by Max Barry

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The Interstellar Confederacy of
Inoffensive Centrist Democracy

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The Second Death of Venus

This one is set centuries in the future. Every one of the terrestrial worlds in the Solar System have been terraformed, even Mercury and the Moon. However, civilization has fallen (Somehow) and the inhabitants of each planet have been reduced to more primitive technologies.

When Venus was originally terraformed, an enormous disc of material was placed at its L1 point, so that the intensity of sunlight reaching the planet was reduced to an Earth-like level. But at some point, it got seriously damaged and unblocked light is now hitting Venus, repeating the process that turned it into the hell it is today.

At the point that the RP starts, Venus is beginning to experience the effects of the greater levels of heat. The planet is swathed in thick layers of clouds like in the present, but are composed of water vapor. Torrential rain falls eternally across the surface, which is now like a global jungle. The clouds have slowed down the increase in temperature, with much of the infrared being reflected into space. But the water vapor is increasing the greenhouse effect, with any heat that gets through being trapped.

On the surface itself, the remaining humans struggle to surface in a hot and humid jungle, with the sky almost always covered in clouds and thick, warm rain always falling. If the survivors are unable to figure out how to stop the global warming or escape it, they'll perish in Venus's second death.


The planet's rotation has been sped up to about 24-35 hours per rotation, and there are several continents (Map underway). No magic, no FTL-like stuff, nothing. Assume that the laws of physics are exactly the same for them as they are for us.

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Annihilation

The multiverse is a vast place, strangely like a pot of boiling liquid. Universes like bubbles form, expand or contract, and eventually die in a variety of ways. For a time vaster than any creature can comprehend, this process has gone on, producing a staggering variety of universes. Closer in to the "center" of this higher dimensional structure, time runs slower, much like in the spacetime of some of the universes near a massive object. Further out, time runs more slowly.

Close to the center, if they have the physics to support them, universes exist for an enormously long time, ancient and long lived compared to the mayfly universes further out. And in one of these universes, a visitor arrived. From the point of view of the Alpha Human Cluster (Universes where humans have evolved), this visit would've been far in the past, so long ago that the Heat Death would be a long afternoon in comparison. But even though it was so far in the past, it will directly effect them.

The visitors built a terrible machine, spanning the breadth of that distant cosmos. And within that machine, a process began. If humans could comprehend the sight of the probability space that universes existed within, they would've seen a bright sphere gather around that universe, and began to expand. As the expansion continued across the Multiverse, it began to wipe out every universe in its path, like a monster wave against sand castles. The spherical wave passed through the Center, and began expanding across the multiverse, reaching out for the also expanding Rim, where the many mayfly universes lay.

And now, the Disturbance is approaching the Human Cluster. Already, it has began to wipe out universes on the inner and ragged border of that probability bubble, where it was known as the End Time in some of them. And it has continued to expand, continuing to sterilize the multiverse of its countless universes, and the countless creatures within each one. But despite the power of this destroying force, it is not infinitely strong. Left over from a horrendously long time ago, an ancient device the size of a dwarf galaxy lies waiting within a cold and dead Heat Death Universe, shielded from the slow decay of matter by a bubble of slowed time. This device serves as a bunker, a way to shield a universe from the Disturbance. Because the only way to get past the wave is to let it sweep by.

Because of the vastness of the multiverse, countless other devices like this exist somewhere out there, some with both unimaginable and strangely familar civilizations sheltering within. And once a wave passes a cluster, an armada is often sent (If they have the technology) to the Origin to confront the monsters that began this genocide, vast beyond any description. The wave is approaching. Those with the technology to travel to this universe will be able to discover this device and learn its purpose, and also the End approaching. They can shield within its protecting walls, and then emerge, ready to travel to the Origin as well to assist in the unending wars raging around it to stop the Disturbance.

Even with the vast armies sent from all over the affected multiverse, even a small force could make a difference, shut down the machine, and allow the Disturbance to fade away.

Who knows? Perhaps ending the growing sphere of death will erase the ugly mark it has left upon reality...

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The Cold and Empty Wastes

*Something to do with the Post-Stelliferous Age universe*
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