Elementalist
Technically, the ratio would be 8:3; you try to keep to whole numbers if that does not result in a nonsensical mess.
That said, the key is internal consistency. If the universes that are being visited are completely different ones and the means of travelling from one to another is in some way self-isolating (i.e. it gates the spill of anything that could be called "physics" from one universe to the other while connecting them), which I presume they are because otherwise you'd have a huge mess on your hands, then it does not matter what the ratio actually is for any given universe for as long as it remains consistent throughout any of your characters' journeys in it ... which also means, mind you, tracking how much time would pass between each of their visits in it.
Ultimately, you'll have to think of that one first: how much time can actually pass in any of those universes throughout the course of the story, and how long the actual story is in-universe-time–wise (based on the main universe's passage of time). Once you know that, you will also know what are the limits you can go to when it comes to the passing-of-time ratio.
Yes, 4:1.5 or 8:3 or you can adjust the durations slightly and have an easy to work with 3:1.
For the other one, 6 weeks to 3 hours? That's 1008 hours to 3 hours, or 336 to 1.
And for example of what you need to pay attention to: imagine your characters visiting them again after a year. In the first, it would be 3 years later - notable, but not too big. In the other, it's over three centuries. Worlds undergo complete upheavals at those timescales. World of year 2004 can become a whole new sci-fi world in that time.
Though if you have a Medieval Stasis world, you can make it a plot point. Hell, make it a revelation - characters visit in, find themselves in a differently named kingdom and different cities but same overall status quo; they note that the calendar is called something different, figure out what was the change of eras and finally realize that it has been centuries and the world didn't move on.
edited 2nd Apr '18 5:53:53 AM by Adannor
In a world I've been working on (drawn as stick people a la The Order of the Stick but not quite as colorful, for now only black-and-white pencil drawings), which has five main characters and eight supporting characters, I've been toying with the idea of them visiting an Alternate Universe (a sort of similar to our world, but Alternate History, modern-day setting) which would be Year Inside, Hour Outside.
This overlaps with Worldbuilding in a way, too.
However, what I'm not quite so good at is the ratios of Year Inside, Hour Outside.
I saw on Mahou Sensei Negima! that one world operates on a 24:1 ratio, so that's 1 hour in Real Time, is 1 day?
How could I make it so that they could (in theory) visit one Alternate Universe, spend 4 hours seeing the sights and tourist hotspots of (3pm-7pm) in the other world (another Alternate Universe, that's sort of a Captain Ersatz of Central City from The Flash (2014)), but it only equates to 1.5 hours of Real Time? What would be the ratio - 4: 1.5, is that correct?
Visiting the 2004 universe would probably be equivalent to spending 6 weeks In-Universe in their universe, but only three hours have passed in the real world. (At first, i had it as 6 weeks in their world, 1 hour in our world).
My characters are visiting at least four Alternate Universes.
The four Alternate Universes are:
- Like our world, Alternate History, set in 2004
- A superhero universe, that's a Captain Ersatz of Central City from The Flash (2014)
- A universe with Ambiguously Human and Eldritch Abominations in Medieval Stasis that's Frozen in Time to the 1300s.
- A world that's got Artistic License – Geography, with New York and Los Angeles as one Mega City, and superheroes exist. Sort of like a Lighter and Softer version of the DCEU world, at a guess.
If anyone could help, I'd appreciate this; this is an interesting thing I'd never really considered when writing or Worldbuilding.
edited 29th Mar '18 6:08:22 AM by Merseyuser1