Originally published at: New DG Post: Here/Where We Go | Basecamp 33
In case you thought time-traveling email was as weird as it was going to get, Deirdre just found two entries from her father in the new volume of The Monarch Papers.
One to her.
One to us.
I am drowning in a sea of lore and implications.
Are the Monarchs and Silver taking about the royal houses per chance? And the Silver created the Storm…
So we’re going to open the book in the past?
That would mean the current mounties (us) will disappear, since the book was opened and not sent to us…
The scary thought I had and didn’t want to face is exactly what we need to do? Lovely.
Huh. I’m going to need to sleep on that. What an odd plan. Not a big fan of screwing with time this much.
So, we’re opening up the Book from the 1990s?
I…I don’t know how I feel about this.
On the one hand, we’ll be saving them. Whatever happened to the '94 Mounties, the Storm won’t get them. And Augie won’t have to lose his family. Itsuki will still be alive because he’ll never be a Mountaineer. Ascender won’t be on the run…
But that means none of us will be here, right…? Ascender won’t find the core Mounties because he’ll never go on the run from the Storm. Bash won’t create the Basecamp. The Basecamp won’t even be needed because, well, the Book will be unlocked. And that means none of us will ever meet each other, never become friends…
This is just…a lot to take in. We have to open the book. Have to. But I think, first, I need a stiff drink, or several… 
There is never a ‘have to’.
I agree … but! Although Basecamp won’t need to be created, think of the possibilities. The flow of Magiq could potentially be stronger. We might not find Basecamp, but the Guide will still find us, and maybe we’ll all find each other in Neithernor instead of here.
Or maybe we aren’t affected at all because we’re already living THIS timeline. Who knows with Magiq?
At the end of the day, it’s the only way to unlock the Book and unlock the truth. That’s our job as Mounties, so it’s the only choice we have.
That’s true, but if we don’t, what does that mean? How are we meant to defeat The Storm without the Book’s power? And does that mean the Book’s story will forever be untold?
I don’t know, I feel like the story needs to be told. So many people have sacrificed their lives for this cause. As painful as this will be for us, I still feel like this is something we need to seriously consider doing.
I desperately want to know if we have to erase Basecamp 33. What if there’s away to open the book without doing so?
Their sacrifices will have been meaningless If we make it so they never happened. And how many lives will we change out snuff out by changing the past.
We are mountaineer. We are not gods to wipe away everything in this world just because we selfishly want to open this book.
But the note to us tell us to help them open their book!
I get what you’re saying, but the question is, what else can we do? Sullivan, at the very least, believes that the Book is the key to defeating the Storm and bringing magiq back to this world. And in this moment in time, the Book has been destroyed.
If there was another option, then I would gladly advocate for it. But right now it seems like our choices are either unlock the Book in the past and risk wiping out this timeline… or do nothing, be unable to unlock the Book, and have no way to fend off the Storm.
Of course we need to take the time to think this over carefully. But if there are no other options that present themselves, it seems much better to me to take the risk and use time magiq rather than let the Storm take over this world and rob it of all its magiq.
I want to help them, but at the same time they are gone. They sacrificed themselves back in 94?. As @Robert says, we aren’t gods. Time isn’t something we should mess with just because we want BoB open.
I’m not saying just because we want it, does this not say we need to help them open it!?! Or have I misunderstood it!?!
You’re not imagining things, Smurfette. The letter is from Sullivan telling us that we should unlock the Book in the past.
The thing that people are arguing about is, essentially, should we follow Sullivan’s instructions or not? We don’t necessarily have to do what Sullivan says, but this is the plan that he has brought to us. And time magiq is a very serious affair - it has the potential to wipe all of this, the Basecamp, the Mountaineers, and Deirdre and Cole, from existence. It’s definitely worth discussing if this is something that we want to do. And if not, then we need to plan out what we’re going to do to fight the Storm.
Understood, in the end when there’s been quite a few ideas thrown out there might I suggest another poll when it comes down to it so everyone feels they’ve had a say?
I don’t want it to come to that either. I really just met all of you, and you all have already become one of the biggest and best things in my life. Really, for me the most selfish thing would be to stop now, to not even try and keep things exactly as they are so that we don’t risk losing our magiqal family.
But, at the same time, how many crazy chances had to take place for all of us to get here in the first place? How many of us had to remember the Guide to MAGIQ, or some other lost book, or something that you’re sure went differently than everyone else says it went? Is there really no chance that we can open the book and still find one another?
And on the other hand, what are our other options? This time-hack is what magiq opened for us, a dangerous, dicey piece of magiq that seems…pretty implausible, if not impossible. If we don’t trust the flow of magiq here and now…what do we trust?
Ultimately, yes, it has to be a group decision: we are a group, and we need to make the decision as a group, no matter the outcome. Maybe it’s my inner Weatherwatch, but I think that, despite the risk, we need to do it. If we do go ahead and give them the key, and it overrode everything we’ve done, then we would be stuck in a paradox where we didn’t give them the key because our group didn’t exist, and thus that reality that we would have created would have been impossible since we wouldn’t have been around to give them the key (I’m sorry if that’s not clear, thinking about time travel is hard).
There are certainly risks, but I don’t think we would have been led down this path only to not try to open the book, no matter the circumstances. Also, there’s the chance that we, this iteration of the Mountaineers needs to do this so that we can exist now. But it isn’t just my decision, and I respect that. Would anyone like to start the poll?
