Ontological Dissonance


 * "Our Understanding Is That Influence From Doomed Timelines, Though Seemingly Necessary To Advance In The Alpha Reality, Is Generally Inauspicious. Travellers From Such Branches Are Marked For Death."


 * - Kanaya Maryam (Andrew Hussie), Homestuck.

According to Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation, every random outcome at a quantum level results in an offshoot timeline, in which the other possibilty occurred. In Time-Cloaked, this is, indeed the case, and forms the basis for the 5th and 6th dimensional axes.

Thankfully, almost none of these offshoot timelines survive for longer than a few microseconds, creating nothing more than a slight "fraying" of the "Alpha" timeline that can largely be overlooked by most higher-dimensional transport mechanisms. This is a very good thing, because otherwise early Andari transplanar excursions would have resulted in countless incursions of almost identical timelines, given their close proximity on the temporal axes. Most probably, the early effectuated transdimensionals would have walked straight out of the other side of their portal on the parallel plane, possibly entirely unaware that they were anywhere other than their world of origin, and believing their experiment a failure until proven otherwise by instrumentation.

The reason why this is not the case is due to the phenomenon of Ontological Dissonance.

Ten Dimensional Fraying
In ten-dimensional space, an object, shown across all axes, can only truly be represented by a snake-like spline that curves across this higher-dimensional space. Indeed, each object is actually a grouping of different splines representing an elementary particle, or, to be more precise, being the elementary particle. An object is more a "rope" of interconnected particle stretching across 10-dimensional space, held together by different forces created by the arrangement and interaction of these splines, causing them to bend towards eachother at different points along their length. This is not to give the impression that the splines ever shift, because in 10-dimensional space all timelines are set. The splines are "stationary", in a realm where such a word has no meaning, but are caused to curve as they do due to these different interactions along their lengths (timelines).

It would seem that these ropes are highly fragile structures, and can only exist in certain, stable configurations. Indeed, even the individual splines are like threads that will snap if twisted the wrong way. When a timeline branches on the 5th or 6th dimensions, these ropes and threads will leave their stable configuration, causing the splines that form entire offshoot universes to disintegrate almost immediately. Only the stable, alpha timeline configuration survives, itself only being the "offshoot" reality that finds the stable configuration. This is ontological dissonance; the state of a timeline being in an unstable configuration that will inevitable tear itself apart. Such a timeline is also often known as a doomed timeline.

Persisting Dissonance
Of course, not all timelines will cease to exist immediately, even if the majority do. It has been observed that an unstable timeline can hold a temporary existence for a time before disintegrating. This is just a larger scale version of what happens with all dissonant timelines, only instead of the inevitable disintegration occuring after only a few microseconds, it occurs after a longer period of time. In fact, there is technically no limit to how long such an offshoot timeline could remain in existence, but it would always be unstable and inherently doomed. Indeed, some timelines do survive for quite a while, most notably in an arrangement where it's existence is vital to maintain the stability of the alpha. In this case, interaction with the alpha timestream will keep it, while unstable, in a state of prolonged being, until the integrity of the alpha has been ensured. This is not due to any higher purpose, but more due to the fact that, like any system, that of the multiverse falls into that which is most easy to maintain, and the shape of these splines, threads, timelines or timestreams will always be that which most easily allows the propogation and integrity of the whole. Indeed, the events and curving of the alpha of any timeline will be to this same end.

Unstable, dissonant timelines, while they remain, can be entered and even exited by their inhabitants. However, an object or being leaving a doomed timeline will maintain it's ontological dissonance, and will eventually be utterly destroyed from some conspiration of the multiverse system. This includes objects or beings that leave the timeline as a result of an interaction to maintain the integrity of the alpha, or those that somehow become further intangled with stable, alpha objects. By the same token, entities entering the dissonant timeline will maintain their coherence, although the disintegration of the timeline will generally result in their death if they do not escape beforehand.

Stable Divergence
This is not to assert that all divergence along the 5th and 6th dimensional axes will result in an ontologically dissonant timeline, however. While it is true that the majority do, in certain circumstance or at certain times, such as just after the creation or commencation of a universe, then the timeline can remain in a stable configuration and indeed become an alpha timeline in its own right. A large number of offshoots are typically always created at this time, which accounts for the presense of such a substantial number of planes with physics platforms compatible with those which we are familiar with (although many higher-dimension seperated universes also have compatible physics models). Some divergences further along the timeline can also remain stable, resulting in a true timeline split. However, as with the continued existence of non-alpha leaning dissonant timelines for any protracted period, it is extremely unlikely. However, the sheer number of minute quantum events that occur every instant results in the existence of a number of such timelines, bearing similar characteristics to the original timeline, although the two alphas will be diverging further by the microsecond. This results in the  parallel universes that may be encountered in Time-Cloaked.

The unlikeliness of one of these events should be stressed, however, as well as their tendancy to occur mostly towards the start of the timeline (if not directly after it's start e.g. the universe's big bang). No stable timeline splits were made from The Homeworld after the start of Andari civillisation, for instance, and no alternate instance of the Dialsar exist on any Cerduan offshoot timelines.