#because best I got is catastrophizing doesn't tend to make me mad because it doesn't upset me

[elainemorisi]

a) if you would like to indulge in probably overblown panic about world events, do I have the spot on the internet for you

b) are people like, actually commonly incapable of seeing somebody say something they (observer) believes, to a somewhat informed degree, to be probably just catastrophizing and like... dismissing it?

[victorianraccoon]

hello, welcome to my Ted talk.

Today we will be discussing "Tales from the SMP". But before I blow your minds with my theory/realization we must first talk about the butterfly effect.

So, have you heard of the butterfly effect?

The butterfly effect, is used to say the smallest of actions can lead to catastrophic events. Like, for example, a butterfly flapping it's wings causing a hurricane.

Now the important part of the butterfly effect here, is where it was first brought up.

The term was coined by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in 1960. He studying how small changes within his computer algorithm would lead to massive changes to the final outcome.

As cool as that is, Edward Lorenz wasn't the first one to really instill the idea.

Have you ever heard of "A Sound of Thunder"?

It was a short story written by Ray Bradbury, and first published in a magazine during 1952. To pretty much summarize the plot of the story, it is about a man going back in time to kill a dinosaur and then dooming humanity.

To be more specific about it, There is a company that holds onto a time machine, going by the name of "Time Safaris Inc.". Unsurprisingly, They use it for "Time Safaris", in which they let people go back into the past and shoot a dinosaur of their choosing.

The main character of the story is "Eckels", who shows up to Time Safaris Inc. and ends up requesting to shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Before Eckels is brought to the past, the tour guide takes a minute to explain how they plan out the process. The guide says that the Tyrannosaurus Rex they will be shooting is about to be killed by a falling tree. So that upon killing that T. Rex, they will only be effecting the way that the T. Rex dies and don't end up effecting anything else. They even remove the bullets from the bodies as to not leave anything behind.

Time Safaris have also ended up setting precautions. They have set up a metal floating pathway above the ground so they don't touch the ground and end up crushing the plants and/or insects.

The Time Safari guides heavily stress how important it is to Eckels about how he cannot walk off the pathway.

"Don't stray from the path."

What ends up happening for the rest of the story is, once Eckels sees the Tyrannosaurus Rex, he ends up panicking. He steps off the pathway, and crushing a butterfly by mistake. This causes a change within the timeline so major that it greatly effects the human language. There are probably more changes to the present of that world, but we never got to see them.

Now, we are going to take a step back for a moment.

"Don't stray from the path."

Sounds... awfully familiar... doesn't it?

CC!KARL JACOBS, IF I AM PICKING UP WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING DOWN, THEN YOUR CHARATER HAS SCREWED THE TIMELINE

I will rant as to how Time Travler Karl has probably doomed the future in a minute, but I gotta be serious about my theorizing.

We have only seen five episodes of tales of the smp, which is not a ton of sources of info to go off unfortunately. Episode two probably isn't even "cannon", but eh I can't really say.

But we have seen the future once.

Episode three.

The one where Ranboo apparently had a moment where he really liked the idea of bioshock, built a city underwater, then had kids who made false assumptions from screwed up historical documents of the events of the Dream Smp.

There is a problem with this though.

Episode one, he was in the past. Some peasant village that dealt with some murders, probably one of the beginning settlements of flordia.

The issue about this is because since we haven't seen a future without Karl meddling in someway, that means we do not have a untouched future to compare this touched future against. We cannot figure out the type of time traveling rules are in place. Time traveling rules differ from story to story, but they tend to be--

1) Time is set in stone. You change minor events but you cannot change major events.

2) Time is malleable to a point but crushing a bug won't kill the world.

3) Stomping a butterfly to death can somehow mess up the human languages. Sneezing will end the world you are fucked everything is fucked the sun is collapsing because you had to sneeze you bastard you

So, the events that are happening could either be completely time traveler Karl Jacob's fault, or they could always be happening no matter what Karl Jacob's does.

Also there is complete possibility that it's a time loop, which those are confusing as hell and im not even going to try to talk about that.

But if that's the case, that means he's losing his memories for nothing.

All three are quite bad.

Also? There is a complete other possibility on the fact that what is going on in the dream smp could be the "best" timeline. I am not saying Time Traveler Karl thinks that what has happened is the best timeline, but it might be the best it can get.

( The descendent into madness starts here)

Time travel is so fucking complicated in the way that technically speaking if it is happening now in the past, it has already happened here.

Time travel is a very genuinely interesting story telling method, I'm not going to lie about that. It allows for more interesting settings and characters, but holy shit. The part of my brain that enjoys understanding storylines and timelines starts having a conniption whenever its brought up.

But there are so many loopholes that are left behind. Like- Time travel in its self is a Paradox! If the problem has already been solved, then why go back to fix it? Then there is nothing to fix the problem in the first place!

I hope as CC!Karl keeps releasing more of the series it will fill in more holes and answer more questions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just me looking too deep into things when I should just enjoy it face value.

Also? I know I am going somewhat on a tangent here, but I have started and I cannot stop. But there legit biological consequences of time traveling! Do you know how much disease Time Traveler Karl has probably been spreading around???

Because here is the thing about time, as it marches on, so does evolution. Evolution is always happening and occurring, some instances more noticeable then others.

If you were to go back in time, not only would you be exposed to very old diseases that your body might not even be able to recognize since how different they appear, you are also bringing newer, more specialized and better adapted diseases into the past.

Where people's bodies are not trained against those diseases.

AT ALL.

SO NOT ONLY HAS TIME TRAVELER KARL JACOBS FUCKED UP THE TIMELINE WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, HE HAS ALSO UNKNOWNINGLY BECOME A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON.

KARL JACOBS IF YOU INDEED ARE TRYING TO MAKE A CONNECTION TO THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT AND THE STORY "A SOUND OF THUNDER", I HOPE YOUR CHARACTER DOESN'T FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ECKELS.

LITERALLY DO NOT STEP ON THE BUTTERFLY AGAIN PLEASE.

TDLR:

I lose my fucking mind over the possibility of there being a connection of the butterfly effect between "A Sound of Thunder" and tales of the smp.