Prologue Rewording

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HolyCow
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Post by HolyCow »

-.-
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Post by ellimist »

:lol:
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Post by HolyCow »

Bumped for Nutcase's viewing convenience.
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Post by Nutcase »

Thanks, HolyCow. I don't have time for this right now, but will probably start working it tomorrow.

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Post by quigonkenny »

Smidge204 wrote:Now, I didn't have much trouble understanding it the first time around, but I read a lot of dry technical text for a living and I'm also a Douglas Adams fan, so perhaps I'm an exception... I do think HolyCow's translation is a bit more natural, though.
=Smidge=
Oh, thank Haruhi-sama I'm not the only one thinking of Douglas Adams every time Itsuki plays Basil Exposition and Kyon commentates. Maybe that's why my least favorite English dub voice of those announced is Itsuki's. I guess in my mind's eye, I see him speaking English with a proper British accent.

After I first read Melancholy, and told people about it, I would always present it as Douglas Adams, writing Harry Potter, set in a Japanese high school. Tanagawa has to be a HHGttG fan... Or maybe it's just all the HHGttG fans on the editing staff...
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Post by Nutcase »

Okay, after reading your version and the current version, I agree that a complete transplant isn't justified, though there are some adjustments I might want to adopt.

I think the difficulty in understanding Koizumi's explanation is in the explanation more than the translation. Some important points are left undiscussed. For example, Neither Koizumi nor Kyon brings up Kyon's memories, or lack thereof, between 'X', on the morning of December 18, and the afternoon of December 18 when Kyon falls on the steps.

What is the point of the fall? By the rules of this universe, Kyon could just "wake up" at any time with a different memory from the memory that goes with the timeline of where he wakes up. From his POV he would be in a different world, but from the world's POV he's suddenly a slightly different person with a different memory. In principle, he could have suddenly had memories of an alternate universe three day excursion just suddenly appear in his brain on the morning of the 18th. So what's the point of waking up on the 21st?

Well, it does reduce Kyon's cognitive dissonance, since he doesn't relive the three days, it's easier to accept the alternate universe as "real." However, Kyon can also take it as just a "bad dream" that Nagato has given him.

Sigh. It's not easy to keep disbelief suspended, it's not easy to avoid popping up to the level of recognizing the author as god.

But I keep trying.

So on what basis does Nagato "borrow" Haruhi's power? It has to be on the basis of acualizing Haruhi's unconscious intention, which we learn in Voume4 includes "taking care of the John Smith who would shake the world." I assume this means that on December 18 both Haruhi and Nagato think that Kyon might be happier in a normal life, and this creates the opening for Nagato's intervention.

Finally, on a different tangent, consider this claim by Nagato in Vol4 Ch4:
Spoiler! :
"Therefore, the altered Suzumiya Haruhi does not possess the power to create data. In that dimension, the Integrated Data Sentient Entity is non-existent as well."
Is this really so? Or is it just that Nagato is cut off from the IDSE? Ryuko's behavior suggests this might be the case.

Anyway, Koizumi's analysis is far from complete, so it's bound to be confusing.

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Post by Smidge204 »

I belive the point of the fall was to facilitate making three day's worth of alternate history, not just for Kyon but for everyone. Putting Kyon is a coma for three days is somewhat similar to freezing him in time for three years... time-space needs to realign itself.

Perhaps I'll draw my own diagram later...
=Smidge=
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Post by Nutcase »

In the endless summer scenario Nagato recalls every cycle, resetting thousands of times to the same point and I don't see why she couldn't share that reset with memory with Kyon.

I think the coma scenario is there give Haruhi et al. a "disappearance" of Kyon experience to match the disappearance of Haruhi et al. that Kyon has lived though. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all like that there. It's a psychic balance issue, not a mechanics of time travel issue.

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Post by Dan »

Or maybe he's in a coma because he lost a lot of blood? That's how I took it anyway.
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Post by Nutcase »

Interesting idea, but you don't stay unconscious in a hospital due to blood loss. It would be low blood pressure that causes the unconsciousness, and an IV with just some saline and other anti-shock treatment would fix that up. Besides, if Yuki can fix up an abdominal stab wound, she can get him prepped to wake up in less than three days. I assume he wakes up pretty much immediately after Yuki puts him into that time plane.

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Post by Smidge204 »

Right, this diagram is a *huge* spoiler for Volume 4 and the prologue of Volume 7. Like, it's basically a summary of what happened.
Spoiler! :
Image


Now, in order to fix the time stream, Yuki "B" had to recreate those two missing days - not just memories of those days, but the actual events of those days, so the time stream will be exactly the way it's supposed to be.

To prevent overwriting Kyon's existence in the two days of Yuki-verse (which would undo the whole loop with a paradox) she put him in a protected state. This is similar to how she froze Kyon and Asahina (small) in her guest room for three years... a state of suspended animation in which Kyon is protected from the changes.

Of course there needs to be a plausible reason for Kyon being out of it for three days, since he couldn't just go missing... hence the coma instead of just zapping him to Dec. 21st.
That's my take on it, anyway.
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Post by Nutcase »

Your diagram doesn't include the journey back to January 2 of the January 2 party, which includes the brief stop on the afternoon of December 18. As I understand it, the January 2 Yuki pushes Kyon on the stairs, overwrites that Kyon with the stabbed Kyon and reestablishes Yuki's connection to the Data Entity. So the December 18 (reverted but unconnected) Yuki has some interaction with a Kyon who is a "dead man walking."

Perhaps this is part of the basis on which Koizumi senses that Haruhi is aware that "somebody did something" to cause Kyon's fall. She may sense some sort of shift in the energy between Yuki and Kyon. Since we have no narration from the POV of the overwritten Kyon, we don't know if he sensed anything. Since he's going to be overwritten anyway, it's for the best...

Having godlike power raises some interesting moral issues...

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Post by HolyCow »

Here's what I make of Koizumi's drawing (Rather crappy since I did them using MS paint in about 10 minutes):
Spoiler! :
First, Koizumi draws a straight line down and states this is the world moving on its own path, from the past to the future. The day Yuki recreated the world is known simply as X. Here's the drawing so far:

Image

Now, On December the 18th, or rather, X, Yuki decides to alter reality and create her own version of the world. Kyon stays in this world for three days, before initiating the Emergency Escape Program, and returns to Tanabata four years ago. He then travels back to December the 18th to fix things up. If you're following me, you should have realized that Kyon has arrived at point X, hence why Koizumi draws a loop. For simplicity's sake I'm going to use red for Yuki's realm. Note that Koizumi doesn't do so, it's something I added in to make things clearer. Here is the current diagram:

Image

At point X, Kyon is assaulted by Asakura Ryouko and passes out. Let's ignore this for a moment and us explore the other loop.

Again, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to use blue this time. Haruhi and Koizumi's memories state that Kyon fell down the stairs and ended up in coma for three days. Kyon then wakes up and after one whole month decides to fix things up. Kyon then travels from the "blue" world back to December the 18th, or rather, X. That is why it ends in another loop. Note that the time elapsed in this loop is longer than the one elapsed in the red loop. I have no idea if Koizumi drew a bigger loop or not, but judging from Kyon's statement that it looks like an infinity symbol, I'd say he didn't enlarge the blue loop.

Image

Here, Kyon saves his past self, changes reality back to how it was, and puts the world back on it's "right track" down the path. That is why the track is colored blue. Kyon then heals his unconscious self and brings him back to the hospital in order to complete the cycle. The final diagram is as below, an infinity symbol with a single line striking through.

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Post by Nutcase »

Okay, so I did a remix of the prologue speech, using a lot of both your wording and BaKaFiSh's. Of course I tweaked some of it to my own tastes as well, for example replacing "picture" with "diagram" and "X'" with "X*", for example. The BaKaFiSh version was already quite understandable, so I'm going to let this sit and see if anybody else cares one way or the other before I maybe swap it in. I can't "see" it clearly any more right now.

You have the timeline going down, whereas the current version has it going up in Koizumi's diagram. I assume you're really sure about the down? It's the more natural direction to draw, of course.
Spoiler! :
So, just as I had feared, he started to cheerfully lecture.

"You see, this all started when Nagato-san changed the world on the dawn of December the eighteenth. In that world, I, Suzumiya-san and Asahina-san were all normal people. You spent three days there, then you went three years back in Nagato-san's Emergency Escape Program...... No, wait, four years now...... There you met the normal Nagato-san and went back once again to dawn on December the eighteenth."

Yes I know that. I’ve been there again recently, you know.

"Okay, let’s label the day Nagato-san changed the world as 'X'. When you went from Tanabata four years ago to 'X', that 'X' already wasn't the original 'X'."

What? That's impossible. There can't be more than one 'time' at a time.

"No, that's just the way our minds work. It's simple, really. If the world had not changed at 'X', Suzumiya-san wouldn't have disappeared and I wouldn't have become a normal person. If that were the case, you would have no reason to go back."

An ontological paradox. Yes, I know of those.

"But this world requires you to go back in time to fix it. If you didn't go, the world would have continued on its wrong path. So you went back to the past, and righted the world. Otherwise this time would not exist."

I’m still confused, so Koizumi lectures on:

"Let's draw a diagram. That might help."

Ever since the snow mountain incident, Koizumi likes diagrams a lot. Picking up a water-based, multi-purpose whiteboard marker, he started to trace a line down the white board.

“Let’s say this line is the world going on its original course from the past to the future.”

The line stopped in the middle of the board. He drew a circle on it and labeled it 'X'.

"This is the original time. Here, Nagato-san changed the world she was in and your memories of that world begin.

Koizumi started drawing again. This time it wasn't a straight line. It was a very rounded line curving to the right, making a circle leading back to the 'X' point. The picture looked like a budding leaf with half ripped off.

"This circle is the memory you have after the eighteenth. The Emergency Escape Program let you return to Tanabata four years ago, and from there you went to the eighteenth. If Nagato-san had been reverted right here, everything would have been fine, but it didn't work out like that I guess."

Because Asakura Ryoko was there. But, at that time, it wasn't just Asakura who intervened. There was also a "Me" from the future, along with Nagato and Asahina-san (small). We did everything in our power to revert the world to its former state. Now that I think about it, it took about a month.

"That's it. Which means you saved yourself. That is —"

Koizumi's pen started out from the 'X' point again, this time looping to the left,

"— this part. The history of this world now. In the memory of Suzumiya-san and myself, you fell down the stairs on the eighteenth and lost consciousness, not waking up until the twenty-first. This was also two months ago, when you set out to save yourself."

Even after drawing the left loop, Koizumi didn't stop the pen. He continued the line that ran through the 'X', only stopping when the line reached the bottom of the board. He put down the pen, took a half-step back, glanced at me and looked at the diagram intently.

It was just a sideways eight, looking remarkably like an infinity sign ( ∞ ), with a line down the middle. It was very easy to understand like this. The point all the lines connected was the 'X' time.

I, who had always earnestly told myself I hated Math and Physics, was slowly beginning to understand what Koizumi wanted to say.

The right loop was the time from my memory. After a series of chaotic events, I managed to make it back to 'X' and was there when Nagato changed the world. I even got stabbed by Asakura.

The left loop was the time I missed. It was the time from when I lost consciousness after being stabbed up to when I woke up in the hospital. Those three days were this loop.

And both circles start from 'X'......

"Meaning there are two 'X' times."

Koizumi answered me simply.

"If the world before the change is 'X', then after the change — We can call it 'X*’".

Koizumi, who had put down the pen, looked at his graph and was very interested.

"Without an 'X', there would be no 'X*'. So, the original 'X' did not disappear. We could say the two times are superposed. When becoming...... superimposed, it got covered up. The old data was overwritten with new data. The first 'X' ran for while, but it and the changed world that stemmed from it were covered up by the 'X* ', the timeline. But it wasn't gone altogether, it was still there."

"I don't get it."

I pretended I didn't understand, while suddenly remembering Asahina-san's (Big) words.

Something about a larger and more complicated time quake occurring.

"It's like looking at two separate overlapping circuits. The intersection looks like it's a 2-D connection. If we add another dimension, that's different. Even though in the world of horizontal and vertical lines they look like one place, they are at a different depth."

I rubbed my temples as I pondered what would a time traveler make out of this. Or an alien, for the matter.

“There’s also another possibility I would like to share with you.”

I'm pretty sure I'll have to listen to anything he says now anyway.

"The memory we have but you don't have...... when you fell down the stairs on the eighteenth, to your awakening on the twenty-first, three days later, maybe it never existed."

It doesn't really matter if it did or not. Besides, I was just lying there the whole time.

"Yes, it's just like you said. Do you remember what I said before? We cannot eliminate the possibility the world was created five minutes ago. Maybe you being lifted into an ambulance and out cold for three days never happened. You could also think, from when the world was changed on the eighteenth to when you woke up on the twenty-first, those moments don't exist in time. If this were true, then Suzumiya-san's and my own memories are made up and we've been made to believe them after everything was reconstructed on the evening of the twenty-first......"

I did say I would listen, but no matter how I looked at it, it was ridiculous — I can't say that. It's not completely impossible. The past had been re-written for a year back, and this was only three days.

"Change of topic. Suzumiya-san saw the reality of the shadow girl, she's alert to it now."

Who? The person who pushed me down the stairs?

"It was Nagato-san."

That's hilarious. At the time, wasn't Nagato going down the stairs with you guys? Apparently, I was at the back.

"Yes. That's what we all remember. Nagato-san didn't push you directly. But she was the one that made up the story of you being knocked unconscious. And Suzumiya-san intuitively sensed that it was no accident. Of course she doesn't really know it was Nagato-san. In reality, the perpetrator wasn't at the scene of the crime. But Suzumiya-san doesn't know that. What she does know is that for it to become like this, someone had to do something. So the culprit must be hiding nearby."

Koizumi smiled that bright smile.

"That intuition sort of created the shadow girl. Of course, such a perpetrator does not exist. There is no mysterious shadow.”

You can’t be telling me Haruhi suspects Nagato purely based on intuition. After Nagato's new world was fixed, she changed everyone's memories at will. But I can believe that somehow, Haruhi has come to realize something was wrong, that there was somebody, somewhere, doing something.

"It's a theory, what I came up with to answer your question.”

The enlivening rogue sat on the chair and suddenly extended his arms wide.

"In fact, I don't understand how the timelines are created and paradoxes resolved. But then what is Asahina-san doing, coming here from the future? So now I have a question for you. If you could go into the past and steer history away from something awful, would you?"
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Post by Nutcase »

Okay, I tweaked it a little more and made the edit. On review, most of the changes were in my typical range of editing aggressiveness. Most of the less minor changes were based on HolyCow's version.

I've thrown in some "inchworm" tense shifting, here and elsewhere in the Prologue. Upon rereading a while later, it seems to blend in like a pinch of salt in the soup. At least that's how it is for me. So, since I like it better that way and nobody else is complaining, I'll continue like this.


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