12 MONKEYS: 02x08: Lullaby: Loopdeloopalooza!

Here comes a lot of jibba-jabba about the nature of the GROUNDHOG DAY loop that Cassandra and James find themselves in when Cassie is Splintered to Spearhead 2020. Her mission: Kill Jones and thusly prevent time travel from being perfected.

C+C quickly learn that that is easier said than, umm…undone. Why? Because it turns out that…

TIME *LIKES* TIME TRAVEL…

So, what exactly were the conditions required to break out of this loop/super-Jinn?
We know that Time wants time travel to exist so…

1. Hannah Jones must die.
2. Katarina Jones must mourn her daughter's death and live to perfect time travel.

We see several loops in which Katarina is killed, and in each, her death triggers a reset.
We see one loop in which Cassandra saves Hannah. That triggers a reset.

As far as Time is concerned, letting Hannah live is equivalent to killing Katarina. Time's kind of a bitch, eh?

But what happens when C+C do nothing? Letting the day play out without their intervention *should* satisfy both of Time's requirements, for without Cass's medical aid, Hannah dies, apparently of the virus, and bullet-free, Katarina lives, motivated by her daughter's death to turn back time to prevent the outbreak and undo it. Why then, does the day still reset?

ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PUZZLE.

Jennifer. Suspected for attempting to infect Spearhead with the virus, Jennifer Goines is being held prisoner, to be executed on the following day. It's her imminent death that triggers the reset at the end of the do-nothing day.

[aside]
Strange, tho, that the reset seems to happen in the deep of night. Is Jennifer executed at that hour? I don't remember hearing gunshots. Or perhaps there's some last order given in Spearhead at that moment that seals Jennifer's fate? Nah. That doesn't seem fair, right? Time would have to allow for a call from the governor right up to the last second of Jennifer's life.
[/aside]

Maybe the "natural" duration of the loop isn't determined by events within the loop. Of course, an event that would break Time or delete time travel (the deaths of any of our faves) immediately triggers a reset, but if that doesn't happen, reaching a particular second of the day triggers it "naturally."

When reset time is about to hit them on do-nothing day, Cass tells Cole, "The longest day was my first." Was there a day we weren't shown? And how did Cass get to the end of it, playing nice w/Foster and letting herself be jockeyed away from Katarina in mourning? Were there actually two days when Cass was alone at Spearhead 2020?

That missing first day and Cassie's mask are two little things that bug me. RE: Cassie's mask—she is maskless when she sits down to Splinter in 2044, but masked when she arrives in 2020. Waitasec… Whoa… Does TIME actually pass for a traveler within a Splinter? Cole mentions seeing colors and flashes of memory *while* Splintering. Could Cass have had the mask in her hand or pocket and put it on while Splintering?

I always want to capitalize Splinter but I'm not sure if it's correct.

As a Primary who has played an important role in guiding and connecting members of Team Splinter across decades, Jennifer's 2040s self is integral to Cassie and Cole arriving in the Spearhead 2020 Jinn in the first place. Jennifer has to survive 2020 and live to become that self. Jennifer explains that much to the Puzzle-maker while they're in holding together.

So, Time's *complete* to-do list for C+C in Spearhead 2020?

1. Hannah Jones must die.
2. Katarina Jones must mourn her daughter's death and live to perfect time travel.
3. Jennifer Goines must live to lead and Primary.

So, how do they check off all three boxes? Given that numbers 1 and 2 happen on their own during the do-nothing day, C+C only need to act on number 3. They just have to break Jennifer out of Spearhead after Hannah dies.

But, Cole has something else in mind. Something very "New Cole"—saving life instead of taking it. First, he feels compelled to check in with Katarina herself…

COLE: Just answer me this—is a little bit of happiness better than a lifetime of anything else?
JONES: Yes.
COLE: I'm gonna hold you to that.

That question. Man. Let's just focus on it as it pertains to Katarina. Boiling that general question down to the specifics of her situation, Cole is asking her if more time—ANY kind of time—with her daughter, ever, is better than losing her completely, for the rest of her life. Is Hannah's living presence of more value, or…importance, than the void of her absence.

I should think that that's a question that doesn't need asking. Right?

(Storywise, tho, I love and feel that Cole is asking that question of and for everyone we care about in 12 MONKEYS. =)

But, "I'm gonna hold you to that" kind of explains why he asks, right? He wants an idea of whether Katarina will hold C+C (and anyone else involved) responsible for taking Hannah and hiding her away for 24 years. He needs to know that when mother and daughter are reunited, Katarina won't hate them for taking her away, but rejoice at having her returned, having her at all.

If you were to ask any other person, that answer in 2020 would not necessarily correspond to the actual reaction in 2044, but this is Katarina Jones we're talking about. She knows herself, and across alternate realities/Jinns, she is a constant.

So, answer gotten, Cole moves forward with his plan. It takes them several resets to get all of the moving parts in sync, but in the end…

1. Cassandra revives Hannah after she apparently dies in front of Katarina. (I'm not sure if she medically faked her death, or if she actually died and Cass brought her back.)
2. Cole breaks Jennifer out of Spearhead holding, reuniting her with her Daughters.
3. Cassandra manipulates protocol so that she can get away from Spearhead with Hannah and deliver her to the Daughters.
4. They manage to do it all without revealing their identities to Spearhead and Katarina. Cole can be a random scav Morris Morrison, maybe with hacked digital records that connect to some kid in Philly. Maybe Cole helps Cass get into Spearhead when he escapes with Jennifer. Cass avoids showing her face and never IDs herself as Dr. Railly. She gets into a hazmat suit as soon as she can and uses her medical know-how to bluff her way close to Hannah.

That closes the loop, and Time lets Project Splinter pull them back. Well, you know what happens then, so I'll spare you the Kleenex and skip it. Hooray!

THIS LOOP, AND ITS CLOSING, ALWAYS HAPPENED.

We don't see any of our serum soldiers experience a reality change wave (and we don't hear anyone refer to one). This could be an editing call, but I'm gonna assume that if C+C Splinter Factory changed history, we would be clued into it in a pretty overt way. Yes, they suffer nosebleeds (which is a physiological side effect of a reality change for serumed travelers), but they suffer increasing pain, nausea, and damage with each reset. I believe this phenomenon is similar to the deterioration Cole suffered when he landed in Pirate Ramse's 2043, a reality in which Cassandra was killed in 2015 and Cole never joined Project Splinter. I do not think that each reset they experience ripples down to 2044 with changed history. No changes or ripples escape the loop until it is closed and again connected and in sync with the flow of the timeline, and then the ripples are ones that always propagated into the future.

And, when C+C do return to 2044, Katarina greets them with…

JONES: If you seek congratulations for failure, I have nothing for you.

She hasn't experienced any rewrites to reality in their absence. I take that to support the case that C+C's GROUNDHOG DAY experience was always going to will have had to have happened. If, before Katarina sent Cassandra to 2020, someone had gone to visit the Daughters for a census, they would have encountered 28 year-old Hannah.

I honestly can't remember the face of the Daughter-ninja who infiltrated the Splinter facility earlier this season (all my brain recalls is warpaint, wrap, and “NINJA!” =), but I would *LOVE* if that was Hannah (Brooke Williams). It would be wonderful proof positive that she's been with the Daughters since she "died" in every timeline we've seen so far in season 2.

SO, WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

One man's miracle is another man's green box.
God, what a perfect story for James to tell! =)

Can this maneuver that Cole and Cassie and Jennifer engineered get a name? One of those confidence/scam names, y'know? Like Three-card Monte or the Nigerian Prince? What should it be?

The Sick Daughter?
Meanest Prank Ever? =)

I'll have to think about that.

It may seem a bit, I dunno, cheap? cheap-ish? to use this temporal sleight-of-hand again in the show, but if ever there was a moment that could use it, I'd say it's Cassie dying in Cole's arms at the CDC. In Cole's memory, it happened in 2017. In Cassie's personal future, I suspect it's meant to happen in 2019, offset in time due to the change in the date of the outbreak.

Just a thought… (that I might have had while watching season 1, dadgummit =)

Unmake history!

Keep on keepin' on~

P.S.

How is Katarina gonna have any cred when it comes to having a Smoking-is-Bad discussion w/H?#12Monkeys @barbara_sukowa @brookeofficial_ =)

— CabinBoy (@cabinboy100)

June 7, 2016

12 MONKEYS: 02x04: Emergence: Rambling on the plague and Time…

Collecting some of my thoughts on the pros (for the Witness and his Army) of a plague in the world of 12 MONKEYS after “Emergence” or “How Katarina Got Her Temporal Groove Back.” =)

HOW DOES A PLAGUE HELP KILL TIME?

“Kill Time” as in *destroy* Time, not, like, playing solitaire… =)

If all the Witness wants to do is kill a few mental patients (and thereby destroy Time), why does he have the Army spend decades ensuring that most of humanity is wiped out by a viral outbreak in the early 21st century?

Well, In order to kill those Jenga Primaries by paradox, time travel is needed. To cause a paradox, matter from one time must be made to contact with that same matter from another [more on paradox]. Well, it turns out that the only realities in which human beings develop time travel technology are those in which a catastrophe like the 2017 plague (or whichever year it’s shifted to in the “latest” reality) motivates scientists like Katarina Jones and her team to revive and complete Project Splinter.

That’s some legit supervillainous mastermind calculus right there, isn’t it? Release a virus that kills billions so that you can hitch a ride to the past in the survivors’ time machine. Impressive planning and execution. But, hey, no supervillain believes he’s a supervillain, right? I’m sure we’ll find that the Witness has his reasons [more on the Witness and his possible plans/reasons].

The good of the many…
The life of his son…
The life of his father…
The life of his fiancé…
The end of his own life…
Y'know, something.

Cuz no one believes they’re a bad person.

BUT MAYBE THERE’S ANOTHER REASON FOR PLAGUE…

I can’t remember when I started thinking this, but it arose out of a consideration of paradoxes—Time has a will. It makes choices. It cares about what things mean. I’ve had this loose idea of Time being given this will, this sentience, by the creatures that inhabit it, specifically, human beings.

In “Emergence,” characters finally begin to explain this idea for us. Katarina is right, time has existed and will exist as long as the universe does. But when does time *matter*? When does it have *meaning*? When it’s marked, experienced, lived, anticipated, remembered, shared. Pretty metaphysical, I know, but I like to think that it’s (armchair) quantum physical, connected to the notion that observation affects the observed. I like it.

If a clock ticks in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

It’s a classic conceit, but I’m just gonna go with it since Jennifer Goines is the one who told us: Time only started to matter when HUMANS began caring about it. Jennifer seems to go so far as saying that Time was born with the first human. And I believe that Time becomes stronger as the human population that experiences it grows. So, more humans, stronger Time. Fewer humans, weaker Time.

So, if you buy that bit of crazy talk, what can you say about the state of Time circa 2044? Given the decimation of humanity in the wake of several mutations of the virus, Time is perhaps the weakest its been in millions of years, right? I believe this explains why the instabilities caused by the paradoxidation of a Primary in 1944 manifest themselves in 2044 as these bubbles of chaotic time, and why additional Jenga Primary paradox deaths would intensify the disruptions, further setting the stage for the Red Forest on Earth. Time, and thus, reality, are weakest near the end of humanity, when there are fewer human minds living in it.

WHY KILL TIME?

So, the plague may play multiple roles in the Witness’s design, but why? Why would the Witness and his Army want to kill Time? Or is that not the what he wants? The Witness wants to bring/connect/create the Red Forest on Earth, make it reality, which both Jennifer and Katarina agree would break time, but would it actually kill Time? If we are to believe Jennifer and Tommy, if all of humanity existed at once and forever, wouldn’t Time do the same?

No, because Time is NOT just the minds of humans and primaries, it’s humans and primaries experiencing and living in time. Time is the medium in which Time grows.

Here’s a question that bugs me: Why would one of Time’s synapses (Timey Tommy) willingly sacrifice himself?

The quick answer: He’s destined to. If you think about it, that seems like bull-pucky, tho, right? So, maybe it’s part of Time’s plan. Tommy’s death moves events and characters closer to some moment when Time can be properly defended and saved.

Allright, enough already. Darn this show and its frickin frackin rabbit holes. Not since LOST… *sigh*

ABOUT Time VERSUS time…

I very much like this interdependency of Time and humanity that Jennifer explains to Katarina. Tommy’s analogy of Primaries as gears in the clock of Time and further explanation of them as synapses in Time’s brain is a little less awesome to me. It depends on where it goes from there. Cuz right now I do not want to SEE some entity representing Time, or hear its voice, y’know? Or maybe more specifically, I don’t want our characters to see or hear Time as a creature, unless maybe it’s at some weird temporal singularity moment. Whatever that is. Maybe.

Or that sentient galaxy that Bender meets in FUTURAMA. That would be cool.

Or Apollo from that episode of STAR TREK.

O man, they’re gonna do a CONTACT thing, aren’t they? Where Time will appear to someone “astrally” as one or several figures that are familiar to the character, reflecting the nature of the conversation or message that’s to be delivered. (The Speed Force just did that to Barry this week.) First I was gonna not like that, but in the span of writing the first dozen words of this paragraph, I came around. That would be okay. What would be awesome is if after Time explains its appearance to one of our gang, heh, Cole or Ramse wills Time to change into a cartoon character in mid-sentence. Could also be a way for Cole to speak to his mother, Cassie to speak to Aaron, Jennifer to Leland, Ramse to…himself? Heh.


Hrm… How many primaries are walking the planet at any given moment? I liked the idea of it being one, and roughly one per generation, a la the Slayer, but maybe there’s a need for more. If Time gets its life from humanity and its thoughts “thru” primaries having both increase as population increases makes a kind of sense, right? What happens to Time when a primary fights his/her connection, the way Jennifer did for some time in her life?

I would be more pleased by the idea that Time as Jennifer and Tommy know it is not the same time that Katarina has studied. Time is a…pseudo-consciousness that exists, lives, within time, for as long as humans have been walking around. Time is a hive mind across the millennia, composed of the minds and lives of primaries, a sentience and will that emerged from them.

But maybe that’s exactly what Tommy and Jennifer mean? It could be, I just haven’t heard that yet, at least, not to my satisfaction.

Time will tell, right?~

Hope I didn’t lose you. Too trippy? What did you expect? It’s you’re-your-own-mother-flarkin time travel! =)

Unmake history!~

Keep on keepin’ on~

12 MONKEYS : Why join the Army?

Why become part of a group that seeks to wipe most of humanity from the Earth?

Have we heard any Army of the 12 Monkeys propaganda yet? I feel like I'm imprinting from other sources (the film and other superfun eschatological storylines) a manifesto that involves restoring a balance to the planet's ecology, one that human beings have been upsetting with unchecked population grown and the exploitation of resources required to support it. Reduced for fun semantics, the Earth is the host and humankind the virus. The plague, then, is a cure.

I'll buy that as the pitch given to recruit true-believer footsoldiers (I'm not sure we've seen any, mercs will work for $$), but I've got to believe there's more to it than that for an Inner Circle / upper Monkeys management. I suppose Tall Man does seem to be a legit horticultural enthusiast, though, right?

I'm definitely not convinced that Olivia would be into it. She's committed to a mission, as far as plague-starting goes, but what's really in it for her? She describes a plan that her father had for her, along with a thing in a box that came with instructions…

The only thing in a box we're familiar with so far is the Annapurna Remains, but that's only been in a box since the 80s. Unless—whoa!—was it excavated and found in that cryotank? That would be pretty awesome, but also a ridiculous thing for the Yakuza (or anyone) to overlook in a sales pitch, right? Oh, something that kinda bugged me: if the Yakuza didn't know about the virus, how would they know that a frozen rotting corpse would be valued at half a million dollars? Perhaps a little bird named Olivia told them, following the gospel of Ramse?

Hrm… Could she be referring to herself? Was SHE the thing in a box? An slowly aging time traveler like Ramse, but transported without knowing? Sedated and/or on life support? Could Olivia be…

Hannah? Launched in a cryotank by Katarina into the past in the hopes that Splinter serum + Splinter process would supercharge her system enough to defeat the virus and live out her life in the past?

Who would be Olivia's father? Someone who communicates with Jones by leaving messages/signs in the present/past that she uncovers in the future? I've been hoping to have a connection like that revealed at some point.

Wait—What was I talking about? Oh! Right. The plague. Why would anyone want to release such a thing Where's the advantage? Some possibilities…

1. 1. Protected bloodlines. The Army has engineered the virus to ignore those w certain genetic markers, those belonging to members, agents, and benefactors of the Army, to spare them and their posterity. We've seen that the immune produce immune offspring (Sam Ramse).
   
   This idea falls apart when you factor in the mutating nature of the virus. Maybe the Army didn't plan on it? Could Peters have added it as a poison pill? But Cole and Cass have been telling anyone who'll listen that it mutates. Could it be that the Army wouldn't believe them?
   
   Seems unlikely. So, not part of the Army's plan. However, a promise of such engineering would be a good way to sell the plague's development to certain parties (like Goines and Markridge), so maybe the initial iteration *is* designed to protect certain bloodlines, but successive mutations roll the dice.
   
   So, this could be a false pretense advantage, another part of the means to some greater, so far unknown, end…
2. The aftermath of the plague is an environment that produces something unique: successful time travel. In this scenario, the virus (and death of billions) is a means to the end of time travel, and at least one specific Splinter into the past that enables Something Important to happen. Something on the order of the extinction of the dinosaurs and an ice age.
   
   So, before the plague, Project Splinter was in development, but doomed to failure or incompletion. Perhaps they didn't have the right minds or resources and/or funding was cut. Whatever the circumstances, it was a dead end, decommissioned, mothballed. Then along comes the plague, which triggers the execution of Spearhead protocols, followed by Foster's coup and Jones's revival and completion of Project Splinter.
3. Paradise / Utopia. Perhaps humanity rebuilds civilization sometime beyond 2043, in a benevolent and near-perfect fashion. And the only way that it could have come about was in the aftermath of the purge brought on by the virus. If NOT for the virus, humanity's unchecked growth would have led to the destruction of our ecosystem and the extinction of humanity, whether by war, plague, or hunger. The virus allows humanity to reboot and rebuild, correcting for the errors of pre-21st century society.
   
   So perhaps this is what drives the Army's Inner Circle. They may not live to participate in it, but if they don't manipulate events to release the virus, no man or woman ever will.
   
   Olivia's mentioned "the twelve," and when she has, I certainly don't think "monkeys." She's talking about people. Peters tried to clue us in a little…
   
   PETERS: They kept talking about the Messengers. Part of their plan… The Twelve.
   
   Twelve emissaries from the future?

Basically, I like to think that these trips, these loops, that Cole, and now Ramse, are creating, connecting 2043 and 1987 and back, are concentric. The innermost rings of a larger pattern of circles and trips, ultimately ending in some great payoff or return for our players and humanity. But will that payoff be worth it if it means that it is Fated, that no one living within these loops truly has any freedom or free will? Does it matter?

Maybe the story really begins when someone—Cassie? Cole? AARON? =) —says F-U to Fate and posterity and promise. Amerca!

I do love this show. Or maybe the one in my head. Whichever. =)

Keep on keepin on~

P.S. If you haven't watched it, see THE WORLD'S END. Why? Oh, no reason.

P.P.S. Also, maybe CABIN IN THE WOODS. And ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and/or L.A. =)