Multiverse
From Charadex
| This wiki is for the webcomic Missing Number: Adventures in Glitch City! |
Contents |
Discovery of the Multiverse
The details are shrouded in mystery, but it's believed that a minor character from the Star Fox universe once went to sleep with his hyperdrive on without setting the navigational computer; upon waking up he had overshot his destination and had appeared in the Final Fantasy universe. Upon successfully backtracking his course, he was summarily arrested for improper use of a hyperdrive.
Research conducted by Light Labs into the phenomenon lead to the discovery that the universe is a Tegmark Level 1 multiverse... in other words, all game universes exist side by side in 3D space, but are just out of "sight" of each other. Hyperdrives operating at large multipliers can travel through space far enough to emerge from one universe into another. Development of such high multiplier drives were mainly funded by the tourism industry.
Multiverse and Dieties
Many game universes are populated with powerful dieties; this discovery of the multiverse has occasionally brought up the discussion as to why an all powerful demigod from one universe would be virtually unknown in another.
The initial main theory was that gods receive their powers from the specific structure of the universes they inhabit, and therefore their powers are confined to that universe.
A spokesman for the War God and Teamsters Union, Local #427, has stated that it's actually contractural obligations of the union to localize their effects only to their assigned universes.
In either case, a citizen of one universe is still able to communicate with the god of their universe, and be affected by them, even if they are currently located in an incompatible universe.
Justification in Missing Number: Adventures in Glitch City
Many of the jokes we wished to write involved interaction between various game universes. While the comic is mainly Pokemon Themed (although it's a bit hard to tell for the first few tens of issues), we wanted to be able to crack a Star Fox joke, or a Super Mario joke... but we also wanted an explanation for why suddenly we were flying Arwings... or why they were renting their apartment from Nook the Crook.
The solution we finally settled on was The Multiverse, where every universe is a location that can be traveled to. (See http://missingnumbercomics.com/missing-number/how-david-met-chris-2/, http://missingnumbercomics.com/missing-number/how-david-met-chris-5/) This opens up tons of opportunities for cross-game jokes... want to make a Super Mario RPG joke? Get on a bus.
One issue we've never quite handled is how to manage similar, but distinct, universes. Say, the difference between Super Mario Brothers and Paper Mario. At this time, we just avoid the problem and call it the "Mario Universe." It works for now.
External Links
- Wikipedia Article on Multiverse
- Q-In-Law, a Star Trek novel where Q reveals to Lawaxana Troi that the answer to the Universe is a nectarine.
