Chapter 4: Markism for Unbelievers
June 19, 1984.
Zero minus 9 days.
“Hey, Ed? It’s Gus. I’m not calling at a bad time, am I? Good. Look, about this research trip I’m on? It’s going to get a lot longer. Yes, I do remember what you told me about signing up with fly-by-night companies, but I really think I can do some good here. Yes, real science. Yes…look, that business with the U.F.O. spotters was just that one time, and I’m not going to make a dumb mistake like that again. Yes, yes I promise I’ll keep it out of the press if it turns out that I was wrong. Yeah, Gabe was fine with covering my classes for as long as it takes—I asked him before I left. He only threw two books at me, tops, and he wasn’t even aiming for my head! So we’re good, Ed? Ed, you…you’re not crying, are you? Look, I’ll make it up to you, I promise. No, I do. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a limo lined up for me and everything. Alright? Alright? Alright.”
Gus hung up the hotel phone. “He took it even worse than Gwen did,” he commented to Delver, who was waiting outside the door of his room. He picked up his travel bag and followed the priest out of the building. “Any reason for the limo, by the way? A plane trip to Canterlot would be a lot faster.”
“You wanted to know about my faith, didn’t you?” Delver asked. “It’s rather hard to discuss secrets known to less than fifty people on the entire planet in a crowded airplane. A three-day car trip in a secure vehicle, on the other hand…”
Gus smiled. “And here I was thinking that our dinner companions last night might have made you regret taking me on.”
“Nobody’s perfect Gus, not even Markists.” He laughed rather awkwardly to make it abundantly clear that the last statement was supposed to be a joke. “So far, I still think I can trust you with my students. That’s the most important thing, since they’re the ones running the experiments.”
“Oh…right,” Gus said, realizing that he knew nearly nothing about either of Delver’s assistants. While he wasn’t looking, Gnosi snatched away his overnight bag and packed it into the trunk of the limo.
After getting acquainted with their driver, Gus, Delver and his two assistants climbed into the limousine. Gus sat next to Gnosi and across from Delver and Meridiem. Delver reached over to a plastic bar at the bottom of the glass separating the passenger compartment from the driver and pulled it up, covering the glass with a black panel. Pointing at an intercom, he explained that it was now the only way the driver would be able to hear them.
“I’m Gnosi, and this is Meridiem Tempest,” the older student said, holding out his hand.
Gus did a double take. “How’s your name spelled?”
“G-N-O-S-I.”
“I see. That’s got to be awkward during introductions.”
“You have no idea,” the young man said dryly.
After an awkward silence and a nudge from Gnosi, Meridiem was the next to shake Gus’ hand, gripping for only a brief moment before practically yanking the hand back. Afterwards, she turned to look out the window.
“I take it you’re both theology students,” said Gus.
“Yes, I hope to put my special talent to use in counseling,” said Gnosi.
“Oh, and what is your ‘special talent’?” asked Gus.
“I can…well…” Gnosi shrunk back. “I’ve never got a good reaction talking to unbelievers. Maybe when we get to Canterlot I can show you, and then you’ll understand.”
“Alright,” Gus said with a shrug. “And what do you hope to do, Miss Tempest? Does it have to do with your ‘special talent’?”
Meridiem sighed, still looking out the tinted window of the limousine. “My special talent is a waste of time.”
Gnosi chuckled, which caused Meridiem to roll her eyes. She turned back around, although she kept her eyes on Gnosi instead of Gus as she held up a pendant hanging around her neck that showed her hourglass mark. “Literally, it’s a waste of time,” she said. “So I don’t think I can use it in the ministry. Maybe I can be a secretary.”
“Or an administrator,” Gus joked. “They’re all really good at wasting time.”
Meridiem shot him a glare so cold that it took his breath away.
Before he had a chance to respond, Delver started loudly laughing at the joke, carrying on for nearly a minute before stopping himself to think. “Let me see…how should I cover this? Markism 101.”
“How about the way you taught us?” Meridiem asked, having gone back to window staring.
“Only about five times faster,” added Gnosi with a smile.
“Don’t leave anything out, even the stuff you might not believe wholeheartedly yourself,” said Gus. “With the bizarre physics we are dealing with, anything could turn out to be true, or a distorted version of the truth. Or at the very least wildly entertaining.”
“All right,” said Delver. “Why don’t you start by telling me everything you know about Markism?”
“Me?” asked Gus. “Not that much—religion generally doesn’t interest me. If it keeps you from going nuts when trying to comprehend the immensity and randomness of the universe, then good for you—as long as it doesn’t involve telling me what to do or think. So, Markism…pretty much an American religion, I think. I’ve travelled a lot, mostly to physics seminars, and the only place I remember seeing folks with rainbow-colored skin and hair (that wasn’t obviously dyed) was in the U.S. of A. As for American Markists, the distribution is pretty bunched up. There are a handful of states where the majority have brightly-colored skin, with a minority of pinks and darker shades. And there’s a bunch of other states that are mostly pink-to-brown with a scattering of greens and blues. Even states that brag about being 50/50 are really more like half 98% Markist towns interspersed with half 98% Christian towns.
“The second thing I know about is the stigma. You guys are big on getting along and the rights of animals—horses in particular, and that’s gotten translated into accusations of cowardice, especially every time America goes to war and most of you guys hold back. Believe me, as a Jew I understand. Like you, people only have to look at me to know what I am. And it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference that I haven’t actually believed in anything in decades—I’m still a Jew to them, with all the prejudices that are attached.
“You guys are really big on harmony. That word shows up all the time with you, to the point where I’m pretty sure it has a couple of hidden meanings the rest of us aren’t privy to.
“And finally, there’s the business with the marks, the visual shorthand you use for yourselves. Everyone gets one during adolescence and something changes when you get one. Not every single time, but often enough to seem way more than a coincidence.
“For example, take my daughter, Gloria.” Gus pulled out his wallet and showed the other three her picture—in doing this, he had finally succeeded in attracting Meridiem’s attention. “She’s adopted, obviously, and her birth parents were Markists, equally obviously. When she was old enough, I insisted that she research her birth religion, so she could have the facts to deal with the stigma issue I mentioned previously. A few years later she had some disturbing dreams—which, as a non-believer she did the right thing in not telling me anything about—and went to the local priest. A couple hours later, she came back to us with her mark, which she then put away and never showed to anyone else as far as I know. Gloria is very serious about her Judaism, you see. Everyone else in my home is, as a matter of fact. Which is very weird to me, as my faith is supposed to be passed down by the female side of the family, and my wife was Christian before meeting me. But that’s beside the point.
“What I mean to say is that my daughter had two passions before getting her mark: the cello, and photography. It goes against my core values as a supportive and loyal father to say this, but she wasn’t very good at either one. She was good enough to do either activity for fun for the rest of her life, but not good enough to get paid. Until she got her flashbulb mark. Now every picture she takes makes a mockery of the wall it’s hung on, because it belongs in the Smithsonian. Her compositions and lighting are perfect, and even the most stubborn subject bares his soul to her through the lens of her disposable camera. This sort of thing is the miracle which sustains your religion throughout all of the ugliness it has been subjected to through history.
“I don’t think there’s anything else I can add to that. So, let me hear the rest of it.”
“In the beginning was the Goddess, and the Goddess was perfection,” Delver intoned in a deep voice. “She created a Perfect World of Harmony so that She might have followers to practice and spread that perfection throughout time and space. And so She made followers, in Her own image, and all was right and good for a time.
“The Demoness looked upon this world, and She was jealous. So She invaded the Perfect World of Harmony, and attempted to change it into her own world. Goddess and Demoness fought for control, and in the end, the Goddess won, and the Demoness was cast out of the Perfect World, never to return.” Delver turned his head, looking off in the distance. “Now during this battle a mirror shard, a piece of the Perfect World, was broken off and lost to corruption. It was cast aside and left to rot. This Earth we live on is that very shard. The Goddess holds Earth in contempt, and has nothing but disgust for the evil and follies of mankind. But the Markists, the true followers of the Goddess, persist in upholding Her values, in the hope that we might someday purify the human race, and bring this Earth back into perfection, so She might accept us into Her arms once again.” Delver sighed and looked away. “That’s still the way they teach it to the toddlers. Nobody truly believes in it anymore, and I think that’s a good thing. It reeks too much of self-loathing and puritanism for my tastes. Besides, I think it more accurate to say that the Goddess has a full-time job governing her original World, and respects the free will thing we have going on here, even if She doesn’t seem so keen to allow it to spread to Her own subjects.”
“OK, I think I remember hearing something vaguely similar applied to Christianity a few years ago,” Gus interjected, “when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.”
“You mean Gnosticism?” asked Gnosi.
“Um, I think so,” said Gus. “That and the Parable of the Cave by Plato.”
“Fair enough,” said Delver. “Now we move past what is taught to our own believers and dig into the Sacred Secrets. To begin with, the Goddess doesn’t look like a human. In fact, there are no humans on the Perfect World.”
“Aliens?” Gus asked incredulously.
“Perhaps,” answered Delver, “but that makes the fact we can converse with our Goddess rather unlikely. The Perfect World has houses with doors and windows, towns and cities, farms that churn butter. They have teacups, Gus.”
On seeing the professor still having trouble understanding what Delver was implying, Meridiem reluctantly continued. “For every Markist, there is a matching individual on their world. Marks are part of their biology. All the Marking ceremony does is to temporarily strengthen the bond between the pair so that knowledge of the mark might be passed between them.”
“It’s an alternate Earth?” Gus ventured.
“That’s our best guess,” said Delver.
“But alternate universes are not supposed to be physically possible.”
“Why’s that?” asked Gnosi.
“Because this universe is the superimposed sum of all possible universes,” explained Gus.
“Sum Over Histories,” said Meridiem quietly. “I minored in Particle Physics,” she said by way of explanation, “and we spent one day in class going over the theory and trying it out.”
“But I can’t see any other way to explain the similarities,” countered Gnosi. “Could you explain the concept in terms a theologian could understand?”
Gus rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t you do it?” he asked Meridiem.
Meridiem’s face went white as she suddenly found herself on the spot. “I…uh, well…it’s the sum of the square roots of the probabilities for each possible outcome, only they aren’t exactly probabilities…I’m really no good at explaining complex concepts.”
“Gus, could you please help them out?” Delver asked.
Gus paused for a moment as he tried to come up with an excuse—he hated teaching Physics 101 for exactly this reason. But then he thought back to some of the things his friends confronted him with last night and took a deep breath. “Alright. Have you ever heard of the two-slit experiment?”
“I’ve heard of it…” Gnosi said in a way that clearly meant he had no idea what it actually meant.
Gus looked in vain for a chalkboard before continuing. “OK, imagine you have a barrier with a screen behind it, and you cut two slits into the barrier, and then you shine light at it. Normally, you’d get two beams of light on the screen. Now imagine instead you have the same setup stuck into a pool of water, the slits are about a centimeter wide each, and they are two centimeters apart. You’ve got a layer of florescent dye floating on top of the water. You use a fin attached to a motor at one end of the pool to generate a constant stream of waves, and then you turn out the lights and focus only on how the glowing dye washes up against the far wall of the tank. The dye will deposit above and below the resting level of the water some of the time, when a wave crest or trough hits the wall. Or, it will deposit higher or lower than the magnitude of the waves, when two wave crests or two waves hit the wall at the same time and reinforce each other—that’s reinforcement. And finally, some of the dye will end up right at the water level, either because the wave hit it right between a wave and a trough, or because a crest and a trough both hit the wall at the same time, and cancelled each other out—that’s interference. The overall pattern of the dye, where it bunches up the most vs. where it is thinnest, is called an ‘interference pattern’.
Gus closed one eye then held up his two index fingers, peering out between them. He then slowly moved his fingers closer together. “Now if you go back to the light version, you make the slits really thin, and put them only a few micrometers apart from one another, you get a similar interference pattern, proving that light can act like a wave.”
“Alright, I guess I can accept that,” said Gnosi. “But where do alternate realities come in?”
“Imagine turning down the intensity of that light source. Down and down and down, until the grid of detectors that we’re using instead of a screen pick up each individual photon. Light is now behaving like a stream of particles. But if we keep this extremely-weak light source on for a few hours, we still end up with an interference pattern. The individual photons strike the grid in seemingly-random positions, but the more photons we get, the more the results look like the exact same interference pattern. The problem is: if the photons are coming in one at a time, what are they interfering with?”
“I…what…are you sure that’s what happens?” Gnosi asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe there’s more than one photon in each ‘drop’ of light.”
“Okay, well in that case we can try yet another version of the experiment, only using electrons. We can measure mass and charge now, so we’re absolutely certain we’re sending only one electron through the two slits at a time. And still we get an interference pattern, one that shows that electrons also act like waves. So again: what is an individual electron interfering with? It must be interfering with other electrons, but across time. But that also raises objections.
“So try looking at it like this: A particle comes out of the emitter. It could go this way,”—pointing up and to the right—“or it could go that way”—pointing down and to the left. “Or it could go through the first slot, or the second, or it could curve around and strike the emitter. Take every possible path that the particle could go, thousands of them, maybe even millions. And calculate the probability that the particle would follow that particular path. But these aren’t regular probabilities; they are probability amplitudes, which I won’t even try to explain, other than to say you can get one from the other. So you take each outcome, weighted by its probability amplitude, and you add them all up, and the result is what that particle will do. This is Sum Over Histories.
“Sum Over Histories works, so that means there can’t be alternate realities.”
“Okay, you had me until that last part,” said Gnosi.
Gus took in a deep breath, closing his eyes as he collected himself. “It comes down to definitions,” he finally explained. “What is an alternate reality, but a world that differs from our own by some quantum-mechanical change? You want a world without Hitler? Well the decision by his parents not to conceive is at its root a change where a particular pair of electrons travel in a particular way in a pair of brains, and that is quantum mechanical. Sum Over Histories means that the particular variation you’re thinking of somehow split itself off from regular reality, creating an alternate reality without Adolf Hitler. But that possibility was already one of the multiple possibilities that was summed to create our reality. That one can’t exist, because it died to create this one. Now do you understand me?”
“I suppose so,” Gnosi said with a sulk. “But without alternate realities, how can you explain the similarities between Equestria and Earth?”
“I can’t,” Gus said with a shrug. “Yet. Once I get a chance to perform a few experiments, I might be able to come up with a working theory. It’s probably the first thing I’ll do when I get to that lab of yours. So how else are the two worlds similar?”
“Well for one thing, Equestria is mostly populated by creatures, both intelligent and not, that we consider to be mythological here on Earth. Dragons, minotaurs, unicorns and pegasi are among the dominant species. The Goddess Herself resembles a cross between a unicorn and a pegasus.”
“Only She’s horse-sized,” added Meridiem. “The majority of unicorns and pegasi are half her size, and call themselves ponies, alongside a group called ‘earth ponies’ that lack ‘accessories’, but make up for it with increased strength and endurance.”
“Only the ponies have counterparts that are Markists, and only ponies have marks,” Delver continued. “This means that we know far more about the ponies than we do about the other races. They call their land, or perhaps their entire planet ‘Equestria’.”
“You understand that all this is completely ridiculous, right?” asked Gus.
“That’s part of why it’s not general knowledge.”
“Yeah,” said Gus with a laugh, “I can imagine how much worse it would be for you guys if everyone knew about the tiny horses. I suppose you’re going to say that explains the bit about the hay smoke. Actually in that case, what does that make my ‘Perfect World’ counterpart?”
“A griffon,” answered Gnosi. On seeing the blank look on Gus’ face, he added, “That’s a creature with the front half of an eagle, and the back half of a lion.”
Gus shrugged. “Kind of weird, but less ridiculous than ponies, I guess. So how did this religion get started?”