This is from the Nuira Black Book, Chapter One: Preface
Past, present, and future: words that assume the presence of time. In schools, we were impregnated with this archaic idea, handed down by the Roman, Marcus Aurelius. His assumption that, “time is like a river made of the events which happen along a stream,” is wrong. Time is a lie. As a member of Nuira, this is singularly the most important truth that you must understand.
There is no past. There is no future. There is a persistent now which encompasses the whole of history and its completion. Your existence is the dichotomy between nothingness and eternity. All universes exist in this state: an infinitesimal block of time and space representing the illusion of infinity and coherence.
The problem of time is a problem of consciousness. Because we live in the perpetual lie that is our universe, our minds must find a way to make sense of it. Our evolution has, for whatever reason, convinced us that our state of being is bound by a continuum of rationality. Essentially, our minds have convinced us that the river flows in one direction, when in fact, the river flows backward, forwards, never, and always. Every condition of the river exists simultaneously.
Living inside the perpetual lie creates the illusion that our universe is infinite. We are simply too tiny and do not possess the technology to see the edges of the cosmos. Yet, we can imagine a universe that fits into the palms of our hands, as if it was a brilliantly colored marble with specks of light dancing. A measurable, perfect universe appeared to be near stasis until we chose to rewind and fast-forward its entire history.
Humanity’s first steps towards a better understanding of the nature of the universe took an incredible leap forward several years ago. A group of physicists at the Large Hadron Collider accidentally created a small universe during a dark matter experiment that lasted a second fraction. Although they could only measure this universe incidentally through radiation, energy, and gravity, they did indeed give birth to a microcosm that undoubtedly held life. To its inhabitants, their universe must have felt infinite in the same way that ours does to us. Without the technology to examine this new place, we have missed what is truly important: its history, its possibilities, and its probabilities. Those are the tools that the Achuelians have at their disposal as they research our universe.
To them, our universe is observable outside of time. They can see our pasts, presents, and possible futures. Since our existence is near-contiguous with the Achuelians, they can only calculate the probability of which future we will walk. To them, our universe is a choose-your-own-adventure book with innumerable outcomes. By studying where we are now, they can project the likelihood of which end we will meet. As we march through a narrowing funnel, their calculations become more accurate. As they accumulate data, the margin of error decreases. And this is where humanity is now: at a crossroads with the Achuelians. The decisions we make will mark a massive change in the universe.
For us, the continuum is inescapable. We are subject to the river’s flow because we cannot escape the rules that govern us from the inside. Even beings from other universes, once here, must also abide by the laws that permeate the lie of our existence.
This is the The Nuira Black Book found in The Haber Effect Series
