Timer

markpud

markpud

Former Ascifi.com mod
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here i go again with the questions ;)

In the first ep they slide to the world that is in nuclear winter or somethiing, the big tornado is coming so they have to slide out before the timer says they should. Because of this they end up someplace else instead of back on earth prime. right?

Now as i remember, they now have no way of getting back to earth prime except to keep on sliding and hope they find it.. But why do they have to wait each time for whatever time the timer decides to cout down from (whcih is different each time). WHy not slide in, notice that something is wrong and slide on again?? Would make it much quicker and safer, wouldnt have got so tied up in each planet...

I know the show wouldnt have worked like that, but did they expalin this??
 
I think it was "dangerous", but it couldn't be worse that staying-on, sometimes probably the lesser of two evils. The first episode airs again tonight on the SciFi channel so I will listen for anything relevant.
 
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This is a thread for discussing the Timer. The gadget gizmo which makes Sliding possible at all. Anyone who can explain who it works, or who maybe made one of their own in their basement laboratory, please let us know.
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Markpud asked why they need to wait for the Timer to countdown. The alternative Quinn (who solved the equation) said not to do it. But once they had already done that and became lost, how could it make it any worse?

I found a passage in the second episode about the Timer, but it still doesn't answer that question:

WADE: When can we leave?
QUINN: When the Timer recharges itself.
WADE: When will that be?
QUINN: Maybe soon, Maybe never.
ARTURO: Any chance the gadget can be fixed?
QUINN: With the right tools and a little bit of luck.
ARTURO: Well, if we get the right time, I hope you'll let me sit in. I'd love to take a peek under the hood.

MAIN POINTS
The Timer is damaged-- I now remember several first season episodes where Quinn spent time working on it, to fix it.
They need to wait to let it recharge-- but the recharging and the counting down are different things, I think. The counting down is not explained.

Also, later in the series, Quinn adds different technology to the Timer, to finally fix it. That is when they start arriving in places other than Golden Gate Park.
 
In 'Last Days' even though they will die when an asteroid hits the Earth in two days, and the Timer is set for three days, they still don't consider sliding early as a possibilty.

It seemed to me, no different than when they slid to avoid the 'ice tornedo'.
 
yeah thats exactly my point. But i guess it wouldnt have been much of a series if they'd just slid out of every bit of trouble :D
 
I just saw 'Summer of Love' and there were a few more nuggets.

Quinn drops and smashes the timer at the beginning, they try to fix it, but for some reason require a room with a blackboard where they can write the formulae out to do this. Wouldn't a soldering iron be more practical?

Quinn also says they need to let the timer cool down before they can slide. Why does it get hot?

They fix it, but we don't see how, and slide on, but the amount of time on each new world, has now become more random because of the damage.

I think we just have to put all this down to continuity errors and changed premises. Obviously, they never expected anyone to look into this question in so much detail.
 
In 'The King is Back' Wade mentions "...days to the window", concerning the next slide. That implies that there is a 'window' of opportunity around which they can slide. That would explain why sometimes they can slide early, and other times they have to wait.

More likely, though I think that the writers just forgot what they had already established.
 
The Professor says in 'El Sid'
Our timer was set for three people. Now it seems to be handling the four of us, but each time we increase the number, we increase exponentially the risk of catastrophic failure... ...(and) the chance that you might be spread, like fine jam, across an infinite number of universes.
Click to expand...

Didn't it carry Rembrants car in the first episode without any ill effects?
 
wasnt that because Quinns initial experimental slide was over powered and it broke out of the basement and sucked remmys car right off the road... But then the normal powered slide to get away from ice planet couldn't take the car back...
 
Does the power supply not come from the Timer itself then?

I'm confused about how the Timer works even more now.

I remember he has blown fuses in his basement a few times, so you must be right.
 
It works like this. The timer is called a timer because it has to fully count down to zero before it is used. Now, that does not mean that it can't be activated before reaching zero. The timer can realistically be activated at any time(as long as it has had time to build up enough of a charge to open a wormhole). Now, onto why they always want to wait for it to count down to zero...

As everyone knows, they're trying to find their home world among the infinate number of others. A big problem with randomly sliding is that you could end up landing on the same alternite world numerous times. Now, every alternate reality is different(either they are on different energy wavelengths, or they give off different vibrations...I forget what explination they give). The timer sorts through them, locks onto one, and opens a wormhole to it. As it does this, the timer's computer stores the unique...whatever...of the reality and makes sure that it doesn't lock onto that specific reality a second time.

...that process lets them check out many dimensions, without running the risk of constantly hitting the same ones over and over. Now, the only problem is that activating the timer before it reaches zero corrupts the stored data. That means if you open the wormhole early, you loose all records of where you had already been, so you have to start over from square one and hope you get lucky.

EDIT: Forgot to include that once the timer first locks onto a reality's wavelength, it starts taking them to the "next reality over", if you will, so that hopefully they will hit their own if they go down the list without skipping any.
 
cheers Spider. I had a feeling they must have explained it at some point, but I guess I didnt see the relevant episode... :smile:
 
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