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Bremen
Jul 20, 2006

Our God..... is an awesome God
Yeah, my take on it is that her only real "ability" is that she can access memories from other potential worlds. The Manabu that was on the plane is still dead, but as a result all the other Manabus know that Jaunt was willing to blow up a plane to end the investigation. It doesn't really let her change the world in any way she can't do herself, with the special knowledge it grants her.

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Einander
Sep 14, 2008

"Yeh've forged a magnificent sword."

"This one's only practice. The real sword I intend to forge will be three times longer."

"Can there really be a sword as monstrous as that in this world?"

"Yes. I can see that sword... Somewhere out there..."
It's still an avenue worth considering, though -- even if her ability can't do it, she can find out whether it's possible for someone's ability to do it. Gaku's real strength isn't the ability to do something, it's the ability to know, absolutely, whether something can be done. Light determines the ending before it even starts the journey, after all; that's why she remembers living to her forties.

Bremen
Jul 20, 2006

Our God..... is an awesome God

Einander posted:

It's still an avenue worth considering, though -- even if her ability can't do it, she can find out whether it's possible for someone's ability to do it. Gaku's real strength isn't the ability to do something, it's the ability to know, absolutely, whether something can be done. Light determines the ending before it even starts the journey, after all; that's why she remembers living to her forties.

I don't think her ability works exactly like that; she can't, for example, use it to see what the lottery numbers will be before they're drawn, nor could she know the plane was going to blow up before the equivalent time in which it did. One of her selves had to join Jaunt and talk to Alice before she/they knew what really happened. She knew what happened with some of her future identities because it's being narrated as a flashback. It might work to find someone to save Yukari, if only because her infinite selves could potentially check every single person in the world for the ability to do so, then report back.

Obviously, the call that Yukari was going to die doesn't fit that pattern. What exactly happened with that may be revealed in the future.

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



The way I saw the flash forward was that Gaku, as a collective, "observed" the future where she had reached middle age without Yukari and decided that she didn't want that sort of world. So she collapsed it, denying the possibility of it ever happening regardless of which Gaku's world it is

Now for speculation I'm going to have to spoil Bioshock Infinite's ending since it seems apropos to this series I'm assuming that it will eventually end with Gaku collapsing all worlds where Yukari leaves for Jaunt, similar to how Elizabeth collapsed all worlds where Booker became Comstock

Gyre
Feb 25, 2007

Cao Ni Ma posted:

The way I saw the flash forward was that Gaku, as a collective, "observed" the future where she had reached middle age without Yukari and decided that she didn't want that sort of world. So she collapsed it, denying the possibility of it ever happening regardless of which Gaku's world it is

Now for speculation I'm going to have to spoil Bioshock Infinite's ending since it seems apropos to this series I'm assuming that it will eventually end with Gaku collapsing all worlds where Yukari leaves for Jaunt, similar to how Elizabeth collapsed all worlds where Booker became Comstock

Yeah, what with her "experiencing" the plane crash before it happened, I'm speculating that what we're seeing is what she experienced when she got the call about Yukari dying. Gaku is Schrödinger's cat, and at the point right before the call she's neither "alive" (heed the call, Yukari doesn't go to Jaunt) nor "dead" (ignore the call, Yukari goes to Jaunt). Then she gets a call from the "dead" Gaku who checked out all possible futures from her "death" and determined that Yukari being dead sucks. That collapses the wave function to a state where Gaku is "alive" because she listens this time.

Vapor Moon
Feb 24, 2010

Neato!
The Human Font

Gyre posted:

Yeah, what with her "experiencing" the plane crash before it happened, I'm speculating that what we're seeing is what she experienced when she got the call about Yukari dying. Gaku is Schrödinger's cat, and at the point right before the call she's neither "alive" (heed the call, Yukari doesn't go to Jaunt) nor "dead" (ignore the call, Yukari goes to Jaunt). Then she gets a call from the "dead" Gaku who checked out all possible futures from her "death" and determined that Yukari being dead sucks. That collapses the wave function to a state where Gaku is "alive" because she listens this time.


Then who is the observer, who will lift the lid and determine the outcome?

Whaleporn
May 6, 2007

This is me on my bike pretty cool huh?

FillInTheBlank posted:


Then who is the observer, who will lift the lid and determine the outcome?


It's us of course. A manga is in a state of flux until it is observed or spoiled.

The Vosgian Beast
Aug 13, 2011

Business is slow
This slowly went from cute, refreshingly non-creepy fluff, to intro to philosophy fiction that's decently interesting and darker than I took it for to some combination of :aaaaa: and :black101:

Bremen
Jul 20, 2006

Our God..... is an awesome God

Gyre posted:

Yeah, what with her "experiencing" the plane crash before it happened, I'm speculating that what we're seeing is what she experienced when she got the call about Yukari dying. Gaku is Schrödinger's cat, and at the point right before the call she's neither "alive" (heed the call, Yukari doesn't go to Jaunt) nor "dead" (ignore the call, Yukari goes to Jaunt). Then she gets a call from the "dead" Gaku who checked out all possible futures from her "death" and determined that Yukari being dead sucks. That collapses the wave function to a state where Gaku is "alive" because she listens this time.

Except she didn't experience the crash before it happened. The Gaku we followed woke up having experienced the crash at the time it would have happened, if she hadn't convinced Yukari's family not to go. She has the memory of other possibilities, but only up to the time she is currently at.

Zahki
Nov 7, 2004

Bremen posted:

Except she didn't experience the crash before it happened. The Gaku we followed woke up having experienced the crash at the time it would have happened, if she hadn't convinced Yukari's family not to go. She has the memory of other possibilities, but only up to the time she is currently at.

Why does she know how her 40 year old selfs life played out then?

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
Because this current worldline lives to at 40 years of age. The story is being narrated back to us.

Bremen
Jul 20, 2006

Our God..... is an awesome God

Zahki posted:

Why does she know how her 40 year old selfs life played out then?

I don't think she does; that part was narrated as a flashback. At some point in the future she looks back at all the possible lives she could have lived. But in the end, she "chooses" the one where she joins Jaunt and finds Alice. Then we go back and experience that potential linearly.

MadRhetoric
Feb 18, 2011

I POSSESS QUESTIONABLE TASTE IN TOUHOU GAMES

Whaleporn posted:

It's us of course. A manga is in a state of flux until it is observed or spoiled.

If this turns out to be the case, it will be one of the best examples of postmodernist fiction ever. It even makes sense with the arc phrase of When does a story begin? The meaning of something, of anything is only determined when it is interpreted. But given the imperfections of expression and of signifiers, that meaning is in flux until observed and understood. You can run though a bunch of different meanings, of different story threads and ideas until you lock on to the one you want to go with. You collapse the wave function and that gets your story.

This owns so much.

That Works
Jul 22, 2006

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy


Relax guys I know how this ends. Given the infinite worlds hypothesis there's a storyline where our protagonist runs the largest call center in human history.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011
Holy crap - this is amazing - Totally blew my mind considering the silly sounding premise.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
I can definitely see what people like about this, don't get me wrong, but the science dumps combined with the way rape came up like three or four times in the alternate lives bit just turned me off. That's probably me own weird hang ups, though? And the 'this is the point of no return' page came off as trying way too hard, to me.

The Lord of Hats
Aug 22, 2010

Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?

Bremen posted:

Alright, the sheer bizarreness of the premise has convinced me to give this a try. I'm only on the first chapter, but I do like the art style.

Edit: Chapter 5 & 6, that got weird fast.

Edit2: Looking back now, calling chapters 5 and 6 weird is just so quaint.

I saw this post when I was on chapters 5 and 6, and even knowing that more weirdness is coming, I was still blindsided by the turn the story took into :psyduck:-ville. I'd have been fine with the possible universe where the series kept going in the vein of the first 6 chapters, but drat if UNLIMITED SELF WORKS isn't incredible too.

Goku Klux Klan
Mar 15, 2004
Obligatory Custom Title
Just read through the 11 chapters that are out and this has quickly become one of the most interesting manga's I've read.

Really love how the science isn't just babble and is actually used mostly correctly.

jonjonaug
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
Caught up with the manga. It's pretty good. The weird superpowers and their creative usage are some Nasu level poo poo (the long explanations of everything in a way that would feel rough even if this were text only also remind me a lot of Nasu).

Reading the translator's blog though, this worries me a bit:

quote:

Also, we’ve finally caught up with the backlog of TL’d scripts Moogy had prepared, so that means the next one’s now depending on him. He said he’d get back to it soon though, so it shouldn’t take too long.

Past experiences in waiting for Moogy to translate things have led me to the conclusion that "not too long" for Moogy can mean anything from a few months to over two years.

Einander
Sep 14, 2008

"Yeh've forged a magnificent sword."

"This one's only practice. The real sword I intend to forge will be three times longer."

"Can there really be a sword as monstrous as that in this world?"

"Yes. I can see that sword... Somewhere out there..."

jonjonaug posted:

Caught up with the manga. It's pretty good. The weird superpowers and their creative usage are some Nasu level poo poo (the long explanations of everything in a way that would feel rough even if this were text only also remind me a lot of Nasu).

Reading the translator's blog though, this worries me a bit:


Past experiences in waiting for Moogy to translate things have led me to the conclusion that "not too long" for Moogy can mean anything from a few months to over two years.

He translated 12 already, actually. That's on the scanlator now.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice
I went into going from "Well that's interesting." to "Well that got weird fast." To "Holy hell when did I end up in an manga version of Torchwood!?" to basically being dropped down a chute into crazy land with no way back!

This could be a legitimate dark episode of Doctor Who really.

Robot Uprising
Sep 19, 2006

Spinning Buzz Saws
I love the direction this took , I saw all the recommendations and read first chapter; I thought I had it all down. "Oh yeah another stupid high school thing with a wacky character" how wrong I was. And it continues to be utterly brilliant at breaking all my expectations so far.

Cant wait to see where this goes , here's hoping it manages to keep interesting when the main character has a seemingly unbeatable superpower of playing though every possible event and picking the "best" one. My bet is it will get sacrificed somehow once Manabu achieves her goal of resurrecting Yukari

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



Robot Uprising posted:

Cant wait to see where this goes , here's hoping it manages to keep interesting when the main character has a seemingly unbeatable superpower of playing though every possible event and picking the "best" one. My bet is it will get sacrificed somehow once Manabu achieves her goal of resurrecting Yukari

I'm hoping it actually ends with a sort of cliffhanger where Turned A Gaku is able to contact Gaku right after Alice asks her whether or not she's capable of protecting Yukari. Gaku, now melded with the rest of the Gaku's, smugly says "Yes I most certainly can" and just end it there. Maybe an epilogue chapter after that describing their life after that. It would be :black101: as gently caress.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice

Robot Uprising posted:

I love the direction this took , I saw all the recommendations and read first chapter; I thought I had it all down. "Oh yeah another stupid high school thing with a wacky character" how wrong I was. And it continues to be utterly brilliant at breaking all my expectations so far.

Cant wait to see where this goes , here's hoping it manages to keep interesting when the main character has a seemingly unbeatable superpower of playing though every possible event and picking the "best" one. My bet is it will get sacrificed somehow once Manabu achieves her goal of resurrecting Yukari


For me the most interesting notion is that the "primary" powers of a sufficiently empowered character can spill over and grant nifty and powerful "secondary" powers into the other characters.

Like suppose Tenjou accepted the fact she's made of a good deal of metal, drat. Girl of Steel? Able to beat up random thugs? Kinda lame in comparison to Hatou but you get the point, Marii is literally a girl who can "give" powers by accident to others with whatever was laying around.

Maybe that's why Tenjou is so angry? She drew the short straw in the super power lottery!



My criticism with the manga it is a little too fast paced, it makes for an awesome read but it doesn't really "last" I think unless it manages to go on for a *lot* longer. Like the ramifications of each chapter maybe could've been more fleshed out for a couple more.

Another Poster
Apr 12, 2008
Apparently the manga skip alot of the Alice story from the novel. Hopefully we get an anime that stay really close to the novel.

veekie
Dec 25, 2007

Dice of Chaos

Raenir Salazar posted:


For me the most interesting notion is that the "primary" powers of a sufficiently empowered character can spill over and grant nifty and powerful "secondary" powers into the other characters.

Like suppose Tenjou accepted the fact she's made of a good deal of metal, drat. Girl of Steel? Able to beat up random thugs? Kinda lame in comparison to Hatou but you get the point, Marii is literally a girl who can "give" powers by accident to others with whatever was laying around.

Maybe that's why Tenjou is so angry? She drew the short straw in the super power lottery!



Somehow I doubt the ramifications of Tenjou are going to stay repressed and ignored. There is plenty of potential there.Besides, she's having difficulty because she was conscious through the operation and badly traumatised as a result. That can be worked around

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
You mean mysterious parallel-universe/yukarionic ideal metal. Manabu's superpowers came off some bizarre curiosity that no one saw coming.

And funny that Mad's posting in this thread straight after the Madoka thread, because Manabu's totally the Homura to Yukari's Madoka. Considering the set-up and the parallel foreshadowing of the lives Manaby has wrought, she's probably going to do (is doing/has done) something terrible. Which is great, a tragic hero who will do anything to achieve her goal. It helps that even amongst those where she does manage to contact Alice, this is merely the best of all possible worlds.

ActionZero
Jan 22, 2011

I act once more in
imitation of light

Phobophilia posted:

And funny that Mad's posting in this thread straight after the Madoka thread, because Manabu's totally the Homura to Yukari's Madoka. Considering the set-up and the parallel foreshadowing of the lives Manaby has wrought, she's probably going to do (is doing/has done) something terrible. Which is great, a tragic hero who will do anything to achieve her goal. It helps that even amongst those where she does manage to contact Alice, this is merely the best of all possible worlds.

I think in this case though there's not exactly danger of anyone trying to claim that Gaku is heroic and noble. She's already done horrible things to Alice in multiple timelines and she's outright stated that she'll do horrible things to her in timelines to come.

I don't suppose anyone who's better at image editing than me could make a decent avatar of the front-most Gaku in this page? I tried but I'm terrible at anything like this so it keeps coming out looking like poo poo. Tried lightening the dark background but it had horrible results.

ActionZero fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 4, 2013

nielsm
Jun 1, 2009



I need to check the forum index a little more often, that was an amazing read. Thanks for posting this thread! (And I've sent the recommendation on as well.)


ActionZero posted:

I don't suppose anyone who's better at image editing than me could make a decent avatar of the front-most Gaku in this page? I tried but I'm terrible at anything like this so it keeps coming out looking like poo poo. Tried lightening the dark background but it had horrible results.

Like this? (Lightened the background somewhat and added a vignette effect to highlight her face more.)

The Lord of Hats
Aug 22, 2010

Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?

ActionZero posted:

I think in this case though there's not exactly danger of anyone trying to claim that Gaku is heroic and noble. She's already done horrible things to Alice in multiple timelines and she's outright stated that she'll do horrible things to her in timelines to come.

I don't suppose anyone who's better at image editing than me could make a decent avatar of the front-most Gaku in this page? I tried but I'm terrible at anything like this so it keeps coming out looking like poo poo. Tried lightening the dark background but it had horrible results.

Can you really judge a person by the actions of their self in an alternate universe? I'm not arguing that Gaku is the most morally coherent person, as it's pretty clear she's incredibly focused on her goal. But it seems to me like Gaku Prime didn't really think of those things as actual options, and that is why she is successful (and therefore, Gaku Prime). She succeeds because she isn't Sadistic Gaku or Violent Gaku, or Pleading With Alice Gaku. If she were more willing to do terrible things, she would fail, but at the same time is still determined to do what it takes.

It's really weird to think of how much knowledge Gaku must have accumulated at this point. She's got the memories of at the very least hundreds of versions of herself.

Insurrectionist
May 21, 2007
I saw it mentioned somewhere, and it's funny considering recent developments that the manga opened with Gaku literally having a screw loose. :haw:

ActionZero
Jan 22, 2011

I act once more in
imitation of light

The Lord of Hats posted:

Can you really judge a person by the actions of their self in an alternate universe? I'm not arguing that Gaku is the most morally coherent person, as it's pretty clear she's incredibly focused on her goal. But it seems to me like Gaku Prime didn't really think of those things as actual options, and that is why she is successful (and therefore, Gaku Prime). She succeeds because she isn't Sadistic Gaku or Violent Gaku, or Pleading With Alice Gaku. If she were more willing to do terrible things, she would fail, but at the same time is still determined to do what it takes.

It's really weird to think of how much knowledge Gaku must have accumulated at this point. She's got the memories of at the very least hundreds of versions of herself.


I don't think of them as being different selves. Gaku doesn't refer to "Another me did this" or "Another me will do this" she always said "I did this" and "I will do this" so she clearly thinks of her other selves as being her, and their actions being her own. If she can remember everything that they experience then is there really any difference between them? Them being different wouldn't really go with the whole thing about how she'll be like light and try every route until she finds the best one.

nielsm posted:

Like this? (Lightened the background somewhat and added a vignette effect to highlight her face more.)
You are a good person.

Paracelsus
Apr 6, 2009

bless this post ~kya

The Lord of Hats posted:

Can you really judge a person by the actions of their self in an alternate universe?
If you're really committed to the idea of actual infinite possibilities, then it means that every single person has an alternate-universe version who is at this very moment feasting on the entrails of a baby they just killed on a whim. Everybody loses the morality game!

Xyven
Jun 4, 2005

Check to induce a ban

Paracelsus posted:

If you're really committed to the idea of actual infinite possibilities, then it means that every single person has an alternate-universe version who is at this very moment feasting on the entrails of a baby they just killed on a whim. Everybody loses the morality game!

But on the other hand, most of us haven't formed a gestalt consciousness with our alternate-universe Hitler self. In some way, Gaku actually IS all those people at the same time

Zassiliss
May 31, 2011

the cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea
One of the things I really like about the plot so far is how Gaku is already fully aware of the terrible consequences of devoting herself entirely to finding Yukari's killers and demanding an explanation from them (at least for now). In a lot of traditional revenge stories, part of what makes the hero so tragic is that they can't see the forest for the trees, and end up hurting those close to them to achieve their ultimate goal. Gaku already knows that she's going to have to do terrible things, that in some ways she's already done terrible things, and she fully accepts that. The most :black101: protagonist

a kitten
Aug 5, 2006

This turned out to be pretty good and leaning towards greatness, I hope it keeps up that quality. And I have to say that it was a pretty funny coincidence that two very different stories I was reading today had mentions of p-zombies. :tinfoil:

I'm loving all the quantum stuff, it makes me appreciate having read all those Stephen Hawking, John Gribbin, and Paul Davies books and it's fun to see some of those ideas used to tell what is a pretty good story.

veekie
Dec 25, 2007

Dice of Chaos

Insurrectionist posted:

I saw it mentioned somewhere, and it's funny considering recent developments that the manga opened with Gaku literally having a screw loose. :haw:

She sure does now. Makes me wonder what'd happen if she DID get the screw installed

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

veekie posted:

She sure does now. Makes me wonder what'd happen if she DID get the screw installed

I suppose it depends on how well 'fixing' the serial killer worked

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice

Wolpertinger posted:

I suppose it depends on how well 'fixing' the serial killer worked

Is that part of the story supposed to make me feel all :black101: and :gonk: at the same time?

One thing that comes to mind though on reflection is a pretty big difference between this manga and say Haruhi is that when Koizumi brings up whatever scientific point that's relevant to the day's adventure iirc always brings goes along a more philosophical tangent, supposedly I guess to help ground Kyon's thoughts when it comes to making his decision to solve the problems of the day in the 'best' way.

Whenever this manga brings up something, it rarely seems to really attempt to grasp the ramifications unless its ramifications served as the bridge to some other concept. The closest we get is p-zombies with Hatou giving a counter example but neither really exploring the concept. Why do I think this important? Well partly because if we take a look at Theology which is kind of like philosophy, there's a lot of concepts that as thought experiments are thoroughly explored. One of them being (and linked) is there a "best" of all possible worlds? Theology seems to include there can't be in the same way there isn't a largest prime number.

I imagine this is something to be/is being explored in the story as a whole serving as a metaphor but it bothers me slightly that with the breakneck pacing whenever a scientific concept is brought up with obvious ramifications there's no in context discussion by the characters to contextualize it.

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Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

ActionZero posted:

I don't think of them as being different selves. Gaku doesn't refer to "Another me did this" or "Another me will do this" she always said "I did this" and "I will do this" so she clearly thinks of her other selves as being her, and their actions being her own. If she can remember everything that they experience then is there really any difference between them? Them being different wouldn't really go with the whole thing about how she'll be like light and try every route until she finds the best one.

She acknowledges them as being her, but even though those routes get results she chooses the route where she doesn't rape/torture people. Knowing beyond doubt that the option is there and that it would work, then choosing a different approach proves that she is a moral person.

She knows that part of her could be that terrible person, then chooses not to be.

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