Multiverse: The science, the references and the universes

By: Viraaj

Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness is probably one of my favorite movies so it’s time to discuss the MULTIVERSE!

Both in terms of science and fiction.

That’s right, this article tries to condense the massive concept of MULTIVERSE!!!

I’ll stop that now.

But the basics of multiverse are given by multiple and I mean multiple theories. However, there are 2 main theories or concepts that are more or less widely accepted. In fact, even with these concepts there are a lot of arguments against the entire concept of the MULTIVERSE!

Though if you were to come up to me and ask me which Theory or Concept of the Multiverse I believe in, because why not. My answer would be something along the lines of ‘All of them and none of the at the same time’ or ‘Yes’.

Let me explain.

If one considers the fourth level of the multiverse that was proposed by Tegmark, the Ultimate ensemble, that gives you the something called the Omniverse, which is basically a collection of multiple multiverses. Now in the Omniverse, say one of the multiverses follows the Many worlds theory, then the moment in time that this theory was proposed on earth creates multiple diversions where in each of the other Tegmark Levels, the Bubble Universes and the Extension Universes are true.

If we assume that the main universe is the one we are in, and at point A in our universe, Tegmark’s theory was proven at this point in time. From this very point in the main universe, we can have 4 other variants in the universe.

The first one where the first level of Tegmark’s theory, the one that states that the multiverse is an expansion of the main universe, is proven. The next is where the second level, the bubble universe theory, is proven.

Let’s say in the third universe, instead of Tegmark’s theory being proven right, we have Greene’s Quilted Multiverse theory being proven correct.

This in turn gives rise to 7 other divergences or variants that show the other 7 Multiverse theories that Greene suggested being proven right. Those being Inflationary, Brane, Cyclic, Landscape, Quantum, Holographic and Stimulate above the lines.

The final line that rises from the red line is the universe where instead of proving either Tegmark’s or Greene’s theories, the multiverse theory is completely disproven.

And no, this doesn’t actually contradict the previous theories. And herein lies the beauty of the multiverse and quantum physics (hate it all you want but the concept is just amazing!)

The multiverse and quantum physics allows for all explanations, even contradicting ones to be true at the same time.

And the best part possibly is that the entire theory is just a large-scale extrapolation of Schrodinger’s experiment, only in this case, instead of there being 2 outcomes there are multiple outcomes.

Its like when you use an ELIF conditional statement in any programming language, you’d have the main condition, aka the IF statement, then you’d have the follow up conditional statements given by ELIF and the condition where neither the IF nor the ELIF statements are true, the ELSE statement.

[I already apologise for the exam flashbacks but anyway]

The omniverse or more accurately the fourth level of Tegmark’s theory, Ultimate Ensemble and the ninth form of Greene’s theory, Ultimate Multiverse, both are basically a collection of multiple multiverses put together. Both the Ultimate Ensemble and the Ultimate Multiverse are in theory similar, not same, but similar where they talk about all the other theories being a part of a single, all encompassing Omniverse.

[And this is also where the final series for Ben 10 gets it’s name from, excluding the reboot that is.]

And now for the fun part!

Fictional universes and fictional multiverses. And get ready, because 2 out of 3 of the multiverses I discuss are wild as all hell.

Lets start with Marvel. Not just because it’s relevant, but because it is, in my opinion one of the best multiverses to exist in fictional history, at least as far as I’ve read and watched.

Marvel likes to number it’s universes with the ‘main marvel universe’ being labelled as 616. Each subsequent rendition, each minor change and each retcon that happens in the comics is given it’s own universe. Of the many alternate universes, only a few have their stories expanded, those being the 616 universe (because obviously), Ultimate Earth or Earth 1610, Marvel Cinematic Universe or Earth 199999, Earth 10005 aka the earth where X-Men Days of the Future Past occurs, Earth 26495 aka the world of Spectacular Spiderman, Earth 928 or the 2099 universe and Earth 58163 or the House of M universe. There are obviously more universes, but this isn’t a Wikipedia or Fandom page is it?

For example, Spider-Man, he is known to have multiple, multiple suits that he has worn over time, one of these being the Symbiote suit or the black suit. While in 616, Peter gives up the suit and goes back to the ‘old red and blue’ after learning the truth about the suit, there are universes in the Marvel Multiverse where he doesn’t give up the suit at all, and over time stops pulling his punches and becomes more ruthless.

Each marvel universe has it’s own version of every single main universe character, all the major relics that are know like the Infinity Stones, the cosmic cube, Mjolnir, Stormbreaker, Heimdal’s Sword, etc and the deties like the Living Tribunal, Eternity, Infinity and One Above All, though that last one can be argued to over see the entire Omniverse of Marvel.

Coming in second, after the Marvel universe on my list of fictional universes is the DC Multiverse. Or the Super retconned hodgepodge as I like to called it.

The entire multiverse is divided into 3 main eras. The Golden Age where the original stories of the characters are written, The Silver Age where most of the rather famous stories from comics that we see in animation are taken from. The Silver age was retconned by a massive event called ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ which was in essesnse DC reducing the number os stories that they were writing by wiping the stories out in a massive event which saw the death of Barry Allen’s version of Flash and the subsequent passing of the mantel to Wally West.

This retcon lead to the Modern Age which revolved around a central time line much like Marvel Multiverse, however, the number of timelines that were created were again retconned in 2005 through another multiversal event that reduced the number of earths in the DC multiverse from Infinite to a finite number. 52 to be specific. Each earth was labelled as ‘Earth’ followed by a number from 0 to 51.

However, not all the universes that were being published at the time by DC were a documented part of the ’52 universes’ and to condense this to the 52 universes, another universal event was created, giving rise to ‘New 52’. 

New 52 publications became chaotic within 5 years leading to the infamous Flashpoint event allowing writers to redo parts of certain universes, explaining the changes to be due to ripple effects of the Flashpoint event.

In 2015, after an event called Convergence, the number of earths in the DC Multiverse went from finite to infinite once again. Talk about fickle minded right!

Finally, to conclude this ever changing setting of the multiverse, we had DC’s Dark Nights: Metal which introduced the Negetive earths through the introduction of the Dark Multiverse. The whole event lead to the formation of a completely new multiverse dubbed the ‘Last 52’ before being restored to the previous state, while also erasing the existence of the Dark Multiverse.

A quick TL;DR for those that gave up, DC’s multiverse runs on how effectively the publishing house can maintain the many stories they publish, as a result there are major changes that occur every few years to keep the readers and the head honchos of DC happy.

Finally, and this last fictional universe, might just be one of my fabouries, the Ben 10 Omniverse. This one’s by far the easiest to explain. There’s the main timeline or the ‘Prime Timeline’ that houses Ben Prime. This version of Ben is the one that we follow from the Original Series through Alien Force, Ultimate Alien and Omniverse.

Then you have the 3 different versions of Future Ben that exist in each of the series, excluding Alien Force but Ultimate Alien is essentially like an immediate continuation of the Alien Force story. The first Future Ben we meet is the one that keeps the Original black and white Omnitrix, with the watch growing over time to be more of a forearm gauntlet. The second iteration of Future Ben comes from a timeline where Ben keeps the Ultimatrix and the watch is upgraded, allowing Ben to take on the abilities of the aliens without changing his physical form.

The final iteration of Future Ben appears in Omniverse and is said to be from the Prime Timeline, or at least that is what the show tells the watchers, even though Prof. Paradox, a time travelling man that has been a fan favourite since his first appearance in Alien Force explicitly mentions that every time Prime Ben meets his future self, his future changes. This version wields the Biomnitrix and can combine 2 aliens to create a hybrid alien to fight with.

Aside from these 3 timelines, we also have Ben-23, Benzarro, Mad-Ben, Bad-Ben, Nega-Ben and No Watch Ben that appear during one of the season finales of the Omniverse series.  There are also other universes where instead of Ben, the Omnitrix has gone to either Gwen or Grandpa Max.

It is also believes that the Ben 10 Omniverse lies in close proximity to the Generator Rex Universe. This one is completely canon, due to a crossover event. But fans also believe that the Secret Saturdays and the Danny Phantom universes also lie close to each other and that if the writers wanted, there could be possible crossovers between them. Though let’s face it that’s never happening.

There are multiple different Omniverses in the Ben 10 continuity which was confirmed in the Reboot show where we say different versions of Ben 10 where none of the versions of Ben were Ben Prime, however this is just speculation done by the Ben 10 youtube community based on some of the evidences that were given in the show.

THE END!