[text]

[smarterthandad]

A question, which is only going to get philosophical if you insist on taking it there.

What are the methods by which someone returns from the dead in your home universe? (Neglecting trivial cases like reappearance after presumed death, resuscitation prior to brain death, etc.)

These are the ways I know it's happened in my universe. I've neglected to enumerate the examples of each or the list would be much longer:

1. Inadequately understood alien technology/biology
   
2. Inadequately understood future technology
   
3. Inadequately understood cosmic forces/natural laws
   
4. Consciousness/brain pattern transfer (technological, psychic, sorcerous)
   
5. Other sorcery
   
6. Demonic intervention
   
7. Divine intervention
   
8. Reality manipulation
   
9. Vampirism
   
10. "Zombie" infection leading to arrested post-mortem cell degradation and continued consciousness
    
11. Techno-organic infection
    
12. Resuscitation after cryonic or other stasis (intentional or accidental)*
    
13. Mutant or other superhuman ability (used on self or others)
    
14. Retrieval/voluntary return from alternate state of post-mortal existence
    
15. Alternate timeline collapse/intervention

*I strongly suspect the process used here falls under this category.

I'm interested in whether I've missed something, and in finding out which universes have which methods. For example, do some have purely mystical means vs. some purely technological?

[note that it hasn't occurred to Val that "people don't come back" is an option]

Comments

[walkingballpit]

Are you bored?

[text]

[smarterthandad]

Not really, why?

voice.

[heralding]

Reincarnation with memories intact.

[At least, that had been the intention. Lightning still doesn't know if it worked.]

This would be done with little assistance from any kind of divine intervention. Instead, it'd be possible thanks to ... special abilities granted, in order to ensure that these new souls could be reborn with their lives intact.

I'm not certain how you'd categorize that.

[text]

[smarterthandad]

[Ugh, mystical stuff.]

14, I guess.

TEXT.

[huitzilin]

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[smarterthandad]

Not helpful, Aracely.

voice.

[darkspider]

Don't you have more important things to do?

[text]

[smarterthandad]

I'm doing them. That's what dictation software is for.

text;

[doesthemath]

[Wanda would like to think that if someone managed to take her father out, or at least versions of him like her father back home, he'd stay dead. Having him come back from the "dead" once before was enough for her.]

With presumed deaths already ruled out, people don't come back to life in my world. Does your list reflect methods from your world alone or from various others you've learned about?

text;

[smarterthandad]

Just my world.

[The hilarity of the Scarlet Witch, of all people, having this discussion is...mostly lost on Val, really. She doesn't have much of a sense of humor.]

voice;

[diociopath]

9, and also 10. Vampires can create zombies from corpses.

[text]

[smarterthandad]

Okay, that's a new one by me.

voice; assuming that's what her id says

[andaway]

There should be an 'all of the above' option. It's actually kind of spooky, I can recall at least one of each for people in my world. [Yet he doesn't recognize the 'valeria richards' ID. Hm.]

No one told me they had a way of having us come back from death in here, though. My vote is on advanced technology. [His vote is always on technology.] It seems like the less messy option, and they are already open using nanobots on us to get us nifty controlling tattoos. Maybe they have a way of keeping us alive, or at least the body?

[text] yeah, the f4 don't do the "secret identity" thing

[smarterthandad]

My current theory is nano-stasis following cessation of vital functions, with Continuum later acting as a catalyst for resuscitation, but that's just idle guesswork.

What are the major super-teams in your universe?

text

[forsometimenow]

I've got one that's not on that list- cloning. Somehow, all of the subject's memories and personality were intact, though.

text

[smarterthandad]

That would be included under "consciousness transfer," barring other forces at work.

[darwinatrix]

It doesn't. Dead people stay dead.

[smarterthandad]

That's so weird.

text;

[moded]

[ the comm reads impulse ]

15 but intervention its rewriting not alternate demons bring ppl back to life where ur from????

[Sorry for your text to voice, Val]

text;

[smarterthandad]

[It's not like typing full words would take you that much longer gosh Bart]

Oh, sure. Not for free, though.

[ text ]

[hostage]

They don't come back

That's literally the definition of "dead" where I come from

[ text ]

[smarterthandad]

Nobody ever?

[that's weird jesse :| ]

text

[animalage]

either none of those things happen in my world or someones being really cruel to me


...except 15. but impulse already said that

text

[smarterthandad]

Not even cloning?

[what do your scientists even do with their time Gar seriously]

text

[hackitude]

Wow, your Earth is weird.

We only have #1. And it's only ever been used successfully once. Other than that, dead is... pretty much dead.

text

[smarterthandad]

You're not counting Cap under 12? He's the case I was thinking of when I listed that one.

video;

[ex_galvanist88]

[ 14. it's totally 14. however, like fuck he's telling Val that. ]

Mind giving me some examples of a few of those numbers?

text

[smarterthandad]

Oh, sure. Just off the top of my head:

1: My uncle was resurrected by a species of worm native to the Negative Zone, the negative matter dimension attached to my universe, that repair tissue damage and restore cognitive function.

3: The Phoenix Force, a naturally-occurring cosmic power associated with destruction and renewal, has resurrected multiple people.

14: Once my Dad built a machine to go to "Heaven" [she is skeptical about religious stuff] and retrieve my uncle's soul.

text.

[immigrantpunk]

wtf
where i come from when people die they go in the ground
because they are dead
no one comes back

[Why is it so normal for some people that the dead don't stay dead???]

text.

[smarterthandad]

Yeah, that possibility didn't even occur to me. My mistake.

text.

[glowsferatu]

We Have A Very Limited Mix Where Im From
Certainly Not Enough Differing Conditions To Populate A List Of This Size

There Are Exceptions But The Majority Are From Your 3
Though There Have Been Examples Of What May Qualify As 15 And I Guess Possibly Some 2 But It May Just Be 3 Again Or 5
Then One Awkward Mix Of 1 and 9
But Still A Much Larger Collection Of The Missing 16
Just Staying Dead

text.

[smarterthandad]

"Staying dead" is fundamentally uninteresting.

text;

[infomodder]

[He is SO GLAD he doesn't have his old job in a world like this, holy shit.]

None. Dead sticks to its meaning back where I'm from.

[The dictionary definition is accurate in some universes, Val.]

text;

[smarterthandad]

[It's not like everybody comes back, gosh Will. Just the ones who wear their underpants on the outside.]

I think I'm over being incredulous about that now.

Video

[liverletdie]

Asking the tough questions, aren't you?

text

[smarterthandad]

Did I leave anything out?

text

[khajidont]

For the record, count me in as being from one of the worlds where people come back from the dead, but don't ask me how.

Usually only the superheroes. Not the rest of us.

text

[smarterthandad]

It makes sense. Statistically speaking, superhumans are more likely to be exposed to situations leading to resurrection.

voice.

[sleuthtastic]

Holy crap.

text

[smarterthandad]

?

Voice

[vengefulshades]

Death sounds completely pointless where you come from.

text

[smarterthandad]

Death is completely pointless in general for a self-aware organism.

[raincheck]

[ resuscitation after cryonic or other statis, accidental- steve doesn't think of it as having been dead so much as having slept, most of the time, but this puts it into perspective, at least a little. ]

That's a lot of ways for people to come back from the dead.

[ most people just stay dead, is steve's experience. ]

[smarterthandad]

The universe is a big place. I find it more surprising that there are places where no one ever comes back from the dead.

[acclimatized]

Those are a lot of examples.

Sorry Valeria, I can't help you. My experience falls under re-appearance after a presumed death.

[smarterthandad]

[While the Sherlock Holmes stories are her kind of literature, she's not sure Watson really wants to hear about his fictionality, so she doesn't mention Reichenbach Falls.]

It's not like there aren't a lot of those where I'm from, too.

[Video]

[bullysandwicher]

We had... magic, zombies, Devils, and maybe vampires, but I have never met one.

text

[smarterthandad]

So solely mystical means, then?

[Video]

[onewiththewild]

Nobody returned from the dead.

text

[smarterthandad]

I'm seeing this answer way more often than I was expecting.