Heavy Weapons - World Building

Anomalies

Heavy Weapons runs on the basic premise of a multiverse. A infinite series of parallel universes that run on forever, each completely separate from its brothers and sisters, never to touch or interact. With that in mind:

A normal, healthy universe like our own shouldn't have any anomalies occur at all. There are rules, physics and physical laws that underpin every interaction within that universe, they are what make anything possible. Without the laws of chemical interactions and nuclear bonds for example, no physical matter would be possible, these laws of physics are written into reality itself, known as the space-time fabric. It is a meta-physical manifestation of the reality and its laws for existing within it, if you don't follow the rules, you can't exist. That's a lot of big words to describe the world as we see it, but its important to note that this fabric of reality can be distorted, damaged and even completely destroyed, the effects of which are not always immediately apparent.

As previously mentioned, when the fabric of reality is undamaged, like our own universes, everything functions as it should, but when this is distorted, it can give way to anomalies. These are unexplainable, impossible events that can only occur when this fabric is distorted, the deeper the distortion, the higher the chance of larger and more dangerous anomalies.

Anomaly generation is inversely proportional to the overall health and status of a universes reality, I.E. The more anomalies generated, the more unstable and dangerous the universe is. A lot of realities aren't in danger if the damage to their fabric is low or moderate, although the low to moderate anomalies are certainly strange, they don't pose a threat to that realities existence as a whole, but there is a thresh-hold that will all but guarantee the early death of an entire reality should it be crossed. Once a universe starts generating anomalous materials, its days are numbered. The existence of these materials is a sign that the fabric of reality is greatly damaged and their generation will speed the death of that reality up significantly.

There is only one universe within the infinite parallels that has managed to prevent its own death by anomaly apocalypse and that is the one my fiction focuses on, but the rules of anomaly generation and their consequences are consistent through-out all realities.

But as previously mentioned, the existence of low to moderate level anomalies is something that most realities can cope with. These unexplainable events vary greatly in their effects and are categorised as per their danger to living creatures.

Threat 1 - "Unnoticeable" level events

These are generally very small changes to molecular arrangements, small electron manifestations, tiny unexplainable events that only sensitive equipment can detect, nothing to be concerned about but a sign of instability in the fabric. These are often to blame when someone enters a room and forgets what they entered for as they can interrupt the neural pathways in your brain just enough to stop a thought.

Threat 2 - "Low" level events

Low level events are usually mildly interesting to witness and mildly annoying at worst, the sudden drop of temperature in a room, a gust of wind when all the windows are closed and properly sealed, the disappearance of your favourite pair of socks, they don't tend to effect living creatures, but they provide greater evidence of reality distortion. Other examples include spontaneous minor internal damage to inanimate objects (Such as a light bulb suddenly popping) and extremely mild energy generation, like a dull burst of light or random radio-wave signals generating from nothing.

Threat 3 - "Mild" level events

The last tier before fabric disruption becomes severe enough to threaten existence. The consistent generation of anomalies in this tier is strong evidence that there has been significant damage to the threads of the universe as its rule-set is permitting more errors than it should. These are more powerful than the previous tier and can effect living creatures, including spontaneous teleportation, stronger energy spikes (or energy destruction), sudden and violent damage to materials and the generation of non-anomalous physical matter, such as gas or metal. They can also change the properties of existing materials in potentially good or bad ways, but nothing that would break the laws of physics too severely. For example, an anomaly could harden a length of steel beyond its normal strength by ten fold, but it couldn't make it generate energy for free.