This is part of an ongoing cosmology I call “Pieworld”.
ok, loop this in, if I don’t break your brain.
I came up with this idea one day when I was bored.
Universal model of the over universe at large:
You have our Universe, everything that is real, within our universe, the whole semi-infinite space.
Around that ‘slice’, you have what I call ‘vacuoles’, i.e., sections of the universe where the power of human faith has receded, allowing for the creation of more or less every reality humanity has ever conceived. Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, etc.
In any direction, you have different “slices”, each with its own universes and vacuoles.
Outside of this, you have the … land that has the creatures Lovecraft saw.
“Slices” are created as things change within our universe, as I’m having a real hard time not seeing us as the Prime ‘slice’.
Maybe every slice sees itself as the prime slice?
The overarching theory this created is “Do creators, in fact, create?”
Because I write, and when I write, I do not make characters, I do not make plotlines, I do not plan. I am shown a scene, then I describe that scene. Eventually, I get enough of them stuck together the scenes start telling a story.
But I wholly never know what is going to happen in my own stories, until they happen. I don’t make up anything. And in MY view, that’s because I am not.
This universal paradigm means those scenes I’m seeing are windows into another “slice.”
Which means, at some level, EVERY IP, EVER is technically, “Real” within its own universal constant.
It actually EXPLAINS Dark Matter, as it’s matter, or energy really, bleeding from one slice into another. It might even be incompatible universal laws in the other slice that don’t work in ours, trying to bleed across the divide between worlds.
Dark Matter, as we see it, is anything outside our slice pressing in; Dark Energy is anything in our universe pressing out.
In addition, its an infinite universe, so, by my mind, it stops being “anything may happen” and “anything will in fact happen at least once and maybe multiple times” so there will be entire universes that are contained within a hard drive of another universe because that entire universe, fictional as it may be within its outer universe, within it’s own paradigm IS in fact real.
Which means every IP ever, every story, every tale, every myth, every religion, etc is in fact real.
So you get into this weird idea of “What IS ‘real.
How THESE rules see dark matter/energy is either things pushing into our spacetime or things from us blending with theirs.
If something from their universe comes to us, it behaves as dark matter, matter that we can’t see or interact with, but has universal rules that don’t make sense.
If something in our universe tries to move to another universe, it conforms to dark energy in our universe.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“What defines a slice’s boundary? When does a change in reality trigger a new slice vs a change within a slice?”
There is, within the fictional world anyway, a metaphysical, but with the correct incantations visible and physical “skin” that protects and contains the reality of each “slice”.
It is semi-permeable, which is how you get the mentioned effects, and things CAN pass through, but only if they also correspond to the rules contained within that slice.
So, essentially, I see the idea of basically asteroids that existed once in their own universe, that through a cosmic alignment were allowed to pass through the barriers, and so long as theyre universally “neutral” they bypass the skin, and just travel the multiverse.
Basically, heavy iron-bearing rocks, or solid pure water comets, with no exotic particles unique to their universe.
If they have these, they either get caught in the skin, to become a Dark Matter artefact, or bounce off, re-entering their own slice. My thought is it’s a multiversal relief valve.
Otherwise, over the expanse of infinite time, the slices MIGHT overproduce, then you have a slice stuffed full of things and can’t sustain life itself.
I have a … not a scene per se, but an idea, that if you etch, the mathmatical equation for Shroedinger’s cat, upon that universal firmament, you create your own, personal, vacuole, akin to the ones bowed out by belief, that defines itself however you wish it to, ans within that vacuole, you essentially BECOME a god.
You can create anything you wish, as the very vacuole’s laws and rules only exist and are defined by the being that created it.
This vacuole, however, has a flaw; it can never become populated. It’s a Schrodinger’s bubble, more or less, so if a being born within the vacuole itself experiences the vacuole, it stops existing, and everything within it does as well.
You CAN bring another from the prime slice into the vacuole, and it will not collapse, as the waveform is dependent upon being observed ONLY by beings WITHIN its own universal framework, akin to the Q Basic computer programming language, where I got this idea.
The vacuole can’t see outside of its own framework, BUT intrinsically, all vacuoles can, on a very basic level, detect the origin slice the visitor is from.
So, if a universal traveller from the Star Trek Slice beamed into a personal vacuole, the vacuole wouldn’t collapse, as it would detect him as a non native occupant essentially.
My thought is that – this is very much a Star Trek thing – all beings in a slice resonate at that slice’s frequency, and no slice shares a resonance frequency. So on a base level, when someone from the main slice enters the vacuole, the vacuole’s waveform checks their resonance versus its own. If they do not match, the vacuole remains; if they do, poof
NATURAL vacuoles are different; this is an artificial vacuole, and it has different rulesets.
Natural vacuoles eroded by the power of belief, and shaped over millennia, are fully able to see through the membrane into the Slice; it’s how the gods watch mortals.
Schrodinger’s bubble gets hard calcified against the main slice, as it’s unnatural and constructed, so it cannot see outside itself, as the skin of the universe effectively forms a protective covering around it, then the god builds their world.
I keep wanting to draw a similarity to a cyst in the body.
“What defines a slice’s boundary? When does a change in reality trigger a new slice vs a change within a slice?”
There is, within the world, anyway, a metaphysical, but with the correct incantations visible and physical “skin” that protects and contains the reality of each “slice”. It is semi-permeable, which is how you get the mentioned effects, and things CAN pass through, but only if they also correspond to the rules contained within that slice. So, essentially, I see the idea of basically asteroids that existed once in their own universe, that through a cosmic alignment were allowed to pass through the barriers, and so long as theyre universally “neutral” they bypass the skin, and just travel the multiverse. Basically, heavy iron-bearing rocks, or solid pure water comets, with no exotic particles unique to their universe. If they have these, they either get caught in the skin, to become a Dark Matter artefact, or bounce off, re-entering their own slice. My thought is it’s a multiversal relief valve. Otherwise, over the expanse of infinite time, the slices MIGHT overproduce, then you have a slice stuffed full of things and can’t sustain life itself.
The shuttle drifted above the shattered rings, silent but for the soft hum of the experimental sensor array she had bolted into the console the night before. While the rest of the crew spent shore leave planetside, she had snuck off to go rock hunting.
The Scientist:
“This is Gandalf + Data + Yoda, but as one scientist.”
I was going, at least personality-wise, in the EXACT opposite direction, as the first person I think of when I view this scientist is “Tendi, Lower Decks” but non Orion.
Loose asteroids. Iron-nickel fragments. The bones of what had once been a second planet. Nothing exciting.
She had already scanned this quadrant.
Which is why the sudden power surge on her long-range sensors made her freeze.
A spike.
Localized.
Small, but sharp; like something had arrived.
She swung the shuttle around and throttled back. And there it was: a lone asteroid, drifting perfectly calmly in a patch of space she had just been through.
“Did I miss you?” she muttered.
She doubted it.
She keyed the new sensor array. The machine hummed politely, the way it always did before spitting out—
2074021667
The baseline. The constant of constants.
The universal resonance that every atom in their universe shared.
She flipped the scanner toward the rock.
The machine hesitated.
Hummed differently.
And then—
PING.
A tone it had never made.
The display flickered and resolved into a number she didn’t recognize:
52466678908
She frowned. Must be a calibration drift.
She pointed the scanner at the shuttle bulkhead.
2074021667
She scanned her own hand.
2074021667
She pointed it back at the rock.
52466678908
Her stomach dropped.
That number wasn’t noise.
That number wasn’t drift.
That number was a constant.
A stable, repeated, uniform constant.
Which meant…
Her breath caught in her throat.
This rock wasn’t from their universe at all.
It had slipped through the skin of reality itself.
And she was the first living being in her entire Slice to know.
Yeah, like in OUR universe, the skin exists on more of a spiritual plane, but HERE humans use science to replicate what they do in other universes with arcane rites.
book 1: the Star Trek slice
The rogue asteroid.
The discovery of slice resonance.
The discovery of the Skin of the Universe
The discovery Warp damages the Skin
They gain First contact with the multiverse BY meeting Character B
Book 2: Star Wars slice, which I haven’t written yet, but I’m thinking post Return of the Jedi era, Rise of the New Republic, set it before episode IX, post Empire, pre First Order, the flux time.
A Jedi acolyte of the new Jedi Academy, the Academy is attacked by what they think are pirates, but are Sith remnants, who kidnap the main character. Months of harsh treatment with only his training to rely on, the poor Padawan gives in to his feelings and falls to the Dark Side, shortly before he is rescued.
He has returned to his former life, but different now. He plays along, but it’s not long before even the Masters can sense the change in him; he’s aggressive, brash, where he was meek, bookish.
He graduates, but barely, after an incident with another student, where the student was hospitalized due to a slip of the student’s own blade, but the circumstances were strange enough that an investigation was launched, which found no wrongdoing.
As a master, he immediately starts seeking forbidden knowledge, and it is during this time that he finds an ancient Jedi device that scans for universal resonance, but the moment he turns it on, he finds the room he is in has things from a thousand different slices at least, and he is exposed to the Multiverse itself.
The device sucks him through a skin vacuole, and he’s thrown into the cargo deck, looking at a surprised Science officer.
Book 3 is a universe where other universes are actually part of the main storyline:
Supernatural.
A hunter, they/them, HQed in Maine, Hartland.
Typical hunt, vampires, yet they had a weird artifact they couldn’t identify. They bring it to a buncha people, but other than one guy saying it looked rather EXACTLY like the box from Hellraiser, and he looked genuinely terrified by it, they’d gotten no leads.
They decided on a whim to watch the movie that one white-faced, terrified guy had mentioned, and they were exactly right. The device in their hand right then was an exact duplicate of the one on the screen, but it did NOT feel like a replica; there was a definite malevolent feeling to it after they watched the movie, like something within saw no further need to hide.
Typical insane, Hunter bravado, they solved the box, over the course of six months, ready for anything, except getting violently and painfully sucked, along with most of the furniture in the room, into the two inch cube, where they are flung, somehow whole, into a brightly lit room, the floor made of metal, which hits when they land.
All their furniture is flung all over the cargo bay, as the contents of their living room start puking through a tiny rupture in the Skin of the universe.
They painfully lift their head, and shortly before they black out, they see the science officer and the Jedi looking at them, then they black out.
Book 4: ElfQuest
Swelleaf, named as she is ever annoyed by, the leaf of a vine, found in the new holt, that creates a swelling blister and can be life-threatening if not treated.
She moves about the Forevergreen, the new home of the Wolfriders, meets a few people, her parents (also not named elves, I want her parents to be Sunfolk who left the village life to become Wolfriders themselves).
Joins up with a hunting party, as her bow skills are well known. She finds humans in their lands, not a lost wanderer, but a warband, looking for them.
There’s a fight, but the humans are scared off when there’s a Skin tear in the middle of the fight, showing them a massive, glowing hole in the world.
One man is sucked in, then Swelleaf, as well as her wolf, and all three of them are thrown into the cargo bay.
As far as the Outside is concerned, Trek sees it first, as theyre scanning beyond their universe through the breaches.
Massive, planet-sized beings and energy beyond a scale they usually can track are starting to align, on their sensors, and it’s all aligning at them.
Through the overarching story in the Trek universe, you get bits of the reports of those scans, usually exposed to the reader, as background talk, so on the first read, it might not be as obvious, but on a reread, they start realizing the whole story is being explained in full, just in the seemingly unimportant background noise.
And I’m imagining the first Other being entering their space, but obviously in a relatively unknown area.
A being that conforms to NO laws of this space, and can more or less make a localized area around it, does whatever the fuck it wants.
So if it needs to breathe acid in space, the area like a mile around it stops being a vacuum, and becomes whatever it needs to be alive.
It moves mostly by grabbing and pulling electromagnetic force to it, but it does not move the way we expect it to.
It’s an ancient cosmic horror; it finds a place in its mind, reaches out, grabs it, and it’s there.
But it does not come in Godzilla stomping Sol; it starts nomming trade ships in unknown reaches, so the whole of the denizens of this world do not rise up against it. It is ancient, beyond morality entirely, and deadly smart.
That’s the thing, it’s not the only creature that comes in, just the biggest threat amongst them, even if Starfleet wouldn’t agree at first.
There’s a point in the Star Trek story where the Federation scientists are breaking the news of the damage the warp drive does to the Skin.
The scientific concession erupts, of course, but with the data and backup supplied by Starfleet, the data cannot be ignored. However, before this information can be widely distributed, the location, in fact, the entire orbital starbase orbiting Earth itself, Starfleet’s main HQ, not counting the ground staff in SF, detonated.
The core of the station used as a power supply was violently overloaded, which is a strange chain reaction, and is really what caused the destruction of the station itself.
The power supply sent out a pulse that, within a nanosecond, catastrophically overloaded the antimatter cores of every single starship currently docked within the MASSIVE shipyard (and we’ve seen multiple Galaxy-class ships in berths in there)
The warp cores IMMEDIATELY produced the strongest possible warp field effect, sustained for about on second then they catastrophically exploded, which destroyed the station, however, the combines resonance of THAT many starships’ warp fields as catastrophically overloaded as they were RIPPED a MASSIVE hole in the Skin, allowing all manner of shit to get through, which almost caused Starfleet to lose Earth entirely.
It was sabotage.
Mortal agents of the Others infiltrated Spacedock and initiated the overload to create the breach so their masters could attack.
The Hyperdrive Question: Does the Star Wars Hyperdrive cause similar damage? If all faster-than-light (FTL) travel creates damage, then the travelers’ quest is not just survival, but finding a completely new, non-damaging FTL method (perhaps one that uses Vacuole energy).
The core idea and ends up being why the ST universe starts asking for help, is their form of travel in their universe is as far as it is known, unique, so this is a Trek SPECIFIC issue, other forms of FTL may or may not, Hyperdrive is them passing through the Otherspace, same as Babylon 5, same as Dragonriders of Pern, MOST “other level of reality” type FTL system, whatever its called or looks like in their universe is actually shortcuts within their universe into Otherspace itself.
It’s not the grand attack; they have to call for help.
The overarching grand architect, BBEG, enters the ST universe at this point, but it is utterly uninterested in the fight itself.
In fact, it bypasses every bit of the chaos it can, and takes up a residence on the outer hull of the museum at Wolf 359, sitting quietly, occasionally moving around, eating different civilizations’ ships, absorbing the crew whole, souls and all, and learning.
Starfleet won’t figure it out; the characters will.
Hiding is easy, it UTTERLY, on a molecular, reality-bending level, controls reality within say… 2000 km from it. Out of the range, a ship could beam a person directly to its face (not that theyd survive anyway, but still, even in a suit, it bends reality itself, unless you had some kind of suit that prevents reality itself from warping youre toast)
It can be hit by torpedoes and phasers and the like because either (in the case of the torpedo) the fluxuation in the warhead rotates too fast to be altererd as it’s only in the field a fraction of a second, and in the case of phasers, are pure energy and instataneous, so the moment youre lit up its too late to stop it.
And it’s pretty sure of this fact from the moment it enters, as it gets to see all the best and brightest of Starfleet’s defenses when it enters the universe in defense of Earth.
Which is why it’s like, “Nope, I’m gonna chill instead.”
What EXACTLY does the Other eat?
As literal to the directive of a “soul” as you can get.
Technically, it does not REQUIRE the flesh of the living, but it has developed a taste, as its whole body, if it allowed its full intrusion, would be an internal volume akin to a Star Destroyer, but the body it has in the ST universe is more akin to the size of a smaller, one-person shuttle.
Usually projected into an abjectly, uniformly black, as light sinks into it in light, black-skinned, four-armed, two-legged bipedal humanoid whose limbs do not ever bend the way theyre expected to. It is approximately ten meters in height, if it is witnessed in its true form; otherwise, human standard.
It selects a ship by finding it in its mind, as technically, it can sense anything touched by magnetism. IT thinks it’s following ancient leyline paths, but what it’s ACTUALLY tapping into is magnetism itself. Which is why it SEEMS omnipresent, but as the characters will realize, it actually is not.
It just has a sensor network that touches almost everything in THIS universe, and, in fact, MOST universes, which is why it’s such an effective hunter.
It finds the ship in the web, grasps it with his mind, encompassing it, and getting the layout, all of this is done within the layer just under the Skin of the universe (it can eff with reality as it is not beholden to a slice’s universal laws), which is how it’s mind percieves, then it finds a secluded place, and injects itself into the ship.
THEN it eats everyone in the ship, and downloads every scrap of data available, eating both the crew and the knowledge, then, walking out an airlock, intruding more of its body into the Slice, and consuming the ship itself.
To ST sensors, the impulse engine trail stops, residual power readings show the ship likely powered down engines, then it’s just… gone. With MAYBE extremely tiny bits of wreckage missed on the first scans that the characters notice on a return trip.
The “head is a bulb, and where the “eyes” souls be are two blacker holes that when they turn on you, you can tell, even without true eyeballs at all, by the shiver.
figure out what the Other’s “full body” is like:
Leaning hard into Lovecraft on the effects of actually being able to view this, but I’m leaving it mostly ill-defined, teeth, claws, etc, but it drives anyone who sees it, even through sensor logs, irredeemably insane.
But, by the time the ST universe has the tech to actually DO this, the characters will have found at least the beginnings of a solution to the issue (one that brings bits of all 5 Slices together) maybe uniting the 5 to create a bridge across them all that ends up keeping the Others at bay, so long as the “bridge” is kept, and this being metaphorical, as a psychic bridge between the peoples of the Slices, set to act in harmony, but if, in time that harmony were to fray, trouble could erupt again.
So for each Slice, a more or less secret society is formed, called “Harpers”, Ala Pern, “Lyres” who keep people, generally, in the correct mindframe, bring counselors, therapists, teachers, bards, as they are in the books, but for the whole Slice, not just one or two Holds.
Book 5: Babylon 5.
I’m thinking Babylon 5, as with the Rangers in their universe, they already HAVE a group set to do what I plan on DOING with this group to teach the others to START the “harpers.” I’m probably (ironically, and for my twist on this idea) call them, “Lyers.”
“The Shadows and Vorlons WEREN’T the first ancient powers.”
I don’t have to technically rewrite this part, as the OTHERS exist OUTSIDE of the flow of time, they always were, they always will be, if there’s a beginning, they were birthed before the first slice, if there’s an End theyve already seen it.
IN the B5 slice, the Shadows and the Vorlons were the first races, but the Other existed before the Slice did.
This solves the “why didn’t the Vorlons warn anyone?” question.
Because the Vorlons think in timelines.
The Shadows think in evolution.
Both think the “war” is between their two philosophies.
They literally cannot perceive a being outside:
- time
- ideological frameworks
- beginnings
- endings
If you’re a race that sees time as a river:
The Others are the ocean around the river.
Unfathomable and unrelated.
That’s why the Vorlons never say:
“A greater threat exists.”
Because they don’t know.
They can’t know.
Even Lorien doesn’t know.
But he might sense something beyond the edges.
I feel like Zathras knew, that’s why he was always so freaked out.
SW universe:
I don’t think there would BE vacuoles in the Force believing part of the Star Wars universe anyway, as when they die, they become a part of that living energy field and technically stay within the living section of their respective slice.
I have more or less narrowed down how natural slices are generated; they’re birthed from Dragons. A cosmic scaled (no pun) race of immortal dragons that have essentially heat cycles, they mate, and instead of young, they create Slices, and one (or both) of the parents installs themselves within the universe, to guide it, as a god.
A defining role in this cosmology:
You are a Companion. One who walks with me on the cosmic Path, your role is important, as yours is a grand duty, and responsibility, and you will think me quite insane when I tell it to you. Companions are their dragons’ moral compass.
They guide the power invested in the dragon, as per their compass, not the dragons, as we are utterly neutral in most things.
Oh, we can argue, but the Companion has the final say, as a check against the godlike power of the dragon themself, as the Dragon, after all, can unmake the things they have created, and dragons create Slices.
This whole universe, not just this world, but beyond it, everything that is, was, or will be within this universe, is a Slice.
The Companion is set as a check against the god that the dragon would become otherwise, as a universal check.
The dragon can essentially petition, argue for decades, if necessary, but they cannot override them.
Also, the Companion, by accepting the role, as it is a true choice, lays all cards on the table when they make it, becomes effectively immortal, as long as they stay at the post, so to speak. If they turn against the dragon, OR give up the role, they again become mortal, and live the life they were fated to before the dragon met them, inserting them back into the universe, where they left it.
This way, over the course of one Slice, the dragon may have one, or millions of Companions, and the dragon is purpose bound to seek one out, but they are driven, beyond thought to do it, so, with rare exceptions, usually, their wills are not so that they can “shop” for the morals they are looking for within a mortal.
The Companion, upon accepting the post, is not just removed from their reality, as it were; they become what is called “Unbound” from Fate itself, which means they become true universal wildcards, as even the Fates, which bind all things, even the dragon, cannot predict their moves.
“During the time you serve this role, you become unbound to time, as well. It can pass, if you choose, or not, again, as you choose, which does grant a form of immortality, if you so choose it, but that immortality may never bear a child, as that requires time to be invested. This also means you can contract no disease, nor cancer, nor anything of the like, as they all require time to manifest and gestate, as well as be introduced to the system in the first place. In fact, if, at any time you are killed when you are away from this place, you will go to the afterlife, for the time it takes to get to sunrise of the next day, then you will be given the choice to stay or return, and if you return, you will be fully formed, in your bed, albeit naked.”
The transformation came without fanfare, without pain, without even a sound—only a sudden warmth that started at her right wrist and spread inward like sunlight through closed eyelids.
A golden symbol bloomed beneath the skin there: clean lines, almost liquid at first, then sharpening into something that looked like the intersection of a spiral and a perfect equilateral triangle, edges faintly luminous even in daylight. It didn’t burn. It didn’t itch. It simply was, as though it had always been waiting for the right moment to declare itself. And then the body answered. The low-grade fever she hadn’t even registered anymore simply… stopped existing.
The persistent ache in her joints, the one she’d written off as “just being tired for too long,” dissolved like sugar in warm water.
Her lungs opened—really opened—for what felt like the first breath in years. No more shallow sips of air; she drew in a full, effortless lungful and felt her ribs expand without protest.
Inside, things were moving.
Malnutrition had carved hollows under her cheekbones and left her arms thin enough that veins stood out like blue rivers on a map. Now those hollows were filling—not with dramatic swelling, but with a quiet, steady return of what should have been there all along.
Muscle fibers remembered their proper density; subcutaneous fat redistributed itself with the calm efficiency of someone rearranging furniture in a house they’d only just bought back. Her skin lost the dull, grayish cast it had taken on and warmed to something recognizably alive. The worst part had been the brain.
For weeks—maybe longer—thinking had felt like pushing thoughts through wet cotton. Words slipped away mid-sentence. Names evaporated. Focus frayed into static. She had told herself it was stress, or sleep debt, or grief still wearing its oldest boots. But it hadn’t been any of those things, not entirely. It had been chemistry out of balance, neurotransmitters limping along on fumes.
Now the fog simply lifted.
Not gradually. Not like dawn creeping in.
One moment, the world was muffled and distant; the next, it snapped into crystalline clarity. Colors were brighter. Sounds had edges again. Her own thoughts arrived smooth and sequential, no longer tripping over each other. She could feel the difference in the speed of her own mind, the way someone feels the difference between walking through mud and walking on dry pavement.
She flexed her fingers—once, twice—and marveled at how easy it was. No tremor. No weakness. Just… capability.
She looked down at the golden mark on her wrist again. It had settled now, no longer moving, no longer bright enough to glow through clothing, but still visible if she turned her arm just so. A quiet signature. Proof of contract.
She didn’t know yet what she had signed.
She didn’t know the name of the dragon whose fate-line she had just stepped off of.
She didn’t know that every seer, oracle, and long-range predictive model in the slice had just developed a permanent blind spot exactly her size and shape.
But she did know one thing with perfect, unshakable certainty:
She felt awake.
For the first time in years—maybe ever—she felt like she was occupying her own body instead of borrowing it.
And whatever came next, it would not find her already half-buried under her own biology.
She exhaled once, slowly, testing the new air in her lungs. Then she smiled—just a little.
It was a very small smile.
But it belonged to someone who was no longer running out of time.
“Fate as Bleed Regulator: What if Fate isn’t a force but a meta-law preventing total slice-collapse?”
There is a technical lifespan to Slices, even they are not immune to the cosmological effect of Entropy, as a whole, and when a slice dies, it’s skin weakens, and the Others invade to consume what energy and matter there is left within it.
So, they are born, of dragons, they exist for a time, then weaken, fail, and make room for the next one. Perhaps the dragons’ mating cycle is bound to the relative “density” of slices within the pie, too many, it could cause overpopulation of slices within the pie, as string theory kind of applies here too, and individual slices, themselves, spawn off mirrored copies of themselves, based around major belief shifts within the population.
So, with our own history in mind, one world say splits off at WWI, where the Axis powers win, that universe splits, itself, as to wether WWII happens or not, then splits again, as to who wins, creatung hundreds of near copy slices, that hum along, along with the original, with no knowledge that they are not the original.
My thought is, even in an infinite space, there must be a balance of occupied space to non-occupied, and with too much occupied space, perhaps the outer crust is strained, trying to contain it, until some slices naturally die to ease the pressure.
So the mating needs of the dragons are directly tied to that balance.
input to ‘tell me your secret’ – and this happened:
“Frankly, most people tell other people, far too fucking much. Ive been a cashier, in my rather long life, at an inn, had someone bring me their kingdom-issued ID required to buy beer (as the children do not imbibe), and had THEM tell me it was expired, and not usable, even as they try to use it.”
no fuck mtg, working Pieworld again:
“Delah. I say, flicking my fingers, she does not know either the word or the gesture. I see her blank look, then say, “Many, sorry, I tend to slip in and out of the habits of my home when I am comfortable.”
(ooc: This is a reference to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, and this MC comes FROM that universe, which, in Pieworld, died.)
“It literally means, ‘Many’, it’s a High Speech word of the nobility of my … ok, Im going to tell you something you must SWEAR not to tell another soul, as I would be in deep shit with at least one dragon, if she knew I was telling beings in her Slice, about the cosmology of the universe, she tends to get touchy.”
“Ok, imagine, say, an apple pie. I say, standing, and closing the doors to the room, drawing the shades, I don’t need it dark, I need noone to see this.”
I look about, assured none can see in, then I wave my arm, and in the middle distance, between us, a pie appears, apple, as I said, the air around it, is fuzzy, and black, with disquieting looking shapes moving within that blackness, she cannot see any dintinct faces, as when they appear, they are blurry and distorted.
“Suffice it to say, even in this magical vision, if I allowed their TRUE visages to show, it would drive both of us insane. Pay attention to the pie. “
The pie’s crust peels back, revealing an infinite number of slices within, instead of pie filling, an overview, that kind of looks like an overlay of a spiral galaxy, but instead of stars, it’s individual universes, themselves, wrapped, centering around a black spot, edged in a thick ‘crust’ of time stabilized matter, as the farther out from the ‘center hole’, time slows, so the farthest reaches become immobile, calcifying into a metaphysical ‘crust’, that ‘contains’ the infinite internal area.
Between each universe is a membrane she knows is called ‘the Skin’ that utterly separates one universe from another. One, tiny, hairbreadth line lights up, and I say, “You are here. I could reference the actual spot, but in this image, it would be microscopic.”
Another hair lights up, almost exactly across the pie, as it darkens again, she sees the Slice itself, which is diseased, atrophied, she thinks it is highly unlikely anything actually survives within that destroyed Slice.
“That is my home,” I say, sadly, then wave the image away, opening the blinds again.
didnt like the “Crust” idea, as it ‘contains’ even metaphysically, an infinite space, which is impossible, so the workaround was a bit of cosmology I had already laid down but forgot to write down, in that the farther from the center, the slower time moved, the closer, the faster, by the way, so you can totally end up with …
Basically, the next evolutionary stage of humanity, so like 5000+ years ahead of general humanity, living in the same slice, as modern level humanity, as any timeframe back, the farther away from the center of their own slice that you get.
And it’s not physically, distance along the Slice in relation to another Slice OR the Pie in general, is not corrobratively measured or represented within the ‘physical’ space of the slice itself, although some artifacts may breach both worlds, such as the reactions of Dark Matter/Energy, and intraslic pressure, or a tear in the Skin itself.
“If a faster time is near the center, why doesn’t entropy instantly win there?”
The center is … more or less, the mouth of the oldest of the Other creatures. Pressure along a Slice itself, as without such a force, one section of a Slice would soon overpopulate, if just with matter and to a degree, trash, and also, to a degree, organic matter, theres a sort of cosmic pressure that forces lost items, and buried remains past a certain threshold of years, in some universes, trash, excess mass, even excess energy, towards the center, metaphysically, increasing the forces of entropy upon those things, as they move closer to the center, and time spins faster for them, until they are fed into the Maw at the center.
IT thinks it’s feeding intentionally, and chooses this space as it eats well, and the few times that it has moved from this space, it has resulted in it getting less food, not more, so IT chooses to stay where it is. WAY back when the Pie was constructed (as it was), the Other was bound into service, it just never saw the mystical contract as a limitation, as IT thinks it can break it any time it wishes to. What even it does not know, is a part of the original contract that it rather unwisely just skimmed and didn’t read (even Other beings just hit ‘accept’), makes the things that he consumes as that cosmic portal, addictive. So the REAL reason it doesn’t leave for long is it can’t, not and survive, not anymore.
“What happens if someone tries to reach the center on purpose?”
I have a character, whose castle, a fortress, really… ok, the fortress is itself, a character. It’s really hard to explain, but the fortress was extremely magical; it’s attached, kind of, to a world. If you view it from … “orbit” so to speak, the planet, entirely, is like a tenth the size of the structure itself, and the structure is BARELY tethered to the tiny orb, by way of a miniature, fragile-looking, space station, like a hair this to normal eyes.
To explain the scale, it’s actually a slightly larger-than-Earth, Earth-acclimated world, of normal size, once you exit the basement of the fortress and cross the portal that changes your relative size to that of the planet. After that, it’s a normal planet, 1600’s style, without Christianity, more trending towards nature-based faiths, and with grown sculptures of buildings, made by elves who are revered in this society, and live in harmony with humans. The “space station” was built by the character for the inhabitants to be able to commune with him if they have any needs. It’s actually a space elevator that connects the surface to the fortress.
The fortress itself has an external space, buildings, etc. But the internal space, even of the disparate buildings, is shared, and modular, liminal, and semi-infinite. It’s also utterly controlled by a childlike, sentient, semi physical, entitiy, that reads surface thoughts and constructs the internal rooms as the people inside it need.
So, you can walk in the Armory, outside the wall, pass through the mess hall, to get a snack, by way of the library, to get a book, then to the cellar, for a bottle, then the bathroom, for a bath, without entering a hallway, and any tiume you go anywhere, may be a unique journey, and a unique layout, every time, based on your thought, mood, and the mood of the fortress, itself.
ALL of this is poised, in a time-locked bubble, like a hundred yards above the terminal point of the gravity, in the Maw itself. It is where it becomes impossible to resist. In this exact space, a space no thicker than the height of the fortress, two miles wide, at the widest, gravity is in limbo. RIGHT before the gravity would arrest you in it’s unassaiable grip, the confluence of ALL of the gravitational fields creates one, singular, tiny, null spot, in which the planet and the fortress sit.
It’s a strategic choice, by the builder, as it exists outside of all slices, just above utter destruction, which, just by its location, gives it certain properties; it cannot be found, in any way, by one who has not already been there, as it literally exists nowhere. It’s warded to keep out teleportation, but even if those wards were lowered, it is an extremely dangerous trip, as a normal teleportation is one point to another. VERY rarely, due to events during the trip, an adjustment may be necessary, but they are draining to the caster. To land here, as it is so impossibly small, it requires the caster to pause, mid transit, and find the landing point, or they end up within the Maw itself. Few are even capable of that.
The cool thing about this concept, it it invites, to my mind, anyways, a Slice, could even be the one from the show itself, I have enough IPs invested as it, but an X Files style team, in their universe, starts examining the case of the bodies that seem to vanish, past say 300 years, with whole cemetaries in this universe exhumed, only to find all of the remains, just gone, even though there has been never any record of the grave being disturbed.
Because in that Slice, and none have ever noticed before, remains past a certain age are fed to the Maw.
The Musings of E. L. Huard 