Parallel Tonality

U

Unforgiven

Spaceman
I just read the Confederation Handbook, and the most interesting concept (read: the only one I didn't know from somewhere else) was Parallel Tonality.
Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what Parallel Tonality is, I'm quite familiar with it, and use it quite often. Parallel Tonality is simply another name for a mode switch between a major and minor scale of the same base. :D
But WC PT is quite unknown to me. A search on Google got nothing (besides above mentioned musical reference), so did the WC writers make this one up or is it based on some other 'real' theory. Is there anything more known about it besides what the Handbook says?
 
So THAT'S why they have the 'background music'. See, its not really BGM. Its really a secret part of Confed Technology, and due to the limited understanding of the viewing audience of future technology, we think its BGM!

*junior is promptly pummeled by a few members of the board*

*cough*
Sorry about that.
Seriously, what was the parallel tonality in reference to? Was it just a phrase that was tossed out of nowhere, with no relation to anything else, or did it tie into something else?
 
According to WC scientists, the brain has no long-term memory of it's own, but rather scripts memories on some field in another dimension. Because the process was compared to writing vibrations on a magnetic storage device (like music) and it's to do with other dimensions, it was named Parallel Tonality.
Apparently this concept can explain stuff like reincarnation (or actually just the 'past lifetime memories' bit) and telepathy and ghosts because you're accidentally reading someone else's field (ghosts and reincarnation because the field doesn't go away when a person dies).
Apparently it's the way a Pilgrim Navigator can navigate any space a Pilgrim Explorer has already explored, even without a map. It simply knows what the Explorer has done because they can read the PT field of the explorers. Similarly the Navcom AI reads the field to use past experiences of other people and can hence safely navigate any Jumppoint that's been used before.
 
Uh-huh...

And I thought the 'Astral memory crystals' idea in Planescape was silly.
This one sounds original to me.
I would guess that someone on the WC team had heard the musical term at some point (regardless of whether they were familiar with its meaning or not), and figured it would be a good discriptor.
The 'parallel' part I can see. Why they would use 'tonality' I have no idea.
The closest thing I can think of to it in traditional psychic ideas is 'sympathetic vibrations' that are sometimes supposedly detected by the psychicaly (sp?) sensitive in locations where particularly strong emotions have been felt. But in those instances, the event is supposed to be tied to physical objects (the jewelry worn by a murder victim, for example) as opposed to some sort of other-dimensional space.
 
Then, should we take it as canon or not?
I'm guessing yes, since the popular stance here is we should take Pilgrims as canon as well. And without PT no Pilgrims right?
 
Originally posted by Unforgiven
Then, should we take it as canon or not?
I'm guessing yes, since the popular stance here is we should take Pilgrims as canon as well. And without PT no Pilgrims right?
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Well, there's nothing to contradict it anywhere in any 'official' Wing Commander product, afaik, and since no 'spirited discussions' (aka 'arguments') are likely to start over its inclusion, might as well.
 
Originally posted by junior


Well, there's nothing to contradict it anywhere in any 'official' Wing Commander product, afaik, and since no 'spirited discussions' (aka 'arguments') are likely to start over its inclusion, might as well.
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But it is an official Wing Commander product... of course it should be taken as part of the universe.

TC
 
In layman terms, I think 'Parallel Tonality' means something along the line of old folklore terms like "drinking from the memory sea" where all memories are stored...something like that...I think...right?

Originally posted by TC


But it is an official Wing Commander product... of course it should be taken as part of the universe.

TC
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Apparantly it's official, but not canon...yeah, that confuses me too...
 
Originally posted by Bob McDob

Apparantly it's official, but not canon...yeah, that confuses me too...
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Absolutely nobody has said that... and there's no reason to think it, either.

TC
 
Originally posted by TC


But it is an official Wing Commander product... of course it should be taken as part of the universe.

TC
Click to expand...

That's what I meant. Poor phrasing (and grammar) on my part.
*sigh*
Its from an official product, and it doesn't contradict anything found in any other official products, ergo, its official.
 
No, the original transmissions with the Klingons were just garbled, as was the information on how they ran their Empire (fascist police state).

*cough*cough*
 
not that i don't understand that it is FUBAR. First you have borg being unbeatable, then they can be but it takes thousands of warships then WAM 1 f*cking piss little ship can kill all the borg. Then you get the Klingons, they didn't have ridges then they did and now we are told that they did all the way back before they did? with all the time travel things are also really screwed up, ben sisko is bell, all thsoe time traveling 29th century guys, why didn't they stop adm. janeway in endgame? They contradict themselves constantly, in voyager they claim to have never seen anything like x, yet the faught that exact thing three days before. Ect ect ad nauseum
 
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