how many universes did we see at the elevator scene?

[PB]

Original timeline: 1985 - damage caused. 2000s - Fringe events lead the two sides to discover each other and unite. 2026 - the machine is built, designed to fix the damage and bridge the universes and stabalize the fabric of reality.

Only they are too late. The wormhole is formed. The Universes are destroyed. Walter and company send the machine back in time via the wormhole and set up all the First People stuff. The idea is that if they can find the *machine* back in the 2000s, rather than building it onward to 2026, they can stop the damage *before its too late*. So they set it up so their past selves can find the information they need to assemble it. The timeline is rewritten, and the machine is destined to be found and used in a positive way. September comes to watch the momentous occaision.

And screws it all up. And causes a death, a kidnapping, a war.

Cool idea psychopathicROC!

What I don't understand is how the blueverse and redverse have two characters with separate physical and mental existences. Blue Olivia and Red Olivia are supposed to be the SAME Olivia, but that can't be. They're two separate entities with, I assume, two separate souls. One soul magnet should affect all Olivias if they're supposedly the same person, right? Or does each specific character in each universe (of which there are apparently an infinite number) have a distinct soul, meaning that there are an infinite number of Olivia's with an infinite number of souls? I'm only bringing up the concept of souls because the show did and we've clearly seen that characters in the blueverse and redverse cannot share a soul.

In any event, I don't think the writers had the concept of "over there" fleshed out yet when they aired the elevator scene, so it's probably pointless to speculate on how many different universes we are seeing. I don't think the writers had it all thought out, and they probably still don't.

I disagree with all of this Walter's Walk. You say it's already been established that all the multi-verse iterations of these characters each have their own soul, when and where was this established and by whom? Because of the connections that exist between Olivia and Fauxlivia alluded to by TheOtherMe:

^Disagree in "The Same Old Story" she projected herself having an accelerated growth baby....which Red Olivia has in "Bloodline" in addition the red and blue clearly have similarities since they are parallel universes...they must then rely on the same origins and/or story axle.

. . . it seems reasonable to conclude that a possible source of the subconscious connections amongst these multi-verse iterations of Olivia might be a shared soul. Just because using soul magnets Bell's soul was called back into another body doesn't mean that it has to be a soul that is separate from other versions of Bell's soul. I don't see why numerous entities can't share a soul, especially if we are to look at alter-verse versions of characters all being many different manifestations of a single astral entity. One Olivia, many forms, and so it would go for everyone else, but only one soul.

In any event, I don't think the writers had the concept of "over there" fleshed out yet when they aired the elevator scene, so it's probably pointless to speculate on how many different universes we are seeing. I don't think the writers had it all thought out, and they probably still don't.

I think Walternate appearing to Walter seated at his bedside when he was detained in St. Claire's in the Season 1 episode "The Equation" is pretty strong foreshadowing and evidence that they already had the Alternate Universe occupied by Walternate and the others planned out very early in Season 1 if not at the time they began scripting the show. They may not have known how that universe would look just yet, but it seems pretty clear they already had this one 'other' universe that is inextricably linked to the Blue Universe planned very far in advance.

To clarify what I'm trying to say here I believe it's possible that in some of these bizarre glimpses of "over there" that we see early in the show such as in "The Road Not Taken" it's not always clear whether we are seeing "over there" or some other iteration of a recurring timeline. We know that the time line of the blue and red universes is stuck in some sort of recurring loop, so there are many iterations of this one time line and I think in episodes like "The Road Not Taken" we may not be getting a glimpse of "over there" but instead of some other iteration of the timeline. A great deal of what we as viewers have interpreted as inconsistencies in the writing such as in episodes like "Subject 13" which was balked at as being shameless retconning on the part of the writers may actually be explained by these events having occurred in a similar but different timeline. This is gonna peeve people off if that's the case, but I think that may be one of the things that's causing confusion about the continuity of the story. Only two universes in my opinion, blue and red (I think amber is just a combo of the blue and red and that the side currently occupied by Peter really is HIS Blue Universe, just rewritten), but also many many time lines.

[TheOtherMe]

The real argument is, were they one Universe that split, or is there a multiverse of infinite parallel universes out there? The type of world presented completely changes the type of perspective for analyzing all of this.

My take is that an original timeline featured the damage but no hostilities between the Universes - Peter (on the side of Red) and Olivia (on the side of Blue) represent the joining of the two sides to solve the problem of the accidental damage. With no death or kidnapping, there is no war - and the saving of the Universes was so momentous that the Observers were there to watch - but not in the first timeline, but in the *second*.

Original timeline: 1985 - damage caused. 2000s - Fringe events lead the two sides to discover each other and unite. 2026 - the machine is built, designed to fix the damage and bridge the universes and stabalize the fabric of reality.

Only they are too late. The wormhole is formed. The Universes are destroyed. Walter and company send the machine back in time via the wormhole and set up all the First People stuff. The idea is that if they can find the *machine* back in the 2000s, rather than building it onward to 2026, they can stop the damage *before its too late*. So they set it up so their past selves can find the information they need to assemble it. The timeline is rewritten, and the machine is destined to be found and used in a positive way. September comes to watch the momentous occaision.

And screws it all up. And causes a death, a kidnapping, a war.

Positive tilts towards Negative. Alliance to War. Create, to Destroy. The machines balance is tipped due to the hostilities. The un-ending loop begins.

It's a good argument, but I think even their general relativity between the pairs suggests a special relationship, outside of iterations....but it might be one of those things that never gets fully answered, because in the scheme of things knowing the exact beginnings may not be as important as finding a solution to balance. It just depends on what the writer's final answers will be.

Technically, both pairs of parallel universes each have a machine which suggest that both then loop back to previous pairs, but I am still inclined to think that one timeline created another, they found a way to connect themselves in 'age', and this caused them to both loop together...

Either Pinkner or Wyman did state that these universes (red and blue) are "mitosis of the universes" -which clearly is represented with the apple glyph. --I think this is also why "6B" is somewhat important episode, because we see that people (Rosenkranzt) with strong feelings have to find a way to 'let go' in order to stop the chaos and learn the truth.


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To also go with what you just wrote in your latest post, PsychopathicROC
I think it depends on what any of us think a soul is. I mean on one hand you can say the souls are splitting apart into new souls, and/or you can say they have to do this in order to progress and therefor manifestation of "a soul" = survival of the fittest. (Dharma/Karma -Brahman/Buddhism)

[PB]

To also go with what you just wrote in your latest post, PsychopathicROC
I think it depends on what any of us think a soul is. I mean on one hand you can say the souls are splitting apart into new souls, and/or you can say they have to do this in order to progress and therefor manifestation of "a soul" = survival of the fittest. (Dharma/Karma -Brahman/Buddhism)

Actually, think that may have been me, the title of my reply has ROC's handle in it, might appear misleading.

[TheOtherMe]

Actually, think that may have been me, the title of my reply has ROC's handle in it, might appear misleading.

Oh my apologies, I wasn't looking closely enough!

[psychopathicROC]

maybe in a previous iteration of the loop, Olivia was pregnant when taken by Walternate? If her and Peter's relationship had started a few weeks earlier, even, Walternate could have done the same accelerated pregnancy with Bluelivia and gotten the machine operating in the same way. Similar but different.

I don't know, I just like the thought of being connected to previous versions of your OWN self a lot more than being connected to the millions of alternate versions of yourself.

WW, the soul question is one that i've also wondered about, considering that it was apparently "our" bell coming to the bell rung in "our" universe, yet he died while still in the red. I also wonder highly about his "seen history repeating itself" bit, and there are quite a number of possibilities for drawing things together.

[TheOtherMe]

^ I agree that she is closer to other 'blue' versions of herself, then other red versions of herself...

What's curious about what you said, is that in the comic, Peter is seemingly viewing/sharing an experience of a previous Peter...one instance where he has to leave one machine part in 357 B.C.E., he sees a women in Greece who looks like [blue] Olivia again and she is pregnant and has come to a pool before a statue of the God Dionysus....a serpent/snake comes at her, but Peter sees this and slays the serpent with a sword...She smacks him and tells him he has no right to interfere with her destiny and 'to better than his father'...then he travels to the next time period...

Besides the theme of trying to save her life, it suggests that there could be other versions of themselves that may be displaced in various time periods and not just timelines...even in "Alone in the World" Aaron reminded me so MUCH of Walter I had to wonder how far to take 'the likeness' of each other.

Of course for a long time I thought maybe Nina (and now Ninas) could be either a 'futuristic' version of one of the, or both of the Olivias combined and displaced in time (because there could be a bigger picture and the blue universe appears more fluid and mutable), or a Dunham relative (Nina and Ella have name pattern between them)

Also Violet Sedan Chairs "Seven Suns Setting" has a curious lyrics...."A void in space, your name replaced. What can last -future to past? You see seven suns setting, like a memory we're forgetting"