costs mentioned for them in this weeks Prog I do now wonder if Johnny carried out most of his cases at a lose!
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Mardroid on 14 September, 2009, 01:01:41 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 11:37:50 AM
Yes, just to die again. The use of time weapons to resurrect the deed tend to only work for about 10 minutes and then they end up being killed again. I believe because "Time has a way of reclaiming its own" or something along those lines any way

I understand that's how the time drogue works (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium_Dog#Weapons_and_equipment), (essentially by rewinding a particular person back to when they were alive for a few minutes) but would time-bombs have the same affect? I.e. if you 'bombed' yourself back to when the person was alive, grabbed them and then 'bombed' back... would they still die 10 minutes later? And then of course there's the time machine they've got up in the dog-house.

Also, I read that the original continuity where Alpha died was meant to be 'tales of the legend of Johnny Alpha' from the point of view of new stories, so now he's still alive. Granted current tales could be in either continuity since they're set in the past. (Well, still our future, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 01:45:17 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 12:59:22 PM
Quote from: WoD on 14 September, 2009, 12:50:38 PM
Seen a lot of time bombs recently in the SD stories...or is it just my bad memory?

And with the costs mentioned for them in this weeks Prog I do now wonder if Johnny carried out most of his cases at a lose!

did you mean loss?
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 02:01:52 PM
Quote from: Mardroid on 14 September, 2009, 01:01:41 PMbut would time-bombs have the same affect? I.e. if you 'bombed' yourself back to when the person was alive, grabbed them and then 'bombed' back... would they still die 10 minutes later? And then of course there's the time machine they've got up in the dog-house.

Well, if you did that the person would not have died in the first place. In Alphas case if he was stopped from sacrificing himself no one would have been able to get home more then likely with a similer affect of space time as what happened whem Max Bubba was messing about (when Johnny met Wulf)

Quote from: Mardroid on 14 September, 2009, 01:01:41 PMAlso, I read that the original continuity where Alpha died was meant to be 'tales of the legend of Johnny Alpha' from the point of view of new stories, so now he's still alive. Granted current tales could be in either continuity since they're set in the past. (Well, still our future, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)

Thats what the Wiki page says
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Roger Godpleton on 14 September, 2009, 02:18:02 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 12:59:22 PM
Quote from: WoD on 14 September, 2009, 12:50:38 PM
Seen a lot of time bombs recently in the SD stories...or is it just my bad memory?

And with the costs mentioned for them in this weeks Prog I do now wonder if Johnny carried out most of his cases at a lose!

It could be that the S/D agency forces its agents to carry expensive tech, making them pay for it on credit, ensuring their eternal servitude.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Paul faplad Finch on 14 September, 2009, 02:45:03 PM
Quote from: Mardroid on 14 September, 2009, 01:01:41 PM
I read that the original continuity where Alpha died was meant to be 'tales of the legend of Johnny Alpha' from the point of view of new stories, so now he's still alive. Granted current tales could be in either continuity since they're set in the past. (Well, still our future, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)

I may be wrong here but wasn't that just the explanation given at the start of the Kreeler story that kickstarted the revival to explain away the discrepancies caused by that story having been adapted from a tv pilot script? I thought it had been quietly dropped for subsequent stories. After all, if the new stories could discount the old we wouldn't have needed that Billy Glumm story that existed purely to plug continuity gaps.

I'm not the most reliable person on things like this so feel free to point and laugh if I'm wrong. It's the only way I'll learn.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Colin YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 02:48:39 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 01:45:17 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 12:59:22 PM
Quote from: WoD on 14 September, 2009, 12:50:38 PM
Seen a lot of time bombs recently in the SD stories...or is it just my bad memory?

And with the costs mentioned for them in this weeks Prog I do now wonder if Johnny carried out most of his cases at a lose!

did you mean loss?

No not at all I meant lose 100% and what I meant by that was... arh damnit yep I did mean loss didn't I
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: zombemybabynow on 14 September, 2009, 03:12:55 PM
All hail the typo-nazi!!!























just kidding (hehe)
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 03:16:58 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 01:45:17 PM
did you mean loss?

Did you mean 'resurrect the deed'?  ;)
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 03:24:37 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 11:37:50 AM
The use of time weapons to resurrect the deed tend to only work for about 10 minutes and then they end up being killed again. I believe because "Time has a way of reclaiming its own" or something along those lines any way

Really? I would be pleased if someone more deeply immersed in the world of Strontium Dog than me could point to examples in the stories where this has happened or been discussed. Why, for instance, did Johnny Alpha appeal to necromancers to resurrect the boy in The Moses Incident instead of using time travel? Why didn't he use time travel to rescue Wulf from Max Bubba? There must be a reason. Yet we saw Johnny Alpha take Blood Moon back to a time where the young Johnny Alpha was undercover trying to prevent a suicide bombing, so it didn't matter that there were two Johnny Alphas in the same time zone so long they didn't see each other or touch.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: TordelBack on 14 September, 2009, 03:34:02 PM
QuoteWell, if you did that the person would not have died in the first place. In Alphas case if he was stopped from sacrificing himself no one would have been able to get home more then likely with a similer affect of space time as what happened whem Max Bubba was messing about (when Johnny met Wulf)

This is the nub of it alright.  Spacetime in Strontium Dog is funny stuff - you can make changes in the past which have a direct effect on "the present", with the universe violently adjusting itself to take account of paradoxes, but everyone in the present still remembers things as they had been.  Thus when people with Scanadavian surnames start spontaneously combusting  in The Ragnarok Job because Bubba has slain their ancestors, it's not just as if they never existed - everyone knows they did exist, but the universe has erased them, with a resultant cost to its stability.   

With regard to 'rescuing' Alpha, it would have to be done with the certainty that he (or someone else) return to that moment to carry out the sacrifice, so that the mutants could escape.  And there wouldn't be a lot of point to that.  Also, would the Time Bomb get you to another dimension?  Roadhouse and Journey into Hell suggest dimensional travel is something else again.

Of course this all raises questions about the Sabbat business.  Sabbat was from Alpha's present (despite having studied under Murd the Oppressor, killed 70 years earlier), and went back to Dredd's time to create his zombie apocalypse.  If this hadn't happened in Alpha's past, surely the loss of billions would utterly screw up the future/Alpha's present, if Bubba's actions a millennium earlier were enough to do so?  And if it had already happened, then wasn't sending Johnny back to thwart Sabbat equally risky? 




Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Bolt-01 on 14 September, 2009, 03:36:05 PM
Yeah, but Alpha took Moon 'back' and left him to die, which did not affect the future that Alpha came from.

If Johnny had gone back and saved Wulf from Max Bubba, even if he had not been seen, it would have been an act that changed the past and would therefore have meant that Johnny could not have seen his friend die and then go back in time to save him...
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Dog Deever on 14 September, 2009, 03:42:25 PM
My solution is simpler-
Ignore everything between 'The Sorry Case' and 'The Kreeler Conspiracy'. Problem solved.
My wife bought me SD case files 5 for Chrimbo as she thought I'd want to complete the set. I took it back to the shop unread and exchanged it for the second book of Ennis' 'The Boys'.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 03:45:15 PM
So you can't go back and save somebody in the past because then they will never have died in order to need rescuing in the first place, so you won't have had the idea to go back and rescue them, so with no-one to rescue them they will die, so then you'll have the idea to go back in time and rescue them, so they will never have died in order to need rescuing in the first place, so you won't have had the idea to go back and rescue them, so with no-one to rescue them they will die...

:-\
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Roger Godpleton on 14 September, 2009, 03:51:20 PM
Here is the best solution to all of these conundrums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BxfpbyV-uc
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: radiator on 14 September, 2009, 03:54:29 PM
...And this is why I find a lot of Strontium Dog a bit goofy and annoying. Time travel, unless handled very carefully, can totally overwhelm a story with paradoxes and questions.

It always makes me roll my eyes when there's a time travel element is brought into Judge Dredd - thankfully not very often!
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 04:31:56 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 02:48:39 PMNo not at all I meant lose 100% and what I meant by that was... arh damnit yep I did mean loss didn't I

Thank god for that I was having a hard time figuring out why I didn't understand what I was reading (being dyslexic is an arse)
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 04:42:42 PM
Quote from: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 03:16:58 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 01:45:17 PM
did you mean loss?

Did you mean 'resurrect the deed'?  ;)

Yes I did. I was channeling the spirit of Middenface. I always think it was a shame he was not included in The Moses Incident. "Och! Tha' wee Bairn is no reet! That Scunner Brood made him unDee'd, a Ghaist.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 05:01:15 PM
Quote from: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 03:24:37 PM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 11:37:50 AM
The use of time weapons to resurrect the deed tend to only work for about 10 minutes and then they end up being killed again. I believe because "Time has a way of reclaiming its own" or something along those lines any way

Really? I would be pleased if someone more deeply immersed in the world of Strontium Dog than me could point to examples in the stories where this has happened or been discussed. Why, for instance, did Johnny Alpha appeal to necromancers to resurrect the boy in The Moses Incident instead of using time travel? Why didn't he use time travel to rescue Wulf from Max Bubba? There must be a reason. Yet we saw Johnny Alpha take Blood Moon back to a time where the young Johnny Alpha was undercover trying to prevent a suicide bombing, so it didn't matter that there were two Johnny Alphas in the same time zone so long they didn't see each other or touch.


You can't change Time. You die then you die. Time weapons will only stave off death for a short time not avoid it. The time line will adjust to kill you as with the Time Drogue.

Time weapons are more useful as a form of teleporter. the less accurate you are the more likely you get killed. This is why a time jump of a couple of seconds will dump you in the wake of the planet you are on and why they are used as weapons. (See 'Portrait of a Mutant' and almost every SD story a Time bomb is used).

To make an accurate time jump is always problematic unless you have a machine based in one place or are incredibly accurate with your calculations and even then you can end up with picnic on your shoes (see 'Wanted' and the end of 'The Killing' and 'Max Bubba')

If you mess around too much with time things start going Apocalyptically wrong (see 'Max Bubba')

Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Mike Gloady on 14 September, 2009, 06:22:54 PM
This thread brought to you by NEUROFEN - Britain's Favourite Headache Remedy!
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Leigh S on 14 September, 2009, 07:19:16 PM
i seem to recall the time drogue example is in "Rage", where Alpha resurrects a man he sees killed to get info on the Bubba gang, and the man is then killed again in slightly different circumstances, with the inference that 'time' sets itself right in these instances
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: House of Usher on 14 September, 2009, 09:21:30 PM
If that's the only instance I don't think it rules out time rescues altogether, because the guy's second death could easily have come about by chance.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Dandontdare on 14 September, 2009, 10:25:45 PM
Quote from: Dog Deever on 14 September, 2009, 03:42:25 PM
My solution is simpler-
Ignore everything between 'The Sorry Case' and 'The Kreeler Conspiracy'. Problem solved.
My wife bought me SD case files 5 for Chrimbo as she thought I'd want to complete the set. I took it back to the shop unread and exchanged it for the second book of Ennis' 'The Boys'.
Mine's even simpler. Enjoy every story on it's own merits and don't EVER try to make sense of time travel logic.
Title: Re: Time Bomb
Post by: Colin YNWA on 15 September, 2009, 08:31:04 AM
Quote from: Tweak72 on 14 September, 2009, 04:31:56 PM
Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 14 September, 2009, 02:48:39 PMNo not at all I meant lose 100% and what I meant by that was... arh damnit yep I did mean loss didn't I

Thank god for that I was having a hard time figuring out why I didn't understand what I was reading (being dyslexic is an arse)
My ability to type like the average monkey is a pain in the bum too!