Page Commentary No. 323

Gunwild: Oh, I distinctly remember how this went. You had this sweet little idea about a causal loop, and my first instinct was that it's zany, setting-derailing super-technology... so it only made sense if someone had found an inane commercial use for it. Which lined up nicely with them being on a trade station that's more or less a space mall.

Psu: I admit we had a lot of back and forth on this because it involves a lot of WILD Interstellar physics mixed with fantasy. I think finding some way to commercialize it and make it sorta mundane helps us distract from the glaring scientific inaccuracies of it. Ultimately, I think we still hit at the core of the moment which was to provide something sweet and SPOOOOKY for the season. Plus I think I had originally wanted to comment on how long this particular chapter took, how we started in the Spring and it was already Autumn of that year... in a way though... I think this was just a moment of neat self reflection too. I remember first drawing Kettering with his short hair. And now he's all growed up. And has been for years.

Gunwild: Well, they call it the Novikov self-consistency principle, because basically any actions caused in the past by time travel already had been. Lovely way to simplify any time loop story and move on with your life. But the more obvious self-consistency here is that Theira and Kettlehead still have these earlier iterations of themselves (which I sorta wish we got to hear more from) in there. They've just added on other stuff, since, because of what they've been through. In terms of their characters, that's intended to mean a little to the reader, I hope. And in literal terms, it's swank hair and more fingers.

Psu: Maybe we can do a whole thing in a short story exploring a buggy early Theira and Kettering? While we ruminate on that I'm gonna Google Novikov self consistency principle.

Gunwild: Shh, don't give them ideas, or everyone reading this will realize my surface-level understanding of theoretical physics and notice I'm not actually fit to write science fiction...

Psu: We need more lampshades. And anyway we can always disguise our scientific magic with something more mundane. It's kinda how we operate at Cassiopeia Quinn! We loosely use science to come up with space burritos!

Gunwild: Nobody would believe you could make a dinosaur unless you had Disney World money...