# Its Not a Multiverse I used to really like the idea of the multiverse[^1], and in some ways, I still love it. My favorite Marvel McGuffin machine, Dr. Strange, dealt almost exclusively with the multiverse. I mean, he lived in a nexus where doorstops were the only thing holding back the end of days. There is a growing problem with the multiverse concept in storytelling, and it is one that has grown from people finding the horse of many colors, killing the horse, and hungrily breaking out the clubs. The multiverse is fascinatingly boring in the modern era. It is a story mechanic that makes everything suddenly not matter while giving leeway to the storyteller to do anything he or she wants with no rules or consequences. It sucks from the marrow of fantasy what makes these fantasy stories so good and leaves you with a bowl of Lucky Charms marshmallows and bone meal. Douglas Adams, the long sad joke teller, pulled this in the character Fenchurch, where she basically just disappears. Poof, no more love interest[^2]. It's okay; she was part of a throwaway timeline[^3]. Fenchurch was the love of Arthur Dent's life[^4]. The dude literally could fly, and she was a big inspiration for that. She was part of him. This presents a problem in my mind and for anyone that will be exposed to this sort of storytelling over the course of time; none of the outcomes matter. In a vast multiverse where every possibility is explored, there is one corner of this multiverse where there is no multiverse, and thus it collapses down to that one. Rick and Morty is a prime example of this problem playing itself out. The multiverse is so corrupting that Rick is essentially a suicidal god whose only joy is to see how many he can take with him. Sure, it was fun and funny, but ultimately it was just an organism of nihilism, and if the show thinks nothing matters, then the show thinks it itself does not matter. Why watch? So here is my pitch for giving this idea a rest until it is fun again. First, put down the clubs. The horse is not coming back. Then consider the multiverse, an endless expanse where everything is possible. In one of these multiverses, God existed before the multiverse and in His goodwill decided there was only one universe and never allowed the multiverse to exist in the first place. So, in the absence of a multiverse, how do you have the kind of wild and zany storytelling carrying the genetic material of these beloved stories like Dr. Strange, Rick and Morty, and Black Science? Space is pretty vast[^5]. [^1]: Black Science is really good [^2]: I will say that Flash Point was fun but really kind of was the beginning of the end for this sort of thing. [^3]: Let's be honest here. Multiple timelines are just another name for I don't really want to stick with a story. [^4]: Some will argue it was Trillian. It was not. [^5]: Keep in mind dimensional travel is not multiverse travel either. Go to other worlds for sure get there however you want but don't make your characters expendable because there are infinite copies of them.