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Hypertime: A Scientific Justification

by John Fellows

When I had the idea for this article, my first thought was "Hey, that's quite good!" My second thought was, "Damn, I've got too much spare time on my hands." Why would anybody be mad enough to try and actually explain Hyper-Time in real, scientific terms? Messrs Morrison and Waid were quite obviously out-of-their-heads when they came up with that one. But like an inquisitive mouse wanting that juicy piece of cheese in that horrible mouse-trap, I was drawn to Hyper-Time and it's underlying scientific concepts.

But before we get to the meat, I thought it best to explain the DC Universe before Hyper-Time was discovered. The best place to start is with the birth of the multi-verse. At a point in the far distant past, the Multi-Verse was created. So what is a multi-verse? It's basically a representation of time, but in a non-linear fashion. "Parallel universe" is a term you hear a lot in science-fiction, but it isn't just a cheap plot-device it's a posited theory put forward by a number of intelligent minds who should know better.

This diagram shows some of the infinite universes (you expected me to draw that?). The yellow line represents how we experience time, not as a straight line, but as a series of decisions. This example shows some universes that don't go anywhere, this is due to lack of space. In actuality, unless some universally destructive force was unleashed, this would be impossible.

The basic principle is that time isn't a straight line, it's dendritic (tree-like) and bifurcate's an infinite number of times from an initial point of creation. We only experience time in a straight line. The theory states that every eventuality, every decision, every alternate outcome has to have been played out and so create another bifurcation in the time-stream. At the point when you decide whether to have Coca-Cola or Pepsi, two streams split off from this point - one where you picked Coca-Cola and one where you picked Pepsi. Every decision, no matter how miniscule has to be played out, every molecule that moves one billionth of a millimetre to the left instead of the right creates a new universe. For this reason, there will be a number of alternate universes which are pretty similar to this one. Then of course, we have to take the effects of deterministic chaos into consideration.

Here we see an example of how a mundane decision like which drink you should have can create a new universe. These two universes will be almost identical apart from that one decision, but will never re-converge.

If the bifurcation of new universes is a purely mechanical (i.e. Completely predictable) system then small changes like this will cause no change to the rest of the parallel dimension. If the system is chaotic, then even a small change like this will cause a cascade of smaller changes leading to possible massive differences between universes. This could mean that there would in fact, be very few universes that were very similar to ours. The above diagram shows two streams splitting off from one point, they are exactly the same apart from one decision. This is the main difference between the multi-verse and hyper-time. Despite the fact that these two streams are identical, they will never feed back into each other. In the multi-verse, it is inherently impossible for two streams to rejoin without some clever jiggery-pokery with the time-stream, i.e. Outside influence.

What this meant in the DCU was that there were a number of different dimensions which were pretty similar, except they had a number of different heroes. These heroes coexisted quite peacefully for a number of years before DC decided that it better sort out this mess they had created. They decided that this principle of alternate universe was to difficult for people to understand, that it would confuse newcomers and ultimately be detrimental. For this reason, a bit of comics continuity cleaning dressed as a story was unleashed. "Crisis on Infinite Earths" is a fondly remembered limited series which erased this multiple universes and boiled it all down to one universe.

Here we see what occured after the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths". A number of universes were combined into the one remaining universe and the rest were destroyed.

The fact that parallel universe theory dictates that every eventuality has to be played out was completely discarded for the notion that there was only one universe. The title of the story itself also suggested that an infinite number of earth's (and the rest of the universe I assume) were destroyed. Now, it's not my place to go into an in-depth discussion of what the word 'infinite' actually means, but suffice to say, the destruction of an infinite number of anything is impossible. Infinity is unquantifiable, you would never be able to destroy all of it. But, if you worked within the theory of parallel universe's, then this can be explained. There is an infinite number of universe's, because they are continuously being created and so it would be impossible to count. But if you picked one moment in time, it is conceivable that a set number of universe's could be discovered. This wouldn't actually be 'Infinite Earths', but as this is impossible, beggars can't be choosers. But it seems that DC still wasn't happy and so ordered another continuity-sorting limited series. Unfortunately they ended up with "Zero Hour". In this series, the one remaining universe was destroyed from both ends of time. The entire universe was then 'rebooted' anew, seemingly the same in most respects to the previous continuity, but with small changes. This seems to have left the event's of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and the multi-verse pretty much the same as before. In fact, achieving very little. The notion of destroying time in this way is pure science-fiction and has no basis in reality whatsoever. This series got a lot of things wrong and it seems one of them was scientific believability. This brings us to the present, via one last point. Although "Crisis on Infinite Earths" may have destroyed the multi-verse and rounded it down to one solitary universe, there is still the "Elseworlds" label to continue. These are a series of comics which are set out of main DCU continuity, but are based on DC characters. There are two possible explanations for these titles:-

• The "Crisis" didn't in fact wipe out all the universes. This is a theory that ties in with what Grant Morrison has tried to say in relation to Hyper-Time. The idea that an infinite number of universes were destroyed, but a few were missed seems like poor writing to me. But what I think Grant was trying to say is that the Multi-verse and Parallel dimensions are two different things. The Multi-verse was destroyed, but the other parallel dimensions were safe. This brings up a series of new questions which would only further confuse the theory.
• That the creation of new parallel universes began again after "Crisis". Just because the previous universes were destroyed or combined into one universe, doesn't mean that bifurcation stopped, this would take more than "Crisis" to stop. This would explain "Elseworlds" titles that occured Post-"Crisis", but the one's occurring before wouldn't. This leads us to the conclusion that the first theory is right.

Hear we can see the new time-line as theorised from available information. The red lines show the DC Multiverse, the green lines show parallel dimensions. This diagram also shows that parallel dimensions came into existence with the birth of time itself and not just the multi-verse.

This means that a seperate set of universes were untouched during "Crisis". This further brings into disrepute the "Infinite" part of the title. But aids in any explanation of Hyper-Time. Hyper-Time isn't just a means of travelling through time, it's a means of travelling through hyper-time. Now this may seem obvious, but every word in that sentence makes complete sense from a scientific stand-point (it may not be correct, but it's a great theory).

You all know your Euclidean geometry, you know what dimensions are, you know simple Euclidean shapes like squares, circles, triangles. You know how to give appropriate measurements of these objects, if you're measuring a cabinet you need the length, breadth and height. But there are more than three dimensions, there are actually more than four but that isn't important. The fourth dimension is important, it is time. You can say that your cabinet is x wide, y long and z high, but what happens if somebody cuts the end off one night. It won't still be those dimensions, the three other dimensions alter with time. So you should really give a length, breadth, height and time when you measure something... But then whose going to pick up on that? What does this have to do with hyper-time? Well, hyper-time is a fifth measurement you have to give to be really certain. You really should report the x, y, z, time and hyper-time to be correct.

If you think of a four-dimensional cube as a hyper-cube, then hyper-time is simply the next dimensional step up from time. It is your current parallel universe. The only problem with this theory working in the current DCU, is that there is only one universe, Crisis erased all the alternate universes (an infinite number of them no less). But as shown previously, it may have wiped out the multi-verse, but it left the rest of the parallel dimension's. This means that hyper-time travel in the DCU is possible, if a little scary. What is even more scary is the diagram below, I will try to explain it as best I can.

This example shows how a parallel universe (Time-Line A) can converge with our universe. Our universe is changed and Time-Line A becomes Time-Line B.

You see, hyper-time differs from normal parallel universe's in that they aren't really dendritic. Tree-brances very rarely join up with other branches, certainly not to the extent that hyper-time appears to do. You see, hyper-time weaves in and out all the time. If you could create a device which would give you a reading of your hyper-time dimension, it would most likely show an ever-changing number.

The only major difference between normal parallel universe theory and hyper-time is that hyper-time universes can converge and alter the other four dimensions. How this happens has yet to be seen fully, but a good example can be drawn from the above diagram. Let's say that in our universe, our blood is red (what a coincidence!), but in the other universe (Time-Line A), blood is green. When the two universes converge, both universes are affected, but continue on in their path. Now, blood may actually be brown or purple in our universe, it may be a totally different colour in Time-Line B (which is the new Time-Line A). This may seem a little confusing, but that's alright, it's supposed to be.

Now we get onto the philosophical stuff. The kind of things that can't be proved either way. If hyper-time is indeed the fifth dimension, then this simplifies matters a great deal. Just think of it as a measurement, one that you'll probably never know about or be able to use, but a measurement nonetheless. But is it more than this? I developed a further theory which is unproveable, but makes sense and may be what Grant Morrison had in mind in the first place. If any of you have read The Authority or HellBlazer, you will know Warren Ellis' predilection for magic. But as pointed out by various character's in these comics, all magic really is is change. You turn that kid into a frog, it's just a change, you summon a lightning bolt from nowhere - you changed this universe. So all magician's really do is control hyper-time. They bend the convergence of universes to suit their whim, pulling in an alternate time-line where this kid they don't like actually is a frog or where lightning happens strike just where you wanted it.

Look for proof of this in the recent Crisis Times Five story-line in JLA. The being from the fifth dimension, Qwsp, states that he controls all time and hyper-time. His fifth dimensional home is really hyper-time. His reality-altering ability is simply the mastery of converging universes that naturally occurs in hyper-time. Makes sense now?

What does this mean for the DCU then? It all depends, really. It can be used as an excuse for all those continuity errors, all those printing mistakes, all those lazy writers. We could wish the whole Hawkman farrago into hyper-time. But knowing Grant Morrison's predilection for jamming in as many fantastical scientific idea's into a story as possible, I'm sure he has great things planned. Hyper-time isn't a tool for poor writing, it's the dawn of a new age. No, really!

© 1999 John Fellows. Used with permission. If you have any comments or questions about this article, send me an e-mail at hypertime2000@yahoo.com and I'll be sure to forward your responses to John.