Exploring the Personification of Universal Laws in Physics Science Fiction

[hsdrop]

I have a fun idea that I would love to get outside input on to help character building. What if the laws of our universe were beings that keep the laws in place by being them: like entropy, gravity, or electromagnetism? I'm not looking so much for how that would look but more personalities of the beings. New characters are more than welcome as well as the adding on of old ones too.

 

[jedishrfu]

Can you clarify your question a bit? I fixed your spelling of the universe but still can't understand what you mean by

What if the laws of our universe were being that keep the laws in place by being them like entropy, gravity, or electromagnetism?

My guess is you meant to say "beings" ie that the physical laws were actually beings enforcing them.

I'm not even sure how to construct a story around this notion. If in your story you imagined the universe to be a computer model ala the matrix then the beings could well be computer algorithms that dictate how gravity works...

 

[hsdrop]

yes that the idea I'm hopping for and sorry for the bad spelling and gramer

 

[jedishrfu]

The best that I can come up with is a parallel to Greek mythology where the gods control the lives of the mortals. You could assign each of the four forces of the universe to a god-like entity and or make up new forces like dark matter and dark energy as gods that have a lesser influence.

 

[hsdrop]

yes I was trying to lean toward a hole pantheon of characters I found that trying to separate the traits was a bit tricky

 

[hsdrop]

Hear are just a couple of ideas that I have had. I was going to separate space and time but make them either siblings or something similar. Then I could have Space be spacey. then Time is the only one that can hold her attention. Also Time could feel almost high strung and corporate like.

 

[BillTre]

I always liked Loki in the Marvel Universe.
Tricksters can be fun (or amusing) and more the plot forward.

 

[jedishrfu]

Hear are just a couple of ideas that I have had. I was going to separate space and time but make them either siblings or something similar. Then I could have Space be spacey. then Time is the only one that can hold her attchen. Also Time could feel almost high strung and corporate like

Play with these ideas but don't be too attached to them otherwise you'll hit writer's block.

A similar notion to this was a belief many decades ago that knots were related to the elements. Mathematicians spent a lot of time characterizing different kinds of knots but couldn't get to the element level. Later Thompson showed that atoms were made of electrons, protons and neutrons which pretty much killed the knot theory.

In 1867 after observing Scottish physicist Peter Tait's experiments involving smoke rings, Thomson came to the idea that atoms were knots of swirling vortices in the æther. Chemical elements would thus correspond to knots and links. Tait's experiments were inspired by a paper of Helmholtz's on vortex-rings in incompressible fluids. Thomson and Tait believed that an understanding and classification of all possible knots would explain why atoms absorb and emit light at only the discrete wavelengths that they do. For example, Thomson thought that sodium could be the Hopf link due to its two lines of spectra.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knot_theory

What would be cool is if you could tie your gods to real physics. As an example, a group of Earth explorers meets your "primitive people" and learn about their religion only to discover that their gods are somehow real physical laws and that their knowledge of the universe is far deeper than our own. So instead of focusing on the gods, you could focus on the "primitive people" and the stories they made about the gods that in fact correspond to real physical phenomena. I don't have an exact example for that but figured it gives you something to play with.

 

[hsdrop]

Well I was thinking along the same lines but instead of using "primitive people", I would use our own beliefs or others on a different planet of beings that had formed their own consciousness. I would have the physics gods stop by to protect the life on the planet from their own gods. A good twist could even go as far as having the god or goddess punished by the physics beings by turning them into their own enemy to teach them balance and hubris.

 

[256bits]

What would be cool is if you could tie your gods to real physics. As an example, a group of Earth explorers meets your "primitive people" and learn about their religion only to discover that their gods are somehow real physical laws and that their knowledge of the universe is far deeper than our own. So instead of focusing on the gods, you could focus on the "primitive people" and the stories they made about the gods that in fact correspond to real physical phenomena. I don't have an exact example for that but figured it gives you something to play with.

Reminds me of the Stargate episode where McGyver ( different show same guy ) and his crew investigate a planet populated with somewhat indigenous people similar to that of North America, and where previous crews had gone missing. The aliens eventually are found out to be a small group of aliens ( with faces having gills ) who could be invisible and would provide for the indigenous and protect them from harm.

 

[jedishrfu]

Reminds me of the Stargate episode where McGyver ( different show same guy ) and his crew investigate a planet populated with somewhat indigenous people similar to that of North America, and where previous crews had gone missing. The aliens eventually are found out to be a small group of aliens ( with faces having gills ) who could be invisible and would provide for the indigenous and protect them from harm.

Yes, that would be the Salish Spirits episode:

https://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Salish

I really liked that episode too.

 

[hsdrop]

lol i love Richard Dean Anderson he is one of my faves. i can vaguely remember that one i'll have to rewatch that episode of sg1 to give a good example of what I'm going for.

Imagine if the Ori got punished by the gods of physics laws by taking them back in time and making them live or exist through what the Ori had put others through so it would be like the Ori were hurting themselves unknowingly.

The reason that the laws did this is because if they keep going the way they were without intervention the belief energy they got from living beings would start corrupting the law and how it worked in the universe...

Any one have any ideas for personality traits for the laws (gods of physics) like entropy, time, space, mass, electromagnetism, exc.. i also would not mind coming up with some of the laws themselves to put personalities too

All ideas will be entertained please do not be shy.

 

[jedishrfu]

I suppose you could imagine entropy to be one who causes disorder so if they directed their power toward something it either get more disordered or less. More would mean like it would be melted without heat whereas less would mean it "unmelts" back to its original shape.

TIme would mean being able to move through it in either direction.

Space could mean being able to move through physical objects or it could mean expanding or shrinking an object even into a black hole but with possible dire consequences for doing it. It could also mean generating gravity waves.

Electromagnetism could mean they could act like a magnet and attract or repel a charged or magnetic susceptible article. Some of the consequences could be bad side-effects where in attracting a magnet, it might flip about as the poles try to align. Similarly, for charge one object might repel as expected but behind you another is attracted and now you must defend yourself to prevent from getting hit.

One problem for me here is that trying to align your gods to the physical laws too closely is going to severely limit your story ideas. It seems so much easier to imagine they all have these powers (and you can add more) but tend to use one power over the others perhaps because they got burned once when using the other powers incorrectly.

I imagine you could have a school where they are taught by their elders to use these powers.

Also Greek mythology stories with Zeus throwing lightning bolts... could be good models for your stories with respect to powers and their usage. One set of stories that approaches this theme is the Rick Riordan stories of modern day Greek mythology (Percy Jackson) playing out in the world today. Children of the Gods must battle ancient creatures in order to survive the petty nature of other Gods.

http://rickriordan.com/

My suggestion is that you should start with a short story patterned after some well known story theme and map it to your themes. Look for contests, where you could apply your skills and get to writing.

There's a cool book by Blake Snyder called "Saves the Cat" which while its for screen plays can be applied to short stories too. He breaks down movies into 10 categories of stories and then further breaks down these categories and illustrates what makes them work and what does not.

The book is basically a cookbook on how to write a story. Its still quite hard but he gives you a framework that is superior to anything you've ever learned in school.

There are numerous podcasts too that can give you insight into becoming an author. One is here:

https://writingexcuses.com/

You can find a lot of other ones via Google.

Lastly, there's the book by Ender's Game author, Orson Scott Card that gets into how to write sci-fi stories from his experience:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1582976090/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Jedi

 

[jedishrfu]

One other suggestion, I have would be to run your prose through the Hemminway app:

http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

It can show you when you make sentences way too long and will show you the grade level of your prose. It doesn't really help you write like Hemmingway though. I tried the Hemmingway opening quote from A Farewell to Arms and found it to be at Grade 14 which I think is way too high for Hemmingway.

https://qz.com/922659/i-wanted-to-b...asked-an-artificial-intelligence-app-to-help/

Also there are a few youtube videos on his writing style. He tended to repeat words for emphasis and used single or double syllable words mostly. He was one a newspaper journalist and so developed a style of writing based on it and on how Cezanne painted via small repetitive blocks.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-stodola/how-hemingway-learned-to-_b_9733706.html

 

[hsdrop]

so far we have Entropy, and jedi it almost sounded like you were describing a nymph or gremlins of sorts lol how about like the old fairies that in olden days caused trouble or disorder when they were around

I was try to go for more the personality traits instead of that each law "god" could do sooooooo... Time: could be inpatient, bisnis like, hyperactive, must feel in control of everything, everywhere, and all the time to some kind of vag unknown plane also Time is the only one that can slow Space down lol

Space: she would have a hard time comtrating "A.D.D." unless Time is trying to tell her something she is everywhere and nowhere she is a bit spacey hippy like aka the abyss, eternity, ...exc

Mass: could be a bit of a blockhead most of the time thuggish slow to get the joke has trouble multitasking or extrimspeeding to anywair

Electromagnetism: really bad bipolar ups and downs almost like a split personality

do not be afraid to add stuff on or make up newones
and as always thank you so much for the input and feedback on the "Laws"