Prescience Is Predictable: Difference between revisions
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It's actually worse if someone is capable of any kind of action. You know everything about the future? That means you already know if you will attempt to avert the future. You already know how this attempt will turn out. You already know what you will think when you make the attempt. In fact, it will be utterly impossible for you to even think of doing something different. You will think what you will think, and you will do what you will do, and you already know what they are. [[And I Must Scream|And you will scream what you will scream]].
And so it goes for some [[Fate and Prophecy Tropes|oracles]] and [[Deus Est Machina|superpowerful intellects]]. They often go [[Mad Oracle|mad]] [[Go Mad From the Revelation|from the knowledge]], their [[You Cannot Change the Future|inability to affect the future]], and the sheer monotony of it all, and thus turn into [[The Fatalist|fatalistic]] [[Nietzsche Wannabe
Compare how the [[Living Lie Detector]] is often fascinated by the [[Consummate Liar]]. Contrast [[Scry Versus Scry]] and [[Xanatos Speed Chess]], which have oracles who are anything ''but'' bored.
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* In ''[[Runaways]]'' Niko {{spoiler|inflicts this on Gert's parents when she encounters them in the past. Consequently they both ''know'' that the course of action they're taking will lead to their own and their daughter's death, but cannot change anything they do, listening to themselves justify actions that lead to their doom.}}
* In one incarnation of the ''[[Doom Patrol]]'', one of the men who goes by Negative Man can see a short distance into the future. He ''believes'' he can't change what he sees, and thus is understandably cynical.
* The title character of the near-future gangster comic ''Skreemer'' had seen his whole future by the time he was in his teens, including who he would marry, who would betray him, and how he would die. This led to him taking outrageous risks (such as a home full of balconies with no railings, or walking through hails of gunfire). It also backfired in weird ways, such as when he told a loyal henchman that he knew he'd turn
== Film ==
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** A slightly different take involves a weakness of the Spacing Guild. Because they us [[FTL]] travel, but don't have FTL sensors, navigators use prescience to choose a safe course. This leads them to use their other applications of prescience in the same way, choosing the safe course and not realizing others would choose the riskier way.
** This is ultimately {{spoiler|Paolo, Paul's [[Evil Twin]] [[Cloning Blues|ghola's]]}} undoing.
* Averted in ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]''. Although the Tralfamadorians see the past, present, and future as one, without any possibility of changing the
* ''Timequake'', also a [[Kurt Vonnegut]] novel, plays it straight, though. The world had a kind of existential crisis and skips back to ten years ago. Everyone has to replay the last ten years, doing everything exactly the same as they did last time round but aware of what's going to happen.
* Evanna the witch from ''[[The Saga of Darren Shan]]'' has this, and has taken a neutral stand on most things. Though, when she realizes that {{spoiler|her father [[Meaningful Name|Des Tiny]] has fiddled with time and space to use his 2 sons to essentially cause a dystopian apocalypse, she realizes that maybe fate isn't totally set in stone.}}
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