Eve

[Quaddy]

Matt and I edit my novel step by bloody step.

YAY!

[Mynt]

*sneaks in, hides in the corner. watches.*

[Quaddy]

This should be a show. This thing is an empty shell of awful right now.

[Mynt]

It wasn't that bad from what I read.

[Quaddy]

Yeah...halfway through the story, I changed my mind about something very important, namely the entire impetus for the story. I added a lot more God. Basically, the whole story is God manipulating things from behind the scenes (and without actually doing anything except being a really good judge of character) in order to get things to a convergence that allows Him to act without undermining His own decree of non-involvement. It actually started all the way back in Eden, though technically God exists in ALL times, so yeah..

It's a really convoluted philosophy. Basically, every possibility is its own existence and God is in all of them. These possibilities cease to exist when you make a choice and crystallize events, thus upholding your own Choices. And God also doesn't get involved until you have actually made a choice and GONE THROUGH WITH IT because until you go through with it, you can still go back and pick another path. So, back in Eden, God set Adam and Eve on a path that He saw might lead to the convergence at the end of the novel. As Adam and Eve literally choose everything until they choose something (for God, they choose EVERYTHING even though Adam and Eve are still living thousands of years from when they make that choice...), he KNOWS what they will choose because they only have certain choices, but they don't know, which is why your choices matter. God knows, but you don't. So God sets them on a path that will lead to this convergence should they make all the right choices for themselves and then sits back and waits for them to make those choices.

Does any of this make sense? It sort of makes it seem like God isn't omnipotent, but He is. You literally make every choice until you make one choice and crystallize things. So He is living in all of the words that could ever possibly happen, and you are living in the ONE in which you make these choices. But because of Free Will, He must give humans the choice and only act when you have made a choice. So, in a way, although He can know what you are going to do, He can't act upon that knowledge until you do it.

Matt, help me explain.

[Mynt]

That sounds hard.

[Quaddy]

Actually, I think that last bit sums it up. He has a pretty good idea what you are gong to do, but you don't, so He doesn't act. He's not entirely sure because humans are human and Choice means uncertainty, and He can be shocked by one's Choices. But that's by His own choice. Humans are His great experiment. If He knows everything, there's no real experiment. He *is* God, though, so He is a REALLY GOOD judge of character. So basically, in giving Adam and Eve the punishments He gave them, He had a really good idea that the events at the end of the novel would occur, but He also knew Adam and Eve (and Lucifer and Lilith and Samael) would have to make the choices they ended up making. There was a chance they wouldn't, but God was pretty damn sure they would.

[Mynt]

That sounds... complex. xD

But not boring!

[Quaddy]

It is complex, but I think it came out pretty well when I had Lucifer explain it. And now Gabriel is explaining God's involvement...

[Matt]

So it's like - you're going down a road and there's a fork in the road, you take the left, continue on to the next fork, take the left again etc. But at each left turn you could have also taken the right, or driven off road.

It's very similar to the suggestions in Paradise Lost. I'll try and find you the passages. I believe it's in Raphael's explanation to Adam and Eve in Eden.

So where do you want to start my dearest House?

[Quaddy]

Yes, that's exactly what it's like. And, for God, there are...dimensions, I guess, where you go left, go right, drive off the road up until the moment you go left, when those other possibilities cease to exist. It crystallizes things into actuality. For God, it's like seeing three different possible worlds, one of which continues to get brighter and more real as the other two fade until you turn left and those other two disappear entirely.

I think we begin with my finishing the damn novel. It's almost done. If you want, you can start at the beginning. I do have to warn you that chapter one is incredibly rough because beginnings suck for me and I started editing it because I hated it so much and so there's a sort of jump that makes NO SENSE. Once I'm done with the draft, I'll make the item private and give you a Passkey so we can read it together.