On Tue, 12 May 1998, Freemage . wrote:

Why?  Standard Time Paradox.(Patent pending)

He wins, Serenity vanishes, the world is still trapped in ice.  
Emerald can't go back because he's still fighting the demon who froze 
the world, so he doesn't and Serenity pops back into existance 
because he never went back.  Then he does go back... then he doesn't..
. so on and so forth.

You make one common logical error.  If there is no Serenity, who is to 
say that no other heroes will arise to fight, and possibly defeat, the 
demon.  Also, I believe that he has decided that it was _Serenity_ who 
summoned the Ice to defeat the fire-spawned demon.

Who is to say they will?  But more importantly, with no Serenity, Emerald
never travels to the past to ensure there is no Serenity.  This assumes,
however, that the consequences of his action can follow him backwards
through time to wipe him out of existence in the past.  This seems to be
the case in the SM universe, as Chibi nearly gets wiped out of existence
during R.


 > So, the events that would occur w/o Serenity would be:

  1) Demon invades.  Initial casualties would be higher, because of the 
lack of Serenity's leadership, unless Emerald sticks around long enough 
in this time to ensure adequate defenses will arise.
  2) Demon is defeated by some method other than the Ice, again, 
possibly instigated by Emerald.

Maybe.  Or possibly the demon wipes out humanity.  Serenity may be the
only one who can stop it.  

But the more important issue is the paradox of Emerald undoing the
conditions that caused him to go back in time in the first place.


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

Mr. Mxylplk:  Doesn't it ever bother you that your entire life is one big
expository device?  [to Professor Hamilton]