Friday Lore Post: A Working Hypothesis on the Earth/Nova Mirroring Effect

Confidential Notes of Dr. Rhonda Peregrine, Captain, Department of Research. NOT FOR CIRCULATION

In my scientific opinion, the mirroring of people and events between Earth and Nova is really fucking weird.

My first hypothesis was that it was normal quantum doubling, which wouldn’t have been that surprising given the entangled relationship the two planets have, especially during the last century of Earth’s existence prior to the Split. The fact that the two planets share about eighty percent of their flora and fauna was the most obvious marker of that. But analysis of the quantum matrices on both planets proves that they aren’t doubled at the quantum level. Basic observation also does demonstrate this: though there are remarkable similarities between the two planets, they are not wholly identical, and many events that happen on Earth are altered when they happen on Nova. This shouldn’t be possible in a case of quantum doubling regardless of temporal variance in both locations, unless our theories about quantum state transtemporality are wrong.

If our theories about quantum state transtemporality are wrong, then we’re a bit fucked with regards to the creatures from the other plane. But we’re a bit fucked with regard to them anyway, so maybe it’s time for a paradigm shift. Personally, I can’t say I’d mind dethroning D’vl Niknik Poia’tel from their place on top of quantum theory. Actually, I have a thought about this. End dictation.

Resume dictation. Okay, it turns out Poia’tel’s work on quantum state temporality is more watertight than I’d hoped and also trying to disprove it does funky things to quasars, so we’ll just leave that theory alone for a while and assume it’s true. So we can safely assume that Earth and Nova aren’t quantum doubled. Quantumly doubled? Quantitatively doubled is technically grammatically correct, but that sounds fucking stupid. Whatever, it doesn’t matter, because that’s not what’s happening.

I don’t think that Earth and Nova’s relationship is doubled at a quantum level. Need to think more about this. End dictation.

Resume dictation. Earth is so prone to temporal fluctuation that maybe the people there brought it with them when they went to Nova? And it’s reverberating backwards in time. Paradoxical reverberations were recorded on Trendares during that incident with the vorpal ants. Maybe the people who are doubled go to Nova, then send back shockwaves that touch their previous selves on Earth that the Earth version of them then carry forward to Nova, which changes what happens on Nova to mirror Earth.

But no, if that were true, it would be an endless loop and both planets would have collapsed under the temporal strain by now.

Okay, new theory. Time is really malleable in the time period on Nova when most of the mirroring occurs. Ignoring for a minute that part of the issue here is that it’s not just one time period on Nova that’s mirrored from Earth, what if there the persistent and mostly uncharted temporal fluctuations on Nova lead it to be more malleable, which causes it to seek out any influence it can, and Earth is the most like it in terms of habitation and trajectory, so…no that doesn’t make any sense either, shit.

The thing about the mirroring is that it would make more sense for Earth to be mirroring Nova than the other way around. Earth’s temporal progression is inexorably linked to Nova’s for reasons undetermined, so it stands to reason that Earth’s events and people are also linked. The actual, originating cause of this link remains unclear and I haven’t been able to identify the persistent error in my research methodology that keeps returning the parallel evolution of penguins on both planets as the source. Anyway, the problem with Earth mirroring Nova is that if the mirror effect were directed entirely from Nova to Earth, then Earth would have things like magic and nonhuman sentient species, which it mostly doesn’t. Those are such critical parts of Novan history there’s no way they wouldn’t be mirrored, but they’re all just part of Earth mythology and non-human Novan people who are mirrored to Earth are invariably mirrored as humans, and the fact that Earth’s generative matrix is strong enough to insist that Novan influence is filtered entirely through it means it can’t be a straightforward mirroring from Nova to Earth. But none of the hypotheses have explained how Nova could be mirroring Earth without creating a feedback loop that destroys everything. Dammit. End dic…wait, continue dictation.

Obviously the only reasonable supposition in this case is that the two are mirroring each other. Rather than it being a passive process in which one is being acted on, the two planets and timelines are actively mirroring each other. It’s like they’re…working together to write their own history. We can’t personify planets or timelines, but it does feel a little bit like there’s an intentionality behind it. Or at least a symbiosis. Earth and Nova mirror each other so as to…do what?

Survive, right? That’s what all symbiotic relationships are about, survival. Could the two planets be trying to survive using each other as a partner? That’s ridiculous, because planets aren’t fucking alive. But…

The Right Hand is present on both planets, and then there’s the creature that originates from the Split that eventually ended up on Nova. We don’t understand those forces at all, so maybe they had some unknowable effect on the two planets?

No, wait, Jesus Christ. Note to self, destroy this part of the recording later. The Split is a fundamental rupture in spacetime. Spacetime hates ruptures. Paradoxes emerge because something has put a hole in spacetime and it’s trying to heal itself. All polyversal research proves that whenever anything branches off from the main timeline, it either destroys itself after a while or rejoins the main timeline eventually, usually bits of both. The Department of Temporal Coherence doesn’t want us to think it’s possible for time to be altered in a fundamental way, but the reality is that when a vers is reabsorbed into the regular timeline, changes ripple out all the time. But the other reality is that the creation of a paradox allows for otherwise impossible things to happen. Several events from different verses were absorbed into the main timeline after the death of that invader on Nova, and that was a relatively small paradox.

So to phrase that as a question, what if the mirroring effect is the timeline’s attempt to create a paradox big enough to allow a really big re-insertion into the universe? It’s not that the planets or the timeline are alive, it’s just a naturally occurring phenomenon that’s trying to repair damage to spacetime. There’s only one event in history that could require that much repair.

So, they working hypothesis as of now is that the mirroring effect between Earth and Nova is the timeline’s attempt to repair itself by creating a paradox big enough to undo the Split. This of course requires the supposition that there is something on the other side of the Split, which Bureau regulations require me to deny. We’ve had scattered, occasional artefacts that suggest there is still a universe over there, and if my hypothesis about the mirroring effect is true, then there’s also a developed human culture—because if there weren’t humans on Earth, the growing paradox wouldn’t need to encompass Earth at all and would only surround Nova.

I have to destroy this note in case the Department of Temporal Coherence finds it. But I’ll be doing some testing to see if I can find proof to either support or challenge this hypothesis as soon as I can.

End dictation.