The Professor said that the divergence was caused by the "domino effect." I don't really know anything other than that...

Or am I misremembering?

I was talking with a Friend a while back and we were speculating that another possible route to a Soviet US could have been a Yellowstone Eruption at some point post the Wall Street Crash which the Soviets responded to with Aid, Disaster Relief etc and just never left after Stability was enforced due to being the Source of Stability and Reconstruction.

I figure such a World might be one in which the Japanese Empire take the Dutch East Indies due to America being too weakened by the Eruption and After Effects.

The Nazis probably still took France but never went East.
Maybe due to a Successful Soviet "Winter War" with Finland that made the Nazis too cautious to pull a Barberossa and choose to consolidate gains in France.

Either that or the Battle of Khalkin Gol between the USSR and Japan escalated leading to a Soviet Manchuria and or Korea which pushed the Empire of Japan into the Dutch East Indies after Embaressing Defeat of the Imperial Army on the Mainland.

Thoughts on this if you have any please Wade?

Not that Quinn doesn't care. But... well, you'll see why I wouldn't wanna bring this up to Quinn.

I passed this guy in the parking lot today - I just caught a glimpse of him, but he reminded me of Wilkins for a moment. When the moment had passed, I caught myself thinking, "you know, that Wilkins was a pretty attractive guy. Why didn't I sleep with him when I had the chance, anyway?"

And - the more I thought about it, the more the answer wasn't so clear. I always told myself it was because of Quinn, and that was part of it, I guess, but it wasn't the whole thing.

I think part of it was like... well, it's deceitful. To pretend to be someone else's lover, when you know you're not really that person, just to get laid? Sure she was my double, but that doesn't make her the Wade he knew any more than if she were my identical twin. And sleeping with someone, when the situation they consented to is a completely different one from the one they're actually in... that's effectively rape. (And yes - I am one of those people who believes a woman can rape a man. Feminism's awesome, isn't it?)

But even that isn't the whole thing. Deep down, what I really felt was... I was afraid. Not of Wilkins - he was a lovely guy and a perfect gentleman - but of the whole situation. Here I was, a literal world away from home in "Soviet America" in the middle of a resistance hideout that could be smoked out, blown up, or otherwise taken over at any time. And sure, I won't deny that it was a rush - that part of me was really excited to see this alternate history playing out in front of my eyes! But another part of me was terrified... that we were all going to die, that I'd never get back home.

I didn't show that very much, not to the others. I didn't want to make them even more afraid than they already were by piling my emotions on them too. But I think it must have shown to Wilkins, and like the reasonable man he is, he didn't push anything on me after that. Even though he made up that little innuendo to cover for me after the fact, I think that was really when he must have realized that I wasn't his Wade. Because his Wade already knew the score. She might've been scared of the situation she was in, but she clearly wasn't letting it get in the way of their relationship.

...There's that little part of me that still says it was a shame. He was a very nice guy... and like I said, he was a great kisser. But on so many levels it wasn't right. I never did fully explain why, though. I wish I had. I hope I didn't leave him feeling like he did something wrong.

Ahem. So... I've been thinking some more about "Net Worth."

I like the story, particularly as a story about Quinn and I. It is kind of unrealistic, admittedly... but then, I've seen dinosaurs in the flesh. Who am I to talk about what's likely or possible in the multiverse?

But I do think it's a nice metaphor for something that I have seen happen, and that's online romance. Especially back in the Nineties, when meeting people "from the Internet" was seen as much more fraught and unusual, falling for someone you've only ever met online might as well have been falling for a prince or princess locked up in an ivory tower. Not that that's ever happened to me or anything.

Text hides a lot of good things, like smiles, or the warmth of someone's jacket as they place it around your shoulders. But in a sense, it also strips things down to what's really important. You're not confined by your name or your face, by the reputation you have in your home town. Your popularity can only come from your words and your thoughts. And especially in the geek-dominated world that was the Internet in the Nineties, interesting thoughts, deep thoughts, whimsical thoughts, were a powerful currency. For someone whose thoughts had never been respected, that was intoxicating. Suddenly people listened to you, cared about what you had to say. You weren't just some loser more into reading books than balancing them, dreaming away your life. You were worth something to somebody.

You don't really need a fantasy of Onliners and Offliners to write a story that taps into that, though it's one way to do it. The gulf, often of states or even continents, between online soul and online soul is enough of a barrier, especially when you're young. Countless Juliets over these past 20 years have stood at their balconies, lamenting a world where two like souls can meet yet be kept so far apart by chance and circumstance, by the position - in this case geographical - into which they have been born. And sometimes - rarely, thankfully - it ends in suicide. Young love is always painful, but young geek love - the love of misfits destined not to follow the traditions laid out for them by their families - even more so.

So yeah, I can relate to the story. I guess I wish it had been a little more low-key - of course I love sci-fi, but there's already so much drama in the world of geeks in online love that it hardly needs anything else. Two lonely souls, locked up in their own distant towers of isolation and friendlessness, reaching out through lines of glowing text across a data network - yeah, that could have been me and Quinn. I'm glad it wasn't. But it would make a really strong story.

((She'd never do that. But if she did, wouldn't it be a great story?))

So!

This week Cory and Tom actually asked me a question directly on their podcast - hi guys! ((She hurriedly closes a half dozen "ACCESS DENIED" windows, which are flashing and displaying ominous laughing skulls in true 90s style, and pulls up the Rewatch Podcast site.)) They asked me, "What do you think about the idea of 'Net Worth' as a Quinn and Wade story?"

...Or "Quade," as you guys seem to like calling it. I guess it's better than "Quaggie."

((Shush, you. "Quade" is adorable. -intangirble))

I prefer "Win." ((She shoots back a grin. She's feeling feisty tonight it seems.))

Anyway! Uh, obviously I think it'd be better that way because I'm hopelessly biased? But seriously, I think it would've made a really interesting encounter with our doubles. A Quinn who was an Offliner, loving to tinker with computers but hopelessly locked out from where he truly wanted to be because of his social status... I can see that for him only too well.

And me in my ivory tower, isolated from the offline world but secretly craving it... well, I told you some of my childhood story above. I can easily see myself as someone who longed for the world of people, of human contact, but at the same time hid away from it behind a fantasy life... because that's who I was as a child. I wanted to reach out, but people only ever hurt me. I wanted to make my fantasies reality, but I didn't see how. If I'd had the opportunity to live my whole life in a dream... well, I think I would've been a lot like Joanne. Afraid to step outside my walls, but also knowing there was something more out there that I just wasn't touching.

((She looks back at something on her screen, then makes a face.)) ...Also, really? "Rick Montana" and "Joanne Capshaw?" Not exactly going subtle on the references here, were they? Then again, "Sliders" was never a show of subtlety. I guess Quinn, Remmy, the Professor and I aren't people of subtlety.

Or Maggie. Maggie's definitely not subtle. By the way, you have no idea how much coffee I had to drink just now to pass myself off as Natalie. It was a lot of coffee.

((She stares very firmly and very gravely into the camera.)) A lot. Of coffee. Anyone got a stress ball?

...So Joanne was afraid of being close to Rick in person because she'd grown up thinking Offliners were like... this alien species. Makes sense I guess. If it were a story about me and Quinn, I think you could work the angle like this... huh, I like how that sounds. Work the angle. I'm really getting into this producer thing. Anyway, you could make it be more like... my double was afraid that Offliners would mistreat her, that they'd be even worse than the bullies she faced at school. Maybe they'd taught her that people would judge her based on her face, her looks, and so she didn't know how to deal with people face to face any more. I could see that being a believable story.

I'm looking forward to reading ireactions' script, to see what direction he went with it. I mean, it can't be any worse than the scripts we have here. If I never have to read another poorly-veiled innuendo about a "hustle for loose balls," it'll be too soon.

((This has been another episode of "That's Random", with Wade Wells. ...Wait, what?))

...That's - actually surprisingly insightful of him. I mean, not that Quinn isn't insightful in other ways, but... in interpersonal matters, you know? But to notice the way I fall into connectedness without trying, that connecting is what I do... and to call it that, rather than calling it - blind trust, or stupidity, or any of the other things people have called it in the past... I didn't know he'd seen into me that deeply, not back then. I'm touched.

Let me tell you guys a little story. I know you've all got your own speculations about what my childhood was like - I saw an interesting one in another thread on here recently, I think it was by Temporal Flux, about how I'd struggled to develop socially as a child due to illness. Not true in my timeline, but I thought it was a pretty smart conclusion to draw, given that what did happen to me basically had the same effect. He even got the timing right too - it was around senior year of high school when things turned around for me.

But no, at least in my timeline, I didn't get sick - I was bullied. I think you'll see a little mention of that in the show somewhere, but it never really gets into how bad it was. Up until my senior year, I can't really remember a time in childhood when I was liked at school, or had friends. Not real friends, anyway... not ones that didn't tolerate me for a few weeks at best, then turn on me like everyone else.

Why? I'm not really sure myself... it was probably a mix of things. I was a loud kid, someone who said what I felt and didn't know the meaning of "tact." I was sensitive to cruelty, especially to animals. I was smart, geeky - I mean, I was no Quinn Mallory, but I read way ahead of my grade level and actually enjoyed learning, when everyone else seemed to treat it like a chore. And on top of all that, my hobbies and interests weren't typical "girl" things... I liked getting out in nature, hiking, camping, that sort of thing. Climbing trees, digging in the dirt... I was a real tomboy. As a result, I was always drawn more to the boys than the girls when it came time to pick friends. Of course, the boys looked down on me because I was a "wimpy girl"... and the girls just laughed at the clueless girl who didn't know her social "place."

Even my sister... well, I could talk all day about my relationship with Kelly and how it's complicated. Let's just say she was popular, and I was anything but. She was embarrassed by me; I was resentful of her; it culminated in the Great Narnia War of 1982, during which we drove my parents nuts and ended up getting the books banned from the house for a time... yeah.

Anyway. I didn't have friends. And that was hard on someone like me, because - I'm not an introvert, not naturally. I need people. Yes, I genuinely love computers and fantasy, but I also love company. Being isolated and ignored, even at home, took a real toll on me emotionally. By the time I was fourteen or so, I was a withdrawn, moody, anxious kid.

But part of me never stopped trying. I didn't want to be isolated; I just didn't know how to get people to like me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. And every time I tried it seemed like I got hurt. But I kept trying, because I couldn't not... and eventually, I don't know, something clicked, and things weren't so bad any more. The bitter feminist in me wants to say that I just grew up and got pretty. I didn't learn anything new, but suddenly I wasn't mousy and geeky-looking any more, and people - guys - wanted to get close to me more than they wanted to ignore me. One of my former tormentors actually tried to invite me to senior prom with him, can you imagine? And so where the male attention went, the female admiration followed. ((She shrugs.))

I guess what I'm trying to say in all of this is that Quinn's more right than he knows. I never learnt to connect with people, never "honed" how to do it... I never got the chance to practice. I don't even know that I'm good with people, honestly. I like people, I like talking to people, and maybe now I'm older and better-looking that's enough to make people smile. But I've never had many social graces, for all that I've tried to learn. I'm just... I'm just me.

And I need connection, and that part of me instinctively reaches out, every time. Even if I know it's stupid, even if I know it's going to get me hurt... like on some world where we don't have time. I just need people. And I guess part of me always wants them to like me, too.

---

...Well, that got long. Sorry! omnimercurial, to your question... man, that's a tricky one. I mean, the timer wasn't really my thing, it was Quinn's... I never really got to play with it. And around the third year of sliding things got pretty fuzzy for me, so... I'm not sure, but I want to say there were two.

I only really remember the one well, though. It was the first one, the one that Quinn made himself. I guess it always looked like a TV remote control to me, but I think it was actually made out of an old cellular phone. It had those red LED numbers on the display like an alarm clock, and a bunch of weird labels that I never really knew what they did. I asked Quinn, but he didn't really explain very well. Like - Tau, Delta, Zeta. I think they were frequencies? Frequency waves, measuring the strength of some kind of signal - I guess the quantum overlap between worlds. Anyway, at times, like when we got to a new world, those lights would go on and off, and the bars would oscillate... kind of like the signal bars on a cell phone. It seemed like the timer was trying to lock on to a frequency.

I didn't really have a favorite, but I can tell you that the feeling of sliding was different betwen different devices. When the Kromaggs were transporting us between worlds, their kind of sliding felt different. It was smoother, but also more... mechanical-feeling? I don't know how to describe it exactly, but sliding with Quinn's device... something about it was almost supernatural. I felt like I was leaving my body, mingling with the atoms of everything and everyone around me. I could feel Quinn, Remmy, the Professor there with me, and I could feel their emotions, their excitement... their minds were brushing against mine. It was a real rush.

With the Kromaggs, I didn't feel any of that connection. I guess I'm glad. I wouldn't wanna feel merged with a Kromagg. Being around them is bad enough.

I hope that answers your question somewhat!

---

Oh, ireactions. One more thing.

I guess I wanted to shed some light on just what I was feeling back on Lottery World. I mean - it's not that I never thought about the possibility of whether it was all a setup. I did. I just - I so badly wanted a world that wasn't going to put us all through Hell again, you know?

((She lets out a short, sardonic laugh.)) Not that I wouldn't trade a million spiderwasp worlds for the Kromaggs. But back then, it all felt like the worst thing I'd ever been through in my life. The most beautiful, too, and the most expansive, the most enlightening... but also, we'd been through so much. The spiderwasps, the tsunami... the possible end of days... Quinn being beaten on by those Mafia thugs, and almost getting shot... When I thought we'd arrived on a world where everyone was happy and everything was perfect, I wanted to cling to that illusion. It was the kind of world I'd always imagined for myself... the kind of world I'd want to settled down in, raise children in. If we weren't going to make it home, I wanted to at least stay somewhere peaceful, before we ended up on some world where Nazis ruled or something.

So I forced myself not to think of the alternative. Because I wanted to believe. In a future for myself, but also - in humanity. I wanted to believe that such a perfect world could be possible if we only tried, and worked together.

I still do.

How many different types of Timer did you go through in your Multiversal Journeys?

Which was your Favourite and which did you dislike the most and why?

Could you describe them please too?

Many thanks.

Omni

ME: "Quinn, what do you think of Wade?"
QUINN: "I've been worrying about her iron levels; I don't think she's handling her vegetarian diet in the healthiest way. It also bugs me that she likes to keep a netbook under our pillows because that's where I want to keep the timer."
ME: " ... no, what do you think of the other one?"
QUINN: "What other one?"
ME: "Timeline 616.32."
QUINN: "You might as well be asking me what I thought of Wade back in 1999 during Year Four when we got stuck in a VR trap and faced off against religious fundamentalists and accidentally saved a Kromagg commander and later had to deal with that haunted hotel. It's a timeline almost 16 years in the past. And I have memories of the other version. The one with the Chasm."
ME: "I would like to know thought of Wade back then, actually. For biographical purposes."
QUINN: "Buddy, I don't remember if I liked what I had for dinner 16 minutes ago; you can't ask me what I felt 16 years ago."
ME: "I thought you had a photographic memory."
QUINN: "That just means I can bring things to mind if I read them."
ME: "Quinn."
QUINN: "I never liked people. I didn't hate them and I wasn't indifferent to them -- but I had real reason to doubt I'd ever get along with any of them. I was in junior high at age 10, everyone hated me because I made them feel like less -- which was ultimately not my fault. I don't walk into a room to make people feel worthless, but if they feel that way to begin with, my presence makes it hard for them to forget it. A few cracked ribs and black eyes later, I'd pretty much accepted that my interaction with the human race was going to be isolated and limited and the basement would be my world. And the classroom, the repair bay at Dopplers' -- basements of a different kind."
ME: "I can't tell -- are you still dissembling?"
QUINN: "Dunno. Who can tell where this monologue is going?"
ME: "Hmm. Carry on."
QUINN: "I met Daelin at a science fair. She presented models in statistical sociological experiments in non-verbal communication and linguistic constructs. Her mathematical sequences were subtle and sublime. We'd spend hours in my basement. Experimenting on every corner of the chalkboard. I thought this would work -- another scientist. But then she moved. Continuing with what I'd learned from that, I found another scientist to fill the void. And then another. But it never worked. It was like I was trying to find a Daelin-shaped piece to fill in the gap. But people aren't like molecules in fixed equilibrium geometries -- and relationships can't operate in the simple duality of covalent and ionic bonds. Relationships are more like the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory in which objective realities cannot exist and since that was complicated enough, I decided to put my focus there and stop worrying about life partners."
ME: "Uh... "
QUINN: "I clicked with Daelin, she moved, I couldn't find a Daelin substitute, so I stopped worrying about girlfriends and decided to keep myself busy."
ME: "Thanks."
QUINN: "When I opened the gateway in my basement, I saw a symplectic manifold equation mapped to three dimensional space. A photonic construct of a theoretical mathematical model given shape and form within a physical reality -- allowing quantum theory to reconcile harmonic oscillation and equipartition theorem with local coherence and probability amplitude. So did the Professor. But Wade saw a doorway to anything and everything that might have ever happened and anyone and everyone who might have ever lived. I looked at the Revolution on the Soviet-ruled America and I saw a sociological inevitability of insurrectionary instinct against a fascist dictatorship that would likely be stamped out within a few weeks of our departure. But Wade saw the indomitable human spirit battling for justice, equality and fairness for all. I saw an asteroid hurtling towards the Earth and felt panic and fear and failure, but Wade felt like she was connected to all her doubles and to me. I couldn't connect with people. I didn't think myself above them, but I didn't know how to stand next to them and I'd stopped trying a long time ago. But Wade connected just by going about her day -- it wasn't even something she refined or practiced or honed -- it was something she did. She didn't fill the void. She connected the distances. She was my bridge."
ME: "Well, sometimes, the whole bridging and engaging with life approach was kind of myopically stupid -- like on the Lottery world where she was so wrapped up in dresses and money and luxury and parties that she didn't try to figure out why people would receive everything for nothing and she made you feel like you were the crazy one for asking questions and wanting answers."
QUINN: "Nobody's perfect."
ME: "Were you actually planning on answering the question or were you just going to ramble until I left?"
QUINN: "I don't pretend to know where I'm going to end up. Not anymore."

Who knows. Maybe you guys' faith in me, in all of us, changed something, out there in the multiverse. And maybe we're just that awesome. ((She laughs.)) Either way, knowing you were all out there, trying to do what you could, to piece together the truth... it makes even the memories of that time more bearable. Knowing that in so many ways, I was never alone.

((To the extent that she can, across the ether - you get a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She doesn't know any other way to express her gratitude.))

So... many people on the Internet over the past 20 years have been asking, "What happened to Wade?" As in, it's a common enough query that you can get Google to autocomplete for it

I'm alive.

... I never believed you were dead. In terms of basic quantum mechanics -- if you accept that the multiverse generates new realities through constantly splitting at each point with multiple outcomes of possibility, then all sliders generate multiple versions of themselves across every parallel Earth they visit. An exploration of this concept can be found in the documents and evidence gathered by Mike Truman here: http://slidersweb.net/otherworlds/317/

In terms of raw emotion, I also never believed you were dead because I just couldn't.

You have escaped prisons, holding cells, offices, strongholds, caves and outmaneuvered petty thugs, fascist dictators, corrupt businessmen, murderous doubles and killer robots -- so the idea of the Kromaggs being able to hold Wade Welles captive for long really didn't ring true.

My suspicion has always been that the sliders who survive are ones with an innate sense of risk calculation and spatial awareness, able to capitalize on the smallest of opportunities for the largest of gains. It's what kept you all alive.

In the darkest, coldest depths of my mind, I imagined Wade Welles bound and immobilized, surrounded on all sides by implacable foes and unstoppable forces. Her captors certain she was in their power. But in every imagining, the enemy would look away for the briefest of moments. The merest flicker of the eye -- and in that moment, Wade would be free and there would be nothing and no one who could possibly stop her.

And on some level, that's true for everyone here. Everyone believed that if they sifted through all the evidence, all the accounts, all the records of the sliders' adventures, repeatedly, constantly and endlessly and if the influx of new information never, ever stopped, we would eventually find something to tell us what we all knew to be true -- that you were still out there.

((She pulls out her feminist cred here.)) Well, I wasn't there for getting read the rights, or not read them as the case may be for my friends - but you'd be surprised how ignorant cops can be. They're the same on my world. Deaf people, for example... they're pretty common, but they're often treated badly by police for not following verbal instructions. Heck, a lot of prison guards don't seem to understand that women menstruate, and we're half the population. I'm sure there's an official procedure for non-telepaths, but most people don't think about it.

Prejudice isn't always something that's built into the institution. It can be subtle, like just forgetting that you're not the only kind of person in existence. Even if the rules say otherwise.

As for their idea of privacy being non-existent... I'm not sure if that was all of them, or just Derek. Honestly, it seemed like he had some personal issues of his own. And no, I didn't ask him. I was kind of too busy trying to convince him not to psychically rape people. ((She snorts a little.)) Maybe if I'd had more time.

I don't know if the people of that world figured out sliding. But whether they're a danger to people or not... I think that has more to do with what their cultural prejudices are like than whether they're telepathic.

((She taps the side of her head, and smiles lopsidedly.)) I'm a "teep" now too, remember? So of course I don't think it makes a person hostile to people's privacy by default. I'm not that way. If their culture has those prejudices built in, and they spread them to other worlds, then of course that would be harmful - same as if racists or sexists were to spread their ideas to worlds that were predominantly Black or female. You could even end up with a situation like the Kromaggs, where their belief in their genetic superiority causes them to want to exterminate other sentient life... ((She shudders.))

But I also wouldn't treat that as the default just because they're telepathic. ((She taps her own head again.)) After all, that'd be a little prejudiced too, don'tcha think?

I also recall their idea of Privacy was non existant so I do wonder.... Did they TAKE Quinn and Arturos Theoretical and Technical Knowledge of Sliding and just not reveal it?

Do you think Psychic World are Sliding somewhere as we speak? And if the answer is yes..... Are they a Danger to Non Teeps in your view?

When I see that question, "What happened to Wade?", I keep wishing I could answer - nothing. Nothing happened to me. It's all right, I'm fine, I'm right here - I would hug every one of you if I could, and say that.

And that's true and it isn't, because something happened to me, but it's not what you were all thinking. The Kromaggs did take us, and separate us, and I as transferred to a breeding camp, but - they decided I was more valuable as a psychic tool than a genetic one. For which... well, I'd say I'm thankful. To suffer rape, to give birth to the children of your torturers, to have your body treated as a factory, hollowed out, over and over - I can't imagine. But at least the survivors of that torture were spared the assault on their minds; the deliberate and calculated teardown of their realities. That, in my opinion, is an equal sort of evil.

But the point is I'm still alive, I'm still here. I don't - I don't want to be defined by that last moment of the story the way it was told, because that's not - it's a distorted version of what really happened. I'm not a head in a jar (as ought to be pretty obvious,) and I'm not that eternal Kromagg victim, isolated from the rest of the world with no chance of escape. I wasn't left to die alone.

I'm a survivor. I'm alive. And a life stretches out ahead of me just as it did back then, a life of possibilities and wonders - the potential for love and loss, for sorrow and joy.

And if you're reading this right now - you have, in your possession right now, the same gift. No matter what you've faced before, you have come this far.

I just wanted to say that.

LOVE this thread! That is all.

((Glad you like! If you guys ever want to fire any questions at Wade, have at it.))