Do you have questions about Fragment 13: aka time travel, aka time donut, aka the beginning of Phase Four?

Ask them right here!

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Fletcher Dawson once again popped up in this fragment but we never found out who they are. So are they going to pop up again and will we finally find out who they are?

Also this is probably the most technical puzzle I’ve seen. How did you come up with the idea?

EDIT: Also I know there was a lot of back and forth about should we tell him or not. What’s the path we chose the “Right” path?

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One thing that stood out to me about this fragment (and phase four in general) was the amount of urgency there was in responding. Did you have any backup plans if we weren’t timely enough in solving the puzzle? Also, I’m curious if we could’ve sent something that made time actually rend?

Previously you’ve mentioned that Knatz being the Benefactor wasn’t always set in stone. Was it always the plan for her to go with Ascender to Missouri, or was there a possibility of Ascender going there with someone else (or alone)?

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Just how delicious was the time donut?

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Augo over here, asking the most important questions. :coleshadez:

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You know I feel guilty about the whole ‘time donut’ thing. I honestly thought the idea behind the construct was to create a wormhole of sorts, half in the past and present. As an afterthought I brought in the time donut description since I thought it was an easy way to envision it.

It was a cute concept, not gonna lie I had a ton of fun with it. I honestly even brainstormed like 30 episode titles with my wife one night for a Time Donut tv show even about cops solving crimes through a tiny little wormhole to the past (“The Dough also Rises”, “It’s Time to make the Donuts” and the thrilling 2 part mid season finale where the big bad of the season was revealed called “Have you met the Muffin Man?”)

But I was wrong, it wasn’t a wormhole. Then the Time Donut thing got chuckles and people focused on it and I just felt like I gamejacked the whole actual fragment and I felt really bad about it.

So yeah, mixed feelings about the whole fragment really. I felt like I messed up CJ’s smart plot with my trying to be funny.

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I love that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. That’s one of the best parts of this community - it makes us real people.

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Oh man @Robert, The Time Donut, because it was well-intentioned and a kind-hearted, was one of my favorite memes to come out of TMP. I didn’t think it derailed anything. I mean, yes, we were dealing with the fate of magic and the universe, but who hasn’t made a joke in dire situations to alleviate stress and frustration?

:heart::yellow_heart::orange_heart::blue_heart::purple_heart::green_heart:
:sun_with_face::wind_face::hammer_and_pick::ocean::thought_balloon::leaves:

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I, for completely different reasons, had some regrets about this fragment. The time donut bit actually made me feel a whole lot better about how it shook out in the end.

My actual question: The whole series of communications that took place over this phase made me super curious about the back-end of the Chronocompass portal. Where did our sent repsonses go? Anywhere? Did you actually get 100 Mountie emails when we went crazy sending things when the portal first appeared? Was there any reliance on the Forum record of communication in terms of deciding canonically what Augie received on the other end?

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Aw, don’t feel bad Robert! I think that the moments of levity were what made The Monarch Papers such an enjoyable ride, though. We could all get serious and freak out during the major dramatic events, but then there were also moments where we could joke around and comfort each other when we were struggling. The time donut was a genuinely interesting theory and, even though it didn’t pan out narratively, it led to a cool little moment.

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#hackercat
#dogeaneer

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So this was my first Fragment, and one of the things that I was really interested was the story found on the back of the paper craft pieces. How far in advance did you have that narrative planned out?
Also, this was the first phase which seemed to integrate a narrative inside of the fragments with the final fragment image. For instance, Fragment 3’s image shows multiple constellations, but none of them are of the pieces of Eliannor’s armor, nor are they mentioned (to my knowledge) in the fragments themselves. How far in advance did you have this image planned, and is it genuinely unique compared to the other Fragment images (this is probably better suited for Fragment 16, but I wanted to go ahead and post this one so I don’t forget it)?

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I don’t remember if it was here or not, but the Chronocompass puzzles, absolutely amazing btw, and the chat box that came up with it; where did the inspiration of those come from?!? I would wake up hours early just to see what was happening or stay up for it.
#4amclub
It’s also were met Knatz :heart_eyes:

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Hey @Remus, thanks for the question and I’ll answer it this Thursday, but to clarify one point: The final illustration you’d receive at the end of each phase was an illustration from the 1889 journal pages you’d received in the beginning of the phase. :slight_smile:

  • The view of the fraylily at the end of the path
  • The creatures offering the egg to the hippocampus
  • The dancing constellations in the night sky
  • And the time-drift shore that Sullivan wandered onto at the end of phase four.
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Oh, that makes so much more sense! I guess when I was catching up, I missed that being mentioned :sweat_smile:. Thanks for the clarification, @CJB!

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Honestly Remus, I think we had no idea. I don’t think anyone put together that the journal pages were from the same journal. I guess we never bothered to question where these pages were coming from. I certainly never put 2 and 2 together that all these were about the same person or from the same source.

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Not to overwhelm you too much @Robert , but I’m actually really grateful to you for starting the Time Donut thing. It was maybe a month and a half (ish) after I’d joined and I still felt like a bit of an outsider in the community, but Time Donut was my first Mountie meme and that dumb sketch I made to put on the thread helped me feel like I was really part of it all on a personal level, beyond “helping” with any of the puzzles…even though like, immediately after I posted it I also felt guilty for doing something silly while people who had access to printers were doing the hard papercrafting work. But still. Very grateful for the Time Donut!

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