#distraction!

-O5-3 from @overwatch-council

Yo wassup!!

“I don’t have any issue with you going to Kazimierz to see your sister,” the Doctor said, filling out paperwork for an Operator’s leave, “but you’re sure you don’t want us to send some support with you? The plan you submitted is...unorthodox, to say the least.”

Nearl shook her head. “A small team is all I need to do this. Fret not, Doctor; however many pieces I leave the arena in, I shall return safely.”

“That’s reassuring, I guess? If anything changes, however, I believe we have a few Operators in the area already, so simply say the word.” He handed her the fully-written documents.

“I will keep it in mind.” The Kuranta left the office, meeting her dynamic Sarkaz duo at the door. “Are we prepared for our rescue mission?”

Shining nodded. “Certainly, dear. Our pilot is standing by.”

“Excellent...I know you want to join me in the fight-”

“We trust your assessment of the enemies you anticipate engaging,” she interjected, “and it is better that we remain on standby for the extraction than fall in a grandiose gesture. Liz, any additional notes?”

Nightingale half-hugged, half-leaned against the Radiant Knight with misty eyes. “Kick their asses for us, but...don’t get hurt.”

“Quite,” Nearl agreed as the other Sarkaz stifled a chuckle.

“Without any further ado,” Liz said, still leaning on her more heavily-armored wife, “let’s go catch the show.”

The walk to their ride, and the subsequent flight, were solemn affairs. There was every possibility that a tragedy would happen that day, even if all were prepared to step in if necessary to avoid exactly that - while neither of the Medics were as immediately powerful as the Knight, Shining could certainly hold her own against those who’d get between her and her wives, and Nightingale’s Arts could absolutely ensure that the worst couldn’t come to pass. Even so, the possibility that only shortly after coming together, their life could fall apart without a second’s chance…

As they approached the Sarkaz’ delivery point, Liz hugged the Kuranta’s neck as tightly as she could. “We’ll see you soon.”

“You will...as will all of Kazimierz.” The old days in the arena were coming back to her - the dramatics, the high stakes, the posturing, all for what? Her foes were no match for the light inside her, and with the Followers with her, that light had only grown brighter. It was time for her to show the people a dawn to outshine the sun.

Once her wives were on the ground and on their way, of course.

“So,” a voice said from inside the helicopter they were riding in, “what’s your plan here? Drop in like a bomb?”

“What else would you expect from her?” Another voice replied.

Nearl sighed, locating the two Lazurites with her Pegasian Eyes. “You won’t win this fight.”

“Oh, we know,” one of them sighed. “We considered it, but we’ve been keeping tabs on you three for long enough to know we’re beat. Still had to follow you.”

“We’ll be hopping off when this thing lands, don’t worry.”

Nightingale cocked her head. “Lands?”

“...Why am I surprised at this point?” The Sarkaz stood up to ready themselves for takeoff. “No one just drives any more.”

“My sister does,” the Kuranta noted.

Two Lazurites considered their options. Both watched the Medics descend from the helicopter on...birds’ wings? Made of light? “Let’s just leave. We brought ‘chutes.”

“Guess we did.” The first nodded to the Knight. “We’ll be watching.”

“As I’d expect.” She’d exhausted her words for them; as they followed the other pair of jumpers, pulling ripcords a safe distance away from the helicopter blades, all she had for them was a glare.

Liz and Shining safely landed a distance away from the entrance, although the former was rather tired from that display of Arts. As Nearl descended on the arena like a streaking meteor, they encountered minor resistance at the door (a silver-haired Armorless Union Kuranta rep who took two seconds before letting them inside) but made their way into the crowd without too many issues. They’d even managed to get ringside seats.

“There she is.” While the Redeemer had seen Margaret in all her glory (take that as you will), her presence on the battlefield was another matter entirely.

“So bright.” Nightingale put an angled hand over her eyes. “Her light...is hot.”

Her wife smiled. “Indeed she is.”

“Mmm.”

“That must be her sister,” Shining noted, seeing Maria as the light dimmed a little. “I can see the family resemblance. Hehe. She’s a cute little knight, isn’t she?”

The other Sarkaz nodded, slowly. “I want to spoil her.”

“I’m sure we will when we take her ho- oh my. Those Sarkaz are in a bad way.” Both Medics frowned watching the Kurantas’ opponents.

“Even so,” Liz whispered before yelling, “Kick their asses, Margaret!”

The rest of the audience fell silent shortly after her cheer, although her escort couldn’t help but laugh a little. The sisters likely would’ve done that regardless, but in the end, they made quick enough work of the brothers Grim and Grimmer.

As the crowd grew restless, Shining stood from her seat. “We should go.”

“Margaret!” Nightingale jumped into the arena.

“Not precisely what I meant,” the other Sarkaz noted to herself, following her without a moment’s hesitation.

From there, extraction was straightforward - Rhodes Island had set up a rendezvous point for when they were ready, so after enjoying some time with her family and securing them a place at RI, the Radiant Knight and her wives slipped away to meet Amiya there. “Good evening. Is everyone here?”

“My sister and aunt will be here tomorrow morning, after getting their affairs in order.” Nearl sighed, cheerfully but exhaustedly. “I appreciate Rhodes Island’s support in this.”

“You did most of the work, Miss Nearl. We largely just provided you with transportation.”

Shining nodded. “And for that, we are eternally grateful.”

“The next time she fights here,” Nightingale asked, “there should be more, fewer opponents, so your light can shine longer.”

“You did make short work of them, dear, between the two of you.” The other Medic smiled.

The Cautus wasn’t sure she should stay for wherever they were taking their conversation. “We leave tomorrow morning, then. Um, we have some rooms you can stay the night in - we cleared the building, but there may still be some strangeness here and there.”

“Is there a wide enough bedding arrangement?” Liz wondered aloud, to her wives’ mi;d embarrassment. “Three to share?”

“We can, um, arrange something.” Amiya officially decided she wasn’t old enough just yet for these things.

The trio took their leave. Nearl whispered to Shining, “Did she yell for me to ‘kick their asses’ during the fight today?”

“She certainly did. Her voice has been hoarse since,” the Redeemer replied with a small frown. “Luckily, we have lozenges for her, but it does worry me..”

“As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine,” the subject of their conversation replied from between them, hand in Shining’s and head leaning against Neael’s shoulder.

Yeah, it’s your favorite Star Wars Rebels conspiracy theorist, back with more crazy shit!  These are some thoughts I’ve been kicking around for a while, and today they kind of solidified when I saw the image Dave Filoni posted on Twitter today (3/12/20):

I said I wasn’t going to speculate on this image and, well...I lied. A little bit. The only thing I’m going to say (and I’m sure you’ve noticed this, too) is that we’re looking at Ahsoka in her Star Wars Rebels epilogue getup, which occurs five years after the events on Lothal. And right behind her, we see Kanan with his pre-”Jedi Night” look. It’s...odd. I mean, it’s sort of jarring that Kanan is there at all, really. There are also those two characters in the back corner, and I can’t say with any real certainty who they are. I’ve seen some people say they’re Anakin and Obi-Wan, which would be a strange and fairly nonsensical addition, given the fact that neither one of them really had anything to do with the rest of the characters in the image (other than Ahsoka, of course). Also, glaringly: Where is Ezra? The omission of Ezra makes me think that there’s more to this image than meets the eye. On the other hand, it could just be a drawing of some of our faves, created with the intention of cheering us up. It’s Filoni, so who knows?

But that, my friends, is not really why I’m here. 

I’m here because I want to talk about how Ezra pulled Ahsoka out of that portal in the world between worlds. 

The main thing we first need to remember and understand about Ahsoka is that she died on Malachor. When she confronted Vader, she went into it knowing that she probably wouldn’t survive. Vader walked away from the confrontation, and if Ahsoka had survived, he would have taken her with him. She was most certainly dead. 

But then, two years later, Ezra Bridger pulled her out of that portal- and in doing so, he created an alternate timeline/parallel universe in which Ahsoka survives her confrontation with Vader. 

Since everyone always draws a picture to explain this stuff in time travel movies, here’s my terrible drawing:

Here’s where things get really confusing. When Ahsoka returns to the portal, she cannot continue along the same, original timeline, because in that timeline, she's dead. Thus a new timeline must be created, in which none of the events of season three and season four have happened yet. Those events are only one possible future in the new timeline- and that future has already been significantly altered because a powerful Force user who should have died is not dead. How much did her survival change what occurred in the new timeline? This is known as the Butterfly Effect- the idea that small changes to the past or present can have major repercussions in the future. She also returns to the portal with profound knowledge that she didn’t have before, namely, the existence of the world between worlds, and Kanan’s death. 

Ahsoka cannot alter any events in the original timeline that occurred before she was pulled out of the portal by Ezra- like saving Kanan, for instance- because they have already happened. If time only moves in one direction, going back to change the past isn’t possible. But if she stepped back through the portal and all of those events were still in the future on the new timeline, there is no limit to what could have changed. 

Interestingly enough, there are actual scientific theories to back this up- and this relatively new one sounds an awful lot like the world between worlds:

“[Shoshany and Hauser] uploaded a paper of their research to the preprint archive arXiv last month. It describes a model in which a person could theoretically travel from one timeline to another by stepping through a hole in space-time, or wormhole, in a way that they claim is ‘mathematically possible.’

‘The parallel universes approach that we suggest says there are different parallel universes where things are roughly the same, and each one is mathematically on a separate space-time manifold,’ Shoshany told New Scientist. ‘You can go between those manifolds when you travel back in time.’”

You can read more about this here and here.

This method of time travel ideally eliminates the “grandfather paradox”, i.e. if you for some reason went back in time and killed your grandfather, you would no longer exist to go back in time and kill your grandfather- if you stepped through a time portal into an alternate timeline, the man you thought was your grandfather is not actually your grandfather. It is also an offshoot of the “Many-Worlds Interpretation,” which is the actually-scientific-theory-version of what we know as parallel universes, multiverses, or alternate timelines. Some scientists believe that many parallel universes exist- perhaps an infinite number of them- and this is the basis of MWI. Time travelers can create parallel universes just by changing events in their own timeline. The question is, are you even aware that you’re in another timeline? 

Here’s a great video on the subject if you want to learn more.

So. When Ahsoka returned to Malachor through the portal, that timeline was instantly altered by virtue of her survival alone. It is nearly impossible to believe that her continued existence didn’t change many things going forward. And yet, nothing changes in the original timeline, as far as we are aware. Was she just so careful that she managed to avoid altering anything? I doubt it. What was she doing, all that time, when she was missing?

Maybe she was in an alternate timeline. And maybe the Ahsoka we see in the epilogue has returned from the alternate timeline to the original one. I know that some of you have considered the possibility that the Loth-wolves can travel not just through space, but through time as well, and I’m right there with you. But regardless, there is no question (in my mind, at least) that Ahsoka’s return through the portal would have altered the future significantly...and I have to wonder if Dave has considered that. I’m not saying the image he tweeted today has any bearing on the matter- it could just be a nice sketch for a shitty time. But it’s just something to think about. A distraction, if you will.

More food for thought- this an excerpt from a recent Filoni interview on io9:

@bethanyactually tagged me to do a quick about me meme!

Top 3 cities you want to visit: Melbourne (I WAS ROBBED, FUCK YOU COVID), Dubrovnik, Budapest. (Is this the top three? Today’s top three.)

Favourite Marvel character: Uhhh. Peggy Carter?

White Chocolate, yay/nay?: As a teenager, my favorite candy was Hershey’s Cookies’n’Creme. As a serious amateur baker, I am obliged to inform you that white chocolate is not chocolate, and if you treat it like chocolate it will seize up and make a mess. But, you know. Yay, white chocolate, even if it isn’t chocolate.

Favourite board game: Scrabble.

How many countries have you been to: Um. Australia, Germany, Canada, Czech Republic, China, Hong Kong (pretending it’s still autonomous?), France, Spain, Italy, England, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, Belgium, Monaco, Portugal, Greece...think that’s it? 18, plus this uniquely hellish place I call home.

Favourite thing to do on a rainy day: Nap. Bake. Read. Though that’s really most days.

Favourite Holiday: Passover. They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat.

Pen or pencil:  Pen.

Favourite kind of soup: For a treat, French onion. For the day to day, tomato.

Your typical order at a cafe or a coffee shop: Drip coffee. Or a latte, if I’m feeling spicy. (I...just want coffee.)

Favourite ride at an amusement park: The bench where the moms sit and smile and wave at their children. I have no children.

The colour of your sneakers: Whitish-gray, still covered in dust from Uluru that is clearly just sticking with it at this point.

Favourite pbs show (or little kids show if you don’t have pbs): Uh. Mr. Rogers 4EVAR.