Between Leaps

the whole Leaping has had me confused for a while, but ever since joining here, you guys have given me a couple different views from which i can not pick just one to believe becasue they all make sense.

my orignal thought, however was that his body was in the waiting room with the mind or soul or whatever of the person he leaped into. but now you guys have changed my views into a kind of "split screen" if you will. hehe.<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/laugh.gif" />

Wow... You know, I've never thought about the aura in that nanosecond between leaps. There can't be a physical body in between the leaps (unless one leapee metamorphed into another which is silly), so what happens to Sam's aura in the Waiting Room? I wonder if it's just a ghostly empty image or does a leapee's body need to occupy it in order for Sam's aura to remain there?

My guess is that Sam actually gets his aura back for a split second, as do the leapees, and the empty space in the Waiting Room is occupied by the quantum field. Of course Sam could never see his own aura because he's in the middle of the quantum field. Interesting stuff. Good question!

or maybe, i was just getting this idea, maybe the previous leapee does not return to his/her aura until sam has made another leap. meaning the previous leapee remains in the waiting room and switches back to his/her arua and replaced by the new leapee when sam makes a new leap? i don't know, just a thought.<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/frown.gif" /><img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/ohwell.gif" />

or maybe, i was just getting this idea, maybe the previous leapee does not return to his/her aura until sam has made another leap. meaning the previous leapee remains in the waiting room and switches back to his/her arua and replaced by the new leapee when sam makes a new leap? i don't know, just a thought.

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The one flaw in that, that I'd see is that Sam going from one life to the other is not an instantaneous thing. In Genesis I believe Al mentions that it was 6 days from the time that Sam leapt out of Tom Stratton and into Ken Fox. If your theory were to work that would mean 6 days that Tom Stratton didn't exist. I tend to go more on the theory that between leaps the waiting room is just...empty.

yeah i thought of that just minutes after posting that, hehe.<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/embarassed.gif" />


oh and i believe it's Tim Fox, not Ken? or at least that's what i remember, but i have only seen that episode once.

You're right, it is Tim not Ken. I was thinking one but for some reason typed the other.

ok, i do that sometimes too, so i did not wanna sound so sure.<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif" />

It's not always long periods of time between leaps. Remember at the end of the episode Dr.Ruth?

Al was sitting with Dr. Ruth at the end of the episode. When he admits that he loves Tina, he runs off to tell her. Then Dr. Ruth says, "Next."

Still in the Waiting Room, they then show Dr. Ruth leaping out and she is immediately replaced by that Vampire guy, who then takes off the glasses they made for Dr. Ruth

My theory

As for the Dr Ruth thing, does anyone know what the date was in the Dr Ruth episode and in the Blood Moon episode? If the time between the leaps is similar, maybe time passes quicker in the Waiting Room. So if Sam leaps from one time to another time that is CLOSE to where he was, it doesn't take as long for the person in the waiting room to be replaced as it would if the time between leaps was years or decades apart.

Anyway my theory is that as Sam leaps in and the leapee leaps to the Waiting Room, each sub-atomic particle of the leapee is replaced by Sam's corresponding sub-atomic particle, and the leapee's sub-atomic particle appears in the waiting room. In a sense, since each piece of the "puzzle" is switching simultaneously, there is never a time when there is an empty space in the aura.

This however contradicts with the theory that when Alia was shot by Zoe that the bullet hit the blank space in between Alia leaping out and Angel leaping back, which means either a part of Alia must have been hit or a part of Angel must have been hit. Maybe it hit Angel but GTF made it so that it didn't harm her, or maybe it hit Alia...

If it hit Alia, my "the leapers are dead" theory makes sense, because you can't kill someone that is already dead.

Re: My theory

The Dr. Ruth ending was really more of a gimmick; I wouldn't take it that literally. It was never really established exactly what happens to Sam's "aura" in-between leaps. Some people think a hollow shell of Sam's aura remains in the Waiting Room until his next host inhabits it; others believe his aura vanishes altogether until that time. If so, how is that the leapee always materializes within the Waiting Room then? Perhaps the leaping program has some kind of "temporal" coordinates programmed into it so that the leapee automatically "homes" in on the Waiting Room when Sam leaps.

As for the bullet that shot Alia/Angel, I explained this a while ago, but it would be very hard to find it now, if it even still exists due to the ezboard crash. The bullet did not hit either Alia OR Angel. It passed through during the exact nanosecond that Alia completely leaped out and Angel began leaping back in. For one brief nanosecond in time, there was no one there. That's when the bullet passed through. That's also why the leap effect became blue for Alia, rather than red. It was symbolic to show that Alia was now being "protected" by the force that protects Sam during his leaps. The Evil Project no longer controlled her leaps, so therefore a higher power made sure that the bullet wouldn't kill either of the two women.

And I'm not putting down your theory, but I don't think the Evil Leapers were dead. When Alia failed the first time, she was tortured (or possibly killed and revived since she told Sam, "It was worse than death") and when Zo? was shot, Thames said, "She's dying! Leap her out! Leap her..." It just seems like Lothos has a lot more control over his leapers than Ziggy does with Sam, and has the power to inflict incredible pain onto his "subjects." He has the ability to send his leapers where he wants to and pull them out at will.

Re: My theory

In regards to the leaping, I don't think there is any "materialization" going on. People de-materializing and re-materializing occurs in Star Trek where people get beamed up. In those cases, people are taken apart molecule by molecule (there's even a TNG episode that explains all about this). What I believe happens in Quantum Leap is that Sam and each leapee are "dragged" through time and space by the quantum field and end up in the Waiting Room.

They are always intact but of course it seems like they just appear out of thin air. I do not believe Sam's aura remains an empty ghostly shell for that nanosecond, rather, he gets it back for that nanosecond but could never notice because of the quantum field. I don't believe an aura can exist without a body inhabiting it. As for each leapee going to the Waiting Room, it's simply because that's where the previous leapee came from and since their aura is basically being taken from them, it is replaced by Sam's.

There is also probably some sort of electromagnetic force at the Project that requires each leapee to be within the parameters of the Project in order to leap out (as I discussed with Damon a while back), as seen in "Killin' Time." This electromagnetic force is most likely connected to the Accelerator and could also play a hand in "anchoring" each leapee to the Project.

> Re: My theory

I had to read that several times and I still don't quite get it. When you say "one when," does that mean any given leap? I do understand what you're saying about if the leapee can remain in the future without Sam in the past, though. My theory is no, despite the fact that Sam leaped as himself in "Mirror Image" without needing a counterpart to be in the past.

I believe the Accelerator would be needed in order to "grab" a leapee from the past and bring them into the present (via the retrieval program). Sam could leap as himself because he originally used the Accelerator, allowing him to be leaping in the first place. I don't think the Project could bring anyone to the present without a leaper bumping them out. I think any potential leapee would need the Accelerator to leap without Sam.

Al is able to "observe" the past because Sam is physically in the past, meaning that someone needs to leap there first to get a neural connection with that time. Therefore, it wouldn't be possible to get any type of connection with people in the past to "lock" onto and bring to the present if Sam weren't there. So, bottom line: without Sam being in the past, the retrieval program is useless.

That brings up another question...if Sam were stranded in time at "one when" for a LONG time (e.g. years), would the aura eventually reconnect?

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I don't think so. The auras don't seem to be part of the Project's technology (more like a freak side-effect), so I don't see any reason why it would fade away. Now, if Sam were killed on a leap, maybe the aura would fade as Sam is dying. Most likley, though, the aura probably wouldn't fade away and Sam would automatically leap home (this is more likely because it was a solution in "Genesis").

EDIT: I see what you're saying now about the "where" and "when." But the way I envisioned it, each time Sam leaps, the quantum field "tears" a hole in the space-time continuum, much like a worm hole of sorts. Sam's body remains intact and he passes through this space across time instantaneously (as he explains in his string theory getting from one point in his life to another), and is basically making "shortcuts" through time.

To get really technical about it, Sam could never leap into the same spot in another year because the Earth would simply not be in the same position in the galaxy. So basically, there is no way for Sam to leap without cutting across space in some form. And because of Alia/Angel surviving the shotgun blast in "Revenge," we know that each person's body leaps out as a whole.