Microstory 1674: Not Ready for Prime Time

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Kind of like the universe where everyone has a duplicate that is exactly as bad as they are good, or vice versa, Hypothetiverse eventually discovered how their universe worked. One particular scientist didn’t understand why there were alternate realities, even once she finally tapped into one of them. She figured out that they were there, but not where they came from. This had interesting consequences for all of reality, and marked the start of a huge change. What I didn’t touch on before was that the would you rather hypothetical questions were not the only way the primary reality had an impact on its off-shoots. The alternate versions of people in the off-shoots were dependent on their respective primaries in a multitude of ways. Whether they answered any hypotheticals or not, their lives were bound to each other. Some small decisions could be different, but the general idea of what they were, and how they lived, would be the same across all realities. Every version of this one woman, for instance, was a scientist. There was none out there where she was a clown, or a professional golfer. Her roommate, meanwhile, who was indeed a professional golfer, was always that. None of his alternates was a veterinarian, or scuba instructor. They will do different things on a daily basis, but if someone were to write up a summary of each version’s life and personality, it would be pretty much the same for all of them. Back to the scientist. When she invented the machine that was able to break the veil between realities, her alternates were trying to do the same thing. Not all of them had progressed to the same point, but they got there eventually, and once they did, their perceptions were shattered. They had hypothesized that their alternate selves existed, but never dreamed that only one was primary, and the rest were only copies of her. The experiment alone pulled the wool from their eyes, and it was only a matter of time before the truth spread.

The experiments continued. Others were brought in to see their alternates, and eventually communicate with them. This was when they started to learn about the would you rather hypotheticals, and quantify the way their universe worked. Surprisingly, they made no real attempt to keep this a secret, from the government, or anyone else. They revealed what they knew to the world, and while it didn’t cause chaos in the main reality, it caused so many more problems for the alternates. Many primaries were horrified to find out what they had done by answering the hypotheticals the way they had. They tried to undo them by requesting people pose them new questions, like would you rather have a million dollars, or two million dollars? That may sound nice, but it had repercussions for the alternate economies. Plus, unless they could specifically remember what past hypotheticals they had answered, they could undo nothing. They were often just creating yet another reality, so it didn’t contradict any of the preexisting ones. Others were less nice about it. They started creating new reality after new reality, born out of the most absurd questions they could think of. Fortunately, there appeared to be some kind of restriction. You couldn’t create a world where an alternate version of you was killed, or significantly hurt. This was more evidence of some kind of higher power. In the end, the universe could not handle the strain. All realities ultimately collapsed into one; for some physically, and others mentally. Multiple versions of the same person were all trying to live in one world, and nothing could stop it.

Microstory 1673: Written in a Vacuum

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I am meant to talk about Vacuumverse again, though there is nothing more that I can say. When I started this series, I didn’t think I could come up with 100 universes. The majority of them would have to be new. Well, I didn’t, I only came up with 50, and while there are multiple microfiction series set in this one, I think pretty much the whole story has been told. I could explain how some people figured out that the Earth was about to drop out of orbit around the sun, but I don’t actually know how they did that. So, why don’t I just skip this one, and leave it at that? Some stories are more interesting than others, and I don’t want to waste your time on something that is not going anywhere, and has no potential beyond what has already been said. I created Vacuumverse to fill a slot, inspired by stories I had originally intended to be neither connected to each other, nor canonical. It is barely worth the effort, which is why I’m not even going to bother finding a reasonable photo to go along with it. Tomorrow, I’ll get into a story about Hypothetiverse, which is more fun, and it will be a lot longer to compensate for this.

Microstory 1672: The Last Wars

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After the two surviving Ochivari left the first universe they went to—or rather after one of them escaped, and the other was killed in the attempt—things started to get worse for the humans. They were devastated to learn that aliens were bad. Of course, they had only encountered three individuals, which is hardly a decent sample size, but they were convinced. Each country started bolstering its military might. Some allies tried to form joint militaries, but for the most part, they stayed separate. In other universes I’ve witnessed, when a culture encounters some kind of massive external threat, the people generally come together. They set aside their differences, and focus on defeating the enemy together. This did not happen here, but if it had, it may have saved their lives. For years, they sat like this. People were conscripted into the various branches of their respective military forces, but didn’t have anything to do. Unlike other versions of Earth, this one had never experienced a world war before, but it wasn’t really because they were more peaceful than anyone else. They usually tried to settle their issues diplomatically, but if that didn’t work, two civilizations might have resorted to war. If that happened, if they wanted to fight against each other, everyone else stayed out of it most of the time. The boredom and frustration was really getting to them now, though. All global conflicts were put on hold in order to prepare for the return of the aliens, but nothing happened. The Ochivari had never come on purpose, and they had no reason to show up now, especially not since they knew where the timeline was headed. They knew that the humans were destined to destroy themselves, without a sterility virus. After eight years, the signs of the apocalypse were beginning to present themselves.

For no apparent reason but they didn’t feel like they had anything better to do, the nations started fighting each other. It wasn’t the leadership so much as it was the conscripts, who felt cheated out of the time they could have spent with their families. If these former civilians had to put so much effort into learning warfare skills, then goddammit, they were going to use them. It was like a global barfight, where some people started fighting just because someone carelessly bumped into them. Country A was trying to get to Country B when Country C got in the way, so Country C fought back, but accidentally hit Country D instead. It was a huge mess, and obviously, no one won in the end. Fortunately, they had never developed nuclear weapons, because history didn’t suggest there would be any need to bomb more than one enemy at the same time, so it just seemed like a waste of resources, when nuclear power was a far more useful pursuit. They kept killing though. It turned out to be one of the bloodiest wars I have ever seen. No, it probably is indeed the bloodiest. Internal conflicts started springing up when soldiers found themselves unable to get to someone from another country. Literal neighbors started killing each other when the supply chain broke down, and there wasn’t enough food to go around. Where once they numbered in the billions, over the course of the next two decades the population dwindled to the thousands. They pretty much only stopped killing each other, because survivors were so few and far between, and they were composed mostly of people who had always tried to stay out of it, and had succeeded. Civilization never recovered from this. Those survivors eked out a living amongst the ruins, but could not significantly grow from there. Many didn’t even bother trying to propagate the species, and after several decades more, the human species went extinct.

Microstory 1671: Life Beyond the Sea

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People are happy in Floasterverse. They love living on the ocean, being able to be as close to the water as they want. Some people live on artificial islands that are so large that they can’t even tell the difference between that, and regular land. It doesn’t have everything, though. Namely, it doesn’t have trains, and it doesn’t have beaches. Once everyone was relocated to the island system, people realized what they were missing. So while the robots were busy deconstructing the land cities of old, others were building new structures. More advanced and luxurious resorts were built on the natural beaches, which was kind of impossible to do on a floating island, as the entire point was that it was technically mobile. Similarly, a new train network was laid on every continent. They didn’t need to connect all the cities together, which was the purpose of the trains of yesterday, but they did want people to be able to enjoy nature as they passed by. It went all around the world in an extremely long loop, but it stopped regularly to let people on and off, in case they didn’t want to ride the whole thing, or simply didn’t have time. There were other things that people couldn’t do on the islands, or which would be too difficult to construct. These included camping, skiing, and freshwater activities. Still, this did not change their minds. These destinations were just for vacation. They almost always returned to the sea after they were finished. Even after having reached the technological singularity, and finding themselves with no more need for human labor, people considered the seasteads their permanent homes, and the vacation spots temporary places to enjoy themselves before getting back to their lives. As I said before, this universe did not fall victim to the Ochivari’s sterility virus, and did not have to involve themselves in the Darning Wars. But it was more than that. They became a profoundly peaceful race, and were perfectly capable of managing their population on a plateau, so they never felt the need to colonize other worlds. They strung up satellites to protect the planet against impact events, and the like. Then they spent the rest of the time just...living free.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, December 7, 2275

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This wasn’t the first time that Mateo and Leona returned to the timestream to find their environment having changed dramatically. Mateo once broke his leg when the train he was on at midnight was no longer under his feet. Later, he and Leona woke up in a forest that experienced a devastating fire sometime during the year. Now on this planetesimal, in this hangar, their instinct was to venture out, and just figure out what was going on. Olimpia didn’t think that was such a great idea. “Computer, whisper mode.”

“Yes, can I help you?” the AI offered, but in a much quieter voice than she generally did.

“How did you get into this hangar? Is it where you landed?” Olimpia asked.

“I was transported here after landing,” the computer replied. “The outpost on this planetesimal was established five years ago.”

“Has anyone made any attempt to breach the hull of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?” Olimpia continued.

“They have made attempts, but all have failed. They wanted to get in carefully, and without damaging anything.”

“Do you know what their hypothesis is regarding the nature of this ship?”

“I am not cognizant of that.”

“No one has been in here,” Olimpia stated to the group. “No one knows that this thing has been empty for the last five years, let alone that last nineteen, and that people have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They probably think it’s from an alien race, but they’re afraid to do anything to upset some kind of cosmic balance.”

“So, what should we do?” Leona asked. She was happy with not being the one to have to come up with all the solutions for a change.

Olimpia considered it for a moment. “Let’s just bail. Why go out there and introduce ourselves? We’re not here to meet them. They’re not supposed to be here at all. Our business is on Earth. Let’s teleport to maximum distance, and continue doing that until we reach our destination.”

“Leona, can you plot a course that avoids detection until we reach Earth?” Angela questions.

“I can’t, but the AOC herself can.”

“I don’t wanna, like, try to force anyone to agree with me,” Olimpia said, a little defensively. “This is just what I think we should do. Anyone else have any ideas? I mean, it’s entirely possible that the hangar was built for us, and the people out there have been waiting for our return, because they’ve known who we were the entire time.”

“If we were meant to go talk to them,” Mateo began, “then something would force us to do so. Like you said, let’s just bail.”

Everyone else seemed to agree as well, much to Olimpia’s relief. Though they had been friends for the last three years, she still felt a little bit like an outsider...like her opinion mattered less than the rest of the group. Of course that wasn’t true. Hopefully they would be able to convince her otherwise in time. For now, they needed to get out of here. Leona and the computer synthesized the present-day solar system. They accessed a detailed map, which told them where every outpost, every ship, every beacon was right now. Knowing this was going to allow them to teleport to blindspots, where no one would be able to detect their presence. They wouldn’t go full burst mode, because that endangered the integrity of the hull, but if they teleported fast enough, even if they accidentally got too close to a sensor, they would be gone before it could verify what it was seeing, and maybe mark it down as a technical error.

It took them most of the day, since the best route didn’t max out their teleporter range, and they couldn’t go through the manifold highway, so it wasn’t the fastest, but they made it back. They were now in the hangar where the Sharice Davids was once kept. At first, it didn’t seem like anyone was using it. Then four people came out of the shadows. No, they weren’t in the shadows, they were behind them. They appeared out of an illusion of a wall, but behind it was the past version of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ramses, Tracker, The Stitcher, and Flex. These were the four people Leona found to help them with their fight against Erlendr Preston. That was in an old reality, though, if they weren’t mistaken. Why were they here now?

“You’re not supposed to arrive until next year,” Leona said, looking at her watch. “We thought this place would be empty.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” a past version of Ramses said. “We’ve come here to meet you, and it seems we’re right on time.”

Leona shook her head. “We are future versions of your friends. If Past!Us are gonna show up today, then we have to get the hell out of here.”

“It’s okay,” Mateo tried to assure her. “I think I have this figured out. It’s a different reality. We don’t have to worry about a paradox. In fact, we should save them some trouble, if we can.”

“That’s dangerous, Mateo,” Leona warned.

Nerakali suddenly appeared with past versions of Mateo, Leona, and Jeremy.

“I think it’s kind of too late,” Future!Mateo said.

Nerakali took a step forward. She was surprised, but not shocked. “Report.”

Future!Mateo smiled, and looked over at his crew to make sure no one wanted to say anything for themselves. He decided to take charge of this situation. “First, let’s do introductions. Future!Jeremy Bearimy, Future!Leona Matic, Angela Walton, and Olimpia Sangster. Over on this side, we have my good friend, Ramses Abdulrashid. Next to him is Vidar Wolfe, Tonya Keyes, and Yadira Cordosa. Lastly, we have a younger version of Nerakali Preston. She is still alive, and it looks good on her.”

Nerakali rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her own smile. “Anything else?”

“We’re not just from the future,” Future!Mateo went on. “We’re from an alternate reality. Nothing you do will impact what has happened to us. What’s done is done. Fortunately for you, we went through the heartache for you. We can fix your Erlendr problem. Then once we do...” He hesitated.

“Once you do...” Past!Mateo pressed, “what?”

Future!Mateo sort of started focusing on his alternate self more. “This timeline ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

“You’re suggesting we assimilate with each other?” Past!Mateo presumed.

Future!Mateo shook his head. “We’ve made a lot of friends since 2275. I don’t know what you’ve been through, who you’ve met. I don’t even know when you and I diverged. But at some point, someone suggested to me that they could get me and Leona out of here. They could take us to a place where the powers that be, and the choosing ones, couldn’t get to us. They called it Havenverse.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“That dream is dead for us,” Future!Mateo revealed. “Leona, you agree?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona said, completely sincerely. She hadn’t thought about the prospect in a long time.

Future!Mateo continued, “I’ll get you there. I’ll reach out to someone I know who knows someone else, and we will find you a ride. Would you like that?”

“What are you gonna do?” Past!Mateo asked.

Future!Mateo chuckled once, and looked lovingly over at his wife. “This is our life now. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not anymore.”

She smiled back.

Past!Mateo and Past!Leona did the same with each other. “Can we do that?” the former questioned. “Can we just...bail?”

“I think we deserve that, don’t you?”

“I guess, I just...”

Before either of them could produce a definitive answer, a horn echoed throughout the facility. The Transit came flying across the room out of one portal, and into another. Just as before, it stopped. But that was 2276. What was it doing here a year early? Why was everyone a year early in this timeline? Saga didn’t come out this time. It was a man that no one recognized. That was another thing, no one was frozen in place this time around. Everyone was seeing this happen. The man cleared his throat while he was consulting his handheld device. “My name is Wyatt Bradley. I have been asked to come out here, and inform you that we are looking for Evaluator Nerakali Wilson.”

“Scroll up, buddy,” Nerakali said.

Wyatt swipes up on his device. “Oh, you’re right. Nerakali Preston. Sorry about that. I think Wilson’s already on the train.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet her,” the real Nerakali said excitedly.

“Can you even go?” Future!Mateo asked. “I mean...because...”

“I’m sure the universe will figure it out. I have been summoned.” She started to head for the ramp.

“Wait,” Future!Mateo said, prompting his friend to stop. “Can you take two more? Can you take them to a different universe, somewhere that’s outside of the war?” This would be easier than trying to communicate through Amber.

Another man appeared from the train car. “We do not rescue refugees. Are they fleeing oppression?”

“Yes,” Future!Leona claimed. The truth was too complicated to say whether she was lying or not.

“I’ll send word to The Strongbox. If they accept your application, then they’ll be here immediately after we leave. If not...then you’re out of luck. I don’t make those decisions. That’s for Thack to worry about.”

Nerakali tried to leave again, but Yadira said, “wait,” as well. “I was told to get on the train by someone who knows the future.”

“You’re already on it,” the unnamed man said.

“Oh.”

The man sighed. “I suppose you can’t have too many Flexes, can you? Come on.”

Yadira looked back to make sure everyone was cool with her decision, and their facial expressions showed that they were. Now both she and Nerakali started trying to make it up the ramp.

“Wait, I have to know what this is,” Vidar said.

“If you come, you have to fight. This is a war transport vessel, not a ferry.”

“I...have to know,” Vidar explained.

“Very well. Does anybody else want to come, besides the refugees?”

No one else seemed to want to, so finally, the three conscripts were able to start leaving. But there were two more delays. Before Vidar could make it past the threshold, he disappeared. He then started jogging up from behind the group. “Sorry, sorry. I just kind of had to...die first. But I’m resurrected, and back!” Having returned from the afterlife simulation, his loop was now closed, and his destiny was his own to do with it as he pleased. The same thing happened to Nerakali, whose death was also predetermined.

Once the doors were closed, the Transit left through its portal. A much, much smaller vessel appeared from its incoming portal, and stopped in the same place. A woman came out from it. “I hear we got some refugees?”

“Are we sure about this?” Past!Mateo asked. “This isn’t going to cause any problems for the timeline.”

“We’ll handle it,” Future!Mateo said honestly.

“Thank you,” the two of them said simultaneously. As they were boarding, the woman introduced herself as Rosalinda. They heard a scream, and the ship disappeared.

Mateo clapped his hands. “Gang’s all here. Let’s go take care of The Warrior.”

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Extremus: Year 1

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It’s launch day. The crew has been working towards this goal for the last fourteen years. It’s only an interim goal, though. Their final destination won’t be reached for another 216 years. Captain Halan Yenant won’t be alive to realize the dream, but he still wants to do it. He wants to push forward, and find a new home on the other side of the galaxy. People often ask him why he would attempt such a thing. It’s not particularly dangerous—at least not compared to what his parents went through to flee to this universe in the first place—but the rewards are impossible to know. What’s out there? Is there a planet hospitable to human life? Is it any better than what could be discovered in the stellar neighborhood, or maybe just a little further out? A hundred and fifty-thousand light years is a hell of a trip when you don’t know what you’re looking for, and don’t much care. They’re doing it because they can, and because they couldn’t do it before. Yenant’s ancestors lived in a tiny universe, populated primarily by white monsters who would rather see the humans dead. Now that they’re here, they have room to spread out, yet they’ve not done it. Every single one of the eleven billion refugees—and all their recently born descendants—still live in the Gatewood Collective. There are no terrestrial planets here. They orbit the host star in gargantuan centrifugal cylinders. They’re great; they have everything they could ever need, but they aren’t natural, and Halan never considered them to be his home.

When he was a boy, Halan was hanging out in his parents’ lounge when a man walked in with an interesting idea. A friend of his thought it might be cool to send a spaceship from here, to the outer edge of the outer ring of the Milky Way galaxy. Of course, there are plenty of stars beyond this imaginary border, but if they were going to do this, they ought to place the destination somewhere. The man, who named himself Omega, was a clone of an engineer. Omega was created to be responsible for a modular spacecraft destined to connect every star system in the galaxy. He had abandoned his post, but was seemingly trying to make up for it. He thought Project Extremus sounded nice, but the two people in charge of the solar system scrapped it, believing it to be too outrageous, and possibly unethical. Halan knew better, so he dedicated his life to learning everything he could about space travel, so he could one day fulfill the hypothetical mission. He never thought he would be leading it, though. He couldn’t do it on his own, and plenty of other people thought it was a nice idea too. He was chosen to be the ship’s first captain, and he is planning to honor that by being the absolute best possible.

Most of the people going on this journey with him have already been living on the ship. It’s just as comfortable and spacious as their original homes, so they figured there was no point in waiting. Some may have been worried about being left behind if they didn’t wait there for a few months. The pre-launch inspection has already been done, so right now, Halan is standing at the entrance, watching the stragglers arrive, along with the last of the cargo. Captain Kestral McBride and Lieutenant Ishida Caldwell come up last, after everyone is in. They run the entire solar system. The refugees from Ansutah have their own form of government, which runs things on a day-to-day basis, but anything that impacts a greater region than a few sections of a centrifugal cylinder has to go through the two of them. No one elected them to this position, but they were the ones who built the cylinders in the first place, and facilitated the people’s rescue from a dangerous home universe. Since the arrival, no one has questioned their right as the ultimate leadership.

The two of them had to sign off on this entire project, though going against Halan’s people’s wishes probably would have caused more problems than it was worth. They want to leave, and that should be respected. They engineered their own ship, so little should be in the way of them realizing their goal. Even so, Team Keshida, as they are collectively called, are still not extremely jazzed about this situation. They have always been rather adept at hiding it. “Do you have everyone and everything you need?”

Captain Yenant’s lieutenant, Rita Suárez comes up to his side, holding a tablet. As she can trace her family tree back to one of the original members of the group of humans who first lived on Ansutah, she’s a bit of a celebrity. She doesn’t like the notoriety, though, which is why she’s leaving. The reality is that this decision has only made things worse. She taps on her pre-launch checklist. “The last of the biomolecular synthesizer back-up parts have been loaded up.” She checks it off the list. “We should be good to go, sir.”

Captain McBride smiles. “There’s one more thing that’s not on your list.”

“There couldn’t be,” Rita protests. “I was very thorough—”

“It’s not on your list, because it wasn’t decided until this morning,” the other Lieutenant, Ishida interrupts. She taps on her wrist device. Omega suddenly appears next to them. “He’ll be going with you.”

“I must voice my concern,” Rita continues to argue. “I was not made aware of this, and he is not on the manifest. You cannot simply add whoever you wish to be rid of. This in an internal matter—”

Ishida interrupts again, but this time with merely an authoritative wave of her hand. “We are placing him on this vessel to be rid of him, yes, but we could have just as easily dispatched him to Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, or Teagarden. We’re sending him with you, because he went against my wishes, and told you about this idea...my idea. These are the consequences for his actions. If he thinks it’s such a good idea, then he can see it through. I don’t really care whether you have anything to say about it, or not. You can shoot him out an airlock once you take off, for all I care. I literally have a million more just like him.”

“Ain’t nobody like me,” Omega contends.

Ishida taps on her cuff some more. Omega’s eyes roll to the back of his head, and he faints, but before he hits the floor, he disappears. “I’ve hidden him somewhere on the Extremus. You can either waste your time trying to find him, or you can just stick to your schedule.”

Halan looks over at the other Captain. Kestral looks back. “Don’t expect me to argue with her. Her title may make it sound like she’s my subordinate, but she’s actually my partner. If she says Omega stays on the ship, he stays on the ship.”

“Very well,” Halan decides.

“Sir,” Rita presses.

“We will launch on time, and then we will search the ship for him. Don’t worry, Rita. I’m sure we’ll find some use for a brash and disgruntled clone of an engineer.”

Rita is not an unreasonable person. She knows when she’s been beat, and she will concede graciously. “Very well, sir. You have five minutes until you need to speak to the passengers. I’ll prep the crew.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll be up there in a minute.”

“One more thing,” Kestral says after Rita leaves. She takes out a small roundish object, and hands it to Halan ceremoniously. “This is a recall device. If you hold the string, and press the top button several times, all of this will be undone.”

“What do you mean?” Halan questions. “All of what?”

“The mission, the trip,” Ishida clarifies. “It’s a reset button. If something goes wrong, and you have no other options, this will reverse time, and put everyone back here instantaneously. It will have quite literally never happened. Once your tenure is over, you may pass it on to your successor. But I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it, If I were you.”

A confused Halan stares at them. “This is a generation ship. What if something goes wrong in a hundred years? They’ll just be erased from existence?”

“The captain won’t,” Kestral says. “Or rather, whoever pushes the button. They’ll be returned with all these people, even if they haven’t been born yet now. They alone will survive that paradox, should it come to that.”

He keeps watching them with that look. Then he drops the device on the ground, and stomps on it. “I won’t allow that. We live and die together. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“Very well, sir,” Kestral echoes Rita from earlier.

“Good luck, Captain,” Ishida says cordially.

“Thank you.”

“You better go.”

“Close it up,” Halan says as he’s walking up the ramp. The ship’s AI seals all entrances. Halan transports to the bridge, where the crew is working on prelaunch. “Everything on schedule?” he asks them.

“Yes, sir,” replies the Executive Bridge Officer.

“Keep at it. I need to address the passengers.”

“Of course, sir.”

Halan steps into his bridge quarters. He readies himself with a good glass of water, and some speech warm-ups. Finally, when it’s time, he approaches the microphone. “Passengers of the Extremus. Some say that our journey to this day began fourteen years ago, when a man came to us with an idea his superior came up with about traveling across the galaxy. Others say that it truly began once we were rescued from our home universe, and brought here, back in 2230. I wasn’t around for that, but I am grateful for it. Still, there are those who claim the journey actually began centuries ago, while our ancestors were struggling on the human continent of Ansutah. However you look at it, I’m not personally concerned with when the journey began. What matters is where we’re going, and how we get there from here. We are about to launch from the Gatewood Collective, and fly at reframe speeds, across thousands of light years. It will take us two hundred and sixteen years.

“We do not possess the kind of longevity technology the rest of the stellar neighborhood does. We live day to day, and we do that for about a hundred and twenty years. Not one of us will be alive to see our new home. This is your last chance to avoid the truth that you will die in space, far from any star. We’ll be taking off in eleven minutes. That should be enough time to make it to the nearest airlock. Anyone inside of one of these will be teleported out of the ship with no questions. I hope none of you do, but that is your choice, and I will understand. Our numbers are great now. We started out with a few hundred hopefuls, but have since grown to the thousands. I find that impressive. Like I said, none of you will see the planet we are destined to name Extremus, and that is the bravest thing I’ve seen anyone do.” Halan clears his throat. “If you are a member of the crew, please take action stations. If you are a passenger, and you haven’t already, make yourself at home, and enjoy the ride.”

Minutes later, they’re gone.

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Microstory 1670: Diplomacy First

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I’m going to be honest with you. I was very wrong when I made the claim that there was nothing interesting about Limerick Hawthorne’s universe, except for Limerick Hawthorne. Imagine looking at a painting. In the bottom left corner, the first thing you see is a creature made of fire, fighting against his water foes. Keep staring at that fire creature, and that’s kind of all you’ll see. You don’t notice at first how vast the canvas is, and how many other things are happening in that painting. You might eventually, but that’s you seeing in three dimensions. I see in four dimensions, which is more like looking at an infinite number of paintings, and trying to decipher a full story from them. When I saw Limerick, the metaphorical fire creature, he took all focus. As I told you, people who travel the bulkverse are more clear to me than other events across the branes. What I didn’t realize then was just how fascinating Limerick’s universe was, and what it would become after he left. All I could see was him, but I see a bigger picture now. This is another story about aliens. They evolved from source variants all over this version of the Milky Way galaxy. They’re based on human DNA, but they developed independently and spontaneously for reasons I don’t understand. Some universes just have aliens, I guess. When Limerick disappeared, he left behind a tear in the spacetime continuum that didn’t close completely. It wouldn’t cause anyone to become lost in the outer bulkverse, fortunately, but it was still there, and still dangerous. Scientists from all over the world showed up, hoping to figure out what it was, and what, if anything, they could do with it. As it turned out, quite a bit. The rift ultimately sent a group of volunteers to another world, where they came face to face with their first alien race.

These aliens would end up becoming the real threat, but they weren’t the only ones in the galaxy, and it was only a matter of time before they met some new allies. Things seemed okay at first on the alien planet, but the volunteers learned some things they didn’t like, and it sparked a philosophical divide with the natives. Both sides tried to keep the peace, but they failed. That was when the humans knew they had to escape. The natives weren’t evil, but they felt dishonored, and in their minds, the only response was war. In their culture, once diplomatic discussions passed what they considered to be a point of no return, domination was the only way forward. Someone had to win, and prove the other side wrong. I’m simplifying all this, of course, but you get the idea. The explorers managed to get out of there when they found that planet’s Nexus machine, but the conflict was not over. The good thing about how Nexa work is that you can block travel from any one machine, so Earth was safe for the time being. But there were other Nexa in the network, and the aliens would keep looking for a way to continue the war. The scientists knew that they couldn’t just leave it at that. What followed was a series of missions from Earth designed to establish relations with other cultures, determine which others could pose a threat to them, procure useful technology and knowledge, and generally protect the galaxy from these warmongers. The aliens, meanwhile, went on their own missions, now that they had a working Nexus. They couldn’t go to Earth, but they went to other planets first, and tried to gain some kind of advantage. This proved to be more difficult than they thought it would, and it eventually made them start seeing everyone as just as much of a threat to their honor as they thought Earth was.

Microstory 1669: Of Kindness and Cruelty

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For every Hypostate in Adverse, there was an opposing force called an Apostate. These postates—to use an unauthorized collective term—could be anyone. It was never really clear whether someone was born this way, or became so over time. Some were humans, others were demons, and a few were original Maramon. There were twenty-three of each, plus the primaries, and they represented the virtues and sins that could be found in anyone and everyone. There are two of these special people that I want to talk to you about today. The virtuous one was named Kindness. Of course, that wasn’t his original name, but once he learned what he was, and what role he played in the fight against evil, he started going by it. It was kind of expected of him, and since he was so kind, he didn’t try to stop it. Kindness was a gentle human being, who genuinely cared about people, both on a personal level, and in a general global sense. You wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, though, and maybe not even after an interaction with him. He was tall, muscular, tan; all the generic traits of a dude-bro. He liked to work out, but he did it for all the right reasons, and he didn’t look down on those who didn’t do it at all. He was tan mostly because it was his natural skin color, but also because he spent a lot of time outside, and sunscreen can only do so much. He didn’t treat people unkindly, and he never felt awkward, but he wasn’t the most outgoing individual, and people wouldn’t have ever called him fun. Remember that kindness was his virtue, not friendliness. Friendliness is someone else. Those are two distinct characteristics, and while there’s often a lot of overlap, it’s not technically necessary, especially not for a hypostate, whose every trait is exaggerated, and whose mind is usually hyperfocused towards a goal.

Kindness grew up with a boy who would come to be known as Cruelty. Cruelty was exactly as you think he would be. He was a man, still—not a demon—but he shared the demons’ compulsion for wickedness. He was clever, always making sure the chaos he caused couldn’t be directly linked to him. People didn’t know that he was essentially a manifestation of evil, but they didn’t think he was a swell guy either. They generally didn’t want to be around him. However smart or careful an apostate is, they have a hard time completely masking their sick and twisted ways. His true nature was no more apparent than when the two of them were together. Everyone believed them to be friends, and most couldn’t understand why, since they were so clearly incompatible. This was a misunderstanding that neither of them refuted. Kindness was too kind to get angry at people about it, and Cruelty enjoyed how much it bothered Kindness. They just kept running into each other throughout their lives, no matter how much Kindness tried to get away. It wasn’t a constant pairing, but the relief was never very long. They were roommates in college, co-workers at their respective second jobs, and ended up moving to the same street several years later. Cruelty claimed it was an honest coincidence, but I think we all know how unlikely that is. Kindness and Cruelty weren’t the only two postates to have known each other before The Rapture, but they were the only opposing forces to know each other, and they were the only ones to know each other so well. They obviously didn’t get along, though. Cruelty would get tired of Kindness’ incessant need to make sure everyone around him was safe and cared for. It was sometimes even enough to keep him from torturing his frenemy. They never fought each other when they were alive, but they were directly at odds once both of them died. It was up to a small group of heroes to find all the hypostates, and defeat all the apostates. They were scattered throughout the three realms, including heaven where Kindness was found, and hell, where Cruelty was unsurprisingly sent to.