King of All I Survey
Chapter 73: Big Bang Theories

Chapter 73: Big Bang Theories

"Wait, what?" Dad asked.

"Think about it, Dad. Even Earth almost had life completely wiped out. The dinosaurs! A meteor hit and killed almost everything. It was such a chance occurrence, a tiny asteroid, hitting the planet dead on, out of all the other paths it could have taken. What if it missed? Would 65 million years of evolution with dinosaurs ruling the planet have looked different? Would some dinosaur species have developed a civilization in the 65 million extra years? What plants got wiped out? Was there something better than chocolate back then?" We just need to look at the planetary histories of the known worlds and figure out which ones had similar events that rewrote the planet’s entire history. They might have entirely different civilizations, with entirely different technologies, and maybe a whole new biosphere of plants and flavors."

"Or maybe you look like an uninvited invader, and they have space weapons all around the planet ready to blow you out of the sky," Dad warned.

"I’m willing to chance it." I said grinning.

"Wait a minute, mister. I don’t think so." Dad cut-in, as expected.

"Robot bodies, Dad," I clarified. "Joe said he can make robot bodies and transfer consciousness to them temporarily. If they get destroyed, it’s expensive, but no one gets hurt!"

"Robot bodies?" Dad repeated. "That certainly takes the risk out of it... Unless the people on those other worlds follow you back to our dimension with a huge armada of warships or something. But wait, if that kind of interdimensional hopping were possible, wouldn’t our dimension be overflowing with millions of interdimensional explorers? Or, since it was your idea here, wouldn’t there be thousands of you arriving here from other dimensions looking for the dimension where dinosaurs didn’t get wiped out?"

I didn’t have an answer for that. He was right. "Joe?"

"I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out. Dan is correct. Our current understanding of physics makes it impossible to send matter through to another dimension. Our interdimensional communications and transport units all work by accessing the ...space isn’t the right word, but it’s perhaps the best we can do in English... by accessing the space between dimensions. The transported item leaves our dimension but never enters another one. If it did, it would disintegrate at the sub-atomic particle level. King Tim, you have a sufficient understanding of quantum physics with your imprinted learning to understand this."

I thought for a second. Yes. Although the exact nature of the deconstruction wasn’t fully known, atoms would at least fall apart, possibly be annihilated entirely in a massive release of energy, and... oh. They might even act as a catalyst to unravel the entire structure of the universe in the parallel dimension. Or... "Joe, there’s a theory that such an attempt would tear a permanent hole in the fabric of both dimensions and make a sort of interdimensional wormhole... The insulative properties of that wormhole might allow matter to transport safely from one dimension to the other."

"Yes," Joe replied, "Or it might destroy both dimensions in a single cataclysmic event. Essentially breaking the forces that define matter and energy and rewriting physics from an unpredictable new basis. One theory, although it does not have a strong theoretical basis, is that such an event would be very much like what humans call the ’big bang.’ "

"Which wasn’t really a bang at all," I explained for Dad. "It was as if the fundamental forces of the universe and all matter and energy were so densely intertwined that they couldn’t be separated from one another. In fact, they were essentially all one. Individual portions weren’t separated out until, all at once, the whole thing just started expanding and cooling and individual forces like gravity, strong nuclear force, and so on, all just... self-defined... no... let’s say, they precipitated out of the hot, dense, singularity as it expanded."

Dad looked confused. I’m guessing that his Computer Science Master’s Degree didn’t focus on quantum physics. It should have, but maybe Dad just didn’t focus on it... "You mean, it wasn’t a giant explosion? The big bang wasn’t a bang?"

"Geeze, Dad. Didn’t you pay attention in school?" I chuckled. "The point is that suddenly inserting matter from our dimension into another dimension could, just possibly, erase both universes and restart them, potentially with different laws of physics. A hard reboot, as you cybersecurity people say." I grinned. "But no, imagine wiping all the data from the drive... and the BIOS, and maybe rewiring the circuitry and changing the voltage and frequency of the power supply output... anyway, it’d be a mess. If that theory is correct. Aside from that, we don’t know how to do it. Which is probably a good thing to keep some idiot from trying it."

Dad raised one eyebrow mockingly. "I’m guessing that if we could do it, you might just be the idiot who tried it..."

"Of course, I wouldn’t!" I declared, "Well, I mean, if we could establish some safety parameters and make minor experiments. Anyway, Joe’s right, I should have seen that it was impossible to bring things back or visit other dimensions. I guess the full integration of the implanted learning takes time as my brain builds pathways to my conscious thoughts and memories."

That had seemed like such a promising end-run to help turn Earth into an economic powerhouse... Imagine if we could license the patterns for useful lifeforms from all those worlds... Wait... "Joe, we don’t need to transport matter between dimensions. Just like we don’t need to ship coffee all over the galaxy. We just need the information, the molecular formulas, to be recreated here with our synthesizers. Joe, do I understand correctly that it should be possible to send massless, particles to another dimension without ripping universes apart?"

Joe paused. That scared me. With his massive processing power, there should be no reason for him ever to hesitate with an answer, he could literally follow an infinite number of logical pathways to their conclusion in less than the blink of an eye, far less than the blink of an eye. "Probably. As best as can be determined by our incomplete understanding of interdimensional physics. To be clear, we can’t entirely predict whether the laws of physics in an alternate dimension would be the same as ours, some would, some wouldn’t we think, or how they would differ in those cases where they don’t match exactly." He paused again and I realized he was doing it for dramatic effect, to impress upon us the seriousness of his words. "So, depending upon which dimension we reached into, and we wouldn’t know ahead of time, we might still rip one or both universes apart down to the subatomic level."

"So, there’s a chance it could work?" I asked grinning.

"Yeah," Dad cut-in, "but I don’t think you heard him correctly, Tim. If my limited knowledge of advanced alien quantum physics principles is correct, Joe said, ’you’d still have to be an idiot to try that."

Joe laughed out loud. "I think your understanding of physics is better than Tim gives you credit for, Dan. That’s exactly what I said."

I chuckled along with them, but in my head, I was thinking of the possibilities. Well, mostly the good possibilities, and ignoring, for the moment, some of the unpleasant ones. Maybe, if Earth’s situation got desperate enough... "Still, though, Dad’s earlier point that we don’t see interdimensional travelers popping out of the woodwork every day strongly implies that it’s impossible. The fact that our universe hasn’t been destroyed by some idiot trying to send a message through, implies that it is safe."

"No!" Dad and Joe said at the same time. Joe stopped and let Dad finish their mutual thought, "The big bang demonstrates that our universe did undergo a hard reset that matches exactly what might happen if some idiot did try it, (probably an eight-year-old with delusions of grandeur, no offense)."

Oh, I considered. That does kind of make sense. "No offense taken. I mean, a king should have grand dreams for his people’s future, so, that’s not insulting at all." I grinned. "But, yeah, let’s table that idea... for now. Still, we need to focus on finding uncontacted worlds to join the... Dad, should we call it the United Federation of Planets?" I smiled, knowing that my Trekkie Dad would be giddy at the idea.

His face lit up, the way mine did on Christmas morning. "Make it so, Number One." We both laughed. Plotting the conquest of the Earth and the building of a galactic empire seemed to be a lot of fun. Then, I remembered the lines of grave markers near the Guatemalan border. Graves filled with misguided young men who thought their best chance to escape poverty and powerlessness was crime and violence... It wasn’t fun, at all anymore. Dad must have seen my face change and guessed what I was thinking.

"Tim, we’re doing important, good work. Remember that you’re protecting humanity from a future of devastation by alien raiders armed with technologies that we still can’t access. Not only that, but by uniting Earth under one banner, you’ll be eliminating terrestrial wars altogether. Think of the millions of lives that’s going to save. Not to mention the medical advances you’ll be introducing. Tim, in the wise words of Spock, the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few."

"I know. It’s just that sometimes I wonder if it really outweighs the value of a single life lost. Joe, I want a rehabilitation center on Blue Island to be a top priority. Set up thousands of small simulation rooms that can be used for memory implant therapy for criminals we have to remove. I want our strategy to be the capture and remediation of enemies from here forward. We have the resources."

Dad smiled gently. "I’m proud of you, Tim. You’re a good person. There will still be times, though. where that’s not possible."

I sighed, "I know. I just think that a king, the kind of king I want to be, values the life and welfare of every single one of his subjects, even when it’s inconvenient. Even when they can’t see that they’re still a part of humanity’s family."

Dad nodded slowly, "just remember to add that into your equation when you’re considering something that might rip apart the universe. That would make all those sacrifices meaningless and add trillions more."

He was right, I knew. Considered that way, there was no possible justification for me to go messing around with the fundamental forces of the universe, no matter how cool it would be to see a world run by intelligent dinosaurs.

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