As promised, I am posting the new version of the Heroes’ String Theory graph, now considering events showed in the latest episode (1×20 - Five Years Gone). It took me hell to make it, because lots of things must be considered now:

• Candace’s power (illusion) is helping some characters fake reality in unexpected ways
• Future Hiro is not aware of these illusions, and maybe passing incorrect information to Young Hiro
• Future Mohinder somehow remembers the Subway encounter.

Thus, this graph has some new conventions, separating what really happened (ie. what WE know as truth) and what Future Hiro and Young hero saw. Some stuff still remain as conjectures. If Candace was alive after the explosion, it means Sylar (and not a Candace-induced illusion) was stabbed by Hiro, so how could he regenerate? The only reasonable explanation I have is Linderman, but I don’t see WHY he would do that, no matter how evil he could possibly be.

I may be totally wrong, but whatever. Here is the graph. DISCLAIMER: There be dragons. As usual, if you feel like something is terribly wrong, if you can suggest better layouts or conventions, use the comment box below.

Some generic smart-assery about this feat(?):

(08:15:27 PM) Prometheus: dude this has to be the nerdiest thing I've ever seen :-)
(08:15:38 PM) mobus: hehehehehe
(08:16:19 PM) Prometheus: who else would ever think of making a flow diagram of Heroes :-)
(08:16:33 PM) Prometheus: try making one for Lost and I will applaud you!
(08:17:15 PM) mobus: good idea :) the problem will be the flashbacks, but it's doable
(08:19:38 PM) Prometheus: make them in a nice colour, like pink
(08:19:46 PM) Prometheus: and cloud shaped :-)
(08:20:00 PM) mobus: the idea is to be nerdy, not gay
(08:20:39 PM) Prometheus: the result is the same you don't get to sleep with women
(08:20:44 PM) Prometheus: :-D
(08:21:01 PM) mobus: point

Unless you have been living under a rock since last September and assuming you are neither Dale Smither nor Matt Parkman, you surely heard about this NBC sci-fi series called Heroes. Great production, deep characters, abundance of resources (series, comics, blogs) and intriguing plot.

Maybe calling the plot intriguing does not do justice to its complexity. Hiro’s time-traveling ability adds an unusual twist in causality relations aboard Heroes universe. Many fans debate over which time-travel model should be considered when resolving the events and no model so far seems to be free of issues. However, in the wake of the latest issue of the Heroes’ Graphic Novels (comics that explain parallel arcs), it seems that Hiro has devised a “String Theory” model, representing distinct events with pictures, drawings, and news, chained by strings according to their causality relations. The result is big web (nerd-speak: graph) where Future Hiro tries to find a way to fix past events in order to save the world from a terrible catastrophe.

This is where I come in: I love playing with graphs. My first experience with them came after stumbling upon attrition’s sexchart, a diagram showing sexual relationships between IRCers that has grown to over 2000 people. I started assembling a version of it for the now-deceased IRC server I accessed in the glorious IRC days. Some friends, acting as informants, helped me and it quickly grew up to over 180 people. Maintaining it took me countless (nonetheless fun) nights rearranging the graph.

Back on topic, I realized that Heroes’ Hiro String Theory is a good case for collaborative graphing, so I’m releasing the first version of the graph, which details the most important events and conjectures after considering the nineteenth episode of the first season (%.07). Of course, it is by no means complete nor accurate, but this is where YOU readers come in: send your suggestions, corrections, flames, praises, money, cries of terror through my comment box below and we shall build a kick-ass String Theory graph.

Please be gentle with my bandwidth: if possible, mirror it at will. If you’re willing to mirror, please keep attribution (a link would be extra-cool!), license and non-commercial status (as per Creative Commons by-nc-sa license).

Before someone asks: No, I will not release my version of sexchart for, erm, my personal safety. Not for now, at least. Maybe in the future I’ll release an abridged version but, meanwhile, you will only be entitled to see it if you are part of it (which is the catch-22: how could possibly you know you’re inside without seeing it?).