What IS reality?

“Pardon, but when you spoke about different paths or certain points of development on my homeworld, what exactly did you mean by that?”

For the first time I saw puzzlement on her face.

“Well, I was obviously referring to different developments in different timelines.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“Is that really a thing?”

“You seem puzzled. Aren't you aware that time is not a coherent stream, but a vigorous branching and merging entanglement of different possibilities?”

I tried to follow that thought.

“Well, it was a theory for me, an aspect of the multiverse theory, but not a reality, no.”

Lily, Reeza and Yára looked at us as if each of us had grown a second head!

“Can anybody tell me, what, by all eternal fires, are you talking about?” it broke out of Lily.

Elä’Ahrûna smiled apologetically.

“You see, for normal living beings time is a continuous, straightforward flow, sometimes seemingly a little bit faster, sometimes a little bit slower, depending on your perception. That is, what you sense. But in fact, contrary to your experience, what you perceive as your reality is not a fixed status quo, but a mere possibility.”

Over Lily’s head appeared a big metaphorical question mark.

“Is there a connection to casting magic?” asked Reeza, who followed closely.

Elä’Ahrûna shook her head.

“Not really. Magic is a mere transmutation of energy via mental and spiritual labour, enabled through the conductivity of manærite. No, I’m talking about the essence of the so-called ‘reality’.”

She pointed towards the beastess.

“Look, Lily is making a fist. But she restrains herself and doesn’t strike or interrupt me. In an alternate reality she may have given in and attacked me. That is the point, where reality would have split into one branch, where she listens, and one branch, where she strikes. Depending on the outcome these two branches may merge again in the future …or not, developing independent realities which continuously drift apart until a completely different history emerges.”

“And where would this ‘alternate reality’ take place?” asked Lily, her voice oozing disbelief.

“Ah, yes! Here you have to imagine your four-dimensional reality having the shape of a thread, or better a bundle of threads, placed in a higher dimensional realm.” Elä’Ahrûna explained with the nonchalance and enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t had any interaction for a very, very long time.

Yára frowned.

“That means there are many different versions of history, based on different decisions and outcomes of events happening.” she mused. “There could be a reality, where humans never left Liýranda, or one, where they won the cataclysmic ancient war. Or one, where I was never conceived and born. Or one, where you were perhaps killed much earlier.”

The blue ancient daimon nodded.

“I see you understand. Every moment we live is the result of a myriad of improbable coincidences, a causal chain of cause and effect where every moment can - and somewhere has - a different outcome. That is one main aspect of the immense complexity of ‘reality’.”

I scratched my head.

“What I still don’t understand: Why would you stray so far as to study the different realities of an entirely different world instead of studying and immersing yourself into the many different realities of your own world? Wouldn’t it have been easier to summon someone from another reality of Liyúra, instead of choosing someone from a myriad of realities of another world?”

All eyes turned toward the daimon lady who looked as if she’d been expecting this argument already for a while.

“What makes you think I hadn’t done that already a long time ago?” she asked - looking a little bit too smug for my liking.

“There are certain difficulties to overcome,” she added, “and without delving into too much detail: it breaks down to find not only the right personality with a matching soul, but also from the right environment that formed it according to what might be best for the situation here at place.”

“Meaning?”

Lily was visibly straining to hold her temper.

“Someone from Liyúra, even from a different timeline, is still too familiar with this world to make enough of an impact, a real difference. It may have worked, yes, but still, it would have been too much of a gamble. Earth on the other hand is surprisingly similar to Liyúra, but with enough difference to shape a human into something disruptive enough for the current development of human society here.”

I thought I misheard and I wasn’t the only one!

“Did I hear correctly?” Lily asked in shock. “Did you really just say ‘disruptive enough for the current human society’?”

Elä’Ahrûna shrugged in a very elegant and nonchalant way.

“Yes, you heard that quite right. Why does it shock you so much? Do you still have emotional attachments to human society?”

The beastess twisted her mouth in visible contempt.

“No, and that’s precisely why this is wrong!”

The other two girls also shook their heads.

“You can’t attempt to bring down a whole civilisation! That’s against all our ethics!” Yára hotly came to Lily’s aid.

“Also, how can you be so sure that humanity is set on a wrong path? Couldn’t it be that your earlier bad experiences are clouding your judgement?”

I stayed silent but couldn’t agree more!

The ancient daimon lady closed her eyes for a moment and smiled unspeakably sad.

“You can’t see it, can you?” she whispered, barely audible against the verbal onslaught. But when she opened her eyes, her gaze blazed with iron determination.

“Haven’t you heard of the experiments of Thîmancháyus?” she thundered, for the first time visibly enraged. We all shrunk down like children before a scolding mother, even the ever defiant Lily.

“You mean this child’s play with boiling water?” asked Reeza carefully to avoid angering the powerful daimon any more. Unfortunately her question had quite the opposite effect.

“Child’s play?!” Elä’Ahrûna yelled in disbelief. “Do you fools have any idea what this mind had really hatched?”

I cleared my throat.

“I don’t have any idea. Could you explain?”

Her anger seemed to subside. A little bit.

“That’s easy!” she scrunched between her teeth. “That maniac has built the prototype of a working steam engine!”

My breath caught in my throat, but the girls looked at each other absolutely clueless.

“What is a steam engine?” asked Yára, but at that moment Reeza’s eyes widened, giving me an understanding sideglance. She seemed to remember what she’d glimpsed at when she ‘swiped’ my mind during our first encounter!

Elä’Ahrûna saw that and turned toward me, now calm again.

“Vilém, you not only know what a steam engine is, but also what consequences it had on your world, on your society and your culture. Why don’t you share that with us?”

Again I had to clear my throat.

“Why don’t we sit down for a bit? This may take a while.” I said.

We did just that and then I told them the history of industrialization on Earth, the invention of steam engines, the emergence of combustion engines, fossil power, electricity and all that what followed, with all social and ecological consequences. Thoroughly and in detail.

Yes, it took a while…