Is there a space story that is a prequel to Earth?

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lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,409
9,931
126
You must have low standards for fiction.

Here's an interesting video on the subject, if you're so inclined.

All that stuff's super interesting, but I'm too dumb to really understand it. It would be cool to become omnipotent, and/or have perfect understanding of how things work, and be able to see it in person.
 

repoman0

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2010
5,191
4,570
136
Our understanding of space, time and the universe is centered on the Big Bang being the beginning of everything. Why? Why do we limit ourselves in that way?

How many Supernovas have we logged? Why do we insist there could have been only one Big Bang? Why couldn't our Big Bang have been just one of many, each one spawning a new 'universe' of galaxies?


They say time is timeless. Why do we limit time to have begun with what we call the Big Bang? Perhaps the billions of years we know of are just a fraction of a second in a bigger period of time.

Perhaps what we know of as humans came from one of those other big bang eras.
I think plenty of people including modern physicists speculate about those ideas. The problem is we’ll never be able to prove it one way or the other because our observations are limited to what we can observe in our local universe. For all we know we could live inside an enormous black hole in a wider infinite expanse, or in any number of different types of multiverse. Nothing in modern physics can say anything definitive about it though. Check out the book The Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
17,171
16,313
146
I think plenty of people including modern physicists speculate about those ideas. The problem is we’ll never be able to prove it one way or the other because our observations are limited to what we can observe in our local universe. For all we know we could live inside an enormous black hole in a wider infinite expanse, or in any number of different types of multiverse. Nothing in modern physics can say anything definitive about it though. Check out the book The Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark.
I have that book and it's fantastic.

For @Lost_in_the_HTTP , there's several potentials regarding the big bang/the generation of our reality. If you're really curious, check out the mathematical universe. It covers a *lot* of good shit. Suffice to say there's explanations that aren't so handwavey as 'there was a big explosion and that's it, stop asking questions'.
 
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Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,557
3,728
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Mutineer's Moon by David Weber (and subsequent books in the series) might be somewhat in this area. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it without giving too much away. It mostly takes place 'now' but the major plot line is understanding and dealing with the consequences of things set in motion by living things before humans existed on Earth
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
32,686
10,855
136
I don't see why there can't be many universes. Almost everything we see is a superset of something smaller. It's likely this "universe" is just a distinct clump of stuff floating in some cosmic goo, and there's uncountable other universes expanding, and tearing apart all around it.
I guess that it doesn't matter if there are many universes as they wouldn't be able to interact if they were separate universes!
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
37,056
32,377
136
A long time ago in a galaxy... It's right there in the first 4 words of the movie.
 

lxskllr

No Lifer
Nov 30, 2004
59,409
9,931
126
I guess that it doesn't matter if there are many universes as they wouldn't be able to interact if they were separate universes!
I don't know that I'd conclude that. In my model, think of a universe as a galaxy. It's a self contained unit, with self contained mechanics. It stands as a functioning system even if nothing else exists aside from that galaxy. However, galaxies do collide, and the systems mix.

Remember Orbitz? That drink with the little balls floating in it? Imagine each of those balls is a universe, and they're getting bigger, though less dense as they do. Eventually, matter from those balls is gonna mix. As all the particles expand(losing energy as they do), the systems break down, and the bits of universe just lazily float around until /something/ brings them together and creates an uber "blackhole" that crushes everything down to a point. Then you get a Big Bang™ with the new universe expanding, creating galaxies, stars, and solar systems, and eventually some dumb monkeys thinking "I wonder what the universe is?". Rinse, repeat...

So, anyway. If faster than light travel is possible(lets pretend Trekland is a real thing), I don't see why there's any speed limit. If light can be outrun, what's to stop you from outrunning the universe expansion, and crossing into a different universe? Or maybe you don't even have to outrun it. Just wait until you expand into a different universe, and hope there's still enough energy left to see it?

All this is to get around the idea of matter expanding into nothing, which I don't accept. It also follows the progression of just about everything else we see, so it's logical to extrapolate to the universe as a whole, though there's likely a lot of physics still left to discover. We haven't seen the whole machine yet.

NOTE:
Universe is really a bad name. It mandates that it's the one and only, and leads your thinking to believe that. In my model, "Universe" is just the name of this distinct machine we're living in. It would be more accurate to call it "Toyota". Another system that looks largely the same as ours could be called "Ford", and there's another one called "GMC". They're distinct units that exist on their own, and infrequently interact.
 

soresu

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2014
3,896
3,331
136
The movie Prometheus has as a concept that humans were seeded onto Earth by a different alien species.
Prometheus is basically HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos novel "At The Mountains Of Madness" bolted onto a (very) badly written Alien prequel script.

Even Guillermo del Toro who had been trying to get ATMOM made in Hollywood for years just gave up after Prometheus because he suspected that audiences would see the plot associations very easily.

If it had been made as a true alien world locale adaptation of ATMOM rather than as an Alien prequel it would have had more potential - instead it failed at both IMHO.

A good looking film tho - with Prometheus at least you can tell the olde Ridley Scott is still at work, but with Covenant it looks like everything has been done on the cheap with far less care to visual design which is usually his hallmark as a director.