ALT.SF4M

  Sliding into Danger

   • j********o@***.com
     01/07/1999 00:00:000 UTC

     Many SF series rely on the characters continually dropping at random
     into

     trouble: Quantum Leap, Dr. Who, Sliders, etc.. With particular attention
     to

     the last, an unimaginative or overly logical mind that didn't understand
     TV

     might wonder why the Sliders are always appearing on the eve of
     catastrophe but

     never in the midst of it, never underwater, in the air, or for that
     matter,

     inside solid matter or in deep space. Absolute danger can be avoided
     with a

     smart transport mechanism - Dr. Who's TARDIS takes him to interesting

     destinations, but he has to land it there safely... On Quantum Leap, Dr.

     Beckett isn't in such rare and precarious situations, and lands in
     (living)

     people anyway, so the odds of his target being in an instantly deadly

     environment are negligeable. 7 Days embraces the jaguar, as the saying
     goes,

     and supposes that they have some steadily improving ability to direct
     the craft

     to a safe and convenient landing, further, there is a continuous (if
     uncertain)

     transport process from start to target, rather than jumps or slides that
     could

     lead to anywhere. 7 Days also solves the significance issue by
     deliberately

     sending the chrononaut to known dangerous situations, rather than
     putting it in

     the hands of God, or Time, or Fate, as on Quantum Leap or Dr. Who.

     For Sliders, one could suppose a variety of mechanisms in the timer to
     keep the

     sliders out of trouble (a sensitivity to gravity or other properties of
     sliding

     that take them from Earth to Earth) but not to explain why they're
     always in

     modest trouble anyway. One can theorize a quantum mechanical mechanism
     that

     would rationalize this paradox. Suppose that at the beginning of a slide
     chain

     (when Quinn sent them on their way, for example), the operator can
     manipulate

     the wave function of the slide - in an achronistic manner, he might set
     a

     threashold of probability or expectation value that the timer would
     return

     home. This would solve many of the detailed questions of livability
     without

     any discrimination on the part of the timer: assuming that the slides
     stay in

     the vicinity of an Earth, the fact that the timer has a reasonable
     probability

     of returning means that the human operator must survive all the way as
     well.

     This might in fact be the reason it doesn't operate automatically - to
     (by

     default) protect the slider from inhospitable surroundings. The slide
     circuit

     would resolve destinations such that the cumulative probability of
     survival was

     acceptable, which would exclude the vast lethal majority of
     environments.

     There might be a cosmic censorship mechanism that in effect acts to try
     and

     prevent such circuits, setting a minimum level of risk per circuit.
     Since most

     livable locations are entirely safe, in order to pile up to this minimum
     risk,

     the slides would tend to be to threatening but not unsurvivable locales
     - wars,

     oncoming catastrophes, storms... All without any heuristic direction or

     refined discrimination by the timer...

     Gorno

     "I stared at that equation for three months before I dared a slide..."