Writing only a page a week should mean I can keep on top of any plot problems and avoid big loopholes. Unfortunately I've noticed a few already that I'll have to do something about!

Firstly there's the nature of time-travel. Cam-B told us that Ulala said that only information can travel between times; Cam-C noted that this might imply souls consist only of information. But this is plainly false, as Cam-B himself travelled back in time when the soul swap happened.

What's actually going on is that there are two kinds of portals - information-only ones, like the one future-Ulala uses (and which is also implicitly what Mundus uses to communiccate with Blank at the start), and freaky ones generated by the artefacts that can swap souls and allow little camerabots through. If I can work out a way to fit that exaplanation in efficiently without it seeming too much like exposition, I'll certainly do it.


A much more subtle one is Trish. Mundus originally made her to look like Dante's mother to better gain his trust. Now that Mundus knows a swap has been performed, making her look like that doesn't really make sense any more!

My answer is that he created Trish, then (perhaps in response to discussion with her) ran his 'simulations', which prompted him to come up with the soul-swapping plot. Then it was just most convenient to send her anyway. Of course, the real reason is that it's more fun to have everything be as similar as possible to the game, with the exception of Ulala in Dante's place!


Finally there's the matter of what's really going on with souls and bodies and all that. As I hopefully have succeeded in making clear, the bodies stay the same but the souls have swapped. The confusing part is that I'm using the Quantum-Leap like idea of representing the situation by portraying the characters as having the same body as the soul inside, even though nobody sees that.

But then what happens when future-Ulala opens up a portal to talk to Dante? Evidently they see each other as their 'true' forms! My only answer is that the portal somehow shows the truth. It was too complicated to have it be any other way, really!

Wow nice new smilies dB)
ahem anyways...
The way I see it with teh whole different time frames thing is that you have to remember a couple of principle theories about Wormholes:

They do not necessarily connect to the same dimension.
They do not connect necssarily connect to the same time frame.

ERGO! This covers pretty much any semmingly paradoxical inconsistencies within the plot.

The Ulala/Dante interaction could be happening across parallel dimensions (in this case we could call them Sega Universe and Capcom Universe which could be at entirely different time stages to each other!

As for Ulala "somehow" knowing precisely what was going to be about to happen to Dante at the point after his soul swap event 9read that sentance carefully) is a semi mute point depending on how you think about it.
If it was the same universe just differing time frames, then fine, Ulala probably knows from News Archives, for the sake of argument, a backup of major past news items are stored in the cams for all SC5 reporters to refer to "in the field" as it were (I base this on certain news stories nowadays where they reference related articles).
If it's NOT then put simply, all those who've been through DMC know because they've experienced the story in game format. Similar sort of thing may have happened with Ulala, in her case, we could expand even further and say that the DMC she knows about could be in book, play or other media format. u^_^
As for the true soul thing, the original Quantum Leap explanation was that while the soul changed, the personal "Aura" didn't hence why people would see a chimp instead of Dr Beckett. In Dante and Ulala's case, they'd be able to see past their own auras, thus seeing the real ones inside.

Very interesting points, and well done on being the first to find the new smilies! u:)

It's true that I could have the whole thing taking place in two separate timelines one way or another, but I'm going for the more ambitious but ultimately more satisfying version of having the whole thing take place in one consistent universe.

This brings up another apparent flaw - if Mundus wants to take over the world, how can he be using a future in which that didn't happen to assist him? The way I'm seeing it, Mundus plans to use Dante/Ulala to get out of the underworld, then hang around for about 500 years, then make his play. I don't think he'd mind a few centuries of waiting!

The Ulala that Dante saw telling him what was about to happen was perfectly entitled to know that information, if that isn't clear now then it should at least become clear a bit later. d;)

The whole 'aura' thing is interesting business. In Quantum Leap, as I think I wrote when referring to it originally, it was very weird, because it was really his body but with the original person's aura. So when he leapt into a guy with no legs, he could still walk, and people would just see the guy floating along. In this case, it's kind of essential to the plot that Ulala get Dante's body, otherwise she's not going to last very long on Mallet island! u:o I do like the idea that they can 'see past' their own auras... unfortunately I even had the camerabots seemingly able to see the truth when looking through that information-only-portal.

Sorry, yes I sit corrected, I meant to say body rather than soul although in this case, they quite clearly have each others with all the trimmings so to speak *cough*