A screen popped up out of nowhere, filling my vision. It wasn’t a physical screen – it was slightly translucent, and while it dominated my view, I could tell it was a projection. Sort of like augmented reality or a hologram.
“What the heck?” I exclaimed, blinking a few times.
My annoyance must’ve been some kind of trigger, because the interface suddenly shrank and condensed into a single line at the top left of my vision, showing the remaining Reality Points.
I looked around to get my bearings, but that didn’t help much. I was in a room made of some unidentifiable material. It had no scent, and the temperature was perfectly… well, “room temperature” was the only way I could describe it. It felt off somehow, and every time I moved, it felt even stranger.
It took me several seconds to realize that it was more than the fact that I didn’t have to breathe. There wasn’t any air… but neither was it a vacuum. I didn’t think the rules of this place matched anything I was familiar with.
I estimated the room to be roughly three by three by three meters. Something about those dimensions tickled at my memory, but I didn’t bother to delve any deeper. I was too struck by the absolute neutrality of it.
A glimmering golden light to my left caught my attention. Hovering in the air was a tiny version of Orpheus. Her hair fluttered as if in a breeze, her long robe drifting around her figure. She was no bigger than a foot tall – roughly the size of a Barbie doll – and shimmering, rainbow-colored wings that weren’t quite material enough to be classified as actual fairy wings scintillated behind her. They didn’t flap; she just hovered there without any motion.
Despite my earlier outburst, she hadn’t said anything. But when I looked at her, I saw that she was watching me.
The dialogue popped up abruptly once again, dominating my vision.
“Set universe topology to last universe inhabited? What does that mean?” I muttered, once again looking at Orpheus for an answer.
This time she did respond, in a tiny, high-pitched voice. “I recommend you say ‘yes,’ as that will fill out default values. Only say ‘no’ if you intend your first universe to be wildly different from the one you are familiar with in many operational respects. If you select ‘no,’ you will have to create your own set of physical laws or fill in all parameters needed to make the universe behave in a way that you are familiar with. Many of these parameters are extremely specialized and interact with one another in ways that can make life difficult to sustain if you do not understand them.”
I nodded slowly, even though I wasn’t sure I fully understood what she was saying. I thought I got the idea, though… similar to how this room – which I guessed was my “Sanctuary” – behaved without actually having air yet wasn’t a vacuum. I would have to set how things behaved in such situations in my own universe.
I concentrated on the 'Y' and it selected Yes, and the dialogue was replaced by another screen.
The conversion window was only there for a few seconds before it vanished, replaced by a more informative window, one that nonetheless had a lot of red text in it.
I stared at the reams of information. There were further settings, including the ability to set the speed of light and speed of information transmission. It also looked like this was far too expensive for me, with Reality Point costs in the millions.
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Concentrating on some of the settings brought up something like a tooltip.
I had a feeling my previous, living self had been a bit of a science nerd, but this was beyond what he had studied. A lot of these terms were things I vaguely recognized as meaning something, but I had no idea what, even after reading the tooltips.
With a sigh of exasperation, I took another look at Orpheus and grumbled, “It’s using a lot of very specific terms that I’m having trouble getting. What does it mean by ‘it will appear topologically flat’? It says there’s a chance people will discover it’s not. Is that bad?”
Orpheus replied in a very distant tone, “Topologically flat only means that it will appear to the natives that the universe goes on forever, even if the universe is closed or open. Since you are a new Administrator, I do have simplified explanations available, if you desire. However, please be aware that these may not be 100% accurate.”
“That’s fine,” I reassured her. “So long as I can at least basically understand what it’s talking about.”
Orpheus bobbed up and down instead of nodding.
“Topologically flat, as said, means that it will appear that space continues on. If a native goes in any direction, they will continue to go in that direction. Topologically flat universes are extremely expensive to maintain because they regularly give rise to instabilities.”
The fairy paused, then continued with more explanation, this time without prompting.
“In a closed universe, going too far will result in looping around or reflection, depending on the settings. This is not necessarily bad, but it can result in strange phenomena. If natives notice this, they may be able to exploit it.
“Open topologies are less expensive than flat topologies, but often result in energy leakage as they are explored. In an open topology, the universe is effectively infinite, much like in a flat topology. However, two travelers who start out moving in parallel lines will eventually diverge. If they try to return in the opposite direction, they will not come back along the same path.”
Despite that being the simple explanation, it was still a bit much for me to handle in my current state. My emotions felt a little muted – which was probably a good thing, because otherwise I’d likely be having some sort of panic attack.
“Right. Flat is infinite, closed universes loop, and open universes are infinite but leaky,” I summarized.
I sighed heavily and looked over the options again.
Finally, I remarked, “I think I get some of this. This is what my old universe was like… it was expanding faster than could be observed, so it just looked flat. I get that now.”
I concentrated on the numbers and started reducing many of the variables, making the ellipse much smaller while thinking about what to do. So, a steadily expanding universe… seemed like the easy way to get around any problems with making it a closed universe.
“I’m guessing constant expansion is pretty common. Orpheus, is that common? Will I be screwing myself over if I make the universe closed and small?”
The fairy behind me answered in an almost bored voice, “It is very common to set an expansion in the universe, for those universes that allow exploration beyond the bounds of the world. It is possible to make a net-positive universe in a closed and non-expanding topology. Comparative numbers are not available at your rank.”
Was she bored? That wasn't good.
I glanced over my shoulder at her. “So you won’t tell me how frequently people making this decision end up retired? That sounds a little risky. What rank am I now, and at what rank will I have those statistics available?”
Orpheus bobbed up and down again before answering. “You are currently a Rank Zero Administrator – probationary status. Comparative statistics will become available at Rank Seven.”
Okay… that doesn’t tell me anything, I thought. Let’s try something else.
“Orpheus, how expensive is it to add expansion to a closed universe after initialization?”
This gave a much more interesting answer.
“While size and other variables are much more expensive to adjust post-initialization,” she said, “expansion has a relatively low surcharge, at roughly ten percent.”
I nodded. An idea had begun to bubble up from within. I wasn’t sure how viable it was, but it’s not like I had much to go on.
“Just one more question before I get started,” I murmured. “Can I construct the planet before initialization, so long as I set viable universal constants first? As in, can I set some values and then build a planet before actually uh… starting it up?”
The answer was what I had hoped for. Orpheus floated closer and replied, “Yes. Initialization happens upon the start of time flow. Once started, the universe cannot be halted. However, you can speed up your relative time.”
I nodded to her and cracked my knuckles… or at least, I tried to crack my knuckles, but this body didn’t really do anything like that.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get started and hope I don’t screw this up.”