The Deluge
“Fiction must make sense. Reality is under no such constraint.
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- People attempt to make sense OF reality. If they have insufficient or incorrect data OR they have a failure of imagination...they fail.”
Chandra Sengupta
At one time Scientists thought that 68% of the universe was Dark Energy. Of the remainder they speculated that 27% was Dark Matter. The remaining 5% or so was composed of matter that could actually be seen, touched and tasted. The scientists were saying that 95% of the observed universe, or rather UNobserved universe, was invisible.
Right...but for all the wrong reasons.
They were NOT considering the metaverse. It turned out that Hugh Everett had a glimmering of the truth back in 1957 when he proposed his “Relative State” Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. He was right. The visible universe is NOT all that there is. In reality there are a large, if not infinite, number of other universes which occupy the same space as this universe, but they are mostly undetectable. All the many universes are out of phase with each other.
Gravity like rain, is no respecter of “persons”...or in this case of Universes. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike and so does gravity attract everything in THIS universe and every OTHER universe as well. The attraction obeys the inverse square law in both cases.
Predictably, this caused so called ‘gravitational anomalies”...in space. Those anomalies were where no concentrations of matter were visible so it’ had to be “dark matter”, or pixie dust, or unicorn farts...or SOMETHING!!
Right?
Well yeah...kinda.
The matter was real. It was just ‘out of phase”. All matter attracts all other matter, regardless of phase. When two concentrations of matter, like planets, became phase locked then interesting things would happen.
The two planets wiggled some before settling down. The worlds shook.
No big deal for the planets as a whole. A dog shaking itself free of water doesn’t bother the dog. The dog’s fleas had better hang on...or the planetary inhabitants.
Massive earthquakes shook the worlds. The two planets, each invisible to the other, dance and gyrated about their center of gravity until they finally settled into place. On each planet all the faults that were hanging fire snapped loose.
On Earth, the much dreaded “big one” that was the San Andreas was even worse than anticipated. The New Madrid was worse yet. Everywhere that the seismologists had identified as sites for possible future earthquakes……...had one. The bucking, bouncing gyrating earth caused avalanches, and landslides everywhere. All but the strongest man made structures collapsed.
Worse were the submarine mudslides. The Mississippi Canyon, the East-Breaks and the West-Florida landslides had happened in the distant past. They happened again...and they were worse than the last time, and they all at the same time. Twenty foot and higher waves sloshed across the gulf of Mexico. They devastated the shore line.
Worse were the big waves in the Atlantic The long dreaded Canary Island landslip finally let go. Hundred foot and higher waves pounded the Atlantic coast. There were other underwater landslides than just the Canary Island. Many, many, many others. There were tens of thousands of miles of underwater slopes Every foot of which had the potential to slip if shook hard enough.
The earth was shaking hard enough. Almost every site that had to potential to slip...did.
The Pacific was worse. Take the Atlantic and multiply the death and devastation by ten. A whole lot of people lived on the pacific shores...a whole lot of them died. Gigantic Tsunamis devastated whole island nations.
The worst was the geyser. It didn’t seem so bad to begin with but over time it was the worst.
The supervolcano that had almost wiped out humanity seventy thousand years ago had exploded again. This time it wasn’t nearly as massive an eruption as it was the first time. It was still seriously significant but it was nothing like the enormous detonation that had occurred about seventy thousand years ago. It killed everyone for miles around so it was bad enough. No one was left alive to witness the strange event.
Basically what happened was the mountain cleared it throat. It spit out a cubic mile of rock that obstructed the portal to another world. Unfortunately for everyone involved the portal was about a mile below sea level on the other planet.
The planet on the other side of the portal was similar enough to earth to be it’s twin. The fact is that in times past it and Earth had exchanged biota. The Cambrian explosion MIGHT have been associated with the portal. No one knew.
The water on the other planet began to swirl down the drain hole that was opened on it’s side. The water flowed thru the now open pipe an emerged on earth’s side. A LOT of water can flow an opening 80 kilometers long and 20 kilometer wide. It did. The water had a five thousand foot head and flowed rather rapidly. It made an awesome fountain.
This fountain of the deep opened for sure and for certain and stayed open this time. The other planet’s loss was earth’s gain. The other planet’s seal level fell and earth’s rose. The other planet’s sea level fell a mile...Earth’s rose about a thousand foot. The differences in topography mattered.
And the rain fell. All those volcanic eruptions MIGHT have had something to do with vaporizing gigatons of water...maybe.
No matter. It rained anyway.
It rained so damn much that everything flooded. It just rained and rained. Every pond, every reservoir, every lake every puddle...overflowed.
It was a global flood.
Most of the infrastructure had been destroyed without warning. The earthquakes, the tsunamis and the rising sea level killed most of those who lived near an ocean coast or river shore near an ocean. Half of humanity lived near a coast or along a river. They mostly drown. Millions died overnight. Millions more died in the first week. Billions died eventually.
The survivors had no real clue what was happening. All the survivors knew was that they needed to move to high ground.
…..and that the high ground was vanishing.
Planet Earth was having a really bad day.
and then …...
and then earth received visitors...through the now open portal..
i like thanks for sharing
great synopsis for a future book?
keep going, it should be a great read.
The idea of two worlds existing but not knowing each other exists is interesting. I remember my brother telling me a theory of parallel universes existing alongside ours that we can't see but their timeline runs along ours. Your story made me think of how back in the 90s the media was reporting stories that ocean levels would rise so much that the entire state Louisiana would be underwater eventually. Those visitors to Earth are visiting a pretty messed up planet by the end. Really good story.
the idea of parallel universes has intrigued me. as noted...suppose the only interaction is by gravity. would that explain the 'missing mass'...would there be any need for 'dark matter' and what not?