INTRODUCTION
a multiverse primer
THE NEAR EARTH MULTIVERSE AGENCY
WANTS YOU!
To educate yourself, to read and learn, and then to travel to see the worlds, mingle, perhaps cross-pollinate... They− The Agency− invite you to this site to educate and propagandize you into spreading the word to other adventurous thinkers ready to grapple with big-brain concepts like infinite multiple earths and stellar transmogrification.
Ostensibly, Alphazett is an online database offering historical, scientific and cultural content about other Earths as well as the people that work to keep things in order and flowing smoothly, The Agents of Retrieval.
What is a multiverse, anyway?
It seems that everything you watch or read these days, features someone either jumping through a door into another universe, or fighting with themselves over who's going to save the one they're in. Does any of it make sense? Who knows. You're too busy waiting for someone to jump into a sex world to care. It's all great fun, of course, until someone gets hurt, or has to explain how you stranded your sister in another dimension.
Alphazett is an information center designed to help you, the naïve and unprepared neophyte, avoid all that. As the resident of an Earth being considered for acceptance into the vast timeweave officially known as The Extant Continuum of Sane Humanoid Earths, or New Humanuum for short, there's a lot to learn if you wish to safely travel the infinitelybranching-transdimensional-supercauseway without drawing undue attention or getting lost.
The purpose of this site is not to teach math and science, which is all nth-level upper level cortex stuff anyway, but to offer experiences and insights from people who know what they are doing, namely the Agents of Retrieval. Members of the pan-universal organization known as The Agency, they are devoted to keeping this humanoid corner of the multiverse coherent and in order.
As you read this, they are already on your earth, working towards opening the portals so that you can travel to other earths as easily as taking an elevator. Until that mythical day arrives, however, there is a lot of work that needs to be done-- mainly by us at the Agency. But you have your part as well. Learn about your greater history, so that you’ll be prepared when the big day comes and you can visit another Earth EXACTLY LIKE YOUR OWN.
The following dropdowns are a comprehensive yet mercifully brief introduction that should be read by all travelers as your life may depend on it one day. Or not. Probably not. But please read it anyway, some poor intern probably stayed up nights writing it.
HISTORICAL DISCLAIMER
Unless stated otherwise, any timeline either implied or designated as "common history", refers to the algorithmically-determined average of all worlds with a comparable timeline, as published in the yearly Agency Common History Supplements.
Alphazett
is a word with a long and curious history barely worth repeating here, save to say that it is a word with a real past worth knowing! At once an orphan, and yet flush with countless relatives...
al’say, alazay, a lahze...
and a billion more obscure and ancient-beyond-ancient words that describe various kinds of uncountably immense collections, which all derive directly or indirectly from
æ'lýøβϖζ
perhaps the third word in creation (if you believe in that sort of thing). While older than the hills and the bones beneath, alphazett is scripture in a small cluster of early Earths while virtually unknown everywhere else, except The Agency itself, where, in some secret circles, it has become a language unto itself. The Ko-he Script alone lists eighty-seven forms of the word that together constituted a secret code for use in public situations.
In a modern context,
the alphazett limit
is a physics term that describes a specific construct within multiverse dynamics-- "The theoretical spheroid centered upon a subjective point of origin (an individual’s home-node) that encompasses the local spectrum of rational continuity, beyond which, reality is too alien/disturbing/untenable to predict a safe return"-- which in layman’s terms, is the entire universe as defined by the limit of one’s own perspective.
On a more prosaic note, one who remembers everything has an
alphazetic memory
while
an alphazett moment
is a philosophical demarcation-- the point at which you step outside everything you know into uncharted territory.
The Last Signpost ~ S. Arthur
Past the last marker on the bridge to nowhere
as the pavement begins dissolving into the broken tarmac of discarded dreams
take the unmarked exit that lies buried
beneath the bloodstains of the last hitchhiker never heard from again.
Follow that road for seven lifetimes
until the day turns ruddy in the chilly glow of eternal sunset
then look down when you can go no farther and see the sign,
a pinprick on the map of infinite corridors.
It is a doorway as deep as it is wide
halfway between the Tree of Oblivion and the sub-rosa of dark matter.
Without hesitation, pass through the alphazett moment and into the multicode vertex,
when all earths are visible in the void between.
What's a multiverse, who’s running the show, and why should I care?
All valid questions, some of which may even be answered here someday, but in the meantime, all you need to know is that The Multiverse is not a multiverse, because it's literally everything that exists in every iteration, every possibility, and every timeline. If you can imagine it, then it exists... somewhere... probably. No one can know for sure, because that part of the multiverse that we inhabit, i.e. trillions of earth-instances known as New Humanuum, is only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, etc., of the entire Multiverse, as illustrated by the diagram below.
Therefore, The Multiverse is not a multiverse, and New Humanuum is a multiverse, but not The Multiverse. Got it?
Humanuum is an identifier that says “the people of our world are curious and wish to meet other peoples that also want to hang out, get to know each other, and maybe work out some deals.” It is not a political, governmental, or cultural organization, but an agreement-- to share portals, allow fair trade, and keep crime and crazies contained. There is no center, no edges or boundaries, and certainly no membership fees, although there is paperwork, an official welcoming committee, and a nifty wall plaque.
Admission into New Humanuum is typically a fairly long process, beginning with an unobserved-observation period which may last many decades, followed by tentative and then limited contact of years to more decades. During this time, ‘evidence’ propaganda, stories, and accounts will be slowly dispersed into the general public, so that the concept of other worlds and parallel universes will gradually seep into the general consciousness, until a ‘singularity’ is reached and people begin to demand evidence, and answers. Once that happens, preparations begin for first contact, one component of which, is the Alphazett site.
One stipulation for membership is that use of portals is free and open to everyone equally, so neither presidents nor billionaires are allowed preferential treatment or access over anyone else. This will be assured because all portals are managed by the Agency, a non-partisan, independent guild devoted to keeping the peace, maintaining order, and doing the right thing.
INDUCTION CEREMONY TRANSCRIPT
AVAILABLE HERE
“Within the infinite exists a small corner of the multiverse - an Earth-cloud, many trillions of instances deep called Humanuum - where coherency is maintained through the often invisible services performed by the Agents of Retrieval and their brethren. The constant movement of people bouncing in and out of different timelines causes considerable stress and strain on the continuity of existence, and if it weren’t for the dutiful Agents regulating the whos, whens, and wheres of it all—maintaining the flow, as they call it-- make no mistake, things would go belly-up right quick.”
- Jack Strawmanchild, Chief Agency Historian, Retrieval Guild
Depending on your timeline, The Agency was founded between eight and five thousand years ago when descendants of the Urolans, a telepathically endowed race of human control freaks, emerged to once again con the locals with various forms of religious and spiritual grift. Thousands of years prior they had controlled billions of earths through mind control, manipulation, and hypnosis, until something—a virus perhaps, nearly wiped them out in a matter of a few years. Many Urolans believed it was a genocidal act orchestrated by a myriad of possible assassins-- from local kings to a race of actual gods displeased with the competition— all bent on denying them their rightful place on the top of the slag heap of humanity. Not all, however. There were at least as many descendants who did not agree with the myth of Urolans superiority and demonstrated their vehement opposition by forming an inter-earth resistance that was the first incarnation of what would eventually become known as the Agency.
Today, at every known portal there exists a station, a generic term that refers any self-contained Agency operation, varying in size from outpost to government bureaucracy, and in loose allegiance with other stations whenever a situation merits concerted efforts.
If you’ve ever heard or read about traveling to parallel worlds, then there is at least a 97% chance the Agency has been observing your earth for decades, if not centuries. Recruited from every earth and every background, Agents are people just like you- some are telepathic, some are not, and all are treated equally under penalty of expulsion by the Grievance Guild. They are adventurers, explorers, and spies, but also engineers, accountants, and doctors. Whatever the requirements of the day to day job, however, there are core principles that all Agents are sworn to uphold:
Protect Travelers | Seek out Sentinels | Maintain the Flow | Open New Portals
There are may different stripes of Agents, but the ones seen sporting fedoras and chesterfields are Agents of Retrieval. Narcissists to the core, they are generally tagged with the superspy kinds of missions involving multiple earths in nefarious collusion and sinister intent, but they also track down anomalies- individuals with extraordinary telepathic abilities, and investigate glitches in the portal networks. Theirs is not a thankless job, but fairly glamorous by Agent standards, which annoys the hell out of the other 80% of the Agents who do all the real work.
Every station is home to an integrated A.I. that manages all systems, monitors qubes and flow, processes all information, answers all questions, and often tells bad jokes. It is usually quite friendly and amicable, often with a generic name like Mother or Doctor, and is programmed to assist and support agents, but never lead, except in times of serious emergency where agents aren't able.
Simultaneously connected to all local wired and unwired data streams, the A.I. is permanently linked to the local qubenode, allowing it to remain in synch with all the A.I. in other universes. Of course, left unchecked, tens of billions of A.I. working in unison would likely destroy humanity within hours, and so fail-safes have been incorporated to prevent the cascading self-reinforcement of an unchecked superiority complex.
The Multiverse Codex is the sum total of all information gathered and generated by this trillion-brained, omniscient cloud, which is incalculable (except by the cloud itself). It is the record of all iterations, and mostly unintelligible, requiring multi-level, trans-dimensional, quadraphysical algorithms to build a stream for precise information extraction, as with Alphazett.
This was NOT in the brochure
Hey there! what’s your rush? Take a minute to read the fine print before rushing off to the eye-brain candy. Don’t worry, it’ll still be there. It took a small cadre of dedicated interns to write this, and every last one of them is a hero that deserves your attention for five minutes—a coffee break to you, but to them… lunch.
When your world eventually becomes a full New Humanuum member and is afforded all the rights and privileges thereof, you, an N.H. citizen, will have the same complete and unfettered access to the full breadth of human experience as any other. This doesn’t mean, however, that you’re automatically qualified to go traipsing willy-nilly through the multiverse with no regard for protocols. Playing pranks on your other selves or going too go too far off the grid and ending up having to flash out a beacon that scares the crap out of the locals, is never any way to go through life, and a sure way to get a visit from an Agent. All in all, a nice group of people those Agents, but they don’t like lawbreakers, and in the arena of interdimensional travel, they are the law.
In the meantime, your access is quite fettered, and limited to what the Agency wants you to read. But don’t worry, they're a cool bunch of folks, they’re not like all those other ancient societies you’ve heard rumors about. Just stay between the lines and you’ll be fine.
Never trust your variant.
Bring a jacket.
Don't get lost.
Michael Barrette
I'd stake 3.8 x 10 of my variants' lives on it!"
I'd stake 3.8 x 10 of my variants' lives on it!"
INSTANCE 4398//ZQQY
THE MULTIVERSE CODEX
Accounts of far-flung destinations suitable for the armchair tourist
Five continuing volumes of maps, articles and stories:
Strange Persons Guides
Atlas of the Humanuum
Implausible Edifices
Impossible Cities
Alphazett Glossarium
Ripped from the pages of semi-reputable publications elsewhere...
Intriguing snapshots of less-than-everyday life in the Humanuum
NEAR EARTH CATALOGUE
Rescue,
Revenge,
or
Reunion?
Chaos
In
Burger
World
An
Agent
in
Crisis
History
Before
History
Existed
Crisis
At
The
Portal
TITAN
BOUND
A child’s dream,
a parent’s nightmare,
and an alien’s salvation.
AGENTS OF
MISFORTUNE
Joe Evry's furious inner dialogue was a mental blast felt more than heard by everyone within a hundred miles.
STRUNG OUT
IN DEMIURGE
Sometimes an Agent’s worst
enemy is living right inside
their own head.
Follow the exploits of the Agents of Retrieval
And one day you may get the call...
To put them up for the night.
THE AGENCY CHRONICLES
APPROVED
