Well, which is it?

God, Fate, Time, or Whatever?

"Remember the first time I leaped, and we all felt that someone or something grabbed me?" -- Sam, in "Mirror Image"

On the newsgroup, rec.arts.sf.tv.quantum-leap, there has been discussion as to what is really the force leaping Sam around. Here, submitted for your approval, are various contributions to the discussion.

Janet posed the original question: "As Sam and Al both say, Sam is leaping around due to God or Fate or Time. Well, which one is it, really?"

Well, all the great philosophers of the group came out of the woodwork to share their ideas. Janet continues her question by examining each possibility individiually:

"(1) God -- this I doubt. Why? Well, assuming God is omnipotent, why would HE (I'll use HE as the pronoun for convenience's sake; I make no claims to know God's gender or even if God has a gender) need a mortal man to do his work? And, more importantly, why would HE want to fix things that had 'once went wrong'? If you're omniscient as well as omnipotent, you don't make errors -- so, the clean-up crew doesn't have to come in later."

Lwaxanna tries to tackle that point: "Well there is this little thing called free will. And the Bible is full of examples of men having to act as God’s instruments."

Janet continues: "The other side of that argument is that QL definitely believes in some degree of divinity."

Boris Zakharin jumps in: "Why could something have "gone wrong"? Well, we meet plenty of evil supernatural forces as well as good. There's "A Portrait for Troiian", the infamous Halloween Episode, and who could forget the evil leapers. You could argue that there is an evil force (devil) which is the opposite of G-d..."

Now we move onto Fate. As Janet says,

"(2)...the main problem I have with this is that fate (or, destiny) has a certain air of inevitability about it. If things are inevitable, then no one can 'put right what once went wrong', etc. I don't think it's fate.
The other side of this argument is that *somehow* Sam ends up in the accelerator chamber in the first episode, leaping on his own although it's not planned by the project..."

Boris adds: "I tend to agree that it is not fate. He went into the Accelerator because he was pressed for proof at the threat of cutting funding. He had no idea (at least conciously) that he will change history himself."

Lwaxanna: "I don't think that we can assume that. This comes back to the question as to what was the original purpose of PQL..."

But that's another discussion altogether. So, moving right along...

"(3) Time -- by process of elimination? ..."

Boris takes a stab at it: "No. Time is not a supernatural being that can determine what will happen. Time is simply a measurement like distance or temperature. Even in Sam's theory, time is compared to a (measurable) string. So, I don't even know why they would include time as a candidate."

Lwaxanna's take: "I assumed that the inclusion of time was a nod to the type of temporal rifts that they run into on Star Trek. The suggestion being that Sam was being buffeted about in some type of time storm which had no intelligence just brute and random force. However I do not in anyway endorse this as a possibility. Sam’s leaps had a clear direction . There was a mind behind it not a temporal hurricane."

Next idea:

"(4) Sam -- He is leaping himself around as suggested by the bartender. If so, then he must be doing it subconciously. On the outside, he builds the project out of [scientific curiousity], but inside, he always hoped he could help people. However, if this is so, he only chooses to leap, not where to leap. He doesn't know most of the people he meets. However, when he leaps to Beth, he remembers his own family, and so, leaps there, so, I guess, when he knows where he wants to leap, [he] leaps there.

Lwaxanna said, "No way sunshine. If Sam’s knowing where he wanted to leap would get him there like clicking his heels and going back to Kansas he would have paid periodic visits to his family or even leaped back to PQL just before he stepped into the Acceleration Chamber. The subconscious leaping is an outside possibility. While Sam did not know most of the leappees most of the incidents involved deaths or some other feature which could well have been reported in the press thus enabling Sam to have read or heard about these people. Is it significant that the very first leap after Genisis took him back to save his relationship with his ex-fiancee. That surely would have been fairly high on Sam’s subconscious agenda."

Upon thinking about it, Janet replies: "...the idea of Sam leaping himself is intriguing because, first, it comports with what the bartender hints at in the series' conclusion, and it does make some sense. Although he may not know where he's going, or realize that he knows, or be affected by the ever-convenient 'Swiss cheese' syndrome, Sam may very well be doing it himself. Perhaps Sam has a moment of clarity as he leaps (the blue light, you know) and engages in self-direction, but then he suddenly forgets that he's done so. After all, he does return to Abigail Fuller twice in 'Trilogy' -- he may not realize he's done it himself, but he does mention something at the start of the third of that series of leaps that he was back because Abigail needed him. She had somehow called him back."

Boris and Lwaxanna eventually conclude that they believe it is God leaping Sam around. This certainly jives with references throughout the show. In the episode, "Honeymoon Express," Al is so sure that it is God leaping Sam around that he even suggests it to the Congressional Subcommittee evaluating Project Quantum Leap's status. And continual references to God, Fate, Time, or Whatever are accompanied by a firm "Him" as they point upward toward Heaven. This is what made me believe it was God...until the last episode.

I eventually suggested that the "Whatever," thrown in at the end of the phrase, "God, Fate, Time, or Whatever," to cover all the bases, was actually the force responsible. Not that I don't believe in God--I surely do. But the impression we get from Al the bartender in "Mirror Image" is that he is clearly not God. When Sam implies that he believes the bartender is God, the bartender laughs incredulously. Not to say that God does not have a hand in it, but primarily, "Mirror Image" leaves me with the impression this bartender seems to be the grand puppet master of Sam's journey through time. Sam himself suggests that the force leaping him might be "something we haven't even thought of." Now, exactly who or what "Whatever" is remains a mystery. But then again, so does most of "Mirror Image."

But I wasn't the only one with my own theory.

Helene "the cave dweller" suggested the following: "I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the possibility that it is actually Ziggy who's controlling the leaping! Think about that in conjunction with the possibility of Sam's subconscious thoughts. You could actually go two ways with this:
1) Sam created Ziggy with the ability to guide the leaps because Sam's desire to help others (esp his family) has guided his actions. He doesn't remember doing it, may not even know he has because he did it subconsciously, but if he did know, he's swiss-cheesed it. In one of the more recent books, I believe (yeah, I know it's not canon, but the point is interesting, esp in this context), Al says something about the fact that he thinks that Sam never completed the retrieval program because subconsciously he didn't want to be retrieved (pre-Donna). This would be on a similar level.
2) Sam did not plan on having Ziggy leap him, but Ziggy, being linked with Sam on a cellular level, knows more about him than he knows about himself.... Ziggy knows and understands what Sam really wants: to help others, and has taken advantage or somehow managed to self-program enough to change the original design and intent.
By having access to heaven only knows what research materials, Ziggy can choose the places to leap Sam by knowing where he's needed. She would know of his personal frustrations with his family history, so those leaps would be the easiest to direct (he had the opportunity to go after Donna awfully soon after beginning his leaps, don't you think?) and 'personal leaps' were unusually commonplace as far as the odds were concerned! Of course, you could then ask, 'then why doesn't Ziggy know more about the situation when Sam gets there i.e. have better info and better odds???', but there are probably a bunch of possibilities to explain this, too. a)He/she's sophisticated, but screwy ; b) he/she doesn't want to ruin Sam's 'fun'; c) he/she can leap him but as soon as he gets there the data changes; d) he/she's afraid that if she knows too much, then Sam or Al will realize that he/she's the one who's doing the leaping; d) he/she is good, but not *that* good ; e) he/she doesn't want to because he/she's enjoying the leaps too much; f)he/she's swiss-cheesed it all, too; etc etc etc"

Certainly very chilling, in a Twilight Zone kind of way (i.e., the computer becomes the master), but not nearly as chilling as where the post ended up leading:

Michele adds the following: "[This] brings up a rather creepy thought. Suppose it *is* Ziggy Leaping Sam around. Suppose that Ziggy has an ego, but a rather poorly developed conscience, and has acquired something of a HAL-syndrome. Suppose Ziggy has turned the tables on Sam, and now the experimenter has become the experiment (and vice versa--remember the mice in "Hitchhiker's Guide")! After all, haven't you ever gotten the impression that the reason Ziggy gets so screwy isn't because s/he's flawed, but because s/he just likes to mess with people's minds? ("Hmmmm....I'm bored today. Let's try printing out the paychecks with extra zeroes and see what all those funny little people will do...") Notice how interested she was in "Leap Back" when she asked Sam why humans died for love? Notice how Ziggy seems to love to delay giving Sam and Al the information they need until the last second? Is it because s/he he doesn't know, or just doesn't want to tell because s/he wants to see how Sam will behave when left to his own devices? Maybe Sam keeps Leaping because Ziggy is curious as to how "his/her human" will react in a particular situation.
This would also make Ziggy more prone (upon Sam and Al's demise), to being converted (or to converting him/herself) into Lothos for the Evil Leaper project--having explored the altruistic side of human nature with Sam and Al, why not explore the dark side with Zooey and Alia? ("Feel the power of the dark side, Ziggy..." Of course! Bill Gates is really her father!)"

This is getting creepy! I don't think we should push the issue any further. We might find out more than we want to know!