You are now Sam. You've now grown tired of celebrating Sam day and have headed to new regions of the dream bubbles.
You don't understand why your sister is so upset about your session being the product of a scratch. Then again the anger may stem from her father, (Your other clone dad? Paradoxes are confusing.) it's reasonable to be a little mad at someone who killed all their friends then lied to you about what was ahead. Kinda like a bus driver saying everything will be fine And you'll get there on time, when he knows damn well that the road ahead takes a huge fucking detour.
The prospect of kid-dads honestly interests you. The fact that there can be a copy of the same person that was known to you as your father and then they're not your father in any way at the same time. Paradox space is a bit crazy sometimes. Then again time and space aren't your domains, you probably just can't grasp the idea fully without dominion over the aspect, or a great understanding of it.
You continue to walk through the bubbles until someone stops you.
"Hey," The man says.
"Hi. What do you want?" You ask.
"I want to speak to my family," the man replies, "Is that reason enough?"
"Oh shit! You're my kid-dad!"
"Umm...yeah. What's with the term kid-dad?"
"Well, you're the same as my dad, but not an adult. So kid-dad."
"Actually, I'm also your son."
"I am kid-dad to my kid-dad, fuck yeah!"
"Wow, you're taking this surprisingly well."
"Dude, I don't honestly give two shits how we're related. We're just two people who share similar genetics. You can't honestly just refer to somone you've never met as true family."
"But you just fucking called me kid-dad."
"Because I don't know what else to call you."
"Call me Nate."
"Cool, I'm Sam."
"Dude, I know your name."
"Well now I'm just at a disadvantage in this conversation."
"I guess so."
"So do you have my dad's memories?"
"Yeah, and my memories from the session that created yours."
"Oh, dude, I wanna hear about that session!"
"Shouldn't I be guiding you spiritually or something?"
"Dude, I don't need any spiritual guidance. I am cool enough as it is."
"When did you become such a self-centered asshole?"
"When I god-tiered. Once I got a fuck-load of power I realized that I am pretty awesome."
"Wow, that's the wrong thing you're supposed to learn when you become immortal."
"Oh yeah? Then what was I supposed to learn?"
"I don't know! Some shit about being benevolent and kind."
"Dude, fuck that, I am a vengeful god."
"You know I expected more from my dad but I wouldn't expect anything else to come from you as my son."
"Thanks dad!"
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Don't care, mentally marking it as a compliment."
"Do you want to learn about my session or not?"
"I wanna learn stuff about dead people!,
"Then shut up and listen. Our session was a doomed one from the start. We came from a doomed timeline, we were all destined to die eventually. Jeremy and Brandon both knew this by the time they reached god-tier. In light of their situation the two of them agreed to not tell anyone, they had a goal. Brandon saw our demise and decided that it was unavoidable. What he couldn't see was a doomed timeline that had scratched. Jeremy saw the alpha timeline and six players from another session joining them. Jeremy looked deeper into your session and found that you were the product of a scratch, our scratch."
"Wait wait wait! So you guys knew to scratch the session because one of you saw the result of this action, which then caused them to commit it in the first place?"
"Yeah, and you created yourself in a cloning lab."
"Fair point, continue."
"With the knowledge that they needed to scratch to create your session they went on with the game. The two of them waited until it was time to fight the black king. They scratched the session and detonated the tumor. They made sure to leave messages for the one they decided was most attached to their father. They decided on the spoiled little girl. They picked her because she was not only attached to her father, but also gullible and she had say in your group. It was an easy choice really. Try and convince one of the more iron-willed members of your team, or break the weakest point in the chain."
"She's not weak. I know my sister, she's gullible, she thinks that the world is a fairy tale and that everyone gets some happy ending to their story, she's got less of a grasp on reality than an insane 90-year-old dementia patient, but she is not weak."
"Since when did you become so protective of her? What's with the sudden anger just because I explained their reasoning?"
"Because she's my sister dammit! I'm her family and I'm gonna stand up for her!"
"I stand corrected. You might just make it as a god with ideals like those."
"Is the story over? If so then I'm gone."
"Not quite yet. Do you know how doomed timelines work?"
"No, and I don't much care."
"They're all their own universe, each begins at the same point and there are billions in existence based off of the choices of the people in them. Only one timeline in a chain can be the alpha timeline, but what if there was say...another chain? One that on the outside looks the same as the other, but it's vastly different once you get a better look. What do you think this would be?"
"Some chains that look alike."
"No, the chains are timelines. There is no single "right timeline" there is only a path that is set out for one timeline, any versions of this timeline that deviate are therefore doomed. Imagine it like a tree as another analogy. The tree starts at the bottom, but as you go up it branches off into branches, each of these branches carries the seed that can be planted to form another tree. So let's say that one tree represents a timeline. If a seed is taken from the tree and planted elsewhere, a new timeline begins where that first timeline changed something. These timelines exist without knowledge of one another, and without each other's input. They continue to grow and eventually they both grow fruit once again."
"What kind of fruit?"
"Really? I'm explaining some intense theoretical shit here and you're concerned with what type of fruit grows into a timeline tree?"
"Yeah."
"Fine, let's say apples, you happy now?"
"Yeah, please continue."
"As both have sprouted fruit they each drop the fruit and it hits the ground. Then the all mighty time farmer goes to check on his time-apple orchard, he takes some of the fruits for himself and allows others to grow into new time trees. The ones he takes are doomed apples, he eats them because if he planted all the timelines, they would spawn too fucking many universes, so mighty time farmer decides that eating them would both make him less hungry, and also limit the overflow of time trees in his great universe orchard."
"So everyone in those universes is doomed because they got eaten by the mighty time farmer?"
"Sure, why not. The point is that because a timeline spawns another timeline doesn't mean it's destined to be destroyed. It means that they didn't make it. Each branch of the tree can be determined as a timeline, and each tree a universe, each fruit an even smaller timeline clinging to the time tree. These timelines are ones that have a chance to succeed. If one of those time apples makes it then that means that they have either made a decision and split from the main timeline to create a new alternate reality, or the inhabitants have won a game a Sburb, meaning that they created a new tree completely different from their own."
"I barely understood any of that but I'll take your word for it."
"Why do I bother explaining this shit? Here, one timeline makes a bunch of other stable timelines and also a bunch of doomed ones. The stable ones can make more stable or doomed timelines. Got it?"
"Oh yeah, that makes sense, I don't know why you had to explain it in the way of weird ass time trees."
"I honestly can't believe that you are genetically the same as my father. Just how can there be that much of an IQ jump?"
"I kinda lost a few of my marbles in the game session."
"I can see that."
"Anyway, I've got places to be."
"Where? You're asleep."
"I've been challenged by another sleeping swordsman."
"Another sleeping swordsman? Alex?"
"That's the void guy's name?"
"Yeah, and you're gonna get your ass kicked."
"Yeah yeah, see ya later Nate."
END OF CHAPTER 31