DuracellEnergizer's Guide to the Multiverse (Was "DuracellEnergizer's Guide to the Infinite Timelines Beyond")

As the title says, this is a guidebook to all the myriad timelines which lie parallel to our own.

I know you all have answers, and I have anticipated some of them, so I've written up an IAQ (Infrequently Asked Questions) for your reading pleasure.

===

What is a timeline?

A timeline is a subset of the universe, and contains all moments in the past, present, and future together in one place. But there are, of course, other timelines, so there are also other pasts, presents, and futures.

What in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks does that mean?

There's more than one timeline, so there's more than one version of the past, present, and future.

Give it to me in American, asshole

Timelines = parallel universes. Happy now, dipshit?

Yes

*sigh*

How many timelines are there?

There are as many timelines as there are possibilities.

Well, how many possibilities are there?

As many as the laws of physics allow.

American, dumbass, remember?

Nearly infinite (you ethnocentric bastard ...)

Are the timelines all the same?

What did I just say about infinite possibilities, you putzless schmuck?

Putzless?! Schmuck?! I don't know French! Give it to me in American, you cheese-eating surrender monkey!!!

It's ENGLISH, you illiterate Twittering twat! ENGLISH! You got that!? The language is called ENGLISH, after ENGLAND, the land of the ENGLISH, where the goddamn language comes from!!!!!!!!!

AMERICAN!!! AMERICAN!!! AMERICAN!!! AMERICAN!!!

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*door breaks down*

*machine gun fires*

*window shatters*

*man screams as he falls through broken window*

*man splatters on the hard pavement below*

*woman screams*

*DuracellEnergizer laughs maniacally*

TIMELINE-0

PODD (POINT OF DIVERGENCE DATE)

July 12, 1979

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Timeline-0 is a world where Disco Demolition Night never occurred, allowing mainstream music to fail much faster than it did in our timeline, leading the entire Earth to fall under the heel of a brutal theocracy controlled by the mainstream music industry.

Anyone who doesn’t conform to the “ideal” ideals of this regime is arrested by the Bieber Clone Corps and sent to “re-education” centres, where they are forced to listen to awful mainstream music and watch awful mainsteam music videos until they revert to an unquestioning drone state.

FINAL NOTES

Don’t blame the Turtle for this timeline’s existence; he had an upset stomache.

TIMELINE-1

PODD

This is our world, thus no point of divergence from our world

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

This world sucks ass. It sucks so much ass, in fact, that it's alternative name is Timeline-ASS.

FINAL NOTES

The Turtle has no good excuse this time.

TIMELINE-2

PODD

June 6, 2013

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

This is the home timeline of RicOlie_2. Prior to his relocation to Timeline-1, this world was virtually identical to our own. Since his departure, though, the entire Earth has been enslaved and decimated by the extraterrestrial Davidickeans.

FINAL NOTES

RicOlie_2 has to go now. His timeline needs him.

This is an amazing thread. I'll post some alternate timelines when I've got the time to do it. Right now I have to go save my timeline with my powers of observation and complementation (not to be confused with contemplation).

I think Sliders was supposed to take place inside a finite Level II multiverse instead of an infinite Level III multiverse. It's the only way I can explain away the lack of "redundant universes" like the ones you bring up.

TIMELINE-3

PODD

May 1529

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Sultan Süleyman and his army do not experience heavy rains on their march to Vienna, and consequently are not forced to leave most of their siege weapons behind due to the difficulty of dragging them through mud. They reach Vienna in mid September and besiege the city. The Ottomans triumph, conquering Vienna. After a few months of amassing forces and warding off attacks from the Germans, the Ottomans begin conquering Europe, taking over most of the Holy Roman Empire by 1552, as well as capturing territory in Arabia (including Mecca) upon an onslaught of Safavids in 1535.

Süleyman I is killed in 1554, and the Ottoman Empire begins to break up as Süleyman's son, Selim, battles with his older and illegitimate brother. The French, along with some rebellious Germans, recapture a large portion of the Holy Roman Empire. One of Süleyman's nephews, Mehmet, kills both brothers and takes control of the Ottoman Empire in 1558, but one of Süleyman's generals, Hamza, breaks away from the Ottoman Empire, taking a large portion of the Ottoman army with him as well as all Ottoman territory besides captured land in the former Holy Roman Empire; Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia; and Venice. Hamza captures Baghdad and makes further incursions into Safavid Persia. Mehmet sweeps southwards into Italy, capturing Rome (and with it, the Papal States) in 1562. He then moves on into France, taking Paris in 1563 and sweeping down to conquer the rest of France by 1570. Meanwhile, Hamza amasses a new army in Morocco and his forces recapture Granada in 1561, moving inland to conquer much of Castile and Portugal. In 1564, Hamza's original army and fleet make attacks on Sicilian territory, capturing it between 1564 and 1566. His forces based in Castile conquer Madrid and the remainder of Portugal in 1565. By 1572, Spain is entirely under Muslim rule.

Hamza dies in 1571 and is succeeded by Salëman. Mehmet and Salëman's territories meet in 1572 and they begin fighting each other. Mehmet, being a far more experienced general, pushes into Spain, taking what was formerly Navarre and Aragon, as well as taking all of mainland Italy, leaving Sicily to Salëman.

Only the Scandinavian countries remain Christian and unconqured, and the Reformation continues in those countries while it grinds to a halt in countries under threat from the Ottomans. The Renaissance is also ended before it can really begin and mosques are erected throughout Europe; churches being converted into mosques or being torn down.

Over time, the two Ottoman Empires break up into five smaller empires. The Americas are first settled by Europeans in 1736 and the Islamic Renaissance begins in the mid 1800s. By 1980, the whole of North and South America have been settled by European, African, Asian, and Middle Eastern peoples with the Japanese occupying what is now British Columbia and Washington. The rest becomes predominantly Muslim, though a new religion, Selism, arises in South America, focusing around the worship of Nock, a benevolent deity believed to be in constant conflict with the Islamic God.

(Sorry, I have way too many details) ;)

FINAL NOTES

In this timeline, the world is completely different because it didn't rain a lot in 1529 and the Siege of Vienna succeeded. Had it rained, none of this would have happened, so blame the lack of rain for the whole thing.

EDIT: Alternately called Ottimeline.

RicOlie_2 said:

This is an amazing thread. I'll post some alternate timelines when I've got the time to do it.

Go ahead. I suggest you stick to the naming and numbering conventions I've already set up, though, so

1. Always use "TIMELINE"; don't use "UNIVERSE", "REALITY", "DIMENSION", etc.

2. Always give your timeline a number, and please avoid spelling out the numbers (ie. if you're going to call your timeline "TIMELINE-747", use "747", not ""seven-forty-seven"

3. Don't use random numbers. If the last timeline listed is "TIMELINE-1138", then list yours as "TIMELINE-1139"; this makes things simpler for everyone

4. Avoid decimal points and alphanumerical designations. Something like "TIMELINE-4.5AE19.7C" is ugly and senseless, so don't use it.

5. "Worded" timelines -- ie. ""TIMELINE-NORMA BATES" -- are permitted, but ONLY as ALTERNATIVE designations for timelines with numbers.

6. "Lettered" timelines are permitted, but DuracellEnergizer has dibs on "TIMELINE-A" and "TIMELINE-M", so you can't use 'em (or create any of your own until they are out of the way)

Don't worry, I value consistency and organization, so I stuck with the format you had. My distinguishing characteristics were certainly not as short as yours though. :P

RicOlie_2 said:

Don't worry, I value consistency and organization, so I stuck with the format you had. My distinguishing characteristics were certainly not as short as yours though. :P

It's alright. I suspect you're gonna make your worlds a little more realistic than mine, anyway ;-)

I plan to base my alternate timelines around historical events and rewrite history rather than joking around with them (humour will still be an acceptable part of my timelines though :) ).

TIMELINE-4

PODD

Billions of years ago

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

This world followed the same history as Timeline-1. The only difference between the two timelines is that everyone and everything that is male on our world is female on theirs, and vice-versa.

FINAL NOTES

If you’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to have sex with an alternate gender version of yourself, this is the place to go to find out.

TIMELINE-5

++ 

            =

PODD

An infinite amount of time ago.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

God appears to a community of the last 666 humans on earth  in the year 7777 to announce that he (or they) was/were just a trinitarian Loki having a jolly good time messing around with history. One person of the Trinity founded Judaism, another founded Christianity, and the other founded Islam, just to enjoy the conflict between them all. The first one was jealous that Judaism wasn't as successful as the other two religions and sneakily founded both the Baha'i and Mormon religions to conflict with the two main ones. Throughout history they had planted an abundance of evidence against each other, confusing humankind which resulted in the spawning of a multitude of other religions as well as leading many humans to reject religion outright and became atheists or agnostics.

The three persons of God decide that everyone gets to choose which afterlife they want, and everyone is mostly sorta happy.

FINAL NOTES

Possibly the most confusing and one of the most disturbing timelines, as it means that every human on the planet was wrong (except for the agnostics who were neither right or wrong).

TIMELINE-6

PODD

March 28, 1991

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

A universe where Dr. Olberman – not Prof. Frink – became the popular nerdy scientist character on The Simpsons. Frink exists in this universe, but only as an obscure character in Simpsons comics.

Suffice it to say, the TV’s Frink of this world goes by the handle of TV’s Olberman.

FINAL NOTES

It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.

TIMELINE-7

PODD

July 5, 1967

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Having been born in 1967 instead of 1987, I was able to stal – er – meet Heather Langenkamp in the early 80’s and exterm – uh – outwit her other suitors for her heart. Then, using coerc – heh – affection, I got her to marry me.

We’re still happily married – the ball and chain and inescapable locked room in the basement have seen to that.

FINAL NOTES

I wonder … if I travel to Timeline-7, kill my counterpart, and free Heather, will she be grateful enough to fall in love with me? I guess I’ll just have to wait until the hypertime machine comes out of the shop before I can test that one, eh?

TIMELINE-8

PODD

c. 2005

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

In this universe, Yahweh ate the Flying Spaghetti Monster before It could establish Pastafarianism.

FINAL NOTES

This place sucks – there’s no pasta anywhere!

TIMELINE-9

PODD

27th century BCE

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

In this reality, the Martians built the ancient Egyptian pyramids.

FINAL NOTES

Erich von Däniken was right!

TIMELINE-10

PODD

8000 BCE

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

In this reality, the ancient Egyptians built the Martian pyramids.

FINAL NOTES

Futurama was right!

I don't have time for any of these lines.

TIMELINE-11

PODD

20th century CE

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Jetrell Fo is a hot blonde in this universe (and TV’s Frink wants her BAD).

FINAL NOTES

The body’s amazing, but with a face like that …

I want Fo 1 in this universe too.  It's his magnetic personality that keeps bringing me back for more.

TIMELINE-12

PODD

August 23, 1998

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

After plans to renew The Simpsons for a tenth season fall through, it is decided to end the show after a nice, long run of nine seasons with an hour-long series finale. The finale is a success, reaping in lots of high ratings, and thus The Simpsons comes to a dignified end (followed by the first Simpsons movie in May of 2000, the second in February of 2004, and the third and final in August of 2009, all of which all excellent).

FINAL NOTES

Goodbye, Timeline-1, and good riddance! I’d like to say it’s been nice knowin’ ya, but that’d be a bald-faced lie! So, in the immortal words of Nelson Muntz, “HAW! HAW!”

TIMELINE-13

PODD

June 13, 1957

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Everyone in this universe looks like a character from the Friday the 13th movies or TV series. Hockey masks and burlap sacks are fashionable, and it is trendy to collect antiques cursed by the Devil.

FINAL NOTES

I don’t think I’d last very long in this universe. Hockey masks and burlap sacks clash horribly with my complexion, and I always have nasty allergic reactions to cursed antiques.

Time Line-Kiwa-Hirsuta

PODD

Fuzz-Crabs never develop a concept of time measurement but at some point the entire universe becomes Fuzz-Crabian. If they don't know and that's all there is how am I supposed to report it to you?

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

The entire universe is Fuzz-Crabs in all dimensions.

FINAL NOTES

It's Crustacean in a hairy way. So be prepared.