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DC/Vertigo Cosmology Redo(Part 1 of 2)

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After, Ultima and I talked. DeMatteis portion is revised. The only thing removed was High 1-A+ for the metaphysical realms.
 
Hirotoswnn1x said:
Pralaya is still High1-A+, right? And how is the vertigo?
Click to expand...
Yeah, if she's High 1-A+ then the other thing can't be High 1-A+. As for Vertigo, we’re discussing the Dreaming, right now.
The_2nd_Existential_Seed said:
What would be the new tiers for everything then ?
Click to expand...
We just finished the talk on DeMatteis. Vertigo is on its way. What you see now would probably stay as is.
 
Antvasima said:
Unless other knowledgeable staff members have objections. I do not want us to enforce such important changes based on me and Ultima alone, especially as I am not good at evaluating most content revision threads in the first place. 🙏

@Eficiente @Qawsedf234 @SuperAPM @Firestorm808 @EmperorRorepmeThree @LuciferDC099 @Deagonx @Elizio33 @MarvelFanatic119 @Catzlaflame @Lightning_XXI @LuciferX @Excellence616 @JohnCenaNation @ByAsura @Emirp sumitpo @Quantu @IdiosyncraticLawyer @PrinceofPein @Maverick_Zero_X @Robo432343 @LordTracer @Alonik @ProfectusInfinity @M3X_2.0 @PrinceStories @Asterotheology @Zensum @Hykuu @KingEzran @Dark-Carioca @AerrowStorm1

Your help would still be extremely appreciated here. 🙏
Click to expand...
Oh boy, here I go commenting on another DC DeMatteis thread. As I said earlier, I agree with most things in the OP, but once again, I strongly disagree with the Ocean of Dreams argument based on the arguments given. I'm gonna say in advance that as usual, I will explain my points of contention in a civil manner, and I expect the same civility, and if there's random hostility again, I will be more willing to request thread moderation or issue rule violations reports (I really shouldn't have to say this, but from experience, I have to).

Before getting into the nitty gritty:
Tiering: There are infinite universes and parallel dimensions, each decision forms new universes all the time. The material plane is just the debased level of Creation called the Gross Plane. Everything in Creation is a result of a dream in a dream. The material plane encompasses all the simplest levels driven by the five senses. Due to its relation to being just a dream in the higher planes, it would warrant a 1-A rating, and because there's limitless potential and possibility. Its hierarchical positing pivots a hierarchy of R>F transcendence thus the “+” modifier can be used. So any Multiversal feat of any degree affecting the material plane is 1-A and total destruction as 1-A+.
Click to expand...
You're suggesting the material planes (e.g. "base multiverse") are 1-A+ for holding the infinite hierarchy of Dreams? Uh... why would it scale to that level of the cosmology when the Ocean of Dreams exist in the Collective Unconscious and Heaven, which are spiritual planes within the Sphere of Gods?

Anyhow, I spent way too much time on this lol, but I'm gonna evaluate the arguments for the "Ocean of Dreams" as it's depicted mainly in the one-shot story "Green Lantern: Willworld." Right off the bat, I'm just gonna restate the fact that these "Dream Universes" argued to belong to an infinite R>F hierarchy were verbatim described as "parallel universes floating beside one another in an ocean."

Now to summarize the story for those who never read it, basically Hal Jordan wakes up in this fantasy world called the "Land of Odd" with no memory of who he is. He explores the world more and more to learn the truth of it, all the while avoiding cops and reality itself who are sending him cryptic messages to stop looking under the veils of reality. At the same time, he gets strange glimpses into other Universes around him. Eventually, he regains his memories and breaks out of his Universe entirely, and remembers the whole thing was a test for trainee members of the Green Lantern Corps. They were sent into the Collective Unconscious to explore their dream Universes to better grasp the power of will, which is the basis for the Collective Unconscious and Creation itself. The story ends with him rejoining his fellow lantern trainees for the next phase of the test while reflecting on how the CU works. This CRT is a lot more condensed, but I'll respond to the arguments I've seen up to this point.

The R>F Visuals Argument​

The argument is based on these two scans alone. Basically one boy (who's revealed earlier in the story to be a young Hal Jordan) creates his dream Universe, this being depicted as him blowing a bubble. Then, some alien guy views young Hal through a scrying ball, which I guess is supposed to be interpreted as that alien dreaming him. Within that same set of two scans, Hal and Kilowog state that the dream Universes go on endlessly while walking down the stairs, which I guess is supposed to be interpreted as the Universes transcending each other like steps on a staircase?

First off, this explicitly doesn't qualify on its own according to the rules.
Potential mediums for viewing a cosmology as fiction include: written media (Books or stories), images (Paintings, comics, or movies), data (Simulations or video games), or mental constructs (thoughts or dreams). All of the above would be considered less 'real' than the person who views the cosmology as such, and can directly imply qualitative superiority. Note that the medium is usually a representation or container for the fiction on a higher plane and not necessarily the fiction in itself.

However, bear in mind that simple visual portrayals of a character viewing the world within some such construct are not enough to qualify.
Click to expand...
Anyways, the main problem with this visuals argument is that it can't sustain itself without an immense degree of cherry-picking, seeing as on multiple occasions throughout the story, these Universes were also visually depicted as parallel constructs with the exact same size, shape, and nature floating beside one another in a vast ocean. You can't just take one pair of visuals to its highest possible interpretation while dismissing the implications of other visuals, especially not when the visuals contradicting R>F are actually more numerous. In fact, even one of the visuals being used to prove R>F shows other dream Universes existing in parallel as bubbles.
However, there are also factors that can speak against Reality-Fiction Transcendence, even if all of the above is given. Those include:

  • The realities are portrayed like parallel universes or otherwise as having just a finite difference in scale or having a similar nature.
  • The characters from both realities are generally being portrayed as comparable in power
Click to expand...
Narratively speaking too, you can't argue that the visuals depicting the Universes as parallel worlds across a multiverse are metaphorical or something like that. They actually have far more context to them than the visuals supposedly implying R>F. Every time we see the Universes appear like parallel worlds of the exact same size and shape, it's after subtext of some kind or another about how that appearance is the true nature of reality that Hal is getting closer to seeing in full.

Moreover, considering how vague the visuals are, I fail to see why they can't be written off as using clairvoyance to see other Universes. As a matter of fact there is a glaring and dastardly flaw with the visuals argument I haven't brought up, but I'll get to that in the last section instead, so stay tuned. In summary:

The visuals argument doesn't work on its own seeing as there are also visuals depicting the Universes as parallel worlds equal in size, shape, and nature, and it's peak cherry-picking to take the favorable visuals to their highest-end interpretation while ignoring the unfavorable visuals entirely, especially not when the unfavorable visuals have more context for being literal. And even within the so-called "favorable visuals," the Universes, while being depicted as bubbles, are shown once again as parallel worlds of the same scope beside one another.

The "Layers" Argument​

I surprisingly didn't see this argument across the previous CRT's (probably missed it), but there are 3 different mentions within this storyline of "layers of dreams" or "levels of dreams," which I suppose some would use to argue they exist in a hierarchy.

Basically, "layers" is meant not in the sense that one dream is above the other, but that all the dreams are different aspects of the same construct, like ingredients of a meal or components of a painting mix. It's actually stated that the "levels of dreams" merge and interpenetrate (as in they intersect and are fused together) and no dream is objectively more real than another: it's a matter of perspective. In the page before this, the same Angel who views all levels of the dream simultaneously states she's not more real than Hal. It's also stated that the Universe is neither subjective nor objective, but "omnijective."

Summary of Reasons why I believe these Unvierses have no R>F and are intended to be as real as each other, and similar in nature, as well as blatant anti-feats against Qualitative Superiority​

 
ProfectusInfinity said:
You're suggesting the material planes (e.g. "base multiverse") are 1-A+ for holding the infinite hierarchy of Dreams? Uh... why would it scale to that level of the cosmology when the Ocean of Dreams exist in the Collective Unconscious and Heaven, which are spiritual planes within the Sphere of Gods?
Click to expand...
That’s because the Ocean of Dreams isn’t in the Collective Unconscious nor that it scales to the metaphysical realms hence why they’re High 1-A as oppose to the material being 1-A.
ProfectusInfinity said:
The R>F Visuals Argument
The argument is based on these two scans alone. Basically one boy (who's revealed earlier in the story to be a young Hal Jordan) creates his dream Universe, this being depicted as him blowing a bubble. Then, some alien guy views young Hal through a scrying ball, which I guess is supposed to be interpreted as that alien dreaming him. Within that same set of two scans, Hal and Kilowog state that the dream Universes go on endlessly while walking down the stairs, which I guess is supposed to be interpreted as the Universes transcending each other like steps on a staircase?
Click to expand...
I’ve talked with Ultima on that. Everything was essentially a story within another story. Young Hal blowing the bubbles was equivalent to him making countless Universes as seen in the Ocean of Dreams, yet he is just another story and more. This is evident since he even questions what if “they’re just stories” to another being. The visual aspect really does answer it, but the staircase thing isn’t a bad shout though I don’t really mean much other than staircases having “levels” like Creation.
ProfectusInfinity said:
First off, this explicitly doesn't qualify on its own according to the rules.

Anyways, the main problem with this visuals argument is that it can't sustain itself without an immense degree of cherry-picking, seeing as on multiple occasions throughout the story, these Universes were also visually depicted as parallel constructs with the exact same size, shape, and nature floating beside one another in a vast ocean. You can't just take one pair of visuals to its highest possible interpretation while dismissing the implications of other visuals, especially not when the visuals contradicting R>F are actually more numerous. In fact, even one of the visuals being used to prove R>F shows other dream Universes existing in parallel as bubbles.
Click to expand...
The Universes are the entire Cosmology up to Ocean. This is how in the Spectre series when Hal showed his niece of these parallel Universes as possible worlds with their own planes of existence including those of their own Heaven.
ProfectusInfinity said:
Narratively speaking too, you can't argue that the visuals depicting the Universes as parallel worlds across a multiverse are metaphorical or something like that. They actually have far more context to them than the visuals supposedly implying R>F. Every time we see the Universes appear like parallel worlds of the exact same size and shape, it's after subtext of some kind or another about how that appearance is the true nature of reality that Hal is getting closer to seeing in full.
Click to expand...
These parallel worlds are entire versions of one’s own Creation, not what makes the collective universes in the Multiverse.
ProfectusInfinity said:
The visuals argument doesn't work on its own seeing as there are also visuals depicting the Universes as parallel worlds equal in size, shape, and nature, and it's peak cherry-picking to take the favorable visuals to their highest-end interpretation while ignoring the unfavorable visuals entirely, especially not when the unfavorable visuals have more context for being literal. And even within the so-called "favorable visuals," the Universes, while being depicted as bubbles, are shown once again as parallel worlds of the same scope beside one another.
Click to expand...
Literally someone asked about Creation being infinitely layered and folded which was a concept he always used promptly for his Silver Surfer and Spectre series. It adheres the same logic that one’s consciousness at a creation point is powerful enough to create their own version of their Universes that includes planes of their own. I wouldn’t extend these “possible worlds” as something that strictly belongs to the material. Which the argument of R>F is purely based on each of the plane(material and spiritual being layered) and the Ocean where they projected their own entire Universe that contains all that.
ProfectusInfinity said:

The "Layers" Argument​

I surprisingly didn't see this argument across the previous CRT's (probably missed it), but there are 3 different mentions within this storyline of "layers of dreams" or "levels of dreams," which I suppose some would use to argue they exist in a hierarchy.

Basically, "layers" is meant not in the sense that one dream is above the other, but that all the dreams are different aspects of the same construct, like ingredients of a meal or components of a painting mix. It's actually stated that the "levels of dreams" merge and interpenetrate (as in they intersect and are fused together) and no dream is objectively more real than another: it's a matter of perspective. In the page before this, the same Angel who views all levels of the dream simultaneously states she's not more real than Hal. It's also stated that the Universe is neither subjective nor objective, but "omnijective."
Click to expand...
That’s because in essence everyone is the same. There’s clearly a hierarchy at play, any attempt to dismiss this notion is a literal downplay.

So let’s go by your notion that nothing is actually anymore “real.” That would dismiss the whole idea that Creation isn’t even real, and I talked about DeMatteis about it, that nothing truly exists including the planes as just being dreams. Which in the story several times has depicted that Heaven is much higher, deeper, and closer to God, that’s a direct notion of a hierarchy. That’s indicating the “levels in Creation” or else your saying everything simultaneously is just parallel to each other then I’ll leave this point because that notion is absurd.
ProfectusInfinity said:

Summary of Reasons why I believe these Unvierses have no R>F and are intended to be as real as each other, and similar in nature, as well as blatant anti-feats against Qualitative Superiority​

Click to expand...
I don’t actually see any case that dismiss R>F. Given you miss the entire point of the Universe argument as oppose to the R>F layers coming within the Universes being folded and layered.

Anyways, since Ultima and I’ve already discussed for day here. I don’t actual have a worry in your sentiments and it’s rather fallacious and it looks like your intentionally downplaying it for whatever reason you decide.
 
VeryGoofyToddler said:
I don’t actual have a worry in your sentiments and it’s rather fallacious and it looks like your intentionally downplaying it for whatever reason you decide.
Click to expand...
God f***ing damn it, you caught me! For one humble night, I was approached by the Great Darkness itself to fulfill his dream of a lowballed DC, for I have become the embodiment of his wrath. With this mouth I howl, with this hand I break, for my only weapon is hate. Throughout the heavens and earth, I alone am the dishonored one, the disgraceful one, dare I say it... the downplaying one.
VeryGoofyToddler said:
I’ve talked with Ultima on that. Everything was essentially a story within another story. Young Hal blowing the bubbles was equivalent to him making countless Universes as seen in the Ocean of Dreams, yet he is just another story and more. This is evident since he even questions what if “they’re just stories” to another being. The visual aspect really does answer it, but the staircase thing isn’t a bad shout though I don’t really mean much other than staircases having “levels” like Creation.
Click to expand...
VeryGoofyToddler said:
Anyways, since Ultima and I’ve already discussed for day here.
Click to expand...
I mean, seeing as you've been caught lying about Ultima giving you permission to do things before, I can't help but place no faith whatsoever in this unsubstantiated attempt at appealing to authority. Regardless, CRT's are meant to be transparent. The voting process requires active staff participation, or evidence of it. It sounds like you fear any kind of pushback, which is very unhealthy behavior. This CRT system exists to give rise to as much accuracy as possible.

Also, I'd like to hear Ultima's opinion on how the Grey Alien, who you're arguing has "indisputable R>F over the little boy," is blatantly and explicitly confirmed in the storyline to not be more real than the boy, and if anything be less real than him, as he's a figment of the boy's imagination.
VeryGoofyToddler said:
That’s because the Ocean of Dreams isn’t in the Collective Unconscious nor that it scales to the metaphysical realms hence why they’re High 1-A as oppose to the material being 1-A.
Click to expand...
Wait... you don't think these Dream Universes were in the Collective Unconscious? Huh??? Did we read the same story?
VeryGoofyToddler said:
The Universes are the entire Cosmology up to Ocean. This is how in the Spectre series when Hal showed his niece of these parallel Universes as possible worlds with their own planes of existence including those of their own Heaven.

These parallel worlds are entire versions of one’s own Creation, not what makes the collective universes in the Multiverse.
Click to expand...
Read the scans again, the Universes described as "parallel" each belong to distinct people. They are not parallel worlds within a single person's "version of creation," but different people's worlds altogether exist in parallel. This new argument sounds very disjointed. Despite how every last scan I provided, you provided, or someone else provided across the past few CRT's on the Willworld story are about the same set of Universes within the Collective Unconscious, you've invented this argument that the scans contradicting your premise refer to some headcanon separate multiverse within the CU, while the scans in your favor refer to a hierarchy of Universes, despite how anyone seeing these scans knows these are the same set of Universe being described in both the favorable and unfavorable scans.
VeryGoofyToddler said:
Literally someone asked about Creation being infinitely layered and folded which was a concept he always used promptly for his Silver Surfer and Spectre series. It adheres the same logic that one’s consciousness at a creation point is powerful enough to create their own version of their Universes that includes planes of their own. I wouldn’t extend these “possible worlds” as something that strictly belongs to the material. Which the argument of R>F is purely based on each of the plane(material and spiritual being layered) and the Ocean where they projected their own entire Universe that contains all that.
Click to expand...
Author statements don't take priority if they contradict the source text, especially not when it was established as a key point in this famous DC CRT that J.M. DeMatteis has said multiple times anyone's interpretation of the comic is as important as its own. Hasn't DeMatteis even implicitly told you himself at some point that the cosmology questions are beginning to get obnoxious?
VeryGoofyToddler said:
That’s because in essence everyone is the same. There’s clearly a hierarchy at play, any attempt to dismiss this notion is a literal downplay.

So let’s go by your notion that nothing is actually anymore “real.” That would dismiss the whole idea that Creation isn’t even real, and I talked about DeMatteis about it, that nothing truly exists including the planes as just being dreams. Which in the story several times has depicted that Heaven is much higher, deeper, and closer to God, that’s a direct notion of a hierarchy. That’s indicating the “levels in Creation” or else your saying everything simultaneously is just parallel to each other then I’ll leave this point because that notion is absurd.
Click to expand...
It's not a hard idea to grasp. The Collective Unconscious as a higher plane and its Universes in their entirety are more real than the material world, but individual Universes within it are no more real than each other.
 
ProfectusInfinity said:
I mean, seeing as you've been caught lying about Ultima giving you permission to do things before, I can't help but place no faith whatsoever in this unsubstantiated attempt at appealing to authority. Regardless, CRT's are meant to be transparent. The voting process requires active staff participation, or evidence of it. It sounds like you fear any kind of pushback, which is very unhealthy behavior. This CRT system exists to give rise to as much accuracy as possible.
Click to expand...
That was purely comical, it was not meant to be in any way serious to which I had a serious talk afterwards to not do it again. So, please save me your flabbergast of ridicule.
ProfectusInfinity said:
Also, I'd like to hear Ultima's opinion on how the Grey Alien, who you're arguing has "indisputable R>F over the little boy," is blatantly and explicitly confirmed in the storyline to not be more real than the boy, and if anything be less real than him, as he's a figment of the boy's imagination.
Click to expand...
That would literally entail that the alien itself is part of the boy’s imagination as is what is below. Dreams are folded upon each other and they work through a hierarchy that’s the point. The scan also literally reads “it never ends” to answer Hal point if they’re all just being dreamed of, if each of them are just figmentation of someone else’s imagination.

So, if Hal in his ordeal to understand and comprehend the nature that he is just within someone else story, it wouldn’t be bizarre to also say the same as someone else being a story to him. That’s the dream sequence but that hardly covers the entire of the R>F hierarchy. That example is boarder and generalized to help the readers understand the notion everything is just a dream within a dream.
ProfectusInfinity said:
Wait... you don't think these Dream Universes were in the Collective Unconscious? Huh??? Did we read the same story?
Click to expand...
No. I wouldn’t equate the Ocean of Dreams as the same as the Collective Unconscious. It certainly has to do with the “mind” per se, as is anything to do with Creation being itself a dream in the mind of God. Collective Conscious is more of a connective force of collective mind, a hive mind, if you will. As oppose to a place where you turn into pure energy and only be in a state of dreaming until you realize what secrets are hidden beneath the layers of Reality.
ProfectusInfinity said:
Read the scans again, the Universes described as "parallel" each belong to distinct people. They are not parallel worlds within a single person's "version of creation," but different people's worlds altogether exist in parallel. This new argument sounds very disjointed. Despite how every last scan I provided, you provided, or someone else provided across the past few CRT's on the Willworld story are about the same set of Universes within the Collective Unconscious, you've invented this argument that the scans contradicting your premise refer to some headcanon separate multiverse within the CU, while the scans in your favor refer to a hierarchy of Universes, despite how anyone seeing these scans knows these are the same set of Universe being described in both the favorable and unfavorable scans.
Click to expand...
I didn’t claim the Universes aren’t parallel to each other. However, those “Universes” aren’t exactly what I would concur as the hierarchy. Especially considering Spectre literally went these worlds and it contained its own Earth, Heaven, and what-more that a Soul can dream of.
ProfectusInfinity said:
Author statements don't take priority if they contradict the source text, especially not when it was established as a key point in this famous DC CRT that J.M. DeMatteis has said multiple times anyone's interpretation of the comic is as important as its own. Hasn't DeMatteis even implicitly told you himself at some point that the cosmology questions are beginning to get obnoxious?
Click to expand...
He hasn’t, he does favor an interpretation that varies from person to person even when a person can claim something that the comic couldn’t support. It’s literally just satire.
ProfectusInfinity said:
It's not a hard idea to grasp. The Collective Unconscious as a higher plane and its Universes in their entirety are more real than the material world, but individual Universes within it are no more real than each other.
Click to expand...
Not really. Spectre mentioning limitless plane to which the only two plane we get any information on is of course: material and spiritual and many examples are said to say there are things deeper than conventional Heaven and worlds are within worlds.
 
ProfectusInfinity said:
God f***ing damn it, you caught me! For one humble night, I was approached by the Great Darkness itself to fulfill his dream of a lowballed DC, for I have become the embodiment of his wrath. With this mouth I howl, with this hand I break, for my only weapon is hate. Throughout the heavens and earth, I alone am the dishonored one, the disgraceful one, dare I say it... the downplaying one.
Click to expand...
It was my plan all along!!!
 
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