[dkstories] Let's Do It, Chapters 5 & 6

[Philistine]

i was seriously going through withdrawal, dk. thank you verily for the new installments.

[Altimexis]

Hooooooray!

 

I'll have more to say once I have a chance to digest them. Gotta get back to work for now.

[Demetz]

I just finished reading them and I can say for sure I like where this is going, but will withold a fuller analysis on this unti Let's Do It is a bit further along, if not finished.

[TonyM]

I'm impressed with Dan's creativity to continue this story line for so long. A lot of the long stories / story lines I've read, it seems the author continues to write simply to continue the story. It's easy to lose interest as the plot becomes routine and boring. So far, I have yet to read anything Dan has written that has lost my interest the longer the story goes. Now, after gracing us with not 1 but 2 chapters we get to wait patiently for the next.

[brax]

HORRAY!!!!! omg thanks dan!!! I needed this!

[Rigel]

I'm impressed with Dan's creativity to continue this story line for so long. A lot of the long stories / story lines I've read, it seems the author continues to write simply to continue the story. It's easy to lose interest as the plot becomes routine and boring. So far, I have yet to read anything Dan has written that has lost my interest the longer the story goes. Now, after gracing us with not 1 but 2 chapters we get to wait patiently for the next.

 

It's not that the plot isn't routine at this point, but it's never boring. That's because Dan has created such interesting and complex characters, who interact so fully with even routine aspects of life that their story becomes fascinating. We care about them; we've gotten to know them over multiple timelines, and they are like very good friends (and lovers) of infinite depth.

 

Thank you Dan for the latest installments.

 

--Rigel

[C James]

So Todd and Davey didn't... Great misdirection there!

 

I'm wondering what is going on with Sean, and when will Brian need to start meddling in macroscale events?

 

Thanks for the double chapters!

[Altimexis]

Dan, I know my recent e-mail to you probably had little to do with getting these chapters edited, uploaded and on-line, but thanks. We all know you've been through a lot lately and we appreciate the effort you put into your writing, in spite of your recent illness and losing two close family members. You and Trebs are in our thoughts.

 

I love these chapters!

 

Dan, you have managed to surprise me yet again. Just when I thought I had things figured out, you managed to take things in a different direction - a better direction. So far everything I have suggested might happen in LDI has been way off base. Brian has managed to keep his secret, has avoided coming out to his parents and yet he's earned their trust back. He's befriended Davey and laid the foundation for a new relationship with the Davey of this timeline in just the right way. I love the way you led us to believe that Davey and Todd did something - that was a very nice use of misdirection, there. And I really loved this line:

 

[leledoct]

Oh... wow... CLAP CLAP CLAP

That's another standing ovation from me to you, Dan.

You know, I'm not the emotional kind of guy, and It's not very often that something brings me to tears.

But that hug... It did it. It had me in tears, for real.

That hug was so... I'll say powerful, as I'm not finding a better way to describe it.

You managed to create a marvellous emotional climax there.

I know a lot of people had already said this to you, but you really do are a great writer.

Thanks, again.

 

 

I'm wondering [...] when will Brian need to start meddling in macroscale events?

 

Now, I'll dare making a guess about LDI as a whole.

 

IMVHO, the lesson behind all the DO series is that messing with future, if ever possible, it's a very bad thing. (Btw: the movie 'Paycheck' also is about this concept).

Every change Davey had done has created a timeline that, in the short or in the long run, proved itself worse than the original one.

Now, if there's a logical conclusion to the DO saga, I think it's that Brian has NOT to change the original timeline.

This timeline needs not to be changed. As far as macroscale events are concerned, the original timeline was the best so far.

And there has not been any evidence so far that it's really possible to steer the course of the timeline exactly where you planned to, and I think that that's mostly because of the Butterfly Effect.

Another reason for that, I think is the fact that only the traveller can really compare two or more timelines, but for the rest of the world there's one and only one timeline. So, whether a 'push' is for better or worse becomes a matter of a single person, and by the Law of Large Numbers, the macroscale consequences of the actions of a single person are unpredictable. They simply can not be predicted.

The knowledge that the here and now is the outcome of certain key points set in the past, thus the knowledge of that key points, it's also really useless. Because whenever you change a key point, you simply give up certain for uncertain, and nothing more.

From the first change on, all the other informations you may possess become misleading, because they belong to another timeline so they never really happened.

And, following these thoughts, I think this time the purpose of Brian is not to rescue the World, but just one person, whose future in this timeline is doomed: Davey.

So, I'm not sure we'll see a lot of macroscale events manipulation, if any at all.

I think LDI will mostly or entirely be about the rebuilding -or the building, as we are now in the original timeline- of a relationship between Davey and Brian. And if this should happen to be the case, I won't complain at all..

Lele

[old bob]

hey DK,

Thanks a lot for all these chapters.

All the comments above are right, the story of Davey and Brian is at the same time a new and an old one. We are back in an old world we like, with caracters we like, and with your amazing way to tell us stories. And an advice to those who read this story first : you should as soon as possible read first all the Davey saga. The pleasure reading LDI is 100% greater if you have red all the DO stories.

I dont know if the other readers feel it as I do : the actors in this DK Story are real, living in a real world, meeting them is like meeting old, long known friends.

[Altimexis]

IMVHO, the lesson behind all the DO series is that messing with future, if ever possible, it's a very bad thing. (Btw: the movie 'Paycheck' also is about this concept).

Every change Davey had done has created a timeline that, in the short or in the long run, proved itself worse than the original one.

 

Sorry to disagree, but the original, undoctored timeline was much worse that the DIR timeline for the characters we have come to love, and it was much worse for the US, too. First, let's consider the primary characters in the Do Over series and the differences between the original and the DIR timelines:

1. Davey - Original: Drops out of school, joins the Navy, becomes a homeless drifter and participates in a mad scientist's experiment. DIR: Helps reshape the world, gets his father into politics, marries Brian and raises 2 kids.
   
2. Brian - Original: Screws around and gets trapped into marrying a bitch of a girl. DIR: Falls in love with and marries Davey, becomes a CIA specialist and helps to save the world, eventually coming back in time when a future president f**ks things up again.
   
3. Shawn - Original: Stuffed in a garbage can by Brian et al, discovered to be gay by his parents, forced into a sexual reorientation camp by parents, eventually participates as graduate assistant to mad scientist. DIR: Adopted by the Joneses, marries Brandon and becomes a major developer of medical imaging equipment.
   
4. Brandon - Original: Messes around with Davey, but otherwise unknown. DIR: Marries Shawn and becomes a co-developer of medical imaging equipment.
   
5. Trevor - Original: Shatters bone in a motorcycle accident and never plays football again. DIR: Drafted by the LA Raiders.
   
6. Davey's sister - Original: Molested by her father, goes into the military, but discharged for drug use, marries a military man who eventually murders her and all her children. DIR: Goes into the military, marries a military man, becomes one of the first women to fly fighter jets, likely becomes a general under the Jones administration.
   
7. Davey's mother - Original: Has severe back problems that plague her all her life, dead by the end of the 20th century. DIR: Becomes a major political fundraiser and a charming first lady.
   
8. Davey's father - Original: A convicted child molester, he suffers from heart disease and is dead by the end of the 20th century. DIR: Becomes one of the best presidents of all time.
   

So I think it's quite clear that for everyone we care about in the DO saga, they were much better off in the DIR timeline and Brian has a lot of work involved in ending up with anything even remotely as nice as the timeline he came from. Davey started working on fixing things a full 9 years before Brian entered this timeline, so a lot of bad things have already happened that he cannot fix. He might win Davey back, but he'll be facing a lot more emotional baggage that they both bring to the relationship, and it may well come at the expense of his friendship with Brandon and Trevor.

 

Now as far as the world is concerned, the DIR timeline ultimately led to a dirty bomb being detonated in Washington. Keep in mind that a dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon and it wouldn't kill millions as Dan suggested at the begining of LDI. We don't know anything more than that, except that the world had undergone a period of unprecedented peace, largely due to the strategies of President Jones. Now the events that led to the dirty bomb have been erased in LDI, but so have the events that led to 30 odd years of peace, and it was largely a future president who messed things up. The whole reason Brian came back at all was because the future of the original timeline turned out to be much worse than that of a dirty bomb going off in Washington, DC. The war on terror was still going on. Israel had been nuked (which interestingly implies that Palestine was nuked as well), and the US was being held hostage by nuclear submarines stationed off the coast of its major cities. Brian would have never come back if it weren't for that. He'd lived a good life and was ready to die. No, Brian came back because the original timeline was worse than the DIR timeline - a lot worse. He would have never come back to do nothing. There would be no point to LDI if it were for him to do nothing. No, Brian has a lot of work cut out for him, but since he never lived the original timeline, he hasn't a clue where to begin.

 

Now as long as I'm on the topic, I'll remind people of an observation I made when Dan reopened the Do Over saga. DIR was perfect, but it was incompatible with our own timeline. Our timeline, the original timeline from which Davey came back the first time, was erased when he came back. In his brilliance, by erasing all previous instances of time travel, Dan has created the possibility that our timeline is the final timeline that will emerge from the Do Over saga in the end. My hats off to him on that one, if that's in fact what he does.

[Philistine]

IMVHO, the lesson behind all the DO series is that messing with future, if ever possible, it's a very bad thing. (Btw: the movie 'Paycheck' also is about this concept).

 

i thought the lesson behind paycheck was that looking into the future only showed you the future created by looking into the future, ie -> self-fulfilling prophecy / you see war, you start a war pre-emptively

 

i don't see the relation to the DO series. if anything the DO series creates a host of different possible outcomes due to increasing prior knowledge of what one's actions can do. it's more about fixing mistakes than becoming trapped in a situation from which there seems to be no escape (philip k. dick seems to be fond of those situations).

[leledoct]

Sorry to disagree, but the original, undoctored timeline was much worse that the DIR timeline for the characters we have come to love, and it was much worse for the US, too. [cut]

The whole reason Brian came back at all was because the future of the original timeline turned out to be much worse than that of a dirty bomb going off in Washington, DC. The war on terror was still going on. Israel had been nuked (which interestingly implies that Palestine was nuked as well), and the US was being held hostage by nuclear submarines stationed off the coast of its major cities. Brian would have never come back if it weren't for that. He'd lived a good life and was ready to die. No, Brian came back because the original timeline was worse than the DIR timeline - a lot worse.

 

Hmmm... guess you're right... I didn't remember very well the 1st chapter of LDI, so I read it again...

Oh, well... I just made a guess... while I was thinking about it, it sounded right to me...

Well, we just have to wait for LDI to unfold...

 

i thought the lesson behind paycheck was that looking into the future only showed you the future created by looking into the future, ie -> self-fulfilling prophecy / you see war, you start a war pre-emptively

i don't see the relation to the DO series.

 

Well, in DO, you know a certain key point leads to a war, you try to avoid that key point happening; except you cannot really predict the outcome of the timeline from that point on.

The dynamic is different, of course, but in both cases the very general message is: messing with future is a no-no thing.

Of course, it's just my interpretation...

I don't know why, but even after having re-read the 1st chapter of LDI, I still have the feeling that the whole concept behind the DO saga is that messing with future is always wrong, no matter why...

 

Lele

Edited April 2, 2007 by leledoct

[old bob]

I don't know why, but even after having re-read the 1st chapter of LDI, I still have the feeling that the whole concept behind the DO saga is that messing with future is always wrong, no matter why...

Lele

Hi Lele,

Funny

why searching for a concept behind ? Its just a SF-story, just to enjoy

Messing with future is a very old dream of the whole humanity, it means to be equal to God. BTW, if you would know in advance the consequences of the decisions you have to take, life would be a nightmare :wacko:

[leledoct]

Hi Lele,

why searching for a concept behind ? Its just a SF-story, just to enjoy

 

Well, first of all because it's SF, not fantasy, so I cannot turn off my 'what if' mode... I mean, look at what Verne wrote as pure SF that mankind did accomplish for real... So, whenever I read a SF book, I usually get lost in thinking about the moral, ethical and practical scenarios that would take place if a certain situation depicted were to be real. Well, sometimes I get some very good insights that help me to better understand some aspects of real life. And I do enjoy to get lost in thinking...

I'll give you an example.

It's about DOH.

I saw a concept behind, the premise being that it's MY concept, I'm not saying that it's necessarly right or that's the only applyable concept, but here's what I thought.

Clones are a metaphor for gay people, as well as true borns are a metaphor for straight people.

Oh, boy. Among the great battles, I did get lost a lot...

 

This is, for me, what sets a good book apart from a poor one. I my opinion good books are really multilayered, like onions.

If I can get nothing from below the surface of the main plotline, I usually get bored before I reach the 1st third or so of the book...

That's my way of being a reader... But I guess I'm drifting OT here, so I'll cut it here, apologizing to everyone for the OT.

Hi.

Lele

[Demetz]

I agree with Altimexis and I'll throw in an extra bit of semi-analysis.

 

The Do Over series seems to reaffirm Kantian theory about ethics - in order for an action to be moral it must have moral intent and moral consequences - and ties it to the concept that those who do good eventually get good done them in return.

 

Davey in the original timeline goes through a life of misery, makes mistakes and eventually comes to understand them for what they are, comes to terms with his sexuality, and so forth. As a result, he gets an opportunity to change things for the better and we end up with the first Do Over. From the get-go he takes a moral high ground and intends to make things better and from what we are able to tell of the timeline that occurred before shevardnadze goes back, is largely successful.

 

Davey's Russian counterpart, Shevardnadze, also has moral intent. He believes strengthening the soviet union would be a good thing for the russia and the world. That moral intent, however, does not make his actions morally right, and instead his actions have a great deal of negative effects on the timeline. He also happens to win out in this third timeline, and we aren't given an in depth view of what happens as a result of it, but we are given enough to see that the results of his winning are bad. These effects are counterracted by Sean who, having seen the way that Davey changed, decides to go back in time. Moral intent, combined with right actions resulted in a world much better off as the fourth timeline.

 

The fifth timeline, which we see the beginnings of in Do Over Redux, occurs once again after a number of people with moral intent but ultimately wrong ideas produce a time machine in china. We don't get to see what the effect of just the one chinese man going back in time but for the moment I'll assume the effects were very negative for the world. Then Davey goes back creating a sixth timeline. Again, we don't get to see the effects of Davey's actions, but we can assume they were good as another chinese man had to go back in time to counter its effects creating a seventh timeline. We can tell that the results of his doing so were very, very bad as Sean ends up going back in time again as well resulting in an eighth timeline which still does not turn out well due to the intentions of the Bush family which were moral by their standards but ultimately immoral as we can see from the consequences of it.

 

Finally we come to the DIR timeline, where Davey goes back far enough in time to make a lot of changes which culminate in arguably the best timeline we've seen so far, again, its ultimately the mistakes of people who end up committing immoral actions though they think them right - immoral actions because of their negative negative consequences for the country - which result in the detonation of the dirty bomb. The mistake is made to eliminate time travel from the equation altogether, which resulted in a far worse situation than would have occurred if instead of jamming all the signals they had only sent Brian back in time far enough to change the specific set of circumstance which lead the country down the wrong path. The result was the worst timeline we've seen so far where the US is held hostage by enemy submarines.

 

At last, the current timeline. The original... except that instead of twelve year old Davey being replaced, its high-school age Brian being replaced. I suspect that this timeline will involve Davey getting the support he needed but didn't getin the original timeline, to give him a chance to develop into the man he should have been instead of a hobo, without the massive advantages one would get from already having a lifetime of knowledge and experience. I suspect we may eventually see Davey going to law school to become a civil rights lawyer, and that is where I expect macro-level changes to come from. Brian I'm not so sure of yet. I'm not sure if Brian will even ever tell Davey about himself at all.... however, there is still an additional factor to consider. The crazy scientist guy is still alive and working toward a the production of a time machine. If I'm right, it will be the advent of this machine's construction that will result in Brian coming out as an alien to this timeline.

 

But I digress. I saw a pattern by which moral intent plus right action = positive consequences, a tieing together of kantian ideas of in order for one to do a moral act one must have moral intent and the action have moral results with the older ideas that those who do good are eventually rewarded for it. The original Davey's reward is this timeline, where he gets the support he needed.