Wednesday, January 09, 2008

How Many Ways Can You Say Multiverse?

Perhaps one of the more interesting concepts (I wouldn't even necessarily limit it to science fiction) in the past few decades is the term multiverse, supposedly popularized by Michael Moorcock in his Eternal Champion stories. And as much as I love the term, I think it's been overused and even cliche. Yet as a reader, aspiring writer, and GM, it's a tool that can't easily be thrown out the window. In fact, many people have used the same concept albeit phrased it in different terms (planes, dimensions, hyperspace, etc.). Here's two that I've managed to discover. Any recommendations for alternatives to Multiverse?
  1. Paraverse: In The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, humanity "discovers" a new power source by accessing a paraverse--a universe very much unlike our own. This was in the 70's and while parallel universe's probably aren't revolutionary, what makes this paraverse particularly different from something like say, alternate timelines, is that it's really a universe that's vastly alien and obeys different laws of physics.
  2. Omniverse: While many have claimed to have used the term, I find omniverse interesting because of its usage of omni to suggest a sense of perfection and completeness. Recently, I came upon it in the Mutants and Masterminds Freedom City campaign setting where the Omniverse takes the place of DC's Multiverse.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Infinite Earths always had a nice ring to it.