Paradox? That's bad, right?

I'm in a bit of a quandary at the moment. I have this really cool idea for a story where the cast from my super-hero story travel to a parallel reality and meet different versions of themselves. They discover what may have been, what might happen and what they might be hiding. The story is meant to be one of THE major events in the continuity. It's going to be awesome.

One problem though; how do they get from Earth A to Earth 1 in the first place? Well, like I always do, I see what others have done. Inspired by Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602, I have an idea of what sets the plot in motion and how they are able to achieve inter-dimensional travel.

The inhabitants of Earth 1 have developed a device that rips a hole in the space-time continuum in such a way that it actually threatens to destroy it, or at least a very big chunk of it. This 'dangerous' rip doesn't go unnoticed and a god-like figure in Earth A (himself an immigrant from a dimension that naturally succumbed to entropy) warns the heroes of the disaster, sending them through the rip to Earth 1.

What I'm asking you guys is this: does that explanation float? Does it bring up any plot holes? Do you think the readers will just go with it?

Well, it didn't raise any red flags with me. Seems fine. In fact off the top of my head I can think of 2 similar situations in stuff I've seen: the TV shows Fringe and Stargate. Usually it's messing with wormholes or black holes or high-energy physics that causes the tear, either accidentally causing interdimensional travel or requiring I.D. travel in order to fix it.

You could always just call Timey-Wimey Ball and purposely make it all mind fuckish, as to how it all works.

Biggest problem I see is if Sir Godlike is an immigrant from a universe that was destroyed by an ID rip, why was the universe he ended up in not itself destroyed? If it's two-way travel, that would be the natural outcome. On the other hand, if the two universes are harmonious enough that life from one can survive in the other without a problem, then, by extension, that means both universes are harmonious enough with each other that any merge point between the two (the gateway or rip or whatever you want to call it) wouldn't cause any serious damage because there wouldn't be any sufficiently significant differences in physics/metaclorians/whatever to cause an imbalance of that magnitude.

If I understood correctly, that's not "Sir Godlike's" origin at all:

As I take it, that's relevant because he doesn't want to see his home dimension lost again, for whatever reason - not that it had been destroyed by the same problem that these guys are dealing with.

That's what I'm going for. See, the idea I'm trying to get across is that a dimension will end at some point due to natural entropic forces and that the entirety of the universe will not be harmed for it. This God-like being, named Qoud, is a survivor of one of these dimensions and in escaping into Earth A gained omnipotence and omniscience. .

This device that the inhabitants of Earth 1 have made threatens multiple dimensions simultaneously and in a manner that is no way natural, thus the multi-dimensional threat comes in.

edited 24th Oct '11 1:21:01 AM by AtomJames

Qoud. I see what you did there.