New Story
gipsywriter and I went to an outdoor jazz quintet this evening. They were okay, but you could tell they weren't an official group. They all did their own things and occasionally played together. Not exactly my type of jazz. There were a few really good songs, but not the bluesy jazz that really gets me going.
During the performance, we got to talking and I mentioned something would last till the end of time (I don't remember what that was any more), and Jen commented that at least we'd have a long time. I rebutted, how do you know? What if the end of time is next week? A question heretofore unthought of, she assented and we focused on the music again.
This got me to thinking on my own perceptions of time and how I differ from the norm (although I hope that my own way of thinking will become more popular in the future--in fact, the story I'm leading up to is essentially an opportunity for me to say "I told you so" eons from now when I'm proven a thinker well beyond my time :). I don't believe in a linear measure of time. The universe began with the big bang and will end at some other point (or even continue onward forever, which begs the question, why was there ever a beginning if there doesn't have to be an ending?). I believe the big bang was the end of time and that the end of time is the beginning of time. The universe was created by its ending. Circular time measurement seems more practical to me (it also justifies my atheism, as a circle has no beginning or ending. It is continuous).
We have evidence of the universe expanding. This evidence is used to postulate the big bang. Others have stated and that I agree that the universe may one day stop expanding and in fact fold back in on itself, a cosmic implosion of sorts. This would then answer the quesiton, how do you know the end of time isn't next week? We know it because the universe is still expanding.
This got me to thinking of how this would work in a story. Where is the center of the universe? Is there a multiverse? What causes the implosion? And I eventually came upon yo-yo theory. A singular universe imploding and exploding at a central point much like an hour glass. The universe explodes into Universe A, eventually imploding back in on itself and at its focus, implodes into Universe B, bouncing back and forth between the two. What is this centralized point? A black hole seems suitable. Black holes don't seem to have as much prominence in science fiction as they used to. But there are multiple black holes. Why does it happen at just one? Who says that it has to happen at just one? Perhaps the universe as we know it is actually a multiverse and all these black holes are spilling universes on top of one another like a cosmic ven diagram.
The year is 2012 and a studious astrophysicist just shy of getting his PhD records the first measurement of the universe collapsing rather than expanding. The newly elected president (currently slated to be Jeb Bush) declares him an enemy combatant. And while the supreme court has ruled that American citizens cannot be held indefinitely as enemy combatants, all that means is he needs to be held at a secret prison in Afghanistan. The NSA then deletes any official record that he's existed and the government goes on a disinformation campaign about science. Over the course of the next 50 years, popular opinion trends to the notion that our astrological equipment is not developed enough to properly record great distances and that scientific theorizing based on gravity wells is scientific fantasy and not scientific evidence. The nation becomes even more conservative than it currently is and new science is held in suspect. No new publications of the collapsing universe are accepted by the public and NASA openly refutes any such claims as fraudulent.
During the course of these decades, a new Soviet uprising causes many of our covert operations to be abandoned, and the Afghan prison is given over to the Taliban, its prisoners left and forgotten. 50 years now past and the Soviet threat resolved, a new terrorist tragedy causes another American invasion of Afghanistan and US Special Forces secure a prison compound where the Taliban is holding American hostages. ...or so they thought. A nearly 80-year-old man calling himself Galileo claims that he has been in prison for 50 years, captured and detained by the American government, for making the discovery that the universe was coming to an end.
I'm debating whether I should postulate the rate at which the universe is collapsing and add the tragic irony that his discovery means the world is ending in 500 billion years, or however long the universe is theorized to be expanding. Or if, by following a multiverse theory of multiple foci through various black holes, the current postulations of the age of the universe is incorrect and the rate of descent is much shorter (measured in the hundreds of millions of years). Either way, I'm having trouble creating any real suspense by a "oh, the universe is collapsing in on itself at an exponential rate!" because that just seems like ridiculous sensationalism. I'd rather make this a more political sci-fi than a Michael Bay story.
So the title that first got me going was God's Yo-Yo which quickly got scrapped for "Walking the Dog." How many people will conceive of a story as science fiction if it's named "Walking the Dog," though? So now I'm contemplating "Galileo Walks the Dog." It looses a bit of its oomph, but lets you know it's something more than just a dog lover's book.
Please weigh in on your preference between those two. Other suggestions are welcome if they don't suck. :P
During the performance, we got to talking and I mentioned something would last till the end of time (I don't remember what that was any more), and Jen commented that at least we'd have a long time. I rebutted, how do you know? What if the end of time is next week? A question heretofore unthought of, she assented and we focused on the music again.
This got me to thinking on my own perceptions of time and how I differ from the norm (although I hope that my own way of thinking will become more popular in the future--in fact, the story I'm leading up to is essentially an opportunity for me to say "I told you so" eons from now when I'm proven a thinker well beyond my time :). I don't believe in a linear measure of time. The universe began with the big bang and will end at some other point (or even continue onward forever, which begs the question, why was there ever a beginning if there doesn't have to be an ending?). I believe the big bang was the end of time and that the end of time is the beginning of time. The universe was created by its ending. Circular time measurement seems more practical to me (it also justifies my atheism, as a circle has no beginning or ending. It is continuous).
We have evidence of the universe expanding. This evidence is used to postulate the big bang. Others have stated and that I agree that the universe may one day stop expanding and in fact fold back in on itself, a cosmic implosion of sorts. This would then answer the quesiton, how do you know the end of time isn't next week? We know it because the universe is still expanding.
This got me to thinking of how this would work in a story. Where is the center of the universe? Is there a multiverse? What causes the implosion? And I eventually came upon yo-yo theory. A singular universe imploding and exploding at a central point much like an hour glass. The universe explodes into Universe A, eventually imploding back in on itself and at its focus, implodes into Universe B, bouncing back and forth between the two. What is this centralized point? A black hole seems suitable. Black holes don't seem to have as much prominence in science fiction as they used to. But there are multiple black holes. Why does it happen at just one? Who says that it has to happen at just one? Perhaps the universe as we know it is actually a multiverse and all these black holes are spilling universes on top of one another like a cosmic ven diagram.
The year is 2012 and a studious astrophysicist just shy of getting his PhD records the first measurement of the universe collapsing rather than expanding. The newly elected president (currently slated to be Jeb Bush) declares him an enemy combatant. And while the supreme court has ruled that American citizens cannot be held indefinitely as enemy combatants, all that means is he needs to be held at a secret prison in Afghanistan. The NSA then deletes any official record that he's existed and the government goes on a disinformation campaign about science. Over the course of the next 50 years, popular opinion trends to the notion that our astrological equipment is not developed enough to properly record great distances and that scientific theorizing based on gravity wells is scientific fantasy and not scientific evidence. The nation becomes even more conservative than it currently is and new science is held in suspect. No new publications of the collapsing universe are accepted by the public and NASA openly refutes any such claims as fraudulent.
During the course of these decades, a new Soviet uprising causes many of our covert operations to be abandoned, and the Afghan prison is given over to the Taliban, its prisoners left and forgotten. 50 years now past and the Soviet threat resolved, a new terrorist tragedy causes another American invasion of Afghanistan and US Special Forces secure a prison compound where the Taliban is holding American hostages. ...or so they thought. A nearly 80-year-old man calling himself Galileo claims that he has been in prison for 50 years, captured and detained by the American government, for making the discovery that the universe was coming to an end.
I'm debating whether I should postulate the rate at which the universe is collapsing and add the tragic irony that his discovery means the world is ending in 500 billion years, or however long the universe is theorized to be expanding. Or if, by following a multiverse theory of multiple foci through various black holes, the current postulations of the age of the universe is incorrect and the rate of descent is much shorter (measured in the hundreds of millions of years). Either way, I'm having trouble creating any real suspense by a "oh, the universe is collapsing in on itself at an exponential rate!" because that just seems like ridiculous sensationalism. I'd rather make this a more political sci-fi than a Michael Bay story.
So the title that first got me going was God's Yo-Yo which quickly got scrapped for "Walking the Dog." How many people will conceive of a story as science fiction if it's named "Walking the Dog," though? So now I'm contemplating "Galileo Walks the Dog." It looses a bit of its oomph, but lets you know it's something more than just a dog lover's book.
Please weigh in on your preference between those two. Other suggestions are welcome if they don't suck. :P