VOY book "Echoes" - opinions? (And other early books too)

[Therin of Andor]

Re: VOY book "Echoes" - opinions? (And other early books too

Babaganoosh said:
I admit I was confused by how a universe can be "to the right" of ours

'Cos there's another one to the left. And another one in the mirror up ahead. And don't look behind you!

 

[Christopher]

Re: VOY book "Echoes" - opinions? (And other early books too

Babaganoosh said:
I love parallel-universe stories. Echoes is a great one.

I admit I was confused by how a universe can be "to the right" of ours, but I figured that was just a metaphor.

It was a convenient shorthand based on where the different temporal duplicates of the planet appeared in the visual effect manifesting in front of the ship. Why that looked the way it did was never explained, though.

 

[Damian]

I started reading this book and am about 100 pages in and so far it's shaping up to be one of the better numbered Voyager novels (a couple seemed to draw from similar ideas but this one is much different).

In some ways it follows up on the 2nd season episode "Deadlock" where there are 2 Voyagers and one sacrifices itself to save the other (also the one where Harry Kim is 'sent' over from a parallel universe along with Naomi Wildman.

Anyway, Voyager encounters an unusual subspace phenomena where a seeming infinite number of parallel universes appear, most with a planet, though some where the planet was destroyed, and it is an inhabited planet. You jump from one universe to another, and at first I thought this would get confusing, but the authors picked 3 universes to focus on. One is our 'prime' universe, another is a similar universe with subtle differences in the crew, but the more significant difference is the planet has no people on it (though it was inhabited very recently as their are signs that life was just there and just disappeared). The 3rd has no planet, but every 2 hours or so an entire population of a planet just appears in the shape of a planet and swiftly dies in the vacuum of space.

I have to admit I found that a frightening concept. A cosmic event that leads to the immediate death of over 2 billion people. Imagine Earth just disappearing from under our feet and all 6+ billion of us being left behind in the cold vacuum of space (or in the novel's case it appears it's the people that are moved in an instant, rather than the planet disappearing). The authors do a good job of capturing the crew's response when the witness the event occur before their eyes. Even Tuvok, with all his control, can't help but be affected by the enormity of it all. Of course they try to save as many people as they can, transporting hundreds to the ship, but unfortunately since they were unprepared for the event they were unable to save any. I'm at the point that since they know of the event that they could try to prepare this time. But even still, they are faced with saving just a fraction of the 2 billion and Janeway, of course, wants to try to find a way from stopping the event in the first place. It should be noted this is not our 'prime' universe, but another. And during the event each ship sees the parallel universes as mirror images to the left and right. Half missing Voyager (which the crew in the alternate universe theorize are the ones where the 'other' Voyager sacrificed itself in "Deadlock") and that Voyager realizes that it is the universe to their immediate 'right' that is the one that loses it's entire population.

Meanwhile in the universe with no population and in our universe they learn the transitions might have something to do with their transport system. In our universe (with the planetary population still intact) they see strange changes, but have not yet concluded it's because the entire population has traded places with another (that's not yet explicitly stated, though it's probably safe to assume). One weakness I found in that regard is I'm surprised the crew of 'our' universe hadn't yet concluded that despite the evidence they already have. It seems strange they would not have thought of that.

While it might sound confusing, it's really not. Every chapter starts with an identifier letting you know what universe is in. There's "our" universe of course. Then there's the 2542 universe to the right, which is the one with a planet and no population, and finally 2410 to the right which is the one without a planet where an entire planetary population appears after each event and dies. It also notes the number of the shifts. Voyager arrives during the 87th shift and the story proceeds from there. Does that mean 87 planetary populations of around 2 billion people perish? A staggering number for sure.

I'll be curious to see where the story goes from here. But other comments in this thread (granted over 13 years ago) indicate this was one of the stronger Voyager novels of the period.

 

[Christopher]

The first time I read Echoes, I had a problem with it, because the duplicate ships in "Deadlock" were not alternate-timeline versions; the ship was physically duplicated, like Will and Tom Riker, with the two ships being slightly out of phase so they were physically overlapping. That's why the ships were losing power -- because the antimatter wasn't duplicated along with the matter. So it seemed like a mistake to retcon it into actual alternate timelines.

On my second read, though, I decided that the book had explained away that discrepancy in a plausible way, though I forget exactly how it did that. And it was a strong enough story that I was willing to buy its retcon after all.

I feel it could've been stronger, though. As I recall, the alternate Voyagers were distinguished mainly by superficial details like different uniforms and hairstyles, but all the characters were the same. I felt that was a missed opportunity to explore alternate versions of the characters, or alternate outcomes to earlier episodes. What if there were, say, a version where the Maquis had ended up in charge instead of Starfleet, or where Kim had died and Stadi had lived, or whatever?

 

[Damian]

The first time I read Echoes, I had a problem with it, because the duplicate ships in "Deadlock" were not alternate-timeline versions; the ship was physically duplicated, like Will and Tom Riker, with the two ships being slightly out of phase so they were physically overlapping. That's why the ships were losing power -- because the antimatter wasn't duplicated along with the matter. So it seemed like a mistake to retcon it into actual alternate timelines.

On my second read, though, I decided that the book had explained away that discrepancy in a plausible way, though I forget exactly how it did that. And it was a strong enough story that I was willing to buy its retcon after all.

I feel it could've been stronger, though. As I recall, the alternate Voyagers were distinguished mainly by superficial details like different uniforms and hairstyles, but all the characters were the same. I felt that was a missed opportunity to explore alternate versions of the characters, or alternate outcomes to earlier episodes. What if there were, say, a version where the Maquis had ended up in charge instead of Starfleet, or where Kim had died and Stadi had lived, or whatever?

The crew in the 2410th universe to the right seemed to indicate that duplication started a parallel universe. So in that case the event caused a new branch and those universes that branched from that one were ones without the ship (if I'm understanding that correctly).

I was curious about how similar the crews were as well. There were subtle changes, the location of Chakotay's tattoo for instance. I was waiting to see one where the crew was maybe hostile like the 'mirror universe.' But my guess is the authors had a specific story they wanted to focus on and that just wasn't part of that story. After all, you have only so many pages and I guess sometimes you have to make choices on what you want to focus on. Though it would have been interesting to see more differences. It would have helped keep track of the different universes as well.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I love parallel universe stories, and I loved Echoes.

 

[Damian]

I feel it could've been stronger, though. As I recall, the alternate Voyagers were distinguished mainly by superficial details like different uniforms and hairstyles, but all the characters were the same. I felt that was a missed opportunity to explore alternate versions of the characters, or alternate outcomes to earlier episodes.

Believe it or not I just read a chapter where this was addressed. Janeway was imagining there were universes where there were more drastic decisions. Universes where the crews never merged, universes where there were different crew members (for instance, she recalls that she was considering two offices for ops, Kim and a classmate of his).

She basically theorized that those universes weren't in the visible string of ships, that they were possibly out there but too far away to be seen. So the alternate universes we see are basically ones that are close enough to be similar with only subtle differences.

So the authors do acknowledge that there are likely very different universes out there, just not within sight probably.

So it's something they had thought of and considered, but it just wasn't part of the story they wanted to tell.

 

[Christopher]

So the authors do acknowledge that there are likely very different universes out there, just not within sight probably.

So it's something they had thought of and considered, but it just wasn't part of the story they wanted to tell.

Yes, but that's exactly the problem -- that they didn't choose to tell the more interesting story. Calling attention to the fact that there's more interesting stuff happening offscreen just makes it worse.

 

[Damian]

Yes, but that's exactly the problem -- that they didn't choose to tell the more interesting story. Calling attention to the fact that there's more interesting stuff happening offscreen just makes it worse.

It's too early yet for me to tell how good the story is overall (I'm about 120 pages in now).

I'll give them points for at least acknowledging the question. Up to then I was a bit confused as to why things were so similar. But they did address that. Yes, there are likely greater divergences the further out you go, to the point that there will be significant differences. But basically it's not part of our story here.

I agree it's a shame we couldn't see at least one universe with significant differences from our own. It really may have been simple space considerations. They just didn't have enough pages to add that in (I'm assuming that just as there is probably a minimum page limit that there's probably a maximum as well in a novel that you are allowed). Or maybe they felt it would have been distracting to the primary focus of the story.

 

[Christopher]

It's too early yet for me to tell how good the story is overall (I'm about 120 pages in now).

It's pretty good. I just think it wasted its potential in this one respect. It's hard to get interested in alternate versions of the characters if the only thing that's alternate about them is the color of their uniforms or the style of their hair.

 

[Damian]

It's pretty good. I just think it wasted its potential in this one respect. It's hard to get interested in alternate versions of the characters if the only thing that's alternate about them is the color of their uniforms or the style of their hair.

That would have made it easier to keep track of which universe was which, particularly in the 2 that sent down landing parties. It's getting easier as the story goes on though since the other circumstances are quite different. And it's not a big deal really.

It is interesting that the authors had at least thought of that and acknowledged that in the book. Sometimes writers don't even acknowledge things like that, leaving the question hanging. But in this case it's clear at least it wasn't something they overlooked or didn't think of. They let you know 'we realize that there are likely infinite universes out there, many which may be drastically different' and I suppose there may be some like in this case where the differences are much more subtle. The color of a building being green instead of blue for instance.

And it's interesting that it seems that as far as what they can see, it seems the close the universe is to ours, is literally how close it is from their visual perspective. The more divergent the universe, the farther away it would be from our perspective I guess. In some ways it makes sense I suppose.

 

[DimesDan]

Good god, there are some names in this thread I've not seen in a very long time.

 

[Damian]

Good god, there are some names in this thread I've not seen in a very long time.

Yeah, I noticed some have not been around in 10+ years (hope they are alive and well, though sadly a few may no longer be with us ).

When posting about a book I've read usually I try to find if a thread already exists on that book. This is one of the few forums where you can resurrect an old thread. Unlike the shows, where there are always numerous people watching them at any one time, when it comes to an older book it may have been years since someone read it so it's nice to be able to compare opinions over the years on a book.

In any event, this is definitely looking like one of the better of the numbered Voyager novels. In some ways it reminds me of "Parallels" from TNG, certainly with the idea of there basically being an infinite number of parallel universes. It seems the authors picked 3 of those to work out of (though some new ones were added since the away team has shifted to new dimensions). This probably helps prevent too much confusion. If you add too many then the book would start to get unwieldly and hard to follow. Like Christopher, I wish at least one of those presented some more stark differences, maybe a Captain Chakotay or something. But I guess from the novel jacket they wanted to present different Janeways to compare against one another (I haven't gotten to any interaction between the 3 but judging from the jacket I have to think that is coming). Still, it's a good read thus far.

 

[Damian]

On my second read, though, I decided that the book had explained away that discrepancy in a plausible way, though I forget exactly how it did that. And it was a strong enough story that I was willing to buy its retcon after all.

It's definite. I just read a chapter with the 'primary universe' away team in the universe one over from ours and they figured out what happened in "Deadlock" created a new parallel universe. So they acknowledge that it didn't exist before that, keeping it consistent with the episode, but that event created a new universe from that point on, which is why not every universe features Voyager (though they noted it's not every other universe). And the theory they are going with is the Voyagers that appear closest to ours are only subtly different and as you go further out the changes become more pronounced, which is why the planetary population doesn't really notice the changes to any significant degree (other than noticing subtle changes in pictures and some colors and things of that nature).

So I'm guessing the subtle changes are part of the story they wanted to tell. They didn't want the differences to be too obvious. So while they sacrificed an opportunity to tell an interesting story about some more drastic changes, there appears to be a reason for that within the story itself. It was important in this case that every one not figure it out too quickly that these were alternate realities.

 

[Damian]

That kind of blows the mind as well. That every decision we make basically creates a new parallel universe, according to the authors. If I choose one day to turn right instead of left, the one of me that goes left creates an alternate universe. And that there are effectively and infinite number of universes out there.

 

[Jinn]

If I choose one day to turn right instead of left, the one of me that goes left creates an alternate universe.

They made an entire Doctor Who episode with literally that premise (Spoiler, don't turn right!)

 

[Christopher]

That kind of blows the mind as well. That every decision we make basically creates a new parallel universe, according to the authors. If I choose one day to turn right instead of left, the one of me that goes left creates an alternate universe. And that there are effectively and infinite number of universes out there.

That's not really the way it would work, if the Many-Worlds interpretation is true. We flatter ourselves to believe the universe cares about our thoughts and actions, but really, as far as physics is concerned, we're just clouds of interacting particles. It's not human decisions that would split the quantum state of the universe, but quantum-level events. Human thought and action are classical, involving far too many particles for any quantum superposition to persist. It would be fairly rare, I think, for a quantum-level divergence to have a recognizable effect on a human scale. Maybe certain evolutionary mutations would happen differently (including mutations that produce diseases and pandemics, affecting human history), or someone might get cancer in one universe and not in another. Maybe once quantum computers are invented and start having an influence on people's decisions, then divergences on a human-discernible scale might happen more often. But it wouldn't be every decision.

Even aside from that, it's simplistic to assume that every decision would be made more than one way, as if they were all just random coin flips. Usually we make a given choice because we have a specific reason to make it, so there wouldn't be any universe where we arbitrarily made a different one. Even Doctor Who: "Turn Left" had to go to some lengths to contrive a scenario where Donna was equally likely to turn right or left, because that's not something that routinely happens. For that matter, even a coin flip isn't actually random -- it's just that we can't measure or predict every single microscopic force that's acting on the coin to determine which way up it lands. Even a decision that seems random is shaped by its context, and thus may actually be deterministic.

 

[Damian]

That's not really the way it would work, if the Many-Worlds interpretation is true. We flatter ourselves to believe the universe cares about our thoughts and actions, but really, as far as physics is concerned, we're just clouds of interacting particles. It's not human decisions that would split the quantum state of the universe, but quantum-level events. Human thought and action are classical, involving far too many particles for any quantum superposition to persist. It would be fairly rare, I think, for a quantum-level divergence to have a recognizable effect on a human scale. Maybe certain evolutionary mutations would happen differently (including mutations that produce diseases and pandemics, affecting human history), or someone might get cancer in one universe and not in another. Maybe once quantum computers are invented and start having an influence on people's decisions, then divergences on a human-discernible scale might happen more often. But it wouldn't be every decision.

Even aside from that, it's simplistic to assume that every decision would be made more than one way, as if they were all just random coin flips. Usually we make a given choice because we have a specific reason to make it, so there wouldn't be any universe where we arbitrarily made a different one. Even Doctor Who: "Turn Left" had to go to some lengths to contrive a scenario where Donna was equally likely to turn right or left, because that's not something that routinely happens. For that matter, even a coin flip isn't actually random -- it's just that we can't measure or predict every single microscopic force that's acting on the coin to determine which way up it lands. Even a decision that seems random is shaped by its context, and thus may actually be deterministic.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Perhaps the only time we'd have a divergence would be a true major 50-50 decision that has a greater impact.

But yeah, I really can't see a universe divergence where I'm trying to figure out if I want to eat at McDonalds or Taco Bell and in one universe I pick one and another where I'd pick the other. At the end of the day nothing else in the universe probably changes.

But more so let's say a universe where the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and maybe another where they don't and the US doesn't enter WWII (probably because some 23rd century doctor saved someone's life ). That's a much more significant difference and probably more likely to create a divergence.

The novel even says 'major decisions' are what causes new universes to form. Like Captain Janeway destroying one Voyager to save another. Something like that would have a greater impact. And it sounds like there are minor changes in each universe as well, so probably the smaller decisions we make are accounted there. My picking a fast food restaurant is not a big enough decision to create it's own universe, but it may be represented in already existing universes where in some I picked one restaurant and in others I picked the other.

 

[Christopher]

But more so let's say a universe where the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and maybe another where they don't and the US doesn't enter WWII (probably because some 23rd century doctor saved someone's life ). That's a much more significant difference and probably more likely to create a divergence.

Except it wouldn't, because that's a macroscopic event, and therefore follows classical physics. Like I said, the fictional conceit that human actions and decisions split the universe is pure fantasy. It's a phenomenon that happens on a quantum scale, as a result of quantum particle interactions or decays or whatever. That's why the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment requires the poison capsule's release to be triggered by the decay of a radioactive atom -- because only atomic or subatomic events would cause that kind of reality split. In real physics, human decisions of any magnitude have nothing to do with it.

Of course, it should be self-evident why multiverse fiction bases it more on human choices, since that's where you can get stories from. Although I've actually been working on something that uses the more realistic model.

 

[David cgc]

Maybe once quantum computers are invented and start having an influence on people's decisions, then divergences on a human-discernible scale might happen more often. But it wouldn't be every decision.

Actually, as far as that goes, the future is now, thanks to the Universe Splitter app. As the most elaborate possible alternative to flipping a coin, when you type in two options and hit the button, it creates a quantum event by querying a specialized device to fire a single photon at a semi-reflective transparent surface, and then returns the result to you. If the photon is reflected off the surface, it tells you to go ahead with one of your options, and in the newly-created divergent universe where the photon traveled through the surface, your counterpart is told to go ahead with the other option, and vice-versa.

I don't have a lot of call to flip a coin as I'm notoriously obstinate and confident in my decision-making, so I've only used it a few times (the app helpfully lists all the divergences in your personal worldline it helped create) but it's fun to think about.