> Definitivity: The default state of existence of our universe and all which resides within, that being total predictability. Through perfect and precise mathematics, every action of definitive bodies can be calculated. As far as is currently understood, there exist only two ways for one to lose their Definitivity: Infinite Recursion and Limited Omniscience. Both can be explained through an analysis of our species’ past.
> ~ The Death of Definitivity (Inch Distant)
The Pilgrim Empire. The sacrifices of Marc Barrows. The infinitude of Tupperware Interlude.
What emotions are spurred from the mere mentioning of these names?
Pride? Sorrow? Nostalgia?
How about curiosity? I’m sure you must be curious—otherwise, why would you pick up this book in the first place?
Throughout your life, you have undoubtedly heard these names praised time and time again, but what do you know of them in-depth?
Depending on the rigor of your educational curriculum, passing references to their importance could be all that you know of humanity’s saviors.
That, I see as a tragedy—which is why I applaud your curiosity driving you towards a deeper pursuit of knowledge. Our story—humanity’s story—deserves to be understood by all who benefit from it. Regardless of how crude the acts of our history’s change-makers may have been, they must be explored. They must be learned from.
And that is where I, esteemed and accomplished author, Inch Distant, am of assistance.1
> 1 | Some other widely acclaimed books by Inch Distant include On the History of the Alcorian Su-Domirrae, The Many Wisdoms of Inch Distant, The Birth of Quadrinity, Dirges for the Future, Pre- and Post-Bottleneck Humanity: A Look Into Their Hearts, Minds, and Souls: The Extensive Differences Creating Rifts Between Time and Space and Love and Hope: and Glory Be To Our Quadrinity: We Love You So, and 12 Easy Steps to Win Over Friends and Lovers. All of these wonderful titles may be obtained via Fourthline Publishing House.
Through my many years of authorship and historical analysis, I have perfected my knowledge of the aforementioned universe-altering events. With Fourthline Publishing House’s unfettered access to UcoSim Historical Data, I aim to share my knowledge in an efficient yet entertaining format.
So in the name of efficiency, I must first briefly introduce you to the unnamed catalysts of our story—those mysterious benefactors of our limitless abundance, who I am sure you have heard talk of.
I, of course, allude to the Tourists.
----------------------------------------
One does not have to meticulously pour over Pre-Bottleneck human histories to notice their knack for scientific discovery. Yet, it can be universally agreed upon that the species had not evolved for the pure purpose of research. Their minds innately favored short-term solutions over long ones—a byproduct of a feral environment demanding split-second decisions and incessant worrying.
We know just as well as the Pre-Bottleneck humans about the concept of having something “click.” Of course, I speak of that incredible clarity derived from a complete understanding of some subject. It is that moment where all brain fog suddenly dissipates and prior learnings are viewed in a new light. It is the resulting flood of positive feedback neurochemicals, rewarding you for your creativity. There’s no feeling like it.
While the drive towards epiphany had proven evolutionarily beneficial, it was not the predominant trait that kept early humanity from extinction. In the short term, traits enabling communication and community had proven to be far more advantageous.
Unlike humanity, the Tourists had evolved specifically to pursue personal enlightenment. At a certain point in their long evolutionary history, one branch of descendants had gained a mutation that heavily rewarded epiphany.
In short, scientific mastery got them high.
The rush of euphoria and clarity elicited from moments of enlightenment became a cornerstone of Tourist culture. Class was nonexistent, so status became linked directly to intelligence. Living and dying for this self-induced high, the species framed every aspect of their lives around the core tenet of scientific discovery. They were addicts of their own minds—a familiar tale, yet with far more beneficial outcomes.
It must be stated once again that this story—our story—is not about the Tourists. I wish it could’ve been—if given the chance, I believe human- and Tourist-kind could intermingle quite well. But alas, the core of what they are remains a mystery.
It does not matter where they originated. It does not matter when they originated.2 Tourists existed long before the first human stood upright in the plains of Earth, and will likely survive alongside us to the inevitable heat death of the universe.
> 2 | If you wish to learn the lengthy and deeply complex history of the Tourists, you may be inclined to read Knowledge Addicts: A Comprehensive History by Stairwell Branched.
Of course, the latter assertion is no more than a guess—Tourists lost their Definitivity ages ago, leaving them wholly unpredictable and invisible to our universal computations. Despite our best estimations, their actions remain unseen by our prying eyes.
As mysterious as they may now be, we must only look upon them with reverence—first, for their passive nature. Being creatures of discovery, they have no thirst for blood, no lust for domination.
Apart from scientific research, all they wish to do is travel—to learn the intricacies of every corner of our grand plane of existence. It was their species-wide pastime. They were at their core, as their name accurately summarizes, Tourists.
If it pleased them, the species could decimate Earth—or any planet for that matter—moments after they condemned the world to death. Yet they refrained and continue to refrain. They likely watched humanity grow, and for some reason, chose peace. Whether this is an insult or a compliment, we may never know—regardless, we must give our thanks.
In addition to their benevolence, we must also look upon the Tourists with gratitude for their gift, which they unintentionally3 bestowed upon humanity.
> 3 | This we assume, lest larger, possibly sinister implications arise.
Specifically, we must thank one Tourist for their impulsive behavior and reckless application of freedom. For simplicity’s sake, we will call it “Bob.”
----------------------------------------
Obviously, the creature’s name was not “Bob.” In fact, it did not have a “name” at all in the way that we understand names. Due to the Tourists’ collectivist cultural norms and easily identifiable communication signatures, they found no need for individual names—at least not in any way that is intelligible to our comparatively primitive minds. Thus, we have chosen to refer to the alien as “Bob” as a harkening back to a once familiar name among Pre-Bottleneck humans.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Bob’s early life was similar to that of any young Tourist. Born during a period of reduced expansion,4 Bob was asexually reproduced as the only offspring from its parent.
> 4 | This was not a strange occurrence, as the Tourist Guiders would often call for periods of stagnation or even reduction in an attempt to keep life in their empire from getting too comfortable with the status quo.
Spawned from the detached tentacle of its single parent, Bob formed slowly while floating in the comparably thicker atmosphere of a breeding center.
Just as it was a cultural norm for a Tourist Parent to engage in partial mitosis for reproduction, Bob’s childhood followed that of Tourist tradition. It lived extravagantly, cared for by the community leaders assigned at birth. The child traversed its home planet with other younglings for decades in Earth time.
Effortlessly, they used thousands of long, hairy, plant-like tendrils to grapple themselves through the thick atmosphere. Their semi-opaque conical torsos tranquilly floated across their danger-free home world as they looked inward, developing a rich inner sense of self before being granted official entry into the Tourist Empire.
Initially, they refrained from scientific inquiry, focusing primarily on self-development and studying their species’ history. As was the case for hundreds of thousands of years at Bob’s point in time, the children learned of their species’ purposeful evolution.
Shockingly, the Tourists had not always existed as the frail, wispy gliders with which Bob was so familiar. Their form was artificially spawned out of a need to satiate their addictions to discovery.
Through genetic rearrangement and careful environmental manipulation, they solidified their position as the geniuses of the universe. By the end of their adolescence, Bob would understand the reasons behind these modifications perfectly well.
Initially, the Tourists found their way to dominance through their genetic gift—the self-generated addiction to discovery. Every epiphany blessed the creatures with a feeling so euphoric, so ethereal that they would be elevated to a higher order of consciousness.
This heightened state of being would then compound—inspiring them with new bits of wisdom, which would then elate them further, spawning even grander euphoric epiphanies. . . and so on. Through ever-repeating cycles of compulsive and indulgent geniosity, their species lived and died—until this way of life was deemed inadequate for their voracious intellectual appetites.
The early Tourists had hit a wall with their genetics. It was learned that they could only go so far with the bodies they had been gifted by natural evolution. Before long, they turned to genetic modification for the alterations that nature had forgotten.
While planning their genealogical ascension, they morphed their home planets to become a perfect niche. They would need not worry about sustenance, for their rich, heavy atmosphere contained all the energy needed for life. Every aspect of their existence changed to meet their addiction’s desires.
Each generation was bolstered by the last as parents imprinted upon their offspring before death. The ritual would leave the parents lifeless, but their mental pathways would form grooves in their child’s “mind.”
Mental indentations of this sort would lay the groundwork for the epiphanies realized by the parent over their life, making their child’s journey towards realization far simpler. Through this genetic modification, the Tourists ensured that the intellectual progress of the parent could be passed down to their offspring.
When Bob underwent this process, a change flared up inside of him. Although our Universal Computer can accurately simulate the ritual, we still do not completely understand how it works—just like many things pertaining to the “minds” of the Tourists. Regardless, because of the ritual, Bob was imbued with a streak of reckless abandon.
His new trait surfaced immediately. As with all recipients of the gift officially marking Tourist adulthood, Bob was given full access to what we often refer to as a “Cube.”
To describe the craft concisely, a Cube embodies the perfection of the Tourist race. Through perfect engineering, nearly indestructible design, and the ability to create a Mirror, the Tourists made the universe their playground.
----------------------------------------
Mirrors: We Wish We Knew
By: Football Ligament
We wish we knew how they worked—we really do. But those Tourists, their heads continue to be too tough to crack. I guess I can’t even say “heads” since their “brains” (if I can even say that) are distributed throughout their entire body. Anyway, without a complete understanding of their mental processes, we can never begin to truly know how Mirrors function. We can only appreciate their existence.
All we know is that the idea was first drawn up about seventy million years ago by a Tourist we refer to, for simplicity’s sake, as “Sue.” At the end of a long line of euphoria-inducing epiphanies, Sue discovered a fundamental exploitation of the universe itself.
By some means, still calculable by our Universal Computer while incomprehensible to our minds, Sue found a way to seamlessly and instantly link two points in space.
Humanity has since called the resulting exploitation a “Mirror”—a name I still regularly object to, as it does not accurately represent the technology. A mirror reflects, and that is not what the Tourists had managed. They created a window.
As thin as thin can get, one side of the Mirror acts as an entrance to another point in the universe, predetermined and orchestrated by what we suppose to be some incomprehensible twisting and smashing of reality’s building blocks.
Theories are all we have. Sometimes, that is all we can extract from a Universal Computer—seeing a feat is always easier than understanding it. Simply put, humanity in its current form was not meant to comprehend something as complex as a Mirror. As long as we inhabit these vessels of meat and bone, we likely never will.
Thankfully, though, we have yet to find a need to fully understand the technology, as our ancestors were once blessed with a Mirror Maker. We thank them by the light of the Holy Quadrinity that they passed down the technology with such care.
----------------------------------------
As I have previously mentioned, Bob was imbued with a spark of recklessness upon undergoing the process of “genetellectual inheritance.” The countless safety lessons of Bob’s youth were tossed to the side the moment the Cube was entered. There was a whole universe to explore—caution could wait.
No Definitivity checks, no scan for incoming objects, a complete lack of coordinate logging, and they even forgot to initiate the ship’s internal gravity generation. Driven by a genetic vision of a world with towering fauna and ferocious, mindless lizard monsters, he powered up the Mirror Maker.
If you, the reader, are at all familiar with our species’ planet of origin and the planet’s history, you would recognize Bob’s genetic visions. They were of Earth, millions of years before the birth of the first human.
At this point in Earth’s history, it had been ruled by the “dinosaurs”—a name given to the planet-dominating group of savage, monstrous beasts. For hundreds of millions of years, they patrolled the Earth, stifling intelligent growth through the prioritization of brutality. Then, one day, around sixty-six million years in our past, a stray asteroid found its way toward the planet—essentially killing off the dinosaurs and paving the way for humanity.
The coordinates were entered instinctually, with no extra forethought given. A ship-sized Mirror expanded beneath the craft and Bob fell through. On the other side, Bob was struck. The trajectory was changed immediately, jerking Bob away from the controls.
By pure chance, Bob had decided to take the Cube directly in line with the Chicxulub5 asteroid’s flight path—moments before it collided with Earth.
> 5 | This name derives from the location in which the resulting crater was formed, in the landmass that would later be called Mexico. The naming roots of the crater has no relation to my homeland, the Chicilub Su-Domirrum, which is now being used as an expansion of Alcore. And on this topic, I cannot express how horrid of a travesty I see this expansion to be. I respect the craft of my fellow Storytellers, but to erase such a significant portion of Chicilubian culture is a step that does not need to be taken. Please, it would mean the world to me if you could express these concerns on the next Alcorian Forum.
With the internal gravity generation deactivated, Bob was flung to the roof of the Cube, crushing it instantly—a quick death. The Cube, carried by the full might of the incoming asteroid, was pummeled into the Earth, burying it miles underground.
Thanks to the Tourist’s near vibrationless material fabrication, the asteroid failed to leave a single scratch as it drilled the ship into the molten rock of our home planet.
Bob decomposed within a few years, becoming indistinguishable from dust. The ship, however, remained static in its perfect condition.
Sixty-six million years passed before the Cube was again exposed to Earth’s air. To the humans removing the extraterrestrial vehicle from the depths, the ship looked as it did when Bob first Mirrored into Earth’s atmosphere.
Our gift had arrived in pristine condition, and with it, a new age for humanity—the true beginning of our species’ history.