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The D&D Multiverse: The Weird Go Pro (Part 1)
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<blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 8456506" data-attributes="member: 21169"><p>In my opinion, its origins are to be found in the work of a large number of different authors from the mid-30s to the mid-70s writing in the alternate history science fiction genre, or influenced by it. Several of them are mentioned in Appendix N – Stanley Weinbaum, L Sprague De Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Jack Vance.</p><p></p><p>According to John Clute and Peter Nicholls, <em>Encyclopedia of Science Fiction</em> 2e (1995) "Murray Leinster introduced the idea of alternate worlds to genre SF in Sidewise in Time (1934)". Leinster's alternate worlds come into being as a result of branching decision points in history. They are the infinite number of "roads we do not take." Many other science fiction writers were influenced directly or indirectly by Leinster. From science fiction, the concept made its way into fantasy. EoSF "Parallel Worlds" entry:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Modern uses of the theme [parallel worlds] usually imagine an infinite number of parallel worlds extending in a manifold which contains all possible Earthly histories and perhaps all possible physical universes. The notion that the perceived Universe is simply one single aspect of such a "multiverse" has been lent credence by the "many-worlds interpretation" of the enigmas of quantum mechanics… Modern fantasy novels – including most of those in the intermediate science-fantasy category – sometimes draw upon the legacy of sf recomplication in order to invigorate their use of parallel worlds. Notable examples include Roger Zelazny's Amber series and Michael Moorcock's many Sword-and-Sorcery series, which are all bound together (with some sf novels) within a hypothetical multiverse.</p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">Examples of Infinite Parallel Worlds</span></strong></p><p></p><p>The following excerpts provide evidence that a large number of creators used the idea of infinite parallel worlds (including alternate histories).</p><p></p><p><strong>Murray Leinster, "Sidewise in Time" in <em>Astounding Stories</em> (June 1934)</strong></p><p>There is more than one future we can encounter, and with more or less absence of deliberation we choose among them. But the futures we fail to encounter, upon the roads we do not take, are just as real as the landmarks upon those roads… There are an indefinite number of possible futures, any one of which we would encounter if we took the proper 'forks' in time… As there must be any number of futures, there must have been any number of pasts besides those written down in our histories… and it would follow that there are any number of what you might call 'presents.'</p><p></p><p><strong>Stanley Weinbaum, "The Worlds of If" in <em>Wonder Stories</em> (August 1935)</strong></p><p>The worlds of "if," the weird, unreal worlds that existed beside reality, neither past nor future, but contemporary, yet extemporal. Somewhere among their ghostly infinities existed one that represented the world that would have been had I made the liner.</p><p></p><p><strong>Stanley Weinbaum, "The Circle of Zero" in <em>Thrilling Wonder Stories</em> (August 1936)</strong></p><p>Through all the multifold eternities of the past-future cycle you can't have been always Jack Anders, securities salesman. There will be fragmentary memories, recollections of times when your personality was partially existent, when the Laws of Chance had assembled a being who was not quite Jack Anders, in some period of the infinite worlds that must have risen and died in the span of eternities.</p><p></p><p><strong>CL Moore, "Greater Than Gods" in <em>Astounding Science Fiction</em> (July 1939)</strong></p><p>Before time has caught up with it, while our choice at the crossroads is still unmade, an infinite number of possible futures must exist as it were in suspension, waiting for us in some unimaginable, dimensionless infinity.</p><p></p><p><strong>L Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt, "The Roaring Trumpet" in <em>Unknown Fantasy Fiction</em> (May 1940)</strong></p><p>The world we live in is composed of impressions received through the senses. But there is an infinity of possible worlds, and if the senses can be attuned to receive a different series of impressions, we should infallibly find ourselves living in a different world.</p><p></p><p>These infinite other worlds… exist in a logical but not in an empirical sense.</p><p></p><p><strong>Poul Anderson, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" in <em>The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction</em> (September 1953)</strong></p><p>Wave mechanics admits the possibility of one other entire universe coexisting with ours, and the lecturer said it was not hard to write the equations for an infinity of such parallel worlds, each with its own laws of nature. In which case – somewhere in the boundlessness of reality, anything you can imagine must actually exist!</p><p></p><p>He was quite sure now that the old professor had been right… in speculating about multiple infinities of coexistent universes, each with its own laws of nature. This was the one in which Carolingian legend happened to be true, in which magic (mental control of inanimate matter?) was real... And it was possible to go from one cosmos to another; it must have been done in the past, and accounts of such journeys had been written down as myth and romance on his Earth. But there was more to it than that. Being all embedded in the same ultimate reality, these universes seemed to share a strangely parallel course of events.</p><p></p><p><strong>Robert Sheckley, "The Store of the Worlds" (1958)</strong></p><p>From the moment this battered Earth was born out of the sun's fiery womb, it cast off its alternate probability-worlds. Worlds without end, emanating from events large and small… Millions, billions of Earths! An infinity of Earths! And your mind, liberated by me, will be able to select any of these worlds, and to live upon it for a while.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Strange Tales</em> #133 (June 1965)</strong></p><p>[ATTACH=full]146672[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]146673[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Strange Tales</em> #148 (September 1966)</strong></p><p>[ATTACH=full]146674[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Strange Tales</em> #162 (November 1967)</strong></p><p>[ATTACH=full]146675[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p><strong>Michael Moorcock, <em>Stormbringer</em> (1965)</strong></p><p>Who can know why the Cosmic Balance exists, why Fate exists and the Lords of the Higher Worlds? Why there must always be a champion to fight such battles? There seems to be an infinity of space and time and possibilities. There may be an infinite number of beings, one above the other, who see the final purpose, though, in infinity, there can be no final purpose.</p><p></p><p><strong>Michael Moorcock, <em>The King of the Swords</em> (1971)</strong></p><p>"You mean this Kernow lies in my future?"</p><p>"In one future, probably not yours. The future of a corresponding plane, perhaps. There are doubtless other futures where the Vadhagh have proliferated and the Mabden died out. The multiverse contains, after all, an infinity of possibilities."</p><p></p><p><strong>Michael Moorcock, <em>Count Brass</em> (1973)</strong></p><p>There are an infinity of dimensions, of this Earth alone.</p><p></p><p><strong>Roger Zelazny, <em>Nine Princes in Amber</em> (1970)</strong></p><p>Of Shadow I have this to say: there is Shadow and there is Substance, and this is the root of all things. Of Substance, there is only Amber, the real city, upon the real Earth, which contains everything. Of Shadow, there is an infinitude of things. Every possibility exists somewhere as a Shadow of the real. Amber, by its very existence, has cast such in all directions. And what may one say of it beyond? Shadow extends from Amber to Chaos, and all things are possible within it.</p><p></p><p><strong>Roger Zelazny, <em>The Guns of Avalon</em> (1972)</strong></p><p>I was walking in Shadow, seeking a place, a very special place. It had been destroyed once, but I had the power to re-create it, for Amber casts an infinity of shadows. A child of Amber may walk among them, and such was my heritage. You may call them parallel worlds if you wish, alternate universes if you would, the products of a deranged mind if you care to. I call them shadows, as do all who possess the power to walk among them. We select a possibility and we walk until we reach it. So, in a sense, we create it.</p><p></p><p><strong>Robert Silverberg, "Trips" (1973)</strong></p><p>Time forks, again and again and again. New universes split off at each instant of decision. Left turn, right turn, honk your horn, jump the traffic light, hit your gas, hit your brake, every action spawns whole galaxies of possibility. We move through a soup of infinities.</p><p></p><p>There's an infinity of worlds… side by side, worlds in which all possible variations of every possible event take place.</p><p></p><p><strong>Jack Vance, "Rumfuddle" (1973)</strong></p><p>I can tune the machine very finely. I can code accurately for the 'Home' class of worlds, and as closely as necessary approximate a particular world-state. But at each setting, no matter how fine the tuning, we encounter an infinite number of worlds. In practice, inaccuracies in the machine, back-lash, the gross size of electrons, the very difference between one electron and another, make it difficult to tune with absolute precision. So even if we tuned exactly to the 'Home' class, the probability of opening into your particular Home is one in an infinite number: in short, negligible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Doug McCrae, post: 8456506, member: 21169"] In my opinion, its origins are to be found in the work of a large number of different authors from the mid-30s to the mid-70s writing in the alternate history science fiction genre, or influenced by it. Several of them are mentioned in Appendix N – Stanley Weinbaum, L Sprague De Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, and Jack Vance. According to John Clute and Peter Nicholls, [I]Encyclopedia of Science Fiction[/I] 2e (1995) "Murray Leinster introduced the idea of alternate worlds to genre SF in Sidewise in Time (1934)". Leinster's alternate worlds come into being as a result of branching decision points in history. They are the infinite number of "roads we do not take." Many other science fiction writers were influenced directly or indirectly by Leinster. From science fiction, the concept made its way into fantasy. EoSF "Parallel Worlds" entry: [INDENT]Modern uses of the theme [parallel worlds] usually imagine an infinite number of parallel worlds extending in a manifold which contains all possible Earthly histories and perhaps all possible physical universes. The notion that the perceived Universe is simply one single aspect of such a "multiverse" has been lent credence by the "many-worlds interpretation" of the enigmas of quantum mechanics… Modern fantasy novels – including most of those in the intermediate science-fantasy category – sometimes draw upon the legacy of sf recomplication in order to invigorate their use of parallel worlds. Notable examples include Roger Zelazny's Amber series and Michael Moorcock's many Sword-and-Sorcery series, which are all bound together (with some sf novels) within a hypothetical multiverse.[/INDENT] [B][SIZE=5]Examples of Infinite Parallel Worlds[/SIZE][/B] The following excerpts provide evidence that a large number of creators used the idea of infinite parallel worlds (including alternate histories). [B]Murray Leinster, "Sidewise in Time" in [I]Astounding Stories[/I] (June 1934)[/B] There is more than one future we can encounter, and with more or less absence of deliberation we choose among them. But the futures we fail to encounter, upon the roads we do not take, are just as real as the landmarks upon those roads… There are an indefinite number of possible futures, any one of which we would encounter if we took the proper 'forks' in time… As there must be any number of futures, there must have been any number of pasts besides those written down in our histories… and it would follow that there are any number of what you might call 'presents.' [B]Stanley Weinbaum, "The Worlds of If" in [I]Wonder Stories[/I] (August 1935)[/B] The worlds of "if," the weird, unreal worlds that existed beside reality, neither past nor future, but contemporary, yet extemporal. Somewhere among their ghostly infinities existed one that represented the world that would have been had I made the liner. [B]Stanley Weinbaum, "The Circle of Zero" in [I]Thrilling Wonder Stories[/I] (August 1936)[/B] Through all the multifold eternities of the past-future cycle you can't have been always Jack Anders, securities salesman. There will be fragmentary memories, recollections of times when your personality was partially existent, when the Laws of Chance had assembled a being who was not quite Jack Anders, in some period of the infinite worlds that must have risen and died in the span of eternities. [B]CL Moore, "Greater Than Gods" in [I]Astounding Science Fiction[/I] (July 1939)[/B] Before time has caught up with it, while our choice at the crossroads is still unmade, an infinite number of possible futures must exist as it were in suspension, waiting for us in some unimaginable, dimensionless infinity. [B]L Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt, "The Roaring Trumpet" in [I]Unknown Fantasy Fiction[/I] (May 1940)[/B] The world we live in is composed of impressions received through the senses. But there is an infinity of possible worlds, and if the senses can be attuned to receive a different series of impressions, we should infallibly find ourselves living in a different world. These infinite other worlds… exist in a logical but not in an empirical sense. [B]Poul Anderson, "Three Hearts and Three Lions" in [I]The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction[/I] (September 1953)[/B] Wave mechanics admits the possibility of one other entire universe coexisting with ours, and the lecturer said it was not hard to write the equations for an infinity of such parallel worlds, each with its own laws of nature. In which case – somewhere in the boundlessness of reality, anything you can imagine must actually exist! He was quite sure now that the old professor had been right… in speculating about multiple infinities of coexistent universes, each with its own laws of nature. This was the one in which Carolingian legend happened to be true, in which magic (mental control of inanimate matter?) was real... And it was possible to go from one cosmos to another; it must have been done in the past, and accounts of such journeys had been written down as myth and romance on his Earth. But there was more to it than that. Being all embedded in the same ultimate reality, these universes seemed to share a strangely parallel course of events. [B]Robert Sheckley, "The Store of the Worlds" (1958)[/B] From the moment this battered Earth was born out of the sun's fiery womb, it cast off its alternate probability-worlds. Worlds without end, emanating from events large and small… Millions, billions of Earths! An infinity of Earths! And your mind, liberated by me, will be able to select any of these worlds, and to live upon it for a while. [B][I]Strange Tales[/I] #133 (June 1965)[/B] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Strange Tales #133-1.png"]146672[/ATTACH][ATTACH type="full" alt="Strange Tales #133-2.png"]146673[/ATTACH] [B][I]Strange Tales[/I] #148 (September 1966)[/B] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Strange Tales #148.png"]146674[/ATTACH] [B][I]Strange Tales[/I] #162 (November 1967)[/B] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Strange Tales #162.png"]146675[/ATTACH] [B]Michael Moorcock, [I]Stormbringer[/I] (1965)[/B] Who can know why the Cosmic Balance exists, why Fate exists and the Lords of the Higher Worlds? Why there must always be a champion to fight such battles? There seems to be an infinity of space and time and possibilities. There may be an infinite number of beings, one above the other, who see the final purpose, though, in infinity, there can be no final purpose. [B]Michael Moorcock, [I]The King of the Swords[/I] (1971)[/B] "You mean this Kernow lies in my future?" "In one future, probably not yours. The future of a corresponding plane, perhaps. There are doubtless other futures where the Vadhagh have proliferated and the Mabden died out. The multiverse contains, after all, an infinity of possibilities." [B]Michael Moorcock, [I]Count Brass[/I] (1973)[/B] There are an infinity of dimensions, of this Earth alone. [B]Roger Zelazny, [I]Nine Princes in Amber[/I] (1970)[/B] Of Shadow I have this to say: there is Shadow and there is Substance, and this is the root of all things. Of Substance, there is only Amber, the real city, upon the real Earth, which contains everything. Of Shadow, there is an infinitude of things. Every possibility exists somewhere as a Shadow of the real. Amber, by its very existence, has cast such in all directions. And what may one say of it beyond? Shadow extends from Amber to Chaos, and all things are possible within it. [B]Roger Zelazny, [I]The Guns of Avalon[/I] (1972)[/B] I was walking in Shadow, seeking a place, a very special place. It had been destroyed once, but I had the power to re-create it, for Amber casts an infinity of shadows. A child of Amber may walk among them, and such was my heritage. You may call them parallel worlds if you wish, alternate universes if you would, the products of a deranged mind if you care to. I call them shadows, as do all who possess the power to walk among them. We select a possibility and we walk until we reach it. So, in a sense, we create it. [B]Robert Silverberg, "Trips" (1973)[/B] Time forks, again and again and again. New universes split off at each instant of decision. Left turn, right turn, honk your horn, jump the traffic light, hit your gas, hit your brake, every action spawns whole galaxies of possibility. We move through a soup of infinities. There's an infinity of worlds… side by side, worlds in which all possible variations of every possible event take place. [B]Jack Vance, "Rumfuddle" (1973)[/B] I can tune the machine very finely. I can code accurately for the 'Home' class of worlds, and as closely as necessary approximate a particular world-state. But at each setting, no matter how fine the tuning, we encounter an infinite number of worlds. In practice, inaccuracies in the machine, back-lash, the gross size of electrons, the very difference between one electron and another, make it difficult to tune with absolute precision. So even if we tuned exactly to the 'Home' class, the probability of opening into your particular Home is one in an infinite number: in short, negligible. [/QUOTE]
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