Random Encounters

[robkelk]

Just for fun, here's a place to list folks who could be dropped into (almost) any Step or Stagger. Bonus Points if Doug meets more than one at the same time

To start off the thread... I was looking at recent edits on All The Tropes, and I noticed that the first example in the "Literature" section of "Love Transcends Spacetime" begins:

Near the end of E. E. "Doc" Smith's last Lensman novel Children of the Lens, Kimball Kinnison is thrown outside the space-time continuum.

And then there's Jenny Everywhere.


So that's two possible encounters... Any more?

[Bob Schroeck]

Jenny Everywhere has been in my notes for years. I just haven't found the right point to slot her in.

[DHBirr]

Corwin of Amber, or for that matter any of his brothers and sisters, any of his (only one that I know of) children or his nephews/nieces, his father....  They can shift themselves into other worlds simply by willpower, although it helps to be travelling when doing so.  Warning: several of Corwin's kin consider themselves as near to gods as the multiverse needs, and won't hesitate to kill people they see as getting in their way or disrespecting them – or if that person's death is merely convenient (Caine once murdered his own alternate self in order to have a corpse with which to frame Corwin for offing Caine).

[Bob Schroeck]

Heh. I used to play in an Amber Diceless RPG campaign... jeeze, it must be close to twenty-five years ago now. I could always dig out my old PC from that...

[DHBirr]

Reviewing the ATT entry for Jenny Everywhere, I was reminded that Christopher Stasheff wrote something similar about his character Rodney d'Armand a.k.a. Rod Gallowglass of The Warlock in Spite of Himself:  he seems to be a very high-probability person, and the version of him in the interstellar future that's the series' main setting is more-or-less identical to the one in a completely magical universe where "science never had a chance to grow."  Another character assesses that there probably isn't a variant of Rod in any world that never developed humans "—but I wouldn't want to guarantee it."  

Incidentally, Rod's alternate in that far-away universe had still scored a wife who was just as almost-identical to Rod's Gwendylon (no; I didn't misspell her name). 

Edit:  Another possibility is L. Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea, possibly accompanied by his wife and/or by some of his fellow psychologists, inserting into lots of fantasy tales.  Why shouldn't there be one in which Shea meets a strange fellow riding a weird motorcycle?

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Up, lad, up!  We've villages to pillage, maidens to slay, and dragons to rescue!

[Star Ranger4]

huh. way back when I was living in northern cali I had this idea I sat on. Involved (not quite) RL Me, Muck , and L T having to trek cross country to find Bob. Not quite what we are thinking about here though.

[Duane Peters]

The crew of the good vessel Gay Deceiver, from Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast-".

[Norgarth]

Rick and Morty, wandering the multiverse for shits and giggles?

[ckosacranoid]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6628473/1/Letters-to-Pluto

I did write a short story that had doug show up.

[Bob Schroeck]

Heh. That's one I didn't know about. Thanks for the link!

[DHBirr]

A. Bertram Chandler's "Hornblower IN SPACE!" John Grimes met, in one book, not only his own alternate self, but Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry, at a point where space-time was somewhat chaotic.  
Another tale had Grimes accidentally drop in at a social club for explicitly fictional naval officers ... such as Hornblower, of course, but also Captain Queeg and Commander Bond; they bent the rules a bit (as well as Queeg's arm) to let Captain Ahab in.  The major-domo there was Jeeves, who asked Grimes, "The question is, sir, are you an enduring creation?"  
Shortly afterward in the same book, Grimes found himself reading over Chandler's shoulder....  
So it wouldn't be all that shocking, including to Grimes himself, if he met the Loon.

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Big Brother is watching you ... and damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Ebony]

One of the earlier world hoppers, and I think the first transliterary explorer, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea could easily be someone that Doug could run into. For added humor, Doug probably knows of Yngvi, and the fact that he is, as Harold knows, a louse.

[itsune9tl]

How about Detective Winifred Bear (either one) from L. Neil Smith's "Probability Broach"?

[robkelk]

Jenny Everywhere has been in my notes for years.  I just haven't found the right point to slot her in.

I think I might have mentioned this before, but why not have her take in a musical staged by the Imperial Flower Troupe?

Or maybe that would be a good place for her to show up a second time, so that Jenny and Doug could recognize each other.

[Norgarth]

Another possibility with time and dimensional travel is that the first time Charactre A meets Character B, is not necessarily the first time Character B meets Character A.

For example, Picard and Guinan.

[robkelk]

Or River Song and The Doctor. But we still need a "first time"...

Hmmmmm... Jenny's ATT page says she likes adventure. Maybe she'd purposefully visit a timeline that she knows has adventure in it. Have her show up to metaphorically tweak the noses of some London bobbies (without actually breaking the law) as they try to arrest some Borribles, maybe?

[Bob Schroeck]

I like both that and the imperial Theater... Yes.

[robkelk]

For your consideration - a possible ending for her Borribles appearance:

"Miss... Everywhere," the PC made it *quite* clear from his tone of voice that he thought her name was an alias, "there is a police investigation taking place here. I'll have to ask you to move along."

"Oh, all right," she half-said, half-sighed. Then she did ... something ... and a gateway just like the ones I use to move from world to world appeared directly behind her. As she leaned back, she waved and said, "Don't expect me to spend any more tourist money here, though!"

And then she was gone.

She was another dimensional traveller like me, if what I saw was any indication.

And I didn't have a chance to talk with her about parallel dimensions, damn it! Who knows what I could have learned from her to make my trip home shorter?


EDIT: And then near the start of the Sakura Wars encounter, assuming we aren't going with tangled timelines:

"I don't know whether you remember me - it's been a while - but we met in London."

She looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled. "But not this world's London. Did you work out your issues with Sussworth?"


(Not much of a spoiler to say Doug and Sussworth wouldn't get along.)

And since I've put her into a couple of snippets: The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

[Bob Schroeck]

I like. I'm going to have to put those passages in the dev files for those steps.

[itsune9tl]

If you could use something from EPU, which is some thing I think you avoid.

I would suggest Celestial Pizza.  Their driver Zack Stephens is an "In Nomine" style Angel, and his Cadillac is probably one as well. But they are limited in where they go to people who Order Pizza. They can't really Help Doug Except for bringing really good Pizza.

Unless Doug has Ordered Pizza from them he might not make the connection, or recognize that the number on the Flyer Menu (something Urd may have stuck in one of his panniers) is Always Valid where ever he goes.

That he's on their Database as a Regular Customer, with a Usual Order is another story.

[itsune9tl]

If you could use something from EPU, which is some thing I think you avoid.

I would suggest Celestial Pizza.  Their driver Zack Stephens is an "In Nomine" style Angel, and his Cadillac is probably one as well. But they are limited in where they go to people who Order Pizza. They can't really Help Doug Except for bringing really good Pizza.

Unless Doug has Ordered Pizza from them he might not make the connection, or recognize that the number on the Flyer Menu (something Urd may have stuck in one of his panniers) is Always Valid where ever he goes.

That he's on their Database as a Regular Customer, with a Usual Order is another story.

Phone Clerk: Celestial Pizza, Delivery on the Wings of Angels, this is Micheal. 
...
Hello Colonel, would you like your Usual? (lists Toppings).
...
You would also like to order A Medium Moon Bunny Special? Those only come in Extra-Large.
...
2 Liters of Green Tea, and one of Root Beer.
...
Ok, we have your current address as (?).
...
Your pies will be delivered at (Time).
...
Your Account has (godly sum) remaining.
...
Thank you for Using Celestial Pizza, Delivery on the Wings of Angels. Have a Good evening.

...
...
...

[Ebony]

L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's itinerant psychologist/adventurer, Harold Shea, would definitely be someone to cross paths with Doug. Harold's "syllogismobile" allows him to travel to different worlds of literature and myth through the use of symbolic logic and psychoanalysis.

[Bob Schroeck]

<nod> Shea would probably be in for a massive culture shock upon meeting Doug, though...

[DHBirr]

<nod>  Shea would probably be in for a massive culture shock upon meeting Doug, though...

I'm curious; why do you say culture shock?  Not that I absolutely reject the possibility, but given some of the cultures Harold Shea's adapted to quite nicely....

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Up, lad, up!  We've villages to pillage, maidens to slay, and dragons to rescue!

[Bob Schroeck]

In those cases he was expecting different cultures and even knew of them due to his reading. But he's a man from the United States from 1940-41 (the original five Shea works all take place within a year or two of each other, by his home timeline's calendar), where Doug originates almost sixty years later. The cultural change in that period is enough that Doug might as well be an alien... Shea, upon learning that Doug is a college-educated American (para-)military officer is going to be expecting certain behaviors and attitudes common to a well-off white male of his time period that Doug will regard as antiquated or even borderline villainous. And possibly vice-versa. It's basically the Captain America cultural thing, flipped.