This week: Multiverse Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
—Marcus Aurelius
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
—Muriel Rukeyser
The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
—Neil deGrasse Tyson |
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The concept of alternate universes is hardly new, but it's developed some traction in popular fiction recently. There are good narrative reasons for that, not least of which is to help provide fresh takes on older, well-known characters. It's also a vehicle for explaining why the same character can be portrayed by different actors in live-action films and shows.
But does the concept of the multiverse have any basis in reality?
Well, maybe.
One interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on my limited understanding thereof, is that for every quantum event that has more than one possible outcome, each outcome actually occurs, but it splits the universe into multiple versions of itself. As there are quite a few quantum events going on at any given moment, this would lead to a remarkably large (though not infinite) number of versions of the universe, each one diverging from the moment of the event.
The problem is, it's not experimentally verified, so we don't know if that's actually happening. And even if it is, there's no known way to switch from one universe to another.
This, of course, doesn't, and shouldn't, stop fiction writers from speculating about the possibility—though it does help to at least be internally consistent with how such a multiverse would function.
If you're not writing for a major studio, as above, of what use is a multiverse in fiction? Well, one popular subgenre of both science fiction and fantasy is alternate history. This is usually presented as the result of a different outcome of some major event, such as a different outcome of a war: the Confederacy wins the American Civil War, the Axis claims victory in WWII, or something along those lines, and the writer speculates about how things would be different going forward from that point.
It can be more subtle than that, though, like: what would the world be like right now, if the invention of the internet had not happened, or happened in a different way?
Well, for one thing, you probably wouldn't be reading this editorial. But other than that, the point is to speculate about how the world would be different if just one or two things had gone differently.
And that sort of speculation is one reason we write and read Fantasy. |
Some Fantasy from this universe (probably):
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Last time, in "Solstice" , I shared some thoughts about the recent solstice.
In some other universe, perhaps an alternate version of me (less handsome but probably a better writer) received feedback on the newsletter. But not in this one.
So that's it for me for this month! See you in February. Until then,
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: January 08, 2025 Issue [#12924]
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