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One day, a bunch of people started fighting over the timeline, and all of
reality. They each had their own idea of what should have happened, what
should be happening, and what should happen in the future. A group of
innocents got caught up in the middle of this battle, and ended up being
forced to make the decision for them. One man reached back to the moment
that time travel was born, and prevented it from ever occurring. But this
was a paradox, because time travel was required to even make it possible for
him to attempt such a thing. To avoid the paradox, time itself simply split
into two parallel realities. The main sequence, as it was called, went on as
normal. The new one was deemed The Parallel. This implied that it was the
only concurrent reality, or at least that it was the first, but that’s not
the case, especially in a universe where first is a nonsensical
abstract concept. In the original timeline, the Parallel started out much
like its twin, but without time travelers making small beneficial changes to
the past, humanity was eventually wiped out. The team that accidentally
created it found themselves stuck, unable to fix matters in a reality where
temporal powers were never created. So they found a loophole.
The team went in search of someone who could help them, and found her on a
rogue planet in the main sequence. Kalea Akopa had the ability to give
others temporal manipulation abilities. They chose Ramses Abdulrashid to be
the one to be granted the powers necessary to correct their mistake. This is
how the Parallel became one of the most powerful forces in the universe.
Ramses and Kalea didn’t just go back to save humankind. They created a
society free from death, pain, and regret. That’s what they were going for,
anyway.
The two of them have managed to maintain pretty strong control over how the
Parallel functions, naming themselves the Tanadama as father and
mother. They are not, however, the only leaders in the local group of
galaxies. They’ve obviously had to delegate responsibilities to billions and
billions of people to manage the undecillions of those living under their
domain. For the most part, despite the ungodly numbers in this civilization,
peace remains the default setting for every star system and fleet. They want
for nothing, so they fight over nothing. But that doesn’t mean they don’t
know how to fight. The people of the Parallel have incidentally
created the most powerful military force in the whole universe. Their
advanced technology makes them practically impossible to defeat. There has
been no opposition for the last several thousand years, but it has come for
them now. Harbinger Zima commands a contingency known as the Resonant
Parallel Coalition. About 480 billion people are prepared to follow him to
their true deaths, though they likely would never have to, because as
stated, death has been all but cured. The Tanadama wish to hold onto peace,
but the people are losing faith in them, so they are losing control.
In the year 2400, the Reconvergence destroyed all of the parallel realities,
leaving the main sequence the only one left standing. Along with the
Parallel, the Third Rail, the Fourth Quadrant, and the Fifth Division were
snapped shut like a book, unable to be opened again. Anything left inside of
them when that happened was destroyed. To save lives, a mysterious
someone transported almost literally every living soul to a
completely different universe, and named it the Sixth Key. No one seemed to
know who to thank for this, but the results were not ideal. They didn’t
transport everything. Suddenly, all these realities who were once separate,
with their own separate cache of resources, have to compete with each other
in a universe fit for only one of them, if that. Tensions are mounting, and
it’s looking like war is inevitable. The Parallel’s only noteworthy
competitor should be the Fifth Division. The problem is, most of their
weapons were left in their former cosmic corner. They’re still powerful, and
they still command this room, but they’re a shadow of what they once were.
So they need to be extra careful to make sure that no one finds out how weak
they’ve become, especially not the Fifth Divisioners.
Each reality has been allowed to send two representatives to advocate for
their interests. Harbinger Zima is sitting next to one half of the Tanadama,
Kalea, and he’s getting very impatient. She’s the boss of the two of them,
but she’s not showing enough strength. She needs to let him speak. He’s been
doing well so far, biting his tongue, but he can’t take it anymore. “This is
outrageous!”
“Nuadu,” Kalea scolds. “Wait your turn.”
“No. Why are we even talking about this? There are so many more people from
our reality than anyone else’s.” He tries to start counting them off on his
fingers. “We have the most number of planets, the most number of mouths to
feed, the largest military force—”
“Debatable.” Ingrid Alvarado is here to represent the Fifth Division. It’s
true that the Parallel has more soldiers, but she commands more powerful
weapons. They were at war when all this happened, which means that almost
all of their weapons were live, and inhabited. The Parallel only built
theirs out of an abundance of caution. Nearly all of them were offline, and
tucked away, which was why they weren’t rescued from the destruction of the
realities. A few of them came through the magical portals because some
people just happened to be in the middle of training exercises, or
construction.
“Not debatable,” Nuadu argues. “You don’t know what we can do.”
“We know that every skill you have is purely theoretical. My people have
real world experience.”
“Yeah, because their number one purpose in life is to fight with each
other.” Andrei Orlov is in charge of the Fourth Quadrant. At first, his
reality was nothing more than a pocket dimension which only housed the
population of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Over time, other disparate
regions were banished to the same dimension until it became overloaded, and
broke away as its own reality. The regions were few and far between,
separated by a vast ocean, and have only recently made contact with each
other. Their inclusion in these discussions is fair, but not technically
useful for anyone else. There is little they need to survive, and nothing
they can contribute. Mostly, they need to be protected from the bully
realities, and have a right to advocate for themselves towards this end.
“They still are, and are dying by the day.”
“We’re in the past, remember,” Carlin McIver of the Third Rail reminded him.
His reality was also limited to only one planet, but that version of Earth
currently boasts the greatest number of people with temporal powers, which
makes them the dark horse threat of the room. They were also granted a
formidable defense contingency by someone who knew that this was going to
happen, so they’re nothing to scoff at.
“Whatever,” Andrei responded.
“That’s enough,” Marie Walton of Team Matic jumps in, hoping to keep the
peace. “General Medley, you were saying something?”
“No, I was not.” There are two Bariq Medley’s here. One is from the main
sequence proper while the other is a copy of him from the copy of the main
sequence that ended up in the Sixth Key. It has so far been very confusing,
and neither Bariq is happy about it. They need to find a way to distinguish
themselves from each other, but they can’t agree on how that would work,
because every suggestion makes it sound like one of them is more important
than the other.
“I mean the other General Medley,” Marie clarifies.
The main sequence was an interstellar civilization when the Reconvergence
fell upon them. However, only Earth was incidentally copied into the Sixth
Key. They also need a distinguishing name for that. This other Medley sighs.
“I think I was pretty much done. I’m just trying to advocate for fair
distribution. We’re very used to growing our crops ourselves, and we have
not yet harnessed the full power of our sun. We are prepared to isolate
ourselves, but would very much still like to be part of the conversation. We
know less about how the cosmos works, but we’re quick learners, and we may
have ideas that you have been blinded to from living with more information.”
“Gee, thanks for that,” Nuadu says rudely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Nuadu!” Kalea cries. “Sit! Down!”
He sticks his tail between his legs, and does as he’s told. For now.
Kalea stands in his place. “I believe what my associate is trying to say is
that we have a lot to offer. Our people are mostly immortal. We didn’t have
very much death where we came from. My partner and I saw to that. We would
be willing to share our methods with you, but I’m afraid that we would not
be doing it for free. To make our technology work, we need first priority on
all power systems, including host stars.”
The crowd goes wild, shouting at her, and apparently at each other, for some
reason. How dare she make these demands?
“You are all so used to dying,” Kalea continues. “You don’t know how much
better it can be when you’re facing trillions and trillions of wonderful
years ahead of you. I’m trying to help, and the least you could do is give
us the literal power we need to do that. We’re not asking for control over
your civilizations.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” Ingrid contends. “You’re in possession
of a commodity. It is, by most metrics, the most precious commodity around.
You offer us life. That means you own our lives. We’ll be indebted to you
forever. As long as you’re telling the truth about it, forever really is
forever; not just a lifetime.”
“And you think you should have political control instead?” Kalea questions.
“We do have the most experience with it,” Ingrid confirms. “You’re a loose
affiliation of random peace-loving hippy subcultures. We are an actual
galaxy-spanning civilization. We know how to run a tight ship.”
“You don’t even have FTL, you dumb motherfucker!” Nuadu screamed. “We can
offer that too!”
“Magnolia, please,” Marie requests vaguely.
This is a little confusing too. There’s a woman who’s nicknamed The Overseer
whose real name is Magnolia Quintana. This is not who is sitting on the
other side of the table right now. This is an actual sentient magnolia tree,
who has taken the form of a human named Tamerlane Pryce as its avatar. It
was its power that brought all of these people together for these diplomatic
discussions, if you can even call them that. The Magnolia has no personal
stake in what happens here, but it came up with the rules, and it has the
power to enforce them. The tree nods. “Take some time to cool off.” It lifts
Tamerlane’s hand, and spirits Nuadu away.
Nuadu is in hock now. It’s pretty nice for a holding cell, but he still
can’t leave, and that’s super annoying. Mateo Matic is here, reading a book.
His wife is the Captain of the ship that’s serving as the host for the
discussions. He doesn’t serve much purpose himself, which is why probably
sitting here with nothing better to do.
“Are you my jailer?”
“I’m just in this room,” Mateo answers. “I can leave, if you want.”
“Or you can let me out,” Nuadu offers, hoping that Mateo is as dumb as they
say, and equally gullible.
“I’m sure you’re in here for a reason, and anyway, I don’t have the
authority to do that. I literally can’t break the plasma barrier.”
Nuadu sits down to pout. “Likely story.”
Mateo smiles, and turns his book off before setting it on the counter next
to him. “Lemme guess, you want them to give you everything, and leave the
rest with nothing.”
“Quite the opposite,” Nuadu argues. “We’re the ones who already have
everything. All we ask is that we get to decide how it’s distributed.”
“How it’s distributed?” Mateo echoes. “Evenly.”
Nuadu shakes his head. “It’s not that cut and dry.
“Cut and dried,” Mateo corrects. “Fittingly enough, I just read that
idiom in my book. Heh. Time, right?”
Nuadu shakes his head again.
“Look,” Mateo begins, “I’ve been to your reality. I was actually there at
the beginning of it. What you might not know is that I personally
created it. With one bullet. You wouldn’t exist without me. You people have
taken the life that I bestowed upon you, and done a lot of great things. You
eradicated death, conquered war, and shredded money. You know what that
sounds like to me? A big brother. My advice? Stop acting like an entitled
child. The whole point of a post-scarcity society is that you don’t have to
fight over anything anymore. No one needs to be in charge of jack shit. This
isn’t Jupiter Ascending; it doesn’t hurt you to make someone else
immortal. It doesn’t lessen your own immortality. Just help them. The
Reality Wars that we’re all worried about; they’re exactly like any other in
histories, just on a larger scale. The only way to stop it is to remove its
causes. You want power? Help the people out of the goodness of your heart. I
promise you, they will take notice, and they will listen. You don’t have to
demand anything ahead of time. People always feel indebted from
receiving gifts. Just don’t say the quiet part out loud, and you’ll be
fine.”
Nuadu stares at this idiot of a man whose words actually sounded quite
logical, and a little devious? Perhaps he’s not been told the truth about
who Mateo Matic is. Perhaps he’s smarter than people give him credit for.
Before Nuadu has the chance to respond, he finds himself back in his seat
around the deliberation table. People barely notice that he’s returned,
except for the tree-person, who is smiling at him knowingly. Nuadu takes
some time to absorb Mateo’s advice, and process it in his strategic mind.
It’s time for a new tactic. It may not work, but the old ways haven’t been
working so far, so he might as well try something radical. He listens to
everyone else arguing for a few more minutes to catch up with what he
missed. He looks over at his superior officer, who appears to have forgiven
his outburst, probably because she knows that the tree wouldn’t bring him
back for no reason.
Okay. Let’s try this again.
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