[Batman] What would have happened if Batman suspected The Joker was tricking him into saving Dent instead of Rachel?

Interaction is too strong a word, you're right. What you need is evidence that the universes are connected.

If I can travel from Earth 1 to Earth 2 and my Earth 2 doppleganger could travel from Earth 2 to Earth 3, then Earth 1 and Earth 3 are linked even if they never interacted. If I can observe happenings in Earth 4 then we're not interacting per se but we're still clearly linked or else this observation wouldn't be possible.

There are a lot of ways you can prove that a connection exists. But "they have things in common" is not a connection. Lots of things coincidentally have aspects in common.

Say we both agreed to draw a random picture and show it to each other only after we're done. I drew an squid and you drew an octopus. We both ended up drawing a cephalopod. Are we psychically linked? Are we both alternate personalities of the same guy? Are we twins separated at birth? Did we tap into the cephalopod multiverse and channel it into our art? The most likely answer, in lieu of any other evidence, is that it was a coincidence.

In the same way, fictional universes are not linked just because they share a subject matter. The only way to overcome plausible deniability is to show evidence that it is a link and not a coincidence.


And I'll repeat since you seem not to have read the earlier reply like I said to, that you're going about this in the wrong direction.

The purpose of the subreddit is not to hunt for proof that an arbitrary claim is accurate, the purpose of the subreddit is to look for the answer that the evidence leads to. Start with what's there and follow it to the conclusion that it suggests. That's what it says in the rules on the sidebar, that's what everybody comes here for, and it's a hell of a lot easier to get an accurate answer. Even if you do prove every single one of your claims, following the letter of the law that I am trying to communicate, you are giving the spirit a sound thrashing when you decide on an answer without basing that decision on in-universe evidence to begin with.

/r/AskScienceFiction Thread