twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (Default)
So what is my thinking that Captain Jack Harkness is fated to either to remain Human or become a Cosmic Horror?

Jack is a fact of the universe. Depending on the ultimate fate of the universe it will depend on how exactly long he'll live. If it ends with the Big Crunch, Jack could go to that period and have himself reborn with the rest of the universe. If the universe continues to expand forever, the universe will settle into an even temperature and all atomic motion will stop. Here Jack's options would be to hang out where all atomic motion has stopped, and hope that there's a form of life that likes being Absolute Zero, or he'll loop though time indefinately.

Probably occasionally dropping himself into a black hole for a nap, on occasion. Apparently they eventually evaporate or something on a long enough time scale.

So, Jack will be really, really old at some point. Old enough to make the Face of Boe look like a spry youngster. Since humans were only designed for a 40 year lifespan, I'm not sure what state a human would be for their 40 billionth birthday party.

Which comes to Jack's ultimate fate again: Human or Cosmic Horror. I do think that "Cosmic Horror" was the term I was looking for. I think it's "Eldritch Abomination." But that doesn't mean he won't still like humans, because you can definitely be a benevolent Eldrich Abomination. "Abomination" is just a very strong way of saying that you don't really seem to be operating according to natural laws as the observer knows it - like seeing regularly tessellating pentagons.

What I'm trying to say that one of his fate's is to become something that something that his origin species that doesn't get, and that he'll no longer understand his origin species. It could be a physical thing, where Jack has some strange geometry to him that makes Human's brains hurt. Or the inability for each other to understand what drives the other. But when Jack is a Starfish Alien to humanity, it will mean that Jack will be a Starfish Alien to every living thing.

Or Jack will stay Human.

Either way, contemplating a sentient being that is older than the current observable universe makes my brain hurt. I can't really say which fate is better, because of Jack's own philosophy. Quoting Jack from "To the Last Man":
Being here I've seen things I never dremnt I'd see. Loved people I never would have known if I just stayed where I was. And I wouldn't change that for the world
.Either way, I'd like to believe he'd manage to be happy.
twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (Hearts)
I just wrote out a really long, self-indulgent post. I now feel horrible.

The most relevant part, is:

Should I post the fact that we're having our annual [livejournal.com profile] mst3kslash secret santa this year over at [livejournal.com profile] mst3k. I'm hesitant because it's fic, 'cause the comm is anti-fic, and it's slash, and while I'm not certain of that comm, I'm a bit wary as bringing it up tends to make people... make funny faces... when it was brought up in other places. Most recently as the MST3K Discussion Board. And others, but their complaints was more quality than that we're insane for slashing Joel and Mike 'cause there is no way that they could be gay.

And more importantly:

Seriously, am I still blacklisted/steered away from/whatever it was? Or has everyone forgotten/forgiven?
twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (Jack and the Doctor)
I think I finally get the "fixed-point" thing.

Time is movement. Hands going around a clock, the Earth going around the Sun, atoms vibrating.

Jack is wrong because he isn't moving. He's a constant: everywhere, infinite. You can't tell the Earth is moving because everything else is going a the same speed you are. So Jack's immeasurable and unseen in one of the Doctor's senses but existing quite there with the rest.

It's a bit like meeting Rimmer from Red Dwarf. You can see him, hear him, but you go to touch him your hand goes right though his chest. Plus, he's dead. We'd consider that weird, and wrong, and creepy, because Rimmer is there but at the same time he is not.
twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (Jack and Estelle)
10 Fannnon Pieces About the Whoverse:

ExpandI only mention Small Worlds twice! )
twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (Jack and the Doctor)
Cannon Statement:
Jack is a Fact of the universe.

Theory:
Jack's probability of existence is 1. This only becomes interesting when you realize that everyone else's probability of existence is lower. ( Ex. Toshiko Sato has a probability of 63% )

Not only can people be erased from existence with a paradox, there is - or now there is, since the fabric of time has grown more unstable since the Fall of the Time Lords and their obsessive matenence of a strict version of events - a small flickering in and out of existence based on events that happen do to even minor time travel interference in the time stream.

Examples in Cannon:
Timey-Wimy Sally Sparrow. Harriet Jones' political career. Tim Latimer missing that bomb, and resulting family because he lived. The Great and Bountiful Fourth Human Empire, though I'm not sure this one is a casualty of the Time War or not.

Conclusion:
So even if you made a Paradox Machine and killed Jack Harkness before he became Jack Harkness, he still would exist. And then he would probably kill you twice - before and after he destroyed the Paradox Machine.
twincityhacker: hands in an overcoat's pockets (John Barrowman)
This came up in a locked post, but it just sort of crystallized some things I've been working on for Jack. Namely, why does he keep showing up in World War II? He's fought in the war there, he's met at least four of his great loves there (Rose, the Doctor, Estelle, Jack), and he looks like he's from the 1940s.

So, this is the part I get to speculate from.

First, I have to mention that 99% of the fandom codes the Daleks as Nazis. From their extreme efficiently to cause suffering for whom ever they run across to their emphasis on racial purity, their for all intensive purposes Nazis - only they time travel, and they're aliens.

This coding as Daleks equals Nazis allows us to extrapolate some of human history onto universal history. Which is probably because is somewhat petty, but it's all metaphor anyway, right?

Anyway, in "Captain Jack Harkness," Torchwood!Jack tells Real!Jack that he went to war as a boy, against the "worst possible creatures imaginable." We also leaned in "Bad Wolf" that he's seen those ships before, and that they were all supposed to be gone.

These statements taken together could mean that he fought against the Daleks, but... I can't help but think that he didn't.

During the War War II people allied together who wouldn't touch each other otherwise, and the alliance blew apart pretty much the second that they started fighting. But, it didn't go further than spying on the homefronts of the countries in question, though there was fighting between the two sides in other places on the globe.

But what if it didn't?

The Daleks started invading someplace, then one day they just vanished. And if they were holding off the Daleks, even just barely, those people must have been organized. But they were organized for war, and those who could organize for peace weren't at the top or dead in the war.

So, of course, someone does something stupid. A group betrays the alliance and tries to grab power, plunging the whole group to civil war. And everyone hates betrayal, usually worse than they hate the people who just go about killing things.

So, what does this all mean? Maybe Jack's "worst creatures you could possibly imagine" were betrayers to the alliance. And extending it he went to war "as a boy" against the betrayers, he was probably too young to fight against the Daleks. Which leaves him just watching something like the Blitz or Dresden or Warsaw just happen - which is why he recast himself in the RAF, so he could do something about it, on the definite "good guys" side.

Because, really, I'm not sure what side he was on earlier.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and he got caught up in the very beginnings of the Time War. Or he saw the Daleks while he was working at the Time Agency. Or any sort of thing, really.

Though, the idea that Jack had done a lot of things before we meet him in "The Empty Child" is obvious.

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