son of fandom math

[scarfman]

In my previous entry tagged math I described how I like to make time pass quicker by counting it in thirty-four hour cycles: one for each season of Doctor Who (as I count them*). Then in this year's Hourly Comics Day cartoon I noted that that day I was rather counting eleven-hour cycles, an hour for each incarnation of the Doctor. I have a spreadsheet where I track all this, the same spreadsheet I mention at times where I coordinate the crossover timelines for my fanfiction prose and cartoons; and in each case I printed the formula I use for calculating the hourly cycle.

Then a few weeks ago, you may recall, I updated The Hero of Three Faces with this cartoon:

This change had a profound effect on the timetracking. Abandoning the prorated crossover paradigm and returning to the realtime calendar crossover paradigm made me want to track time not in eleven or thirty-four segments, but forty-seven, the number of years of Doctor Who's air history to date. But this causes an aesthetic issue for me.

The primary purpose for prorating crossover chronologies is convenience**: there's never an incarnation of the Doctor who can't meet up with any other hero I wrote today's gag about. This is why, as described in the cartoon above, every once in awhile I switch over to that paradigm despite my proven preference for the realtime calendar paradigm.

The top trinity in my fanfiction pantheon are Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now, Star Trek's screen history (if not air history) goes back to within a year of the beginning of Doctor Who's; under the realtime paradigm, there's no point in the Doctor's travels except very early when he can't meet one Starfleet captain or another. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't come on until fourteen years ago - under the realtime paradigm, the Doctor never met Buffy until his eighth life, or until the thirty-fourth year of his air history, and this confines crossovers between Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to less than half of the Doctor's history, even though I continue to cross them over after Buffy the Vampire Slayer's air history concludes. But, I realized, how much less than half depended on how I tracked the time.

So I worked up the spreadsheet chart shown in the following screen capture. For several characters - Buffy (The R stands for "realtime", as opposed to "prorated"), my favorite companions, and each of the Doctor's incarnations - the chart shows percentage of the whole timeline of the character's appearance(s) tracked the time by incarnation (eleven equal segments), by Doctor Who season (thirty four equal segments), or by year of Doctor Who air history (forty-seven and a fraction segments).

(Sarah Jane's figures include
both her time as a regular on Doctor Who
and as lead on Sarah Jane Adventures.)

As of this time, for everyone tracked including Buffy (excepting Sarah Jane and Susan - and some of the Doctor's incarnations, but he's all the same person so that's less of a consideration), the greatest percentage of timeline-during-which-she-appears is by counting incarnations as equal intervals; so that's the counting method I've been using lately.

Then, as you'll've noticed, my fanfiction gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel an in-text format change for post-screen history:

This makes Buffy and her supporting cast functional equals to the Doctor in crossover potential and therefore potential to appear in Hero of Three Faces more often than otherwise. It's an attempt to make sure these characters maintain the primacy in my fanfiction I want them to have. We'll see how well I develop it as the years go on.

* That is, including a Season 0 for the Doctor's travels with Susan alone, twenty-six segments for Seasons 1963 through 1989, one for Season 1996, one each for Seasons 2005-2008, one for Season 2009 (most people seem rather to lump last year's "specials" in as part of Season 2008, but I don't), and Season 2010 (any season counts for which I have photo references for cartoons).
**Master of unintentional alliteration!

Comments

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

But how does this all align with an 11-season TV series about a war that lasted three years?

[scarfman]

I believe each season of M*A*S*H took place in a different but similar, internally consistent alternate universe. A few examples:

In the universe where Season 1 occurred, Henry's wife was named Mildred, Hot Lips' father was dead, Hawkeye's mother was alive, and the events documented probably took place between January 1951 and June 1952.

In the universe of Season 4, in which according to voiceover Potter took command on 19 September 1952, the events of e.g. Season 1 must have occurred approximately January 1951 to middle 1951, and the events of Season 4 will have occurred between September 1952 and, say, January 1953. Henry's wife was named Lorraine and Potter's was named Mildred.

In the universe of Season 9 featuring A War For All Seasons documenting events from January 1951 to January 1952, the events of Seasons 1-8 must all be compressed into the period before January 1951. Also, by this far up the timelines, Hot Lips' father is still alive and Hawkeye's mother died when he was young.

For the universe of Season 11 I divide the duration of the Korean War into eleven equal parts, and this is the universe my M*A*S*H fanfiction stories and cartoons are set in.

You must have known I'd have a stock answer prepared.

[acmespaceship.livejournal.com]

Of course I did ;-)

I believe Mildred left Henry and ran off with Potter after a wild New Years' Eve party welcoming 1952. Lorraine was some hottie that Henry met in Tokyo on the rebound.