The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic (feature)

The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic was an in-universe essay published in the Mad Norwegian Press reprinting of Dead Romance.

It was originally written as source material for other writers in the Faction Paradox range.

Summary
On the Evolution of Universes, the Creation of of History, the Usefulness of Biodata, and the Construction of Worlds in Bottles

i. How the Universe Works
It's important to note that the universe is not alive. It does, however, reproduce. There are universes "before" us and "after" us in chronology, others are distanced by what might be termed Ur-space, and can be accessed with the proper use of technology. The universes immediately "after" ours, its descendants, come from "pocket" universes. Various cultures create these pocket universes, but the methods to do so never vary too much from culture to culture.

As such, a universe reproduces if it is capable of producing sentient life, which in turn leads to a sort of evolution of universes. Those universes that are more likely to produce sentient life are more likely to pass on physical traits to the "pocket" universes based on them. A culture is unlikely to create a pocket universe with laws of physics wildly different from the ones that they originated in, for the simple fact that they would be unable to survive in that scenario. Over time these changes accumulate, leading to universes radically different from the original progenitor.

ii. "Outside"
The exact number of alternative universes is unknown, either infinite or quite large, and while we, being spatio-temporal beings must think of things in those terms, it's important to stress that there's no space "outside" of our universe, and even the term "outside" is a poor one. Nonetheless we will use the term "Ur-space", and note that there are some universes "closer" or "further" to ours in "Ur-space".

Very few explorations have been made into Ur-space and other universes, very few cultures have the skill to do so, and those who do tend to have no interest in actually doing so. The Great Houses in particular are wary of making contact with their counterparts in other universes.

With that said, some universes "close" to ours have been explored, and they've been roughly similar to our own, as has long been speculated. This is due to common ancestry, however, rather than anything to do with branching timelines or quantum mechanics.

iii. The Great Selection
The fact that universes originate from common ancestors and live separately in "Ur-space" has led to the terms "brother", "sister" and "parallel" universes coming to be used. All of these are misleading in their own way, this is not in question.

What is is the question of whether the evolution of universes is dictated by environmental factors. Many of the factors in biological evolution have no clear parallels in the issue of universes evolving. There is no food source. And while Swimmers show the existence of predators in Ur-space, they seem to be incredibly rare.

Perhaps the longer the universe exists the more descendants it can have. But we know too little about the reproduction of universes to be confident about anything, as none of the pocket universes yet created are complicated enough to become anything like our own. An expedition to a frontier time region by the Houses discovered universe seeds left by either the future Houses or their enemies. But we simply have no way to tell whether our own universe is short or long lived on the timescales of creating new universes.

iv. Biodata Connections
Obviously the universe seeds have some level of relation to biodata technology. Both the bottle universe in the possession of the Houses and the Eleven-Day Empire have their basis in biodata manipulation, though both showcase severe limitations of the technology as it's currently practiced.

Biodata theory insists that so long as a conscious observer is present to observe events, the meaning of those events becomes more fundamental than the matter. The Anchoring of the thread by the Great Houses has ensured that there will always be an observer present. More recently there's a separate observer, who has separate conceptual territory, but the underlying theory is the same.

When we refer to the Houses creating history using biodata, we don't mean that they fixed the outcome of every historical event. Rather, they provided a specific framework in which historical events now lived, a linear ordering. They didn't nudge history in any particular direction during the anchoring of the thread, and while they did remove other powers that could rival them in the early universe, this was done with more conventional means. As such, it's clear that the Houses simply were never able to manipulate biodata on a truly universal level, and if they could, they wouldn't be in the war they currently find themselves in.

v. History Lessons
It must be noted that members of the Houses are not merely biological, they are part of the structure of history. History is founded on the culture of the Houses, and in turn they manifest the principles of History, albeit in a way expressible by a highly complex system of biodata equations. To come into contact with one is to come into contact with a historical process. As such, it's obvious why members of the Houses wish to avoid their alternates from other universes. Two different forms of historical process meeting would at minimum have catastrophic local effects. Potentially it could change each historical process in its entirety, and given that the Houses are history, this thought is not appealing to them.

Recall at this time the only engagement the Houses have had prior to The War since The Anchoring. It's generally held to be a side effect of the procedures used in The Anchoring, an oversight "tore open" the universe, allowing the Yssgaroth in. The Book of the War alleges that the Yssgaroth were simply a natural effect of coming into contact with another universe. However, another option presents itself. Instead, perhaps a hole was punctured into a nearby universe, and through mere interaction with our own the Houses of that world took on the forms of the Yssgaroth, corrupted into what we saw, perhaps even some of our own Houses. Albeit, this is only speculation.

Continuity

 * The anchoring of the thread lead to a mass-extinction of many cultures who weren't equipped for life in a linear chronological House-perceived universe. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet, So Vile a Sin) Therefore, when the Great Houses are spoken of as being the first civilisation, (PROSE: The Pit, So Vile a Sin) it is merely in terms of being the first civilisation which we can understand.
 * The inter-universal war] between the universes where Rome never fell and the universes where the Nazis won is referenced multiple times. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) It's speculated that, due to the prevalence of these universes and their closeness to each other, humanity is a major factor in the universe, even if the universe itself is not important.
 * There's a reference to an exploration of a frontier time region where universe seeds are discovered, and while, not mentioned, this is at the Anvil Stars. (PROSE: The Book of the War)