Forum Overview :: Tansin A. Darcos's Alter Ego :: And I have to make a correction

[quote name="Commander Tansin A. Darcos"]I kind of understand the way writers make mistakes that sometimes cause continuity errors. Only after re-reading this chapter of my book, did I realize I have a continuity error I have to fix. And I'll explain. My first book, <i>In the Matter of: The Gatekeeper: The Gate Contracts</i> has George Green, a student, meeting Dr. Hugo Sign, who is a close friend of Tansin A. Darcos, one of the three men who would found the Republic of Vicron. There is a deliberate error of fact in that book to show it's not in our universe. In that universe, I mention that a Supreme Court decision was made by Justice Bork, whom, if you know American politics, was refused confirmation to the Supreme Court in our world. In my later book, <i>In the Matter of: Instrument of God</i> George Green is the Chairman of the Afterlife, and one of the members of the Board of Directors is Hugo Sign, but is missing, as he gave up his memory to take on a position to watch Tansin A. Darcos for a while. In that book, I show that George Green, while he knows about it happening here, came from a different universe where 9/11 never happened. I also explicitly mention that, in George's universe, at that time, the World Trade Center (specifically, the restaurant <i>Windows on the world</i>, located on the penthouse of 1 WTC) is still there, and Robert Bork is a Supreme Court justice (and that he was not one in our world). So, anyway, the chapter in this book is from a period in the future of the universe George Green and Tansin A. Darcos come from. Only problem is this section of this story: ??“Can you give an example of a suggestion he made?” ??“Yeah, I said that the two Texas officials, and unofficial ambassador ??flew into the state capital in Austin. He said that sounded too much ??like the American 9/11 incident, and said it would probably be ??better if I said they flew into the airport.” Only problem is, as I said, 9/11 never happened in this universe. So, how do I fix this? Now, this story is happening in 2136, more than 100 years in the future. If it was happening in 2036, I could get away with mentioning something like "a similar incident in the Tom Clancy book <i>Debt of Honor</i> in which an airliner was crashed into the U.S. Capitol," only I don't expect that book to be well known 100 years from now. I think I'll just change it to say "that sounded too much like the airplane crashed into the capitol building, and said it would probably be better if I said they flew into the airport. " In fact, I think I'll confirm this by making another change. The original text is " Nixon finally succeeded in removing Cox when number three in line, Solicitor General Robert Bork, agreed to comply with Nixon's demand. " I'll change this to, "Nixon finally succeeded in removing Cox when number three in line, Solicitor General Robert Bork (who would later be appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan), agreed to comply with Nixon's demand." I'm also mentioning it was Reagan's appointment, that way it doesn't sound like Nixon appointed him (perhaps as a reward for firing Archibald Cox.) When a work gets published with errors like this, it's what causes either a retcon, where prior works are changed to fix it, or some weird explanation, like this is yet a <i>third</i> universe have to be used. Though it might provide an interesting idea, I'm already handling enough story lines.[/quote]