From: George.Harris@launchpad.unc.edu (George Harris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: RQ: Runelords and Heroes question
Date: 20 Dec 92 19:46:00 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service

In article <BzKD3z.8t2@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> burdickd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Dakin Burdick) writes:
>I see two problems with changing the past.

	Only two?  :-]

>Either you go into the past and return to the same future (there is
>only ONE future/timeline that can be accessed in this scenario), in
>which case YOU as well as everybody else will be affected by the
>change.  Thus, you will not remember changing history (in a
>timeless era, interesting) but rather your own memory will change
>as you return to the mundane plane.  Instead of changing history, you
>will remember only reliving the legends.

	The thing is, you aren't strictly speaking going into the past, but 
rather to a place where time does not exist.  In this place, events and rel-
ationships between beings are for the most part fixed.  History, or the time
since time began, or the mundane plane, is in a large part shaped by the con-
ditions of the Godtime.  Now, if you are capable of altering the Godtime in a
significant way, then you are extremely powerful (in heroquesting terms, you 
have a very high Will).  In fact, you have power that is comparable to the 
power of the weakest of the gods.  However, you are not bound by the Compromise
so you can return to the mundane plane.

	Since you are so powerful, and have such a strong will, you are able 
to maintain your identity even when you are changing the universe; thus, you
can remember changing the "past".  What it would be like for people who remain
in the mundane plane while you're mucking about with the Godtime is unclear.
What happens to those people who are initiates of both Orlanth and Elmalio?
Obviously, mucking about with the Godtime can have some pretty severe conse-
quences for mundanes, and for the Gods as well.  I believe this may have been 
a large part of the motivation for wiping out the Godlearners, that is, that
they *were* doing this, and it was screwing everybody up.

	So, yes, there are problems with doing this sort of thing, but since
you can't do it unless you have power on the order of, say, Arkat or Harrek,
or forbidden knowledge of the Godlearners, well, it doesn't come up much.

>The other possibility is that you create an ALTERNATE timeline when
>you alter the events of the Godtime.  Of course, this can mean that
>you MAY be able to return to your own (unchanged) timeline, OR that
>you can only go to the alternate timeline (which of course has it's
>own YOU as well).  You might have to fight your alter-ego, or
>not be able to return to the mundane plane, or as in the first
>scenario the Gods may eliminate the anomaly by assuming that your
>alter-ego went to Godtime as well, and merge your essence with
>his/hers.  Thus you would again remember reliving the legend, not
>changing it.

	I don't think this general scenario fits into Gloranthan myth very well.
For one things, the Gods certainly wouldn't eliminate anyone on the mundane
plane, as they are prevented from doing so by the Compromise.  However, there
are tales of there being multiple Arkats after his fight with Gbaji, but I
think there may be other forces at work there.

>Dakin
>burdickd@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
--
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste more like
prunes than rhubarb does."		-Groucho Marx

George.Harris@launchpad.unc.edu		or, preferably	gharris@jade.tufts.edu
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