Dark Energy
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Basic Information

Dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy which permeates the entire universe and increases the rate of expansion of the universe, thus ensuring that our universe will succumb to heat death at the end. It is currently assumed that dark energy accounts for 74% of the entire mass-energy of the universe.

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Game and Story Use

  • Could this dark energy be tapped into as a power supply?
  • Ultimately of course, the accelerated expansion of the universe and the resulting heat death is not a good thing for its inhabitants - so in the far, far future our descendants might want to get rid of it to get the universe to stabilize at a constant size (and remain habitable for longer, although ultimately entropy still remains a problem). Perhaps they could simply dump it into another universe - though the natives of that universe might object.
    • Perhaps that is what happened with our universe in the first place. So how can we find the universe which is the source of the dark energy - and make them stop? That could be the basis for the mother of all space opera campaigns…
      • Perhaps this wasn't merely a case of convenient waste disposal - but the deliberate poisoning of an entire universe to prevent us from growing to our true potential over the course of eons…
    • It is suspected that the heat death of the universe might give rise to a new universe. Maybe something or someone put the dark energy here to make sure that there wouldn't be a Big Crunch?
  • Note the hypothetical - if this stuff doesn't exist, then physics as we know it is wrong. This would be very, very annoying for physicists (except for those that win the prizes for figuring out the replacement theory), but opens all sorts of doors for sci-fi.
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