Patrol Abroad Chapter 10
By Captain Gaul
PLEASE WAIT>>>CONFLICT RESOLVED
Gaul awoke in a futuristic room. He saw a gray-haired man in one corner, rubbing his forehead. “Thank God that’s over.”
“Thank God what’s over?”
“The body of the story. We had a serious reality problem going on here—things were falling out of whack, a couple of new realities and reality extensions were disrupting the universes’ continuity, and I needed to tie the worlds of FF6, FF7, and Chrono Trigger together with a reality extension really fast to keep the whole damn thing from disintegrating. I’m really, really sorry about all those crazy timeshifts—it’s the result of someone else’s badly planned crossover that meant I had to contact your reality author about creating one of his own in a hurry.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t ask. Just sit back, and let me explain—this could take a while.
“We are all part of one collection of realities, where actually only one reality is reality—everything else is a reflection of that reality. The original reality of Chrono Trigger is a sacred and highly protected place, off of which all these realities, and reality extensions, known to their creators as ‘fanfics’, are based.
“Reflections of a perfect thing are still imperfect; reflections of an imperfect thing are even more so. If there’s anything Chrono Trigger isn’t, it’s perfect. So, the fanfic, mere reflections of Chrono Trigger, are going to be even more skewed. Sometimes, the skew is mild—Magus has a father even more evil than his mother, Crono’s kid and Lucca’s kid go off and save the universe, a member of the Guardia Patrol actually does something noteworthy, and so on. Other times, the skew is much, much worse. Plot holes, logic lapses, sequence failures; all of these things tear at the system’s fabric, making the collection of realities seem even more chaotic.
“While you may think that better writers would solve the problem, in fact it would not! At first glance, and viewed alone, the plot holes, logic lapses and sequence failures which plague the stories with chaos and discontinuity should be seen as evil things, as mistakes, as failures to edit properly or proofread! And trust me, the review committee agrees! But actually…the story flaws actually are what keep this multiverse of variations from the original adventure going! Krazy Sam’s logic lapses are what keep Loren Leah’s plot holes from collapsing her universe, and vice-versa! Icy Brian’s sequence failures help to counteract The Storyteller’s typos! And Lavos Core…I’m not even gonna start with Lavos Core.”
“As the Director of Info for this entire multiverse, it’s my job to weave these threads of continuity and discontinuity together to create a stable fabric for new reality authors to work with. It’s not an easy job; the computers help, but I am seriously understaffed. It’s all I can do to keep the universe from falling apart, making sure all the text gets where it needs to be.
“Sure, I’ve got complaints. Not getting paid is a big one. Another one is unnecessary text. Especially…character stats! Who the hell came up with the idea of CHARACTER STATS?! Sorry.”
“Anyway, it all works out, for one reason: the original universe had at least as many, if not more, plot holes and logic lapses as these variations do. What is the deal with Ayla’s hair? Why does Frog speak Old English when no one else in his time period does? Why would Dalton threaten to kill Schala when he needed her alive to attain immortality? And what’s with “No make rubbish, Ayla head go boom”? THAT’S a sequence failure of the worst kind…a failure to get somebody who actually speaks English to proofread the game before shipping. Kind of like FF4. Why does FF4 Easy, officially released in America as FFII, make about as much sense as if they had left in Japanese, when FF4 Hard, never released in America, have an even better translation than FF7? Sorry, I got off track again.
“You know, I need some new employees. Seeing as you’ve already had your worldline intertwined with way too many realities for you to live a normal life—how would you like to be a reality author agent?”
Gaul nodded weakly, confused.
The Director of Info, smiled, nodded, and said: “The briefing and employee manual will be in your quarters at Magus’s castle. Adios!”
With a snap of his fingers, reality returned to normal.
.