Time speed differences and duplication of characters.

[Blame]

There is a bit of a problem here.

If realities travel through time at dramatically different rates then how to explain the duplication of characters?

By rights they should not be alive at the same universal time. Most should be ether dead or not yet born.

There ARE solutions but its a problem that can't be ignored.

a) There is reincarnation so the characters have a fair chance to be corporal at any time.

b) Only realities where the critical characters are around are accessible. Perhaps just more easily. That means connections can drop out or perhaps future generations of line walkers will drop into different realities.

c) This is a very special time.

d) The gods are having a laugh.

e) Realities share fashions in universal real time. Right now, regardless of how far a particular reality's history has advanced, Zacks are popular and the cool ones all have one.

My own money is on reincarnation. Sentient realities save mental energy by sharing ideas and recycling characters. Things like natural laws, trees and heartly's. Bit like authors. Nick ideas from all over, add at least one supposedly original concept and shake well.

Any other options?

[Tahg]

Mostly b) from what I've gathered. That is to say, there is an infinite number of universes. That means at any given moment, there's a universe in any given state. That said, from any given universe, and person, there's a set of universes that are more easily accessible than others. That seems to be universes in which the person trying to transfer is present. Beyond that, it gets more into speculation, but I'd imagine that the more common people there are between universes, the easier it is to go between them.

As for things like time speed differences and such, once a character that can transfer between does so, it appears to be the case they can do so again at a later time. Since the books cover a narrow time frame, it's hard to say what effects the divergence might cause, but I'd suspect it wouldn't affect the abilities of current characters, even if a universe may no longer be available to a character who has never been there before.

[PS Power]

I just now noticed this one! Sorry there, I wasn't avoiding the question. It's simple enough... Time is one factor across realities and there are an infinite number of them. On top of that, there aren't (a lot) of true duplicates.

What there is, of course, is a single being that we see parts of, as individuals. Each person is part of a greater whole, that spans millions or billions of realities.