But what of Earth?

I usually solve my problem by delving into both. When I have a character from Earth, I usually put them into personal fanfics that I don't want canonized. Then I take all my creativity and put out some brand new characters that come from scratch.

My favorite part is making robots that are completely original. Or as original as I can try.

Zephyr102 wrote:

Here's my question on the subject: why does magic have to be the deciding factor in whether a world can link to Felarya?
Is it impossible for a scientifically-advanced species to reach Felarya without magic, or could they construct a dimensional gate analogue running on 'science' instead of 'magic'? Given Felarya's status as a dimensional nexus of sorts, I'd think it would be quite an easy jump from the creation of a dimensional gate to reaching Felarya: like finding a major city from space due to all the lights.

If scientific (well, pseudoscientific) means of dimension-hopping were allowed, what would stop someone from 'Earth' 256 reaching Felarya?

Perhaps the fact that Earth' 256 doesn't exist in the Felarya universe?

I shall repeat myself, Just because there is a gateway that allows travel to other worlds, doesn't mean that all Canonical universes exist in the narrative, that way madness lies. There's no way you can make a believeable universe where anything from Super Sayains to the Fraggles could end up in Felarya if given the right circumstances

yeah, the simple reason is that just because you like say Star Treck and Felarya, doesn't mean you should mix the two.

Look, to be straight with you, if you want to plug someone from Earth into Felarya, you can. Artistdragon on dA for instance managed to plug some Victorian British milquetoasts in there. I just wish they were hardcore twits, like in Monty Python. AzureJass also had a British fetish [it's funny because it rhymes].

MukatKiKaarn also plugged a very nice guy, Ibrahim Saunders, out of his cab and into Felarya, and it worked just peachy despite containing explicit Islam.

Frenchsnack also plugged some college chumps straight into Milly, in story 8 or 11, one of those two, I think. And they died. Krisexy26 was writing a story with a ship full of people... and guess what, I bet they're going to die in droves.

I'm assuming that Earth doesn't have any noticeable impact in Felarya as a whole to require any sort of canon acknowledgement as to its existence; personally, I prefer avoiding Earth connections because it's 2063 AU in Felarya, and 90% of people will link to 2063 AU whether they're Victorian London twits, Chicago Muslim Cab drivers... or fucking plesiosaurs (like with Jasconius).

Since we assume most people can return to their own world through a portal, that brings up a wholly different can o' worms for the attentive reader: say we put Ibrahim Saunders and some brits in a boat together with some Spetsnaz cold war ops, then kick the boat through a portal: do they all return to their own years, to the same year, to the average of the years? To the post-apocalyptic future? To the Stone Age? To the current year corresponding to 2063? And what about the boat? Sure, I like opening cans o' worms in people's brain, but in this case everyone beat me to it- by accident!



So in short I prefer not linking to Earth 'cause I'm not sure what year 2063 would correspond to.

P.S: Also, people get to correct me if I get stuff wrong about their country or religion rather than help me build.

i think the presence of humans and other earth animal forms is enough reference to this planet were all stuck on. Just having humans there gives us a sort of impression that earth will exist does exist or did exist sometime in connection with this world, but prevents any of our historical or contemporary events from touching it and gives a sort of "Once upon a time" idea to it, i find the term quite weighted in connection with certain types of stories, but as a phrase it entails that we have no idea if we are being placed in future, past or present of our current sense of our world. and i find that ambiguity quite freeing.


specifically i found i like that earth isn't mentioned for two reasons.

#1. it gives us more freedom to root for whatever species without a preset "home team" Karbos method in the manga that allows me to see things primarily from the predators point of view most of the time, while the humans in the story remain more of a mystery to a certain extent although they do have their scenes, or simply a tasty treat. in the end i still feel that it leans toward being the predators story

Its really a clever set up considering that most stories out there , even when we are made to feel sympathetic for other creatures, humans still come out to be the focus.

Lord of the rings- human hero
Avatar- human hero
star wars - human centered

so on and so on, its usually us defeating the aliens/ other races, or saving them or what have you.

E.T - almost broke this trope because of the interdependency factor between the two main characters. this was probably the reason for its success as the audience would sense that there was something new and different happening narrative wise

Shrek sort of attempted it as well.

there's others to prove the rarity of what Felarya has, but i'm just using the big ones

Edit: oh my... i bypassed the talking animal/ talking object entirely genre, these usually fit into two categories. ones where the animals are simply a visual device to tell a story, standing in for types of people and humans are entirely absent, like Shark Tale. Or secondly humans are a more distant plot device or Over-lording Presence (Toy Story, Bambi, Once Upon a Forest, Ice Age 1).


I don't want to trail too much into a discussion on these, the point i was going for is that its rare that when another creature is both above and a destructive force toward humans like the predators are do we get to see their side of things presented as possibly acceptable their usually evil aliens or dinosaurs or whatever, essentially monsters. therefore we never truly are removed from our position of either centrality or power, save for instances like Felarya.



#2. Agreeing with what has already mentioned before, omitting earth creates a barrier to all of our cultural sensitivities, allowing stories to be told in a more pure way drawing on the raw essence of issues, decontextualizing them from their usual trappings so we can experience them in an unbiased way.

i did enjoy reading French Snack's Lost in Felarya, but it had a different effect on me than other purely Felarya based stories. It didn't give me that out of body experience quite as much as Karbo's depictions, i found that i could place myself easily having so much evidence of real culture intertwined in the story it kept me sort of tied down to my place in reality.

that sort of interaction with reality has its strong points and use. but the isolated universe approach i feel gives much more power to pure creativity.

if there was an earth i would be best to be an unrecognizable one to our own, but i would much more approve of a completely imagined human "homeworld" in order to keep Felarya untied to our sense of time.

well that my reading on it anyhow

Regarding dates, I just go with something akin to C.S. Lewis's excuse and say "it runs on an independent timeline". When you go from Universe X to Felarya at X time, you arrive at Y time. With The Chronicles of Narnia physics, you can leave Felarya at Y+n time and you'll return home at some random time.
IMO, things work a little better if, if you leave Felarya at Y+n time, you get home at X+n time, and vice versa, provided you used a reliable portal. If you didn't, or if it's your first trip... well a stone age caveman and a 221st-century capsuleer could equally likely end up both entering Felarya at 2063 Felarya time. If you use an unstable portal, they could very well end up in each other's times or any other random time when they went home, but if they used a more stable portal such as the Negav gate, there should only be a single point in spacetime at which Felarya and the other universe connect.
At least that's my understanding.

Stabs wrote:

Since we assume most people can return to their own world through a portal, that brings up a wholly different can o' worms for the attentive reader: say we put Ibrahim Saunders and some brits in a boat together with some Spetsnaz cold war ops, then kick the boat through a portal: do they all return to their own years, to the same year, to the average of the years? To the post-apocalyptic future? To the Stone Age? To the current year corresponding to 2063?

I always felt the Dimensional Gate itself was more stable, kinda like a Stargate. People use Felarya as a nexus, getting from one place to another, hence the Felaryan Express traveling between the two main gates. Felarya wouldn't be used like that if traders and other businesspersons couldn't reach their destination with some level of reliability. While I can't speak for the Negavian Dimensional Gate (or any of the possible others) specifically, the Ur-Sagolian Dimensional Gate definitely possesses the required accuracy:

Ur-Sagol Wiki Entry wrote:

Another mystery is how easy it is to use the gate. Merely thinking about where you wish to go is sufficient for the gate to accurately teleport you to your destination gate. Obviously, this makes the ancient and mysterious artifact something of a legend on many worlds, baffling mages and scientists alike, and no one has ever been able to figure out how it works.

So, if you shoved an arrangement of people from unique times and places into the Gate, supposing it is possible for a Dimensional Gate to reach Earth, then they would all arrive when and where they wanted to, supposing there was a viable destination gate in existence at that time and place, which means the most of the characters you mentioned will not be getting back to their time, unless your Alternate Earth had Dimensional Gate technology at the times those characters came from.
I personally believe someone could reach some form of Earth via one of the Gates if the correct technology or magic existed on the Earth they wanted to reach. It would probably not be our Earth or an Earth similar to ours, barring hidden technology or magic in that world.