Chaotic Inflation

Basic Information

According to the theory of Chaotic Inflation, new universes are constantly being formed, with their Big Bangs happening in our Quantum Foam. These bubble universes isolate from ours, but in the process they cause the the expansion of our universe.

In this model, the Multiverse is a big Fractal with smaller universes sticking off of it, and even smaller universes sticking off of those. Of course, "smaller" is a relative term, and these universes may all be extremely large. Without some glimpse of the bigger picture, we don't know where our universe falls - is it above or below average in size?

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia

Game and Story Use

• Per the Many Worlds Interpretation, every decision, every action, results in a new universe. Combine that with Chaotic Inflation, and you get an infinite number of rapidly expanding universes.
  • Assuming that the evolution and actions of complex organic life increases the number of new universes, the presence of a Galactic Empire, Space Colonies, or other high-Kardashev Spacefaring Civilizations will accelerate this further. The more we spread out, the more the universe expands and speeds up.
• Thinking of technological applications of this…
  • A very isolationist civilization may build a number of machines that whip up the Quantum Foam at the edges of their Planetary System, thereby making the universe expand faster and push them away from other stars.
    • A bomb that does the same would be a crazy Weapon of Mass Destruction. You drop it between an enemy planet and that star that planet orbits. The universe expands between them at a rapid pace. Having been effectively knocked to an ever-more-distant orbit, the planet rapidly cools and can no longer support life.
  • Such devices may lead to dimensional portals, wormhole technology, and other gateways. Sick of this universe? Create a new one and slip into it! Boldly go where nothing existed before!
• The Neglectful Precursors may not even be in our universe. They didn't ascend to a higher plane, they were on that higher plane from the outset, and created our universe as an afterthought or science experiment.
  • So the precursors are sitting around in another universe, with several billion years additional evolution and technological growth over us. One day, they figure out the proper tech to enter other universes, and pay us a visit. They may present themselves as Gods, they created our universe, and have the power to travel between realities.
  • On the other hand, it may be that time progresses at different rates in each universe. A billion years for us may be 10 minutes to them, and we might evolve and invent the dimensional portal before they finish lunch on the day they made us.
• Eris, Goddess of Chaos, is behind the Inflation. There's a direct correlation between the Rate of Expansion of the Universe and the number of hotdogs consumed on Fridays. See Discordianism.