Imagine if you will that the universe and everything in it, everything that has existed, everything that will exist, is all part of an impossibly huge computer program--like "The Matrix," but on a scale unimaginably vast.
We do not know the "programmer"--perhaps a member of a civilization that perished eons ago, perhaps what we know as God.
All programs can be corrupted, either by accident or design. The same holds true for the program known as our universe.
Now suppose a virus has done just that.
We don't know the origin of that either--whether it was intended to be malicious or simply a product of the natural process of decay--entropy in action. The virus rewrites massive chunks of our history, wiping out some individuals, drastically altering others.
It can change a person's age, gender, or even species in an instant. A 100-year-old man can regress to a six-month-old infant girl. Time folds in on itself, mixing different historical periods so that Shakespeare can now write his plays on a laptop and Mozart uses MIDI notation software. Each installment can take a look at a different individual and how he/she was affected by the rogue bit of code. It can cross all sorts of genre boundaries--a story can incorporate age regression, transgender, furry elements--essentially anyone can find inspiration in it, an open-ended universe.
It would be known as the "Glitch" universe, or the "Glitchverse."
I'd be interested in people's opinions on this, and want to make sure this hasn't already been thought of.
sounds really cool!
look forward to seeing the stories.
This could be a pretty cool
This could be a pretty cool framework for all kinds of stories. What I can see being a total bear though, is getting the rules down. These are some pretty powerful forces you're talking about. The rules of how the universe and the virus operates would have to be pretty clear or the universe would be more like twilight zone episodes, along the same genre, but not coherent one to the next at all.
Kinda sounds like something I've been working on
Well, sorta. A bit. Around the edges.
I'm doing a story -- mixed in with my nine million others -- called "Son of a Glitch" right now, about a professional software tester who is hired by Heaven to test their new computerized database system, only to manage to screw up a bit of information along the way...
I dunno, really, though. I'd try reading something in the universe you described, but it seems like it would be dang hard to keep things straight when literally any change could be made. Does the universe extrapolate out from changes to the past, creating a cascade effect? Or is the effect localized somewhat, with things working out to balance changes out over a short time?
Melanie E.
What I was thinking was...
...that it started in the future, and is working its way backward through the past, creeping backward at a fixed rate, which I haven't yet determined. We know that it's creeping further into the past because individuals who were supposed to be long dead--some famous, some not--suddenly start appearing. Sometimes whole communities could end up being out of their own time. As The effects occur in isolated pockets that shift constantly, meaning they could occur in an area of Europe one day, then move to some part of China, then the American midwest.
The stories will likely take place about forty years in our future, ten years after the first glitch occurred. They've managed to stop the glitches as they occur, but haven't figured out a way to completely repair the problem. The one recurring character could be an agent sent by the organization to investigate and repair glitches, and there could also be local agents he/she could work with. I'd also been thinking that the agent could also have been affected by the glitch in some way.
One of the things the organization could do is help individuals displaced in time adjust to their new surroundings. It could be used as kind of a one-off joke, as with the "Shakespeare with a laptop" notion, or it could be dealt with more extensively.
However, it does seem like I'm unintentionally intruding into your territory, which is why I put my suggestion here. Now that I know about your universe, I might not pursue mine.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Are your serious?
Do you really want to give my muse more ammunition? Gods woman do you know how many hours I spend ...
"The name is Bond, James ...Blond, Jasmine Blond...."
Giggles couldn't resist.
The Matrix would make for
an excellent story universe here. But 'Glitchverse' sounds even better.
May Your Light Forever Shine
There is yet ANOTHER complication...
wrote 12 long stories for your new universe and every one of them disappeared as if they'd never...
Where the heck did my car go? And we did NOT have a plaid lawn, I swear!
Huh? I don't recall having breasts... Ooooh a mouse. I like to eat mice.
Meow!
Whew! I'm human again but why are there five of me all identical... Whoa MOMMA are WE hotties!!
Kardashian sisters look out!
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. See what I mwean?
--Cough--
..mean.
Sorry, hairball.
You need some limits. Perhaps there must be a counter-change to balance what happened,.
IE the conservation of energy and matter is absolute but not the form.
So if suddenly you change species your cat becomes your owner. Or your family just disappeared but then you learn you have four identical hottie sisters who make the Kardashians look plain.
Think I just did tha...
OMG! Like I am now totally blond!
Hum, Why am I holding this award thingy and why am I in this ridiculous out ... Hum, maybe a dress made out of meat would look good on me?
John in Wauwatosa
Yes, that's the problem with my ideas....
...they sound good initially, but are hard to execute. I did intend to have limits, though, and just wanted to get the general idea out there. It would be a long time before I'd start producing stories that pretty much set things in stone. I think it could still be somewhat open-ended and cross a number of genre lines.
Now I remember why I didn't write for thirteen years....
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Wow
It sounds fascinating, but I may be unable to read it. It's not you, or your writing or anything of the sort. I just... I have a strange mental condition where I cant discern reality and fantasy that well. The last time I watched the movie the matrix... let's just say I went a little crazy and believed it was real for a long long time... like years... Jeez just watching Inception REALLY screwed me up for a week. It took love and comforting by my family to bring me out of it.
But yeah... I might have to avoid it. Though words aren't as bad as pictures, so I might be okay, but yeah please don't be offended okay?
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
This is Great
Anything that can encourage more and new stories I am all for plus it sounds like it could be very wild
Go for it all you authors Hugs RICHIE2