Typology

This was inspired by a typo on a mailing list, during a discussion of whether Human Nature and Human Nature could be fitted into Doctor Who continuity together.

SHARD UNIVERSE [Terminology] There are certain patterns of events which, because of their precise formation and structure in time, are capable of "seeding" history, in much the same way as a single shard of crystal can convert a beakerful of solution into crystals of identical shape and construction.

From a time-bound perspective, the phenomenon resembles nothing so much as eerily significant coincidence, as particular situations, and even names and dates, "echo" and recur throughout perceived history. A god becomes mortal; a demon is chained; an island civilisation falls before the wingbeats of angelic or demonic powers. From some perspectives, even the Homeworld itself might appear to have fallen more than once.

Non-time-active civilisations often perceive such events as the action of providence in history, and it is trure that many such "shards" are deliberately seeded by the Wartime powers and other time-active cultures to their own ends.

Others, however, are naturally occurring. It is thought that these apparently random seed events may themselves be echoes from previous or parallel universes where such recurrences have infested the timeline, resulting in a history of endlessly repeated near-identical episodes. These "Shard Universes" would be characterised by formulaic, clicéd scenarios, barely-distinguished individuals and obsessive returns to depressingly familiar tableaux and set-pieces.

[© Philip Purser-Hallard 2007]

I still love The Book of the War.