| Sovereign Threads: The Spring Fanfiction Project |
"The Beginning"The multiverse had always been an interesting place. It had never, however, been quite this interesting. It was infinite number of universes, suspended in a single, linear dimension, which spun ceaselessly in miraculous spirals. Within its eternal confines, new universes were created every millisecond, splitting from their creators in explosive blasts of light and energy. This was no vacation resort. The multiverse was a harsh and chaotic climate, spreading like a hungry parasite into the bowels of darkness. Transcending space and time, the ebb and flow of the multiverse continued throughout millennia. Indeed, the very concept of time itself was a foreign element here. Millions of variations of the Earth at 4:58:02 PM eastern standard time, December 17th, 1964 AD, existed on this plane, as did an infinite number of Earths forever lost in the age of dinosaurs. They all existed on a cosmic chain of sorts; strung out like a grid conveying an unlimited number of different fates for humanity. In one world, Solid Snake was nothing more than a homeless drifter, begging for food at the corners of desolate urban alleyways. In another world, Ganondorf ruled supreme over all of Hyrule. In yet another, a beautiful plumber by the name of Peach saved Prince Mario Mario from Bowser’s nefarious clutches. Every possibility imaginable existed in at least one world, yet the most logical strains remained the predominant ones. In most of the worlds named ‘Spira’, Yuna had become a female summoner, even if in many worlds, she never had the opportunity to meet Tidus. In most of the variations of Vice City, Tommy Vercetti had earned his reputation as a violent, explosive gang lord. Indeed, logic…and a sense of order, of destiny, prevented fringe elements from becoming mainstream. The entity, however, cared little for Snake, Ganondorf or Yuna. A being with such immaculate importance as the caretaking of this multiverse had bigger concerns. From a higher dimension, the entity had been…many in lesser worlds would say hired…to cultivate and nurture these series of worlds. It had no physical body, yet the entity was in every imaginable way superior to any being in any of its universes. Kefka, Sephiroth, Janus Zeal; if any of those villainous figures had truly threatened the entire fabric of the multiverse, they could be wiped out from existence effortlessly. Yet although such frightening men had scared their own worlds into submission, their impacts were minimal on the greater stage. The entity measured lives by the thousands of trillions. A few million lost here or there was nearly a given, given the natural rates of human aggression and natural disasters. Even the sudden and unexpected loss of a billion or more souls barely registered on the entity’s conscience. In many ways, every being in existence was merely a pawn to a far greater scheme. The entity knew of this scheme only too well. Its dream was to create a utopia, a perfect world crafted entirely by the chances by the multiverse’s constant mitosis. So far, however, despite the nearly infinite number of universes created, every specimen was flawed. In many ways, the series of worlds were test subjects, and all of them had been failures. Some, however, were better off than others. Though the world paths the entity had vaguely identified as ‘Tetris’ had little in the way of lifeforms, its utter simplicity contributed to a feeling of pureness. On the other hand, worlds like Spira and Earth were far more flawed, and humanity’s sins there far more numerous. The entity could only cringe with every memory of war; the very concept of such brutality seemed utterly foreign. Humans and like creatures were so self-absorbed that they fought with their very lives for a speck of unimportant land, or a pathetically obscure and unnecessary concept. At several of its bleakest moments, the entity had even considered shutting down the project entirely. It would seem as if the enormous energy costs far outweighed any plausible benefits. Those feelings would recede, however, for the entity was a being of deep thought, not of raw emotions. During the eons of its waiting it had considered and debated every major philosophical quandary; it had now been several millennia since it had discovered the meaning of life…and the equally poignant reasoning behind the necessity of death. The entity was wise even in comparison to others of its race, but it did not find much happiness in most of its knowledge. So time passed, and the multiverse continued to stretch into darkness. Time passed, and with each moment came an exponentially larger number of branching universes. Time passed and did not pass, in the ultimate of paradoxes; the original universe from whence all was born still existed in its molecular form, yet new universes were added to its offspring at an alarmingly fast pace. So long as the laws of physics were obeyed, the multiverse would remain a relatively stable, flourishing environment. Unfortunately, someone else had…other plans. The entity did not know who, or what, began to interfere with the multiversal coding. Nor did it have the capability to find out. Yet somehow, in a spilt second, everything…changed. It had begun on the tiniest of scales, with a the offspring of a single splitting universe pulling back into the multiversal fabric, rather than expanding upon it. It was as if a tiny speck of dust had been blown against the flow of the wind. At first, the entity dismissed it. A slight quantum blip, perhaps, or a singularity disruption. Yet, minutes later, it happened again. And again. And again. The universes almost appeared to begin regressing. The entity blamed it on a temporary malfunction in the physics programming. Yet after a bit of intense studying, it realized that numerically, the coding was still flawless; all logic suggested the plane should have still been increasing in size. The opposite was actually occurring. The individual universes now all seemed to almost be imploding under their own collective weight, drawn together as if being sucked in by a black hole. The universes were designed to separate themselves after mitosis, give themselves plenty of space; but instead, they were moving towards each other at dangerous speeds, colliding into the center in a massive display of sheer force. The entity had eventually come to the conclusion that an outside force was in play. Perhaps that source was actually a human from one of the worlds, who had somehow found a way to transverse the natural boundaries of its species (this was extremely unlikely, and several lines of internal coding was designated to prevent it from happening…however, the entity lacked many viable alternative solutions. Anything was to be considered.) Or, perhaps, another of the entity’s race was up to no good. Whatever the cause, it quickly understood the ramifications such a condensing effect would have. The worlds would rip each other to shreds in epic natural disasters of untold magnitude…and lucky survivors from each world would be left to claim what remained. The cultural differences would be unbridgeable; diplomacy would not be an option after so many deaths and so much loss of life. Whoever would survive would be moved to conquer, aimlessly attempting to use brute force to make things right again. Whoever had done this had wanted the greatest worlds the multiverse had created to battle to their possible demises. For the first time in its existence, the entity was sincerely baffled. It simply could not comprehend, much less deal appropriately with, the scale of the developing problem. If only a few worlds had gone to hell, they could be easily erased. A conflict on this scale, however, would require nearly every world’s destruction to spare a select minority. The entity knew that such a solution would lead to a reprimand from its superiors; subsequently, it began looking for less devastating solutions. Perhaps a repair diagnosis on the system would at least reveal any possible malfunction or unallowed entry into the system files. Whatever the case, such research would take a dire amount of time. It was unlikely any solution would become evident soon enough. In the meantime, at least a few collisions were inevitable. Certain worlds were about to experience a nightmare scenario beyond belief. They would be tested to endure through the greatest conflicts of their ages. Few would survive…fewer still would emerge victorious. The risk of letting such immeasurable bloodshed occur was horrifically large, but the entity...perhaps due to sheer of lack of experience with dealing with such a crisis...could foresee no better solution. Such was the price of the sovereign threads that bound a universe…threads that were about to be undone. Next Entry Back |