Infinite alternate universes

[Lúmendil]

I've been thinking about this whole alternate universe thing and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The theory presented in Stargate states that an infinite number of alternate universes exists based on every decision ever made, so that there is an alternate universe for each different outcome resulting from a different choice. That seems credible enough.

However, whenever a team or a member of it travels to an alternate universe, everything seems to be almost the same apart from a few insignificant (in the really big picture) details. For example, when Daniel touches the quantum mirror, most of the same people work for the stargate program. Also, when the other McKay comes to Atlantis, his universe seems to have the same people in the expedition.

My problem with this is that, if every decision ever made results in a new universe, why do we only end up in those that greatly resemble our own. Like Rodney said in "McKay and Mrs. Miller", the chances of us even ending up in an inhabited universe are very very small. I mean, based on the amount of decisions and different courses of action that have taken place throughout all of time, even if we end up in an inhabited universe, we should most likely meet completely different people (as a result of different people marrying and mating with eachother) or even a completely different evolution of humanity (more advanced, less advanced or just plain different).

I understand that the counter-argument for this would be that we would first end up in the universes that are "closest" to our own. However, as far as I know, there is no physical distance between these alternate universes because they don't exist in our space-time. Also, the writers have never been able to explain why all the universes seem to be so similar.

Sorry if this thread already exists somewhere, I looked and couldn't find it. Please leave your comments, it would be really interesting to get some discussion going on about this.

[thekillman]

the closest to our own thing is correct. but its not about physical distance, but about the amount of cosmic important choises. the fact that carter joined the military was a cosmic one: it was one of they key ingredients to earth's survival.

in season 2, an alternate kawinsky or whatever his name came to us, together with alternate carter. turned out that, the further from "our" world the less earths survived the goauld attack. the sg1's from season 8's alternate story[or was it 9?] were all pretty close to our world: apart from some differences, they all survived the goauld attack, the replicater attack, and found the ori. one even got the ori plague. strangely, fraisier was alive, and no ancient descended to help him, indicating that carter's ascended friend either wasnt re-ascended, never loved carter, or didnt want to descend. the sg1 who caused it was obvious far more desperate than our own. leading to think that they were "used " to more desperate measures.

we did find an AU that was further off course than our own: [road not taken, S9] they revealed the stargate program in our eppy "lost city"
it was way off course and full of surprises. not that ours is the right course btw. but it seems to indicate that the way of survival needs:
1. the stargate needs to be secret, or at least the revelation needs to be precisely timed, like in a time of peace in wich we normal citizens dont think conspracy and such.

2. sg1 needs to be together, and stay as it is. atleas 1 original member needs to be in it.

3the "oneil guy's " sacrifices are nessecary[like oneil putting his head in the repository, mitchell fighting black knights]

4 the ''carter person's " ideas are nessecary for survival: carter building the naquahdah generator, stargate dial program....

5 the warrion tealc person. self sacrificing and great in combat with excelent strength. too many examples
6 the daniel guy. for completing riddles. to negotiate and for morals.
dakara puzzle was done with daniels help. translating ancient. etc.

ok now if these points are done[ the last six dont HAVE to be tealc etc, but someone with such qualitys.] the survival is optimal. atlantis has a similar setup, ronon being the tealc guy[hes great in combat and self sacrificing]
teyla fills in daniel's role. tough it doesnt matches.

[Lúmendil]

I see your point that only some of the universes would have survived the goa'uld attack and under only certain circumstances. But what about all those universes where the stargate was never discovered, or the ancients didn't ascend, or Ra never found earth, the wraith were never created, or a combination of some or all of those. The list goes on and on. Like the theory states, there should be an endless amount of different possibilities. Still we've only encountered a very narrow range of alternatives. I really think that should be explained in some way.

[PureMarksman]

Note that in S3 when Carter and Kawalsky came he mentioned that when the Quantim Mirror is turned on is goes to a basic randomised default world closest to your own, thats how they found their world once again; it was as if tunning the device one way made things worse (As in you see worse realitys) and turning it the other direction made them a little better.
Quote Kawalsky: "See that cant be our world theres no grenade damage turn it the other way"
So I guess know one in our reality has needed to actually go that far out for dramatic changes.

Examples of what was seen: Similar SGC, SGC With Jaffa partolling, SGC with Jaffa in active combat (As if searching), Fairly damaged SGC, Major Damaged SGC.
You can see these in the S3 episode "Point of View".
Hope this helped.

[thekillman]

what youre saying is that you can choose to go "left" and get universes with positive changes, and "right"with negative changes?

[MathiasE]

I see your point that only some of the universes would have survived the goa'uld attack and under only certain circumstances. But what about all those universes where the stargate was never discovered, or the ancients didn't ascend, or Ra never found earth, the wraith were never created, or a combination of some or all of those. The list goes on and on. Like the theory states, there should be an endless amount of different possibilities. Still we've only encountered a very narrow range of alternatives. I really think that should be explained in some way.

Most AU eppys have been with the quantum mirror so lets start with that, the reason why we have seen only AUs comparable to our own is because they also have the quantum mirror, without it we cant tap into it, so all the AUs where they didnt find it or never started the SG program we will never see trough the use of the mirror.

In SGA where Rodney comes from an AU i guess it's just a fluke that we tapped into an AU so similar to our own, but perhaps something in the maths made the device draw power from a universe close to our own which would make it very similar to the one we're in.

[ManiacMike]

Think of it as a tree.

You start with a branch, then that branch makes more, and so on and so on.

so, for every choice in one universe, there are probably a billion other worlds formed.

[JSPuddlejumper]

We create universes with our every decision.

Oh yeah!

[Lúmendil]

Note that in S3 when Carter and Kawalsky came he mentioned that when the Quantim Mirror is turned on is goes to a basic randomised default world closest to your own, thats how they found their world once again; it was as if tunning the device one way made things worse (As in you see worse realitys) and turning it the other direction made them a little better.
Quote Kawalsky: "See that cant be our world theres no grenade damage turn it the other way"
So I guess know one in our reality has needed to actually go that far out for dramatic changes.

Examples of what was seen: Similar SGC, SGC With Jaffa partolling, SGC with Jaffa in active combat (As if searching), Fairly damaged SGC, Major Damaged SGC.
You can see these in the S3 episode "Point of View".
Hope this helped.

Yeah thanks, I didn't remember that episode. Since the quantum mirror works that way, it does make sense.

We create universes with our every decision.

Oh yeah!

Yeah, it really sounds stupid and I would never find it credible in the real world. But we're talking about the stargate universe here, and that's the theory that was presented.

[Ranlier]

Thats actually a misconception- we don't "create" universes with our decisions.

There are already such an infinite number that there will already be a universe in which the other option is chosen.

For example, if ten billion universae spin a roulette wheel, any number you'd like to see "chosen" will be reflected in at least one of them (but there won't be 36 universae created just to accomodate the wheel).

Stands to reason there are also fully identical universae as well.

[thekillman]

better said: almost identical ones. because if EVERY choise is taken into it, we might aswel find an AU wich is EXACTLY lie ours, exept tealc didnt want to watch starwars. things like that. take in the choices of 6 billion people and you get zillions of worlds identical to ours but with a minor tiny-winy difference.

instead i start to think that in stargate, its about galactic choises. galactic?
yea, ones that affect galaxys. like carter. if she hadnt cosen to join the military, earth would be under goauld control, instead of goauld ass being kicked.....

[umopapisdn]

I would say it's most likely just because it makes a better story, if we ended up in a universe where nothing was the same and they could never get back it wouldn't be a very good story. Though while writing this I realised it could make a very good story

[happyclappy]

because its easier to have people clove to our reality appear. i mean with an infinite possibility, humans could have evolved differently appearance wise but made all the same choices, why go to all the trouble of giving people 20 arms or 3 heads when they can be the same.

at the end of the day all the writers need to do is show that things played out differently at some point and made most things different for that AU.

season 9's ep isnt a good reference coz after a while it is clear the writers are having some fun with the teams that come through... i mean whats all that with a 'action man/GI jo' team?

aka the differences emphasise the point without making the episode annying for production staff ect. at the end of the day if its a gd ep, which they all are, dont complain.

[SP90]

Think of it as a tree.

You start with a branch, then that branch makes more, and so on and so on.

I think this is a great way to think about it. The reason we see a lot of AU on the show similar to our own and how some are "closer" than others is because of the branching. On a tree the branches close by will likely come from the same split off point if you trace them back towards the trunk. Translated into universal context those similar AU probably had an identical decision/outcome in the near past. As you get to AUs that look more and more fundamentally different, the split off point or decision that set them apart probably happened further in the past. Am I making sense at all?

[Splitsecond]

There are an infinite number of universes where Daniel goes through the quantum mirror and comes out to a wildly different universe or a universe where he doesn't see an attack, or he dies or the gate address he gets isn't the right one for our universe.
The same is true for all parallel universe stories, e.g. 'Ripple Effect' there are an infinite number of universes where they let everyone in or everyone ended up on a Goa'uld Earth or Jaffa made it through or evil sg-1 won or all sg-1s couldn't go home or we still had the quantum mirror.

The universe we watch is the one our universe's TPTB deem most interesting.