Alternative Worlds

Reality Chain

For the Exode Saga I've been imagining a Reality Chain in which there is a high degree of temporal momentum, thus causing the New World (the Americas) to be very similar in several successive Realities.

However, I've been having second thoughts about how similar these Realities should be. It would be more fun to introduce some significant differences between these Realities. I've decided that the Buld Reality (the world as we know it) is more similar to the Asimov Reality than it is to the Ekcolir Reality. Why is the Ekcolir Reality so strange?

The Ekcolir Reality is the first Reality in which the Ek'col are used to disrupt Trysta's mission in the Primitive. Grean travels back through time from the Asimov Reality to initiate the development of the Ek'col.

Severn Point (Ekcolr Reality)

Within the Ekcolir Reality, "pek nanites" (a misnomer, since zeptoscale devices are used) are allowed to form a symbiotic relationship with human brains on Earth. This allows the Kac'hin to closely monitor the development of Earthly civilization.

Also, Thomas was born: the son of Ekcolir and Trysta. Thomas and his clones came to have a central role in the Final Reality (the Buld Reality).

The "Viking Empire": Skangana (northern Asia and Europe, it includes Scotland and reaches the Black Sea),
the Skallan provinces of Alaska, Norseland and Pantago (southern tip of Skallan) and Snælan.

Skyline of The Warren (viewed from Airvale)

The Pla come into existence in the Ekcolir Reality and they are allowed access to Earth. The Pla send some Interventionist agents to Earth which results in some significant changes in Earth's geopolitical landscape. The great land mass of the "New World" in the Western Hemisphere is not known as America. In the Ekcolir Reality the Vikings establish and maintain a vast Empire of the North, a territorial ring beneath the entire Arctic Ocean. The Western Continent is known as Skallan. Later, the "Norsemen" claimed the southern polar continent and called it Snælan. As rulers of the two poles, they pursued a policy of support for global warming.

In the Ekcolir Reality there is no nation known as the United States of America. There was no "British Empire", only a small Dutch-English alliance.

The Dutch and English colonies in the New World eventually merged into a new nation, shown on the map here as "New England", but officially known as Beverwijck en Nicotiana.

The five boroughs of New York, Virginia:
Severn Pt., The Warren, Airvale, Holly Pt. and Tabbs Pt.

New York, Virginia is the Capitol of New England when Thomas arrives in The West. In the Ekcolir Reality, New England does not achieve independence from the Dutch-British Empire until 1889.

After gaining independence, the old imperial capitol in Richmond was abandoned and a new capitol city was established on the coast. When Thomas arrived in New York, the city was still rebuilding and recovering after a devastating 1931 hurricane.

Boardwalk in Airvale. Holly Point bridge is visible.

In the Ekcolir Reality, New France and Espanola were frequent rivals as the dominant powers in the Western Hemisphere.

Alaska, Norseland and Brazil were the second tier powers. Beverwijck en Nicotiana (New England) was one of the weakest of the Western Hemisphere nations, ranking only ahead of Pantago, the small "Norse" colonial nation at the southern tip of Skallan.

Territorial border of New England. Also shown: the positions of New York and New Amsterdam.

Daily sunset celebration in Holly Point

New York, Virginia became known as a rather sleepy city with only two economic axes: government and tourism. The Boardwalk project, first completed in 1925 and rebuilt after the 1931 storm, was nearly 150 miles in length.

The typical vacation week in New York involved walking the entire length of the Boardwalk. Each of the five boroughs tried to be the favorite of tourists. The popularity of Tabbs Point was greatly diminished by the Great Storm of 1931 which destroyed some of the most popular New York beaches.

Tabbs Borough Boardwalk

Tabbs Borough was rebuilt and by the 1960s had become the most thoroughly commercialized tourist resort of New York with features such as the Pepper Creak Roller-coaster being upgraded and rebuilt to modern standards.

Temporal Inertia
When the positronic robots Gohrlay and Nahan began causing Reality Changes they soon learned about temporal inertia. For a world like Earth, most changes in Time only alter the course of events for a few dozen centuries.

The phenomenon of temporal inertia is caused by the Sedronic Domain which retains "memory" of past Realities. By creating the Ek'col, Grean was able to prevent nuclear war on Earth, but the basic trivortex structure of Reality was not changed. Earth still faced global warming and catastrophic sea level rise.

In the Ekcolir Reality, Earth saw major melting of its ice sheets and sea level rise of almost 250 feet. As told in Tryta and Ekcolir, working together, Grean and Trysta were able to engineer one final Reality change designed and crafted so that Earth might avoid both nuclear war and global warming.

In my next blog post I explore some other important differences between successive Realities with special attention to the ups and downs of Trysta's romantic life.

Related Reading: the Civil War in the Ekcolir Reality.