thoughts pouring from random comments
A comment left by me somewhere on the internet:
"I always liked that term "alternate reality" like somehow the fake stories in the comics are reality to begin with."
Then I thought about it. That set of words, that term, really only exists in comics, doesn't it?
The closest thing in geek language is the Star Trek term "mirror universe"
In most other science fiction, it is refered to as a "parallel universe/world" or in older sci fi as "other dimension/world/earth"
In hypothetical science, the idea is refered to as the Multivere or Meta-universe.
Quantum mechanics even has its own variation with a multitude of wacky names like "relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, and many-universes interpretation"
At least as a literary or theoretic scientific device, the others have some value, the fanboy term "Alternate Reality" does not. It assumes first off that the fictional worlds they exist in are indeed "reality", or a "prime reality", a reality that is somehow more real than any other reality. Seeing how it is fiction in the first place, the term "reality" in any sense is silly. Then if you accept the fake reality as a prime reality, you must then assume that all the other realities are alternates of it... when nothing suggests that any reality is more real.
That is a lot of thinking behind some silly misuse of semantics amongst geeks and comic writers.. but it represents a larger problem in a way. The fact that comic nerds have this "head in the sand" mentality. That the media they read, however unpopular in the mainstream these days.. is the central source of all canon and "reality"
Millions of people saw X-Men and Superman this summer, to millions of people all over the world, these films are the primary source of information on these characters. To a few thousand fanboys, the wave and mass of the minds of millions, are invalid. They only accept the canon of the ghetto comicland. Everything else, cartoons, movies, videogames, etc... it is all just "alternate reality". This is why I have a real problem with the semantics. It implies a fan superiority, not just a wacky term for a literary psuedo-scientific device.
Now excuse me as I shave off my goatee. I must kill and replace my "good" transporter duplicate from that other dimension.
"I always liked that term "alternate reality" like somehow the fake stories in the comics are reality to begin with."
Then I thought about it. That set of words, that term, really only exists in comics, doesn't it?
The closest thing in geek language is the Star Trek term "mirror universe"
In most other science fiction, it is refered to as a "parallel universe/world" or in older sci fi as "other dimension/world/earth"
In hypothetical science, the idea is refered to as the Multivere or Meta-universe.
Quantum mechanics even has its own variation with a multitude of wacky names like "relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, and many-universes interpretation"
At least as a literary or theoretic scientific device, the others have some value, the fanboy term "Alternate Reality" does not. It assumes first off that the fictional worlds they exist in are indeed "reality", or a "prime reality", a reality that is somehow more real than any other reality. Seeing how it is fiction in the first place, the term "reality" in any sense is silly. Then if you accept the fake reality as a prime reality, you must then assume that all the other realities are alternates of it... when nothing suggests that any reality is more real.
That is a lot of thinking behind some silly misuse of semantics amongst geeks and comic writers.. but it represents a larger problem in a way. The fact that comic nerds have this "head in the sand" mentality. That the media they read, however unpopular in the mainstream these days.. is the central source of all canon and "reality"
Millions of people saw X-Men and Superman this summer, to millions of people all over the world, these films are the primary source of information on these characters. To a few thousand fanboys, the wave and mass of the minds of millions, are invalid. They only accept the canon of the ghetto comicland. Everything else, cartoons, movies, videogames, etc... it is all just "alternate reality". This is why I have a real problem with the semantics. It implies a fan superiority, not just a wacky term for a literary psuedo-scientific device.
Now excuse me as I shave off my goatee. I must kill and replace my "good" transporter duplicate from that other dimension.