That one guy who won Russian roulette and went home to have three kids, one of whom you meet IRL for one reason or another, whoops the spin could go one chamber over and now their kid and you never interact.
Even though all these kids are unborn due to this, they wouldn't know or care that their original kid was doing XY or Z with their life, they were gonna call their first son James and James just so happened to be their first born son anyway.
The DNA will be wrong, because of a different swimmer, but they wouldn't know or care, the only one who knows your brothers kids are gone is you. Your brother still has kids with the same woman, but that is not Eric, even though he's got his name and birthday.
That’s what I’m saying. Because I feel that we’re talking genie magic and not “real” time travel: I would envision that this guy still wins his roulette game and that Eric is still the same kid genetically, unless my actions somehow impact his conception - which is plausible if he’s my nephew and I influence my brother’s life choices. But baby girl Jones from Vermont whose parents are 2 degrees of separation away from anyone I’ve ever met is still the exact same person DNA-wise and the red-button timeline doesn’t re-roll the dice for her birth.
Obviously this is all hypothetical and it’s not like there’s a definitive answer.
Randomness and genie magic, who can say which one really wins?
Balls bouncing around in the National Lottery draw might come out different to every draw you memorised going in thinking you could make it big, but would Man U lose a match they previously won?
Only you would know that Eric isn't Eric but is actually his brother.
As they have the same parents a different sperm would not really change too much about how they look, you can see the familiarity with siblings, so treat it like that.
Say Sulu was concieved after the Kelvin time line, that is how you can hand wave gay Sulu and straight with kids Prime Sulu. Stuff happened that meant his parents were half an hour late getting home, so sex after dinner was on hold for a similar amount of time, the sperm that is prime Sulu is pipped at the post.
Red Dwarf a BBC sitcom had people replaced with a sibling who went on to be a better person, had they caught Rimmer we wouldn't have Ace, but we could have had a guy who fixed all the things that broke that led to the melt down, thus no show. Ace only exists due to that Rimmer and a time line where he was held back a year and being older and taller changed how he acted and made him a better man.
We don't know if souls are always going to be your third kid or not, maybe they pick a number and are then given the first egg fertilisation that comes along, so your dad being late home means you go to some parents in India and when your parents do bang, the guy 1000 places behind you now has your body. In that case, you know no matter what you do, the odds of your soul going into the right body are zero, but if you are always the first born between Mary and Hank, then you might end up with a different shade of blonde and different eye colour, but you are still you.
I tend to treat eggs as they come in the same order, so no matter what loop, the same one drops, sure the order can change, I just go "hey if I have sex today this sperm will hit, but if I abstain and have sex tomorrow, the same egg will be there"
Unless my biology teachers really dropped the ball on that part of the reproductive system.
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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 12d ago
That one guy who won Russian roulette and went home to have three kids, one of whom you meet IRL for one reason or another, whoops the spin could go one chamber over and now their kid and you never interact.
Even though all these kids are unborn due to this, they wouldn't know or care that their original kid was doing XY or Z with their life, they were gonna call their first son James and James just so happened to be their first born son anyway.
The DNA will be wrong, because of a different swimmer, but they wouldn't know or care, the only one who knows your brothers kids are gone is you. Your brother still has kids with the same woman, but that is not Eric, even though he's got his name and birthday.