Comments on: Dave Davenport Has Come Unstuck in Time: December 22-28, 2003

By: Tylor

Tylor — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 02:23:05 +0000

It’s one of those odd things about getting older. When something you read the first time jumps twenty years into the future and you can’t help but agree that yes, that’s pretty far away. And then you come back and reread and realize… that far off future is now the past.

On the plus side, the comments about things having gone poorly in the future have aged like the finest wine. So uh props for that?

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 20:44:34 +0000

I suspect Future Dave may have started the original time jaunts and unstuckenings. In an original timeline in which he may or may not die (but just because Helen the Elder feels like it), and in which a non teleporter solution is found to escape Dave Island, and he never gets unstuck in time, he still goes mad, still destroys everything, and regrets. Maybe he tries to change time, by sending his mind back and trying to make changes like giving Yak Face to Mom Helen in the past to give him a clue something’s hinky with the family ahead of time.After doing so he he created a new timeline without realizing it. He is now in a timeline where he did give Yak Face to Old Helen but did not understand his own warning. He then invents a true time machine and destroys his universe, using it to send back his mental time machine in the past, creating a timeline where Helen B (2) builds the machine and Dave becomes unstuck in time. He might also send back teleporter schematics to the dave conspiracy so he has an easier out from the Island, waiting to be delivered at the right time. However, Dave (2), despite meeting with Dave (1) does not comprehend his warning either, and the cycle continues. Dave 2 tries to adjust the past again, but gets beaten to the punch by Mell, and she sends back her messages and Dave’s teleporter tech this time. This may have been a stable loop for awhile, if not for Dave creating a new timeline wherein he never smoked and also had some major personal revelations, leading to him finally understanding and heeding one of his past warnings.

Or something like that anyways. Maybe I should draw a chart.

By: Adept Arcanist

Adept Arcanist — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 21:24:12 +0000

Re: Time paradoxes:

My impression has always been that the Narbonic universe is capable of sustaining both stable time loops AND paradoxical timeline shifts. The majority of the time travel in Narbonic is self-consistent with itself; the people Dave, Helen, and Mell are are immutable enough that their paths are largely carved into causality, and it’s the package future Mell sends back in time that enables the time machine and teleporter designs to be created and accessible to her. Helen and Dave always make their mistakes and end up miserable, in part BECAUSE of the events that led to that moment, and Dave most likely always gives his past self his warning.

However, his past self has no reason to heed it. As far as he knows, time is immutable; what should it matter whether he fills the pool or not, when time itself will ensure the same things happen over again?

The one little blip is that this time around, Dave happens to luck into never having smoked, and so suddenly he has that little niggling glimmer of hope. He has evidence that something in time CAN be changed, and so that provides that slight little bit of uncertainty he needs to follow his future self’s advice and fill the pool.

By: 25

25 — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 19:27:49 +0000

In reply to Shaenon Garrity (shaenongarrity).

SPOILERS WARNING

It is possible that the time machine always existed, as the timeline in “All You Zombies” by Heinlein suggested. That being so, the Narbonic universe appears to have some branch points – to smoke or not plus to fill the pool or not.

Just another possible view of the comic.

By: Johnn Reynolds (sleepyjohn)

Johnn Reynolds (sleepyjohn) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:34 +0000

Artie, it's the kind of thing where you had to have never been there.

By: So It Begins (soitbegins)

So It Begins (soitbegins) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:33 +0000

Awww.

~Finis~

By: Leon Arnott (l)

Leon Arnott (l) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:32 +0000

Sunday:

Finally, Dave's actual intended mission of self-betterment has, against all odds, borne fruit. Now he's a little bit healthier in body and spirit.

Yanno, this story arc really is a very high peak in the Narbonic story, such that it greatly overshadows the next two story arcs in the queue. The next two story arcs, of course, being... um....
Hang on...
...Demons? Really? I could've sworn on a stack of copies of C++ Made Difficult that it came after the next Zeta arc...

By: James Jennings (djeimz)

James Jennings (djeimz) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:31 +0000

Rockphed said, "Somebody really needs to come up with a term like LASER for coherent thought."

"Logic Amplification by Stimulating Existential Reasoning"?

By: Adam Underfoot (unnatural20)

Adam Underfoot (unnatural20) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:30 +0000

Artie is only surprised because Dave is both surprised "Married. Kids. Imagine." and happy today. Obviously these emails come every few weeks, why should Dave be surprised at business as usual?

As for being in unusually high spirits, well. Just because Dave is more grown-up in this timeline doesn't mean he's suddenly a lady's man.

By: Rockphed (rockphed)

Rockphed (rockphed) — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 21:04:29 +0000

No, Arty probably knows about all that stuff, but he doesn't have a clue why Dave is bringing them up. Hence his comment about drunken coherent explanations.

Somebody really needs to come up with a term like LASER for coherent thought.