Forever Thrilled, Part 24
Chapter 8: The Inter-Universal Handshake
Chapter 8: The Inter-Universal Handshake
With feelings strongly mixing relief and premonition, Na-Yeli & Co shoot through the Shutter, the Moiety Alien right behind them. They’ve left their prison but are unsure what is beyond it, if they are in the distant past or the far future, and how the Universe has changed. In her worst nightmare, Na-Yeli dreamt they exited the Enigmatic Object to find themselves in the middle of the heat death of the Universe, where the accelerated expansion has moved all matter beyond their reach. But she needn’t have worried, though, as the first thing they see is a huge rectangular shape, gleaming a bright cyan. Don’t tell me I’m going insane, Na-Yeli thinks, as its sides are a near-perfect one-by-four-by-nine.
It’s the only thing nearby, and if Na-Yeli’s lidar measurements are correct, it’s towering over them and the Enigmatic Object: one hundred by four hundred by nine hundred kilometers. It seems too neat to be accidental.
Before they can wonder or analyze what it is, they’re approached by an alien craft whose direction suggests it originates from the strange Clarkean Monolith. Its approach is very straightforward, aiming a pulsating light beam right at them, together with several transmissions throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, with short and long (the long exactly twice as long as the short ones) pulses. Deciphering it is a piece of cake.
—the standard first contact protocol— the communication AI signals —this is meant, nay designed, to be understood—
“Well, you’re the specialist,” Na-Yeli says, “do the honors.”
—i’m taking the highest baud rate one— it signals —in the ka band. won’t be long—
“I’m happy to find that there’s intelligent life out here,” Na-Yeli says, “I can wait.”
Na-Yeli and the rest of her crew wait anxiously as the communication AI exchanges a few moderated pulses with the alien craft. Then it speaks up:
—it seems they’re the rehabilitation team— the communication AI signals —automated sentries to welcome and process aliens that exit from the enigmatic object. they apologize for being late, as we’ve exited it at an unplanned moment. they ask for our names and type of species, and if the sequence has changed—
Na-Yeli smells something strange. “Don’t give our real names,” she races through her database, “tell them we’re Sartorial Hang-Gliders. Tell them we don’t know why it opened prematurely, either, and that we were too happy to get out to wonder about it.”
—fine, they say— the communication AI signals —they ask us to follow them to the reception area that is right within that huge blue rectangular box out there—
“Could you ask them what that huge rectangular object is?” Na-Yeli says.
—will do— the communication AI signals —it’s the ... well, there’s no other way to translate this ... Na-Yeli museum—
“What the hell?” Is all Na-Yeli can say, initially. “Are you sure?”
—as sure as i can be— it signals —they explain it’s built in honor of the human na-yeli and an unnamed moiety alien who returned from the enigmatic object with the so-called ‘inter-universal handshake’—
This news shocks Na-Yeli into silence. This can’t be true, she thinks, eventually, as we’re here. Then the slow CEO starts to assess the situation, and consider alternatives. Before they reveal themselves, it’s probably better to keep a low profile and find out as much as possible from this, obviously very far, future.
“Whatever happens,” Na-Yeli instructs the communication AI, “never reveal to them who we really are unless I give permission. Unless I give a very explicit, extremely clear order to do so.”
—aye cap’n— the communication AI signals.
The Automated Sentries lead them to the Monolith (Na-Yeli is still too bewildered to think of it as her museum). Watching it more closely, it seems its color has become more like a shade of deep purple. Its color seems to change over time. Will it eventually go beyond the visible (to humans) spectrum into the ultraviolet? But right now, Na-Yeli & Co. have bigger fish to fry, fish so big they make the leviathan Stealth Whale Shark seem like a tiny mackerel.
As they approach the edge of one of the smallest two rectangles of the monolith—still one hundred by four hundred kilometers—a square entrance zaps open and the spacecraft of the Automated Sentries moves in, signaling Na-Yeli & Co to follow them.
“Ask them if this entrance is locked,” Na-Yeli says.
—they say it isn’t— the communication AI signals after a few seconds —after all, what’s the point? there’s nothing but parsecs of empty space out there, which would take many, many years to cross at lightspeed—
“Then how can they get us back to our home species?” Na-Yeli wonders.
—the wormhole is inside the Na-Yeli museum— the communication AI signals —of course—
Very trusting and rather incurious automated sentries, Na-Yeli thinks, have war and violence become obsolete? It further feeds her hunch that they’re in the very distant future, indeed. “Ask them what’s inside the museum,” She says.
The communication AI does so, and after a few moments, it gives this summation:
1. The MA (Moiety Alien) wormhole that receives the museum’s visitors and transports the EO’s refugees back to their home worlds;
2. The Hypersounder Sanctuary, a near-exact replication of the environment in which Na-Yeli’s hypersounders were originally discovered and where most of them were downloaded;
3. The Inter-Universal Handshake Library;
4. The Replication Chambers consisting of virtual renderings of the Enigmatic Object’s layers as Na-Yeli & Co found them:
A. Helium Incubus (where participants can fight the opportunistic aliens like Na-Yeli & Co did);
B. Fractal Wonderland (that participants can explore the way Na-Yeli & Co did);
C. Superwaves/Superswirl (ibid);
D. The Trebuchet Tree in the Jungle (where participants must avoid being taken prisoners by the megafauna and subsequently being launched into the mini-Sun);
E. Whiplash Pandemonium (where participants must try to cross from one hemisphere to the next during the Great Suicidal Trek);
F. The Noise that Destroys (actual daredevils can cross the Doom Bell replica—the Hypersounder Sanctuary—at their own risk);
G. The Moving Mountains (which participants can try to pass);
H. The Rain from Hell (ibid);
I. The Mystery at the Centre (which participants can experience and explore in the same way as Na-Yeli & Co did);
The most popular tourist destination in this universe— the communication AI translates —especially since the actual Enigmatic Object is off-limits—
“Why is that?” Na-Yeli has a strong inkling, if not déjà vu, then a prognostication.
—by special request of the legendary Na-Yeli herself— the communication AI translates.
The slow CEO is already adding one plus one. Even if she doesn’t know—or even understand—some of the details, she only needs one more piece of the puzzle.
“Ask them about the Inter-Universal Handshake,” Na-Yeli says.
—it’s the paradoxical exchange of information between the susy (supersymmetric) universe and our universe that both proved and solved gödel’s incompleteness theorem— the communication AI translates —the paradox being that while neither the alter-universal aliens in the susy universe could truly comprehend some of our findings, and neither we could truly comprehend some of their findings, through mathematics so abstract and abstruse nobody fully groks, yet can program and use in- and outputs, the logical consistency of both universes was confirmed, while neither truly understood exactly how—
“Which was probably for the better,” Na-Yeli says, head spinning.
—no, which is the only way it can be— the communication AI translates —they insist. we can explore the full implications in the inter-universal handshake library—
“Can you ask for a quick summary that we can study before we visit it?” Na-Yeli says, “so we are prepared?”
—here it is, together with a general overview of how matters are in today’s universe— the communication AI signals —they assume you want to visit the inter-universal handshake library before they return us home?—
“Tell them yes,” Na-Yeli says, “but that we need, say, an extra day to gather our senses, to recover from our future shock.”
—they understand— the communication AI translates —and they think it’s smart, as there’s a very long waiting list to get a visitor’s pass to Na-Yeli’s Museum—
Left to their own devices, Na-Yeli & Co. still have their fate in their own hands. One short day to figure out if they want to remain in this hyper-evolved future or take their chances and return to the Enigmatic Object. Na-Yeli starts by soaking up all the available information.
Checking the Automated Sentries’ handout, in this far future, after the Inter-Universal Handshake, everything is known. They know what is possible within the laws of nature and what is not. They’ve set up wormholes connecting the known intelligent species and SEKOs—naked singularities—for those adventurers who wish to explore other Universes.
The alter-Universal aliens are in the SUSY Universe and could only connect to our Universe through their (reverse) SEKO. The supersymmetric Universe is also imbued with its own version of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, namely that a particular system—like, indeed, a complete Universe—could have fundamental laws that are entirely consistent, but their consistency cannot be proved within that same system. Hence, they needed proof from outside their Universe, from a system that is qualitatively different from theirs.
Problem was that the only other Universe they were aware of, and eventually could connect to, was ours. We are the supersymmetric version of their Universe and vice-versa. When they finally found a way to connect to our Universe—by setting up a naked singularity or a Super Extreme Kerr Object (SEKO)—they discovered that our Universe was devoid of intelligence. In other words, intelligence evolved much sooner in the SUSY Universe.
Then, unwilling to wait or even chance the possibility that intelligence might not develop here at all, the alter-Universal aliens decided to help this along and seeded our Universe with the superposed aliens. The superposed aliens were like a dormant seed: compactified packets traveling superposed on electromagnetic waves which were still imbued with a supersymmetric force carrier called paxador, so that the alter-Universal aliens could recognize intelligent life when it would eventually arrive at the Enigmatic Object. The superposed aliens would try to trigger self-consciousness once life forms had reached a certain threshold of complexity.
However, having seeded our Universe with the potential of intelligence, they did not want just any intelligence advanced enough to develop interstellar travel to contact them straightaway. No, they wanted to make sure that the species that would contact them were ready for their side of the Inter-Universal Handshake to be able to prove their side of the Gödel Incompleteness Theorem. So they built the Enigmatic Object and set it up in such a manner that only a small part of any intelligent species—preferably one single specimen—would be able to enter it at a time and to space the openings far enough apart to prevent overpopulating it (in reality though, the wars fought over the Enigmatic Object were a much harsher filter for entry).
Once the Enigmatic Object was complete—a cosmic engineering project that took so much time and trials and errors that, in the meantime, intelligent life had already left their home systems—the Enigmatic Object’s siren song was set up: the gravity waves encoding its position.
For good measure, the alter-Universal Aliens were setting up Enigmatic Objects in other galaxies of our Universe, as well. Our galaxy just had the stupendous luck to be the first, the first one where an Enigmatic Object was built, and the first to be seeded with the superposed aliens. Even then, we barely finished as number one, as not far behind us, other species in other galaxies initiated contact in their Cores and set up Inter-Universal Handshakes not much later. The alter-Universal aliens didn’t mind: better several proofs of concept rather than a single one.
In any case, after the Inter-Universal Handshake proved—and solved—Gödel’s Theorem, it led to a Theory of Everything for this and the SUSY Universe and subsequently led the basis for the discovery of—and even later, connections to—other Universes.
Data can be compressed and sent through a SEKO—as Na-Yeli experienced in the Core—but setting up SEKOs large enough for living entities to traverse is not only extremely costly energy-wise but utterly impractical as none of the existing alien species can survive the gravitational forces. So, while the alter-Universal aliens happily assisted in setting up the SEKO-data exchange portal across our Universe, personal travel still has strict limitations.
This limit is the speed of light in a vacuum. Wormhole connections are possible, but the two wormholes have to be produced close to each other and then drawn apart at a speed below lightspeed. So it took an immense amount of time to connect the major intelligences of this galaxy with wormholes, and new connections continue to be made, even if the wait for them to cross interstellar distances is immense. Intergalactic connections are underway, and the first one to the Andromeda Galaxy is expected to be completed in two hundred thousand years (well ahead of the Milky Way/Andromeda merging in four billion years).
The intelligent species who live in this distant, inter-connected future where the Theory of Everything about the Universe they inhabit is known, call themselves Eschatonians. The end state of knowledge in this Universe—and that of the SUSY Universe—is reached. Some systems are still chaotic, but now they know why these are chaotic. And while the number of possibilities for such chaotic systems is still bigger than what can be calculated by a Universal Turing Machine, all these states are not qualitatively unique.
So, there is some leeway for the unknown, but the unknown is not surprising anymore. There are wormhole connections to other civilizations; however, new ones need thousands to billions—the far ends of our Universe—of years to set up, which bugs Na-Yeli no end.
There are still many more intelligent species in our Universe—and new ones are still evolving—but the ones in contact with the SEKO-data and wormhole-transport networks and aware of all the latest scientific findings are roughly divided into the following groups:
• The SafeKeepers and Gluttonists—those who are content in knowing all there is to know in this Universe and work to live in contentment in this ‘safe space’, and keep it that way, for as long as possible, with the Gluttonists enjoying it to the max, pushing against entropy, as much as they can;
• The IntraVirtuals—those bored with the limits of our Universe but too afraid to explore other Universes, so are making virtual worlds to their own perfection;
• The Repentless Scientists—who try to discover the laws of nature in other Universes, then try to combine them into one overarching framework of existence;
• The Explorers—the Inner ones remain in this Universe; the Outer ones try to explore as many strange Universes as possible, wondering at their strangeness;
• The Visitors—aliens from other Universes exploring ours, wondering at our strangeness;
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Author’s note: there you go, all is revealed. I can now say that both “Forever Curious” and “Forever Thrilled” were inspired1 by Alastair Reynolds’s novella “Diamond Dogs”. In that novella2, though, it is not explained what Roland Childe—having turned into a ‘diamond dog’ indeed—will find if he ever makes it to the top of the Blood Spire.
Al—who’s a good friend—told me that it was inspired by a documentary about mountain climbers who tried to scale K23 , some dying in the attempt, ‘because it is there’. So it was never the intention to reveal what would be in the very top of the Blood Spire.
Personally, I also see the progress they make through the different chambers of the Blood Spire as a metaphor for scientific discovery; that is, you can’t know what you find until you do. Plus there might never be an end to it.
On top of that, there are many great novels that never explain the mystery behind them, such as Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, Ian McDonald’s Chaga and Kirinya, and Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” novels4, because the mystery is an essential part of the work5.
On the other hand, there’s also a certain satisfaction in works where the most important parts are explained, such as in Greg Egan and Stephen Baxter’s novels. Hence, I decided to devise, not a Big Dumb Object, but rather a structure with a complex design and call it the ‘Enigmatic Object’ and eventually explain how it works and the reason why it was made.
This rhymes with the way Na-Yeli observes each layer of the Enigmatic Object—she doesn’t just want to survive, but also figure out how each layer works. Thus this duology is about—as the physicist Richard Feynman had it—’the pleasure of finding things out’.
Part 25 will conclude the duology. Thanks for everybody along for the ride over these past two years, and many thanks for reading!
And novels like Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama, and others mentioned above;
Which I also spoofed in a short story called “Random Acts of Cosmic Whimsy”;
And not Mount Everest, if memory serves me right;
Used to be a trilogy, but he added Absolution in November last year;
And adding that explanation afterwards—as unfortunately happened when Gentry Lee (with permission from Clarke, it must be said) wrote the Rama sequels—destroys the magic;