- #1
ddilamarter
- 9
- 0
Below is just one idea among many bourbon-fueled brainstorms, in which I have searched for a suitable disaster to inflict on my characters. It may be that it's too grandiose to wrangle into a plot - the scenario I am trying to service is this: An alien is faced with this catastrophe (one it cannot escape from without help), and heck, we don't even know about it yet. It can't communicate well with us, but it has a macguffin, an artifact, from somewhere else, that if used properly, could effect an escape. It tries to enable us to use the thing (which it inherently can't do for itself, hence its interest in us), and thus save us all along the way. Hinjinks ensue. The question is, from what is this thing trying to escape? If it can't tell us directly, but we manage, with it's help, to discover the nature of this threat...what is it and how do we see it and describe it?
The best catastrophe - at this stage of the plot's development - would be detectable a couple hundred years in advance of the fact, at the collider / quantum level - like, "Great Scott, the Higgs field is about to collapse!", or some such. A universal catastrophe works better for my plot, something you cannot merely run away from, even at light speed or faster.
At present, the character discovering the nature of the impending woe has at her disposal advanced tools like a collider, laser tweezers, whatever - stuff that let's you look at particles and waves and their behaviors. These tools can be more advanced than our current ones, as long as I can describe them. If the character said "The universe is going to fade away", and didn't explain exactly why, because she can't tell exactly, that's OK - I have a working idea for that (see below) - I'm more stuck on when she says "And here's how I can tell". How does she discern it?
So, here is the bourbon-fueled grandiose idea (that might be sorted out with your help, or might be blissfully abandoned for a better idea altogether)
One theme of the story is infinity and how mind-stretchingly big that could be. Say reality as we know it, in this local section of infinity, is a wave, like a specific wave (among many) rolling along out at sea (a sea among many... you get the idea) - but the wave's quanta are universes. The leading edge of the wave are universes bursting into existence, into some medium or field, and the trailing edge of the wave are universes fading away as the wave passes. If our universe is one of those in the trailing edge of the wave, and the medium though which it moves just isn't anything of interest once the wave rolls past, then from our perspective we'd just fade away. I know this is all ridiculous as physics go, but I do see writers posing fanciful questions here... Any thoughts? What might our intrepid scientist say when she comes out of her lab with the bad news, that doesn't sound like a bad 80's movie script? Like, this doesn't seem to work: "I see particles just... fading away!" Wouldn't we all be getting non-functional and unstable if that were happening? I want her to learn that this is coming up, in a couple hundred years, but not happening yet (or at least not in a manner that renders the characters and their world currently non-functional).
Thanks for any input!
Dan
The best catastrophe - at this stage of the plot's development - would be detectable a couple hundred years in advance of the fact, at the collider / quantum level - like, "Great Scott, the Higgs field is about to collapse!", or some such. A universal catastrophe works better for my plot, something you cannot merely run away from, even at light speed or faster.
At present, the character discovering the nature of the impending woe has at her disposal advanced tools like a collider, laser tweezers, whatever - stuff that let's you look at particles and waves and their behaviors. These tools can be more advanced than our current ones, as long as I can describe them. If the character said "The universe is going to fade away", and didn't explain exactly why, because she can't tell exactly, that's OK - I have a working idea for that (see below) - I'm more stuck on when she says "And here's how I can tell". How does she discern it?
So, here is the bourbon-fueled grandiose idea (that might be sorted out with your help, or might be blissfully abandoned for a better idea altogether)
One theme of the story is infinity and how mind-stretchingly big that could be. Say reality as we know it, in this local section of infinity, is a wave, like a specific wave (among many) rolling along out at sea (a sea among many... you get the idea) - but the wave's quanta are universes. The leading edge of the wave are universes bursting into existence, into some medium or field, and the trailing edge of the wave are universes fading away as the wave passes. If our universe is one of those in the trailing edge of the wave, and the medium though which it moves just isn't anything of interest once the wave rolls past, then from our perspective we'd just fade away. I know this is all ridiculous as physics go, but I do see writers posing fanciful questions here... Any thoughts? What might our intrepid scientist say when she comes out of her lab with the bad news, that doesn't sound like a bad 80's movie script? Like, this doesn't seem to work: "I see particles just... fading away!" Wouldn't we all be getting non-functional and unstable if that were happening? I want her to learn that this is coming up, in a couple hundred years, but not happening yet (or at least not in a manner that renders the characters and their world currently non-functional).
Thanks for any input!
Dan
