| Posted: 18 June 2014 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | 7
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Gruenwald's Omniversal theory was a fantastic set-up for a certain type of story, specifically the What If? If the divergence has already taken place, it's kind of fun to go to that world and explore the ramifications of it.
If, however, all you're ever going to do is create a new timeline, and nothing you do puts the present one in any sort of jeopardy, then I see the problem. JB's MTIO #50 used this conundrum to the story's benefit (Ben's plan didn't work. It couldn't work.) but once that shot's fired, there isn't much else you can do except the ol' "We're trapped in an alternate timeline with no way home!" concept. Your time travelers are in danger, but very little else is. History itself can not be jeopardized under this theory.
Not only that, but every new timeline you create has its own Cosmic Cube, its own Serpent Crown. There isn't one Infinity Gauntlet to be wary of. There are as many of them as there are cracks in the time-space continuum. Say, someone dies heroically to destroy the Soul Gem and keep the Gauntlet from ever becoming fully empowered. No problem. We'll just go to the parallel timeline next door and get that Soul Gem. Hell, I'll go back ten minutes, stop the hero, and take that one, too. Now I have two Soul Gems. What are you going to do about it?
Well, if you're cagey enough, you already have 500 Soul Gems from neighboring realities and 75 Gauntlets to put them in. That collection is still building. Your girlfriend dead in this timeline? With divergent realities, that's really not a problem. Go back and save her. Sure, she's still technically dead here, but in the world where you are now, she's hale and hearty. Sure, there are also two of you, but if you're a bad guy, that's not much of a problem, especially if you can relocate the other you to this universe, or y'know, just kill the guy. If you're Peter Parker and you've gone back to save Gwen, well, you can't just kill the other you. You could live the rest of your life as temporal clone Ben Reilly, I guess.
The point is, any such story becomes more about the rules rather than the characters or the decisions they make.
If you try to make Gruenwald's Omniverse go away, however, you're going to lose the internal consistency of 300 or so stories to date, not to mention that any scheme you devise A.) Will not be anywhere near as well reasoned or tested and B.) since we will have proven that whatever the rules of time travel are, we can change them, your new set of rules will be in place for about as long as it takes for someone to type up an even newer one...
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