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Inspiration From Old Bad Ideas
Recently, I picked up a copy of Quantum Leap, Too Close For Comfort, which has turned out to be a marvelous read with some surprising gems inside.
Those of you familiar with Quantum Leap will remember the premise: Sam Beckett (not the writer) stepped into the Quantum Accelerator, hoping to travel through time to observe events which had occurred in the past. Instead, he was thrown back in time and possessed a stranger’s body. Sam finds out the only way for him to go home is fix something which went wrong in the past. Only when he does so, he doesn’t go home, but Leaps into a new body, with a new task.
In the show, they were unable to explain how this happened. WHY did Sam Leap right after making things right? Why not before? The show offered the only explanation they could: May-be God’s doing it. (They actually worked this into a number of good story-lines later, but it never made much sense.)
In the book, another theory is expressed: Sam’s leaping around in time has caused fractures in the time space continuum. He leaps around after fixing one crack, which often creates cracks elsewhere. If he ever fixes them all, he gets to Leap home. This theory provides some interesting concepts to use as story premises, and satisfies the logical part of my mind enough for me to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the story.
More things in the books were explained far better than in the show: The reason Sam is able to see the holographic Al, and the other way around, is because the computer which links their minds was built using nerve cells from each of their brains. In the show, the best explanation was that their brainwaves were “compatible.” But here, now, we know why!
After realizing this was the case with the Quantum Leap novel, I thought back and was surprised to realize that this was actually very often the case. Star Trek novels from the Original Series era often provided new insights and explanations for things which were glossed over or simply ignored in the show - and they all provided ideas and inspirations for stories.
There’s no scientific way to find these tidbits directly, but I would not be surprised if picking up some old science fiction or fantasy novel would yield a good number of ideas and concepts which not only provide peace of mind for the more retentive readers, but also plenty of ideas to apply in stories or games.
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