Fanfic / Un-Minority Report

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Un-Minority Report is an installment of Adventures of a Line Hopper Series Fic that crosses over Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who. It is the eighth fic of The Child of Balime season 4 and is part of the story arc involving Buffy and the Doctor's Fan-Created Offspring Seo. It consists of 10 chapters published from February 7 to February 20, 2015, preceded by Consequences and followed by We Must Survive.

Seo and Jack Harkness are looking for Seo's sister Jenny through every MIT Baker House's annual piano drop throughout the centuries when they end up in one time period where the Baker House (now moved to another planet) is in ruins. Jenny arrives not too long later only to find Seo shooting Jack dead (which should be impossible) and the cops knowing it will happen due to the Zillwell Machine, a machine based on Christopher Zillwell's 33rd century remake of Minority Report. With Seo and Jack out of commission, Jenny has to watch the remade movie and figure out how exactly the machine shows the future.

Un-Minority Report contains examples of:

• And You Thought It Would Fail: In-universe, it's explained that the 33rd century remake of Minority Report is produced in the then-outdated Standard 3D Surround because everyone thought it's going to suck. It ends up becoming a smash hit that everybody has watched.
• Big "WHAT?!": After Jenny reveals that Peters' sacrifice only delays but doesn't stop the Poilarin in chapter 9, Hopper exclaims a shocked "What?!"
• Call-Back: The big electromagnetic storm of 3269 from Something is brought up again to explain why Zillwell makes a Minority Report remake (to replace the lost data).
• Crystal-Ball Scheduling: As it turns out, the fact that temporal predictor in the Minority Report remake is a fake mirrors the fact that Zillwell Machine isn't actually a temporal predictor either, complete with Hopper and Peters' denial mirroring Limsor's insistence in the movie that they have stopped real crimes using the machine (which is just the real villains deluding them in both cases).
• A Day in the Limelight: With Seo out of commission, Jenny gets the protagonist role for the fic instead of being Seo's supporting character as usual.
• Defictionalization: In-universe, the Zillwell Machine is a real-life version of the future-predicting machine from Christopher Zillwell's 33rd century remake of Minority Report, created by an expelled student who want to be the "Zillwell of Science".
• Face Death with Dignity: When Gavin remembers that he is going to die saving someone later that day, he calmly walks to where the shooting is and jumps in the bullet way.
• Fake Memories: The big reveal is that none of the cops have ever actually seen how they will die using the Zillwell Machine. The Poilarin in their heads add the memories whenever they want a cop to die, so the cop would do it willingly believing they have always known that they are fated to die that way.
• A Good Way to Die: Before leaving to die as predicted by the Zillwell Machine, Gavin comments that dying trying to save someone isn't a bad way to go and he is happy that the last thing he does before that is having a good time with Anton.
• Hand Gagging: When Jenny wants to stop Gavin from walking to his death early on, the other cops stop her and gags her mouth his their hand.
• Morton's Fork: Early on, Hopper points out how this sort of dilemma will inevitably arise when the police have a way to predict future crimes: either they don't use it to stop crime early and people will protest, or they stop crime before anyone is guilty and people will protest.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Jenny admits that she is not interested in fiction as entertainment, and thus has never heard of Minority Report or its (fictional) popular 33rd century remake.
• Poster-Gallery Bedroom: Hopper mentions that Peters' bedroom is full of Emma Farndale pin-ups, showing that he is both a big fan of her and a flirtatious man.
• Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: Early on, it turns out that the old cop whom Jenny meets is someone who knows when he is going to die and is spending some of his final moments chatting and saying goodbye with the bartender he is friends with.
• Precrime Arrest: Discussed. The cops are aware (thanks to watching Minority Report) that using Zillwell Machine's accurate prediction of the future to arrest people before they commit a crime would lead to a society disorder, so they only use it to go to the crime scene and catch the criminal red-handed. Except, it turns out that Zillwell Machine never actually predicts the future. The Poilarin in people's heads just change the memories of the police after they solve the crimes to make it look like they have known them beforehand.
• Rapid Aging: The Poilarin excrete time distortion when consuming someone's brainwave, resulting in that someone aging rapidly. Except they are now doing it slowly on everyone in the area, which makes them think it's normal for their lifespan to be just one year.
• Reduced to Dust:
  • It's mentioned that the last time scientists try to study the Zillwell Machine, they end up turning to dust. It turns out to be caused by Rapid Aging induced by the Poilarin consuming their simulated mind and excreting time distortion on them.
  • In chapter 9, Peters putting the replacement dome for the Zillwell Machine causes energy to surge into him and reducing him to dust.
• The Reveal: The explanation for how Zillwell Machine gets a big reveal later, when it turns out that the machine is just a wormhole for the the Poilarin to come through, which has been locked by a dome, but some Poilarin has already infected the people, killing many by aging them to dust and changing the memory of the rest so that they would think the machine is a future predictor.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Early on, Gavin happily sacrifices himself to get in the way of Seo shooting Jack, except Jack is immortal and Seo continues to shoot him after Gavin falls. Not to mention, Jenny can tell that Seo must have a plan if she shoots Jack, so Gavin's sacrifice only furthers the hidden villain's plan.
• Shout-Out: Due to the broken chameleon circuit making his shape a mess, Oliver gets compared to a Pablo Picasso painting by a student.
• Show Within a Show: Christopher Zillwell made a Minority Report remake in-universe in the 33rd century, which causes someone to create a machine predicting future crimes. Jenny watches the first half of the remake to get an idea of what is going on.
• Stable Time Loop: Seo and Jack are looking for Jenny in MIT's annual piano drops because they hear records that she is in one of them. Their search ends up being the reason Jenny's time ship gets diverted to one of the piano drops and her being there in the first place.
• Taking the Bullet: Chapter 2 ends with Gavin getting in the way of Seo shooting Jack, having seen it in a vision beforehand.
• Urban Ruins: The story takes place in a city (including its MIT branch campus) that has become ruins with most people being dead.
• Whole-Plot Reference: As the title make it obvious, the fic is about cops who can know future crimes before they happen like in Minority Report.