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DC Cosmology: Crisis Cosmology - Part 1

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VeryGoofyToddler said:
I was more so saying Monitor Sphere is not superior to the 5th Dimension. That reasoning came with Robo asking since the Bleed is in the Orrery and Monitor Sphere has R>F over the Orrery, shouldn’t Monitor Sphere > 5th Dimension? Which I find to be a bit biazzare, incoherent, and weird.
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Also when mxy pulled out the map of the multiverse he implied the fifth dimension and the sixth was completely above it.
 
Nevertheless, I was in the notion they are not one and the same things. You can certainly make a connection but I don’t believe they’re interchangeable terms, more so maybe false equivalence. Upgrading the Bleed to 5D make sense to me but not making the remarks it’s one and the same as the 5th Dimension.
 
Westcoast5005 said:
Yeah cause from what I remember hyper time and the time stream are above the bleed and they are referred to as the 4th dimension and 5 th dimension of imagination is stated to be above that.
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5th dimensional creatures are even able to control hypertime


And it is also stated as trans-geometry (meaning not a spatial dimension)


Also stated outside the heavens (sphere of the gods), meaning it is not a spatial dimension
 
PrinceStories said:
So will the fifth dimension remain above the metaphysical domain or just be equal to The Bleed?
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Well, technically yes, but the Fifth Dimension touches all realms except the Sixth Dimension. It's not really a place that can be "mapped" like the Monitor Sphere or the Sphere of the Gods, it exists and flows all around and between the realms of the multiverse.
 
This is off topic, but I think the reasoning of our DC Cosmology blog for why we decided to split the cosmology needs to be reworked and focused more on why DC's established ways like Hypertime and Metaverse don't work well to reconcile the various contradictions instead of emphasizing on the difference between cosmologies. We can also say that DC Comics has over 80 years of material and stories and that throughout these there are contradictions and continuity errors some of which cannot be reconciled together. AFTER we can says that it causes inconsistencies and massive exaggerated chain of power scaling and then explains the difference between the cosmologies.

[End of the off topic]
 
Elizio33 said:
Hmm. Makes sense to me, but the same barrier was described to be the speed of light and the limit to matter, which lined up with what we've learned during FC on the matter that beyond the SF, matter is converted into pure information.
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Yeah, the nature of the SF has been tweaked over the years, since its inception. However, this places a constraint on the SF simply being a barrier to the denizens of the Orrery, barricading them from the larger multiverse, where things gets more and more archetypal, as one progresses; which makes sense as the Sphere of Gods - the realm beyond the SF Wall, is a platonic archetypal world. The SF as shown in Waid's Flash run (The Flash 1987 #243 p. 13) isn't really a place, which of course means it lacks a definite position in space as defined by coordinates. This is further clarified in Geoff's The Flash: Rebirth #4 p. 14 as the SF existing in every dimension, universe, era... containing the knowledge of every place and time. Manapaul's Flash N52 run states it moves space and time forward (Flash 2011 #8) & Williamson's states it's responsible for the Multiversal progression of space and time as a Harmonic Force (Flash 2016 v 10 ). The most recent info on the SF's nature is it's responsible for the motion of the DC universe, which is essentially the Multiverse Map as it was Perpetua's creation (Justice League 2018 #30). Although, the SF is still seen as the other side of light, as it's creator Waid intended; it's also seen to be pan-dimensional, having a sort of similar existence to Imagination, which has been consistent and most recently reiterated in Simon Spurrier's run (The Flash 2016 #800 p. 34)as omni-dimensional. More recent comics simply contradicts the SF equivocal nature to the SF Wall, and hence they cannot be indexed as the same.

This is of course not leaving the fact, that they're both used interchangeably. e.g Hunter Zolomon intended the Flashes (in Flash War arc) to break the SF Wall, unleashing the other Harmonic Forces, but he verbatim states breaking the SF, which makes sense as the SF will be broken no different than a link getting broken as the SF gets 'poisoned' by the other Forces, as shown in Death and The Speed Force arc.

Edit: Sorry, I took a while & it's a bit clunky. Well, work and stuff.
 
New elements:

Grant Morrison suggested higher spatial dimensions, which he treated as higher infinities throughout JLA: Crisis Times Five. In Morrison's older stories there were mentions of 6D bottles and 8D mazes and in Multiversity: Pax Americana, Captain Adam was describing what 2D would look like to our 3D world, then said how our 3D world would look to him after mentioning a Mobius loop curved through eight dimensions.

Scott Snyder has previously stated that the dimensions he mentioned in his Justice League run were not correlated to the spatial dimensions, but this was more likely to only involve the Fifth and Sixth Dimension.

So here's my proposal, the Orrery contains a total of eight higher spatial dimensions, making the Orrery 1-C, but those who scale to it would either have to be above Captain Adam, like Mandrakk & Thought Robot, or be capable of Orrery-level feats or statements of total creation and destruction based on the context given in the comics, like the Hands and the Darkest Knight for example.

  • The New Gods wouldn't scale because they doesn't scale to the Sphere of the Gods or the Orrery. They simply exist on a higher plane of existence than the inhabitants of the Orrery, but their nature is said to be 4D in comparison to 3D beings, which is why they perceive time on an attemporal way and aren't affected by changes in time.
 
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Elizio33 said:
New elements:

Grant Morrison suggested higher spatial dimensions, which he treated as higher infinities throughout JLA: Crisis Times Five. In Morrison's older stories there were mentions of 6D bottles and 8D mazes and in Multiversity: Pax Americana, Captain Adam was describing what 2D would look like to our 3D world, then said how our 3D world would look to him after mentioning a Mobius loop curved through eight dimensions.
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I agree that there are 8 dimensions which correlate to 8 levels of infinity (1-C). The Mobius Loop shenanigans have always been pretty straightforward.
Elizio33 said:
Scott Snyder has previously stated that the dimensions he mentioned in his Justice League run were not correlated to the spatial dimensions, but this was more likely to only involve the Fifth and Sixth Dimension.

So here's my proposal, the Orrery contains a total of eight higher spatial dimensions, making the Orrery 1-C, but those who scale to it would either have to be above Captain Adam, like Mandrakk & Thought Robot, or be capable of Orrery-level feats or statements of total creation and destruction based on the context given in the comics, like the Hands and the Darkest Knight for example.
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I agree.
Elizio33 said:
  • The New Gods wouldn't scale because they doesn't scale to the Sphere of the Gods or the Orrery. They simply exist on a higher plane of existence than the inhabitants of the Orrery, but their nature is said to be 4D in comparison to 3D beings, which is why they perceive time on an attemporal way and aren't affected by changes in time.
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This makes sense too. If there’s no note of anything like this in the cosmology page already, a note should definitely be made afterwards.
 
Deagonx said:
I'm fairly burnt out on big DC cosmology threads (I believe we have 4 ongoing) so I'll readily admit that I don't have the fortitude to thoroughly assess this, but I generally trust your judgment and at a glance this looks well written and reasonable.
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What do you think of the new proposals suggested above by Elizio?
 
Elizio33 said:
New elements:

Grant Morrison suggested higher spatial dimensions, which he treated as higher infinities throughout JLA: Crisis Times Five. In Morrison's older stories there were mentions of 6D bottles and 8D mazes and in Multiversity: Pax Americana, Captain Adam was describing what 2D would look like to our 3D world, then said how our 3D world would look to him after mentioning a Mobius loop curved through eight dimensions.

Scott Snyder has previously stated that the dimensions he mentioned in his Justice League run were not correlated to the spatial dimensions, but this was more likely to only involve the Fifth and Sixth Dimension.

So here's my proposal, the Orrery contains a total of eight higher spatial dimensions, making the Orrery 1-C, but those who scale to it would either have to be above Captain Adam, like Mandrakk & Thought Robot, or be capable of Orrery-level feats or statements of total creation and destruction based on the context given in the comics, like the Hands and the Darkest Knight for example.

  • The New Gods wouldn't scale because they doesn't scale to the Sphere of the Gods or the Orrery. They simply exist on a higher plane of existence than the inhabitants of the Orrery, but their nature is said to be 4D in comparison to 3D beings, which is why they perceive time on an attemporal way and aren't affected by changes in time.
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Got a question for u regarding Morrison comics because in animal man he made use of infinite spatial dimensions and bohm theory I feel like some Morrison and Snyder works should be separated
 
ProfectusInfinity said:
What do you think of the new proposals suggested above by Elizio?
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Personally I don't think the mention of an 8-D Mobius Loop is a good reason to upgrade the entire cosmology, without good information suggesting the entire Orrery is 8-D. There are such things as localized or compact spatial dimensions (in scientific theories) and they are often involved in manifolds like a mobius loop. I just think we need something more concrete to upgrade a whole cosmology by several infinities.
 
Deagonx said:
Personally I don't think the mention of an 8-D Mobius Loop is a good reason to upgrade the entire cosmology, without good information suggesting the entire Orrery is 8-D. There are such things as localized or compact spatial dimensions (in scientific theories) and they are often involved in manifolds like a mobius loop. I just think we need something more concrete to upgrade a whole cosmology by several infinities.
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Sigh... That is a good point.
Furthermore, higher-dimensional entities can also qualify for higher tiers when the verse which they are from explicitly defines them as being infinitely above lower-dimensional ones in power and/or existential status. An example of this being verses such as Umineko no Naku Koro ni. However, lower-dimensional beings being stated to be "flat" in comparison to higher-dimensional aliens is not necessarily grounds for assuming the latter has infinitely more power (For reasons outlined in the answer above), and thus, such scenarios must also be analyzed case-by-case.

fjPFcZZ.jpeg
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The FAQ does seem to imply that higher dimensions viewing lower dimensions as flat may not be grounds for qualitative superiority. I'm just confused because I always thought analogies in fiction like "it's the same way your 3-D world views 2-D" in conjunction with higher dimensional statements would imply qualitative superiority, since the 3-D universe (as well as humans as 3-D beings) hold qualitative superiority over the second dimension, but that's admittedly veering off-topic.

I'll just remain neutral on the 1-C stuff until there's more staff input.
 
Deagonx said:
Personally I don't think the mention of an 8-D Mobius Loop is a good reason to upgrade the entire cosmology, without good information suggesting the entire Orrery is 8-D. There are such things as localized or compact spatial dimensions (in scientific theories) and they are often involved in manifolds like a mobius loop. I just think we need something more concrete to upgrade a whole cosmology by several infinities.
Click to expand...
Okay then. This is unfortunate but okay.
 
Deagonx said:
Personally I don't think the mention of an 8-D Mobius Loop is a good reason to upgrade the entire cosmology, without good information suggesting the entire Orrery is 8-D. There are such things as localized or compact spatial dimensions (in scientific theories) and they are often involved in manifolds like a mobius loop. I just think we need something more concrete to upgrade a whole cosmology by several infinities.
Click to expand...
What about the mention of the 6D bottles and 8D mazes?
 
Elizio33 said:
What about the mention of the 6D bottles and 8D mazes?
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I think that's from a fairly old JLA comic when the Fifth Dimension was still being portrayed as a geometric dimension (Shazam goes there and is flat to the residents) before it got turned into Imagination, so I don't think it'd be good to incorporate that into the Crisis Cosmology
 
Elizio33 said:
Grant Morrison suggested higher spatial dimensions, which he treated as higher infinities throughout JLA: Crisis Times Five. In Morrison's older stories there were mentions of 6D bottles and 8D mazes and in Multiversity: Pax Americana, Captain Adam was describing what 2D would look like to our 3D world, then said how our 3D world would look to him after mentioning a Mobius loop curved through eight dimensions
Click to expand...
I'm with Deagonx on this. Aside the fact it is probably compactified, there's no veritable proof the Orrery scales to it.
What about statements about the 9th Dimension in Mr. Terrific's stories?
 

Crisis Cosmology - Part 2​


The Metaphysical Realms​


Due to their existence outside of the material realms, these realms are beyond our physics-based conception of the spatiotemporal multiverse. Many DC writers like to treat them collectively as "Platonic Realms" or as "Fictions". Note that some inhabitants of these Metaphysical Realms, like some of the Sphere of the Gods, such as the New Gods, do not scale to their realms, they have a 4-D nature compared to the 3-D nature of the inhabitants of the Orrery of Worlds, but other may scale higher.

Elemental Realms

The Green, the Red, the Grey, the Rot, the Clear, the Melt, the White, etc.

These realms are a bit more complicated to analyze because they have multiple layers to them. Often they simply refer to the realm relative to Earth, to a single planet, while other cases refer to the collective whole that encompasses the entire multiverse, but James Tynion's Justice League Dark run established that they are not places or realms, nor simply imagination, but lie between idea and reality where memory and consciousness of the Elemental concept exists outside of time and space.
Sphere of the Gods

The Sphere of the Gods is the overarching realm containing the godly and magical realms of the multiverse, and possesses an immaterial, metaphysical nature. It is home to the Archetypal Powers and Intelligences of the multiverse. The realm is stated to be made of literal possibility, and formed as an encompassing sphere around creation before creation had even finished forming. It is deeply tied to, and possibly indistinguishable from, the ideas and beliefs of mortals.

The very first thing to note comes from the map of the multiverse itself. Refers to Wonderworld, stated to orbit creation, which contextually refers to the Orrery. From that, it is quite clear that the Sphere of the Gods is not part of the material world and exists outside normal time and space. It is said to contain platonic, archetypal worlds inhabited by living ideas and to be fiction.
The Sphere of the Gods is the source of magic, the fundamental power of creation and belief, and the destruction of this energy would result in the destruction of the material world as a necessary consequence.
Continuing with the principle that the realms of the Sphere of the Gods are fictions, they are not real in the same way as the material world, they are ideas shaped by the beliefs of mortals. Therefore, events in the Sphere of the Gods operate on the basis of fiction and not normal causalities.
Nature of the Inhabitants of the Sphere of the Gods

Assuming Morrison's seemingly throwaway claim about platonic forms is taken seriously, there should be significant evidence that the inhabitants of the Sphere of the Gods adhere to platonic forms, although not all should adhere to such nature.

First, the very basics: they manifest in the material world as emanations of their true forms, called Godheads.
Next, existing as forms:
Finally, existing outside the material realm's spatiotemporal physics:
Now, it is very important to note that even though the gods and deities were living ideas or platonic forms, they were all given forms by the beliefs of mortals worshiping them through the Collective Unconscious as mentioned below.

Collective Unconscious

The Collective Unconscious is the ideal "collective" form of mortal souls above the Sphere of the Gods from which all telepaths and greatest minds draw their abilities. It houses Hecate's personal realm, the Witch's Moon, a metaphor for the first mystery gazed upon by man. All gods and divine realms were born from the collective beliefs and imaginations of humanity. In this way, all the realms of the Sphere of the Gods are “fictions”.
In the relaunch of Justice League Dark, James Tynion IV and Ram V introduced a very old concept, that of beliefs defining creation from Mike Carey's Lucifer series, and applied it to cosmology. The idea is that the collective beliefs change reality and form gods and deities that are worshiped or feared by said believers through the Collective Unconscious. Metron explains this further in a tie-in to Death Metal, explaining that the multiverse is built on beliefs and that as mortals believe in gods they exist, who in turn believes in the Source it exists, although the Source exists beyond the Collective Unconscious.
Mortals and the Sphere of the Gods

Without special methods such as boom tubes or magical portals, the Sphere of the Gods can only be reached normally by mortals by transcending physicality, using the power of widespread belief to ascend into the Sphere of the Gods as true residents, seen with the Lord of Order (And presumably Chaos) below:
Mortals can enter the realms of the Sphere via magic portals, but once there they can only interact with a "shell" of the realm due to its extradimensional nature.

As noted above, feats of creation or destruction at level of the Sphere of the Gods or the Collective Unconscious are Low 1-C given their transcendence on the Orrery of Worlds, although most of their inhabitants are only four-dimensional in nature and shouldn't scale to their realms.

Comic Book Limbo

Comic Book Limbo is the last outpost of existence proper before reaching the archetypal Monitor World and the Overvoid, where the forgotten characters of the DCU end up. It is not a permanent consignment - characters that were forgotten but are later reintroduced in stories leave Limbo and return to lower levels of reality. There are no stories in Limbo except for the Book of Infinite Pages, which contains every story of creation. There is no time in Limbo. "Time" in this context does not refer to the concept of time since the Monitor Sphere, above Limbo, has time. It goes one step further into nothingness, as Limbo is where matter and memory break down. Limbo exists separately from the Orrery, floating between it and the Thought Robot. It was stated that, when crashing out of the Orrery to end up in Limbo, the Ultima Thule was drifting into the void.
The statement "Music is over: We've run out of the Multiverse" doesn't mean that Limbo is outside of the whole creation, it only refers to Orrery of Worlds, because they used the Ultima Thule for traveling between universes which is a trans-dimensional yacht powered by sound vibrations, by altering its pitch and wavelength it is possible to travel to other universes (because each universe has a different frequency), i.e. music being over means that Limbo is outside of all parallel universes and the Orrery.

Monitor Sphere

The Monitor Sphere is an archetypal world and home to Nil, the world of the Monitor race. While the mystery of the Orrery and the Thought Robot caused Monitor-Mind to invent stories to accompany it, the Monitor Sphere took shape outside of the Sphere of the Gods. Remember from the previous section how going from the multiverse to Comic Book Limbo required crossing the void. This is reflected in statements that Nil is part of the void and that Monitor nanotechnology is coming from the void to attack Limbo.

The beings of this world are notable for being the only ones capable of bottling and consuming Bleed as a tangible substance. This is extremely significant: we know that, from the perspective of lower mortal "germs", Bleed is the Bulk Space enclosing the worlds of the Orrery. We know also that Bleed is the substance of Life, from Zillo Valla. In metafictional terms, it is what gives life to the stories of the Orrery. The Monitors are capable of extracting it as a tangible substance, draining creation dry. This interpretation is confirmed by Morrison himself: what Mandrakk is doing by extracting Bleed as a consumable is sucking the life out of the story. See the scans below:
You may have noticed a pattern by now of elevating levels of existence corresponding to less and less "real-ness" as we would think of it in real life. Beings in the Orrery are made of matter and operate within physical space and time. Beings in the Sphere of the Gods are pure idea and operate within metaphysical story. Beings in Limbo lack even story. And Nil takes this pattern to the next level, as far as reasonably possible before achieving the pure absolute Nothingness/Oneness of the Overvoid. The world of the Monitors is the Blank, the Nil, the Gone, the edge of everything where form and meaning surrender to the nothingness of the Overvoid. Its inhabitants have 5555 terms for "nothing", and presumably a similar number of types of nothing.
Concepts like space, time and scale are more meaningful, profound, with "time" in the Monitor Sphere referring to the clockwork pattern in the sky. Time in Nil seems to function as a temporal dimension, because when it entered the Monitor Sphere, it form "beginnings" and "ends".
As stated above, the Monitor Sphere exists on a higher plane of existence than Comic Book Limbo is positioned higher than the Sphere of the Gods on the map of the multiverse, and its inhabitants perceive the 5-D Bulk Space as a tangible, consumable substance, adhering to the 1-C tier.

The Dark Multiverse and the Other Place

A vast subconscious realm of dark matter upon which floats the Multiverse. It's the unintended side effect of the process of creating new worlds, coupled with the treachery of Barbatos. It consists of infinite worlds of nightmare, similar to the infinite timelines of the main Multiverse has. It is directly stated that Perpetua's original Creation had nothing to do with the formation of the Dark Multiverse. Some realms such as the Dreaming and the Phantom Zone have strong connections to the Dark Multiverse.
The Other Place

An empty void of space inhabited by the Otherkind. Long since Hecate imprisonned the Upside-Down Man here since the dawn of the multiverse, he infected this place with his reality. It is the source of all dark magic that Hecate took a piece of and gave to humanity to "curse" them. Although in the 2018 relaunch of Justice League Dark, James Tynion IV presented the Great Darkness as the dark opposite to the Sphere of the Gods, connected to the Dark Multiverse, this notion was later retconned by Joshua Williamson.

The Source Wall and the Totality of Creation​


The Divine Continuum and Hypertime

Divine Continuum

Although certain aspects of cosmology such as the location of Hypertime or the nature of a "wider" DC Multiverse have been difficult to evaluate, Geoff Johns partly answered this question in Flashpoint Beyond with an entirely new concept, that of the Divine Continuum as defined by Dr. Bonnie Baxter, it represents Existence itself, formed by two aspects of reality. The first half is Space, which is physically represented by the "wider" DC Multiverse; the second half is Time which is represented by the abstraction known as Hypertime.

To fully avoid confusion about this concept, it is necessary to discard the idea of the Omniverse, or the idea of the multiverse becoming its own web of multiverses from the end of Death Metal, as this was proven to be false according to Lex Luthor who, during his time with the Totality, discovered the truths and lies of the multiverse. Refers to the Local Multiverses section, as the concept of a wider DC Multiverse has always existed, all iterations of the multiverse still exist but separately from each other, which now refers to the space aspect of the Divine Continuum.

The Space aspect has always been represented by the various iterations of the multiverse and is split into the Multiverse, the Metaverse, the Sphere of the Gods, and the Dark Multiverse. Although neither Comic Book Limbo nor Monitor Sphere have been mentioned as being part of the space aspect, it is not a stretch to assume that they do since the Dark Multiverse, which encompasses them, is part of the space aspect. Due to the many Crises that the multiverse has faced as a consequence of various attacks, the Space aspect has always been changing, being shaping around a single universe referred to as the "Metaverse", until the combined efforts of the Flash Family and Dr. Light merged the multiverses.


Hypertime

Now we come to Hypertime. It can be said that there are two lenses to view this concept through: a basic, functional level, and a complete, metafictional level. That is not to say that there are two Hypertimes or that one is more correct than the other, but that most stories referencing it will simply depict the first for ease of explanation.

The basis: Hypertime, as defined by the Fuginauts, is an abstraction, a temporal nexus allowing access to all timelines formed across existence. It is distinct from the Timestream in that, while the timelines all exist in the Timestream, they burrow through Hypertime. The Hypertime abstraction has a manifestation called the Branefold Interior, where the Fuginauts exist not only to maintain boundaries between timelines but also between the Multiverse and Dark Multiverse.
Basically, Hypertime is a three-dimensional, time-based concept created by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid to allow all parts of DC's published stories to interact with each other. Morrison sometimes uses geometry as a metaphor to discuss Hypertime, using concepts such as "plane time" and "cube time". This is shown in The Return of Bruce Wayne and expanded upon in an interview, treating it as a three-dimensional concept, its basis being the "time point" containing all possibilities.

By simple geometry, the time point extent to create the "line time" or "line space a" representing the linear timeline from beginning to end. Time also extends laterally, so there is the "plane time" or "space b", an immense cosmic loom of converging and separating line times. The perpendicular of plane time is "cube time" which views the inhabitants of the Orrery from a higher-dimensional perspective.

Sixth Dimension

The Sixth Dimension is a plane of existence where the prior version of the multiverse was designed and set in motion by Perpetua. It is distinct from the Monitor Sphere in that although the Monitor Sphere exists at the edge of things, the Sixth Dimension is the highest plane of existence. It is stated to be beyond time and imagination and is at the top of everything on the map of the multiverse. The Sixth Dimension can only be reached by non-Monitors after the Source Wall has been breached, and is completely beyond Mxyzptlk's perception despite existing outside of time.

Despite this, the Sixth Dimension does not appear to completely transcend time since the Sixth Dimension is spoken of in a timeline of 20 billion years and when Superman fights in the Sixth Dimension, his speed is spoken of in physical terms, saying that it will take hours for the light to catch up, months for the sound.
Scott Snyder clarified in an interview that the Sixth Dimension is not outside the Source Wall and that the Sixth Dimension is a spherical layer that envelops the entire multiverse, a "control room" where quintessential beings oversee the development and progression of the multiverse. For this reason, their stature is naturally higher than all other entities inhabiting the multiverse.

Promethean Galaxy and the Source Wall

While not a literal galaxy, the Promethean Galaxy is a realm as old as creation and farthest finite frontier of reality where the Source Wall is located. The Source Wall is the limit to thought and the protective shell around the Multiverse, closing it off from the Greater Omniverse. In all directions from any universe within the Multiverse, the wall is the final point, separating all of creation from the Overvoid. In Countdown, which contradicted Final Crisis in many ways it was said that the Source Wall separates universes. However, this does not fit with the rest of Morrison's works.
Nil did not have the Source Wall around it during Final Crisis, this is because the Source Wall was destroyed in Death of the New Gods, which was a lead-in comic to Final Crisis. Grant Morrison affirmed that elements of Final Crisis were intentionally written to match the events of DotNG in this interview:

Last part coming soon!
 
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Which parts specifically? I have limited time available.

Also, what is the intended tiering here?
 
Here is a brief overview of the proposed tiers. (Wait for the third and last part for a complete tiering):
  • Universal feats: 3-A to Low 2-C (Immeasurably large and constantly expanding, but finite in size)
  • Multiversal feats based on context: 2-C to 2-A (Multiversal feats are highly context dependent; in Dark Crisis for example, infinite universes outside the Orrery were involved, but in Final Crisis only the 52 universes of the Orrery were involved)
  • Orrery and Bleed: Low 1-C (One infinity above Low 2-C)
  • Sphere of the Gods and Collective Unconscious: Low 1-C (Two infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Monitor Sphere: Likely 1-C (Three infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Totally of Creation/Divine Continuum: High 1-C (At least three infinities above Low 2-C have been counted now, and the other half of the Divine Continuum, Hypertime, is a three-dimensional time, giving the Divine Continuum at least six infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Sixth Dimension: High 1-C (Seven infinities above Low 2-C)
Note that Comic Book Limbo, although positioned above the Sphere of Gods on the multiverse map, showed no signs of qualitative superiority over the Sphere of the Gods and therefore Comic Book Limbo should not be considered as having three infinities above Low 2-C.

The Fifth Dimension exists and flows all around and between the realms of the multiverse, at the exception of the Sixth Dimension, so the Fifth Dimension should have have at best six infinities above the Low 2-C.
 
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Elizio33 said:
Here is a brief overview of the proposed tiers. (Wait for the third and last part for a complete tiering):
  • Universal feats: 3-A to Low 2-C (Immeasurably large and constantly expanding, but finite in size)
  • Multiversal feats based on context: 2-C to 2-A (Multiversal feats are highly context dependent; in Dark Crisis for example, infinite universes outside the Orrery were involved, but in Final Crisis only the 52 universes of the Orrery were involved)
  • Orrery and Bleed: Low 1-C (One infinity above Low 2-C)
  • Sphere of the Gods and Collective Unconscious: Low 1-C (Two infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Monitor Sphere: Likely 1-C (Three infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Totally of Creation/Divine Continuum: High 1-C (At least three infinities above Low 2-C have been counted now, and the other half of the Divine Continuum, Hypertime, is a three-dimensional time, giving the Divine Continuum at least six infinities above Low 2-C)
  • Sixth Dimension: High 1-C (Seven infinities above Low 2-C)
Note that Comic Book Limbo, although positioned above the Sphere of Gods on the multiverse map, showed no signs of qualitative superiority over the Sphere of the Gods and therefore Comic Book Limbo should not be considered as having three infinities above Low 2-C.

The Fifth Dimension exists and flows all around and between the realms of the multiverse, at the exception of the Sixth Dimension, so the Fifth Dimension should have have at best six infinities above the Low 2-C.
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Looks good to me.
 
I have read it now, and think that it makes sense. Thank you greatly for helping out. ❤️🙏🙂
 
Elizio33 said:

Crisis Cosmology - Part 2​


The Metaphysical Realms​


Due to their existence outside of the material realms, these realms are beyond our physics-based conception of the spatiotemporal multiverse. Many DC writers like to treat them collectively as "Platonic Realms" or as "Fictions". Note that some inhabitants of these Metaphysical Realms, like some of the Sphere of the Gods, such as the New Gods, do not scale to their realms, they have a 4-D nature compared to the 3-D nature of the inhabitants of the Orrery of Worlds, but other may scale higher.

Elemental Realms

The Green, the Red, the Grey, the Rot, the Clear, the Melt, the White, etc.

These realms are a bit more complicated to analyze because they have multiple layers to them. Often they simply refer to the realm relative to Earth, to a single planet, while other cases refer to the collective whole that encompasses the entire multiverse, but James Tynion's Justice League Dark run established that they are not places or realms, nor simply imagination, but lie between idea and reality where memory and consciousness of the Elemental concept exists outside of time and space.
Sphere of the Gods

The Sphere of the Gods is the overarching realm containing the godly and magical realms of the multiverse, and possesses an immaterial, metaphysical nature. It is home to the Archetypal Powers and Intelligences of the multiverse. The realm is stated to be made of literal possibility, and formed as an encompassing sphere around creation before creation had even finished forming. It is deeply tied to, and possibly indistinguishable from, the ideas and beliefs of mortals.

The very first thing to note comes from the map of the multiverse itself. Refers to Wonderworld, stated to orbit creation, which contextually refers to the Orrery. From that, it is quite clear that the Sphere of the Gods is not part of the material world and exists outside normal time and space. It is said to contain platonic, archetypal worlds inhabited by living ideas and to be fiction.
The Sphere of the Gods is the source of magic, the fundamental power of creation and belief, and the destruction of this energy would result in the destruction of the material world as a necessary consequence.
Continuing with the principle that the realms of the Sphere of the Gods are fictions, they are not real in the same way as the material world, they are ideas shaped by the beliefs of mortals. Therefore, events in the Sphere of the Gods operate on the basis of fiction and not normal causalities.
Nature of the Inhabitants of the Sphere of the Gods

Assuming Morrison's seemingly throwaway claim about platonic forms is taken seriously, there should be significant evidence that the inhabitants of the Sphere of the Gods adhere to platonic forms, although not all should adhere to such nature.

First, the very basics: they manifest in the material world as emanations of their true forms, called Godheads.
Next, existing as forms:
Finally, existing outside the material realm's spatiotemporal physics:
Now, it is very important to note that even though the gods and deities were living ideas or platonic forms, they were all given forms by the beliefs of mortals worshiping them through the Collective Unconscious as mentioned below.

Collective Unconscious

The Collective Unconscious is the ideal "collective" form of mortal souls above the Sphere of the Gods from which all telepaths and greatest minds draw their abilities. It houses Hecate's personal realm, the Witch's Moon, a metaphor for the first mystery gazed upon by man. All gods and divine realms were born from the collective beliefs and imaginations of humanity. In this way, all the realms of the Sphere of the Gods are “fictions”.
In the relaunch of Justice League Dark, James Tynion IV and Ram V introduced a very old concept, that of beliefs defining creation from Mike Carey's Lucifer series, and applied it to cosmology. The idea is that the collective beliefs change reality and form gods and deities that are worshiped or feared by said believers through the Collective Unconscious. Metron explains this further in a tie-in to Death Metal, explaining that the multiverse is built on beliefs and that as mortals believe in gods they exist, who in turn believes in the Source it exists, although the Source exists beyond the Collective Unconscious.
Mortals and the Sphere of the Gods

Without special methods such as boom tubes or magical portals, the Sphere of the Gods can only be reached normally by mortals by transcending physicality, using the power of widespread belief to ascend into the Sphere of the Gods as true residents, seen with the Lord of Order (And presumably Chaos) below:
Mortals can enter the realms of the Sphere via magic portals, but once there they can only interact with a "shell" of the realm due to its extradimensional nature.

As noted above, feats of creation or destruction at level of the Sphere of the Gods or the Collective Unconscious are Low 1-C given their transcendence on the Orrery of Worlds, although most of their inhabitants are only four-dimensional in nature and shouldn't scale to their realms.

Comic Book Limbo

Comic Book Limbo is the last outpost of existence proper before reaching the archetypal Monitor World and the Overvoid, where the forgotten characters of the DCU end up. It is not a permanent consignment - characters that were forgotten but are later reintroduced in stories leave Limbo and return to lower levels of reality. There are no stories in Limbo except for the Book of Infinite Pages, which contains every story of creation. There is no time in Limbo. "Time" in this context does not refer to the concept of time since the Monitor Sphere, above Limbo, has time. It goes one step further into nothingness, as Limbo is where matter and memory break down. Limbo exists separately from the Orrery, floating between it and the Thought Robot. It was stated that, when crashing out of the Orrery to end up in Limbo, the Ultima Thule was drifting into the void.
The statement "Music is over: We've run out of the Multiverse" doesn't mean that Limbo is outside of the whole creation, it only refers to Orrery of Worlds, because they used the Ultima Thule for traveling between universes which is a trans-dimensional yacht powered by sound vibrations, by altering its pitch and wavelength it is possible to travel to other universes (because each universe has a different frequency), i.e. music being over means that Limbo is outside of all parallel universes and the Orrery.

Monitor Sphere

The Monitor Sphere is an archetypal world and home to Nil, the world of the Monitor race. While the mystery of the Orrery and the Thought Robot caused Monitor-Mind to invent stories to accompany it, the Monitor Sphere took shape outside of the Sphere of the Gods. Remember from the previous section how going from the multiverse to Comic Book Limbo required crossing the void. This is reflected in statements that Nil is part of the void and that Monitor nanotechnology is coming from the void to attack Limbo.

The beings of this world are notable for being the only ones capable of bottling and consuming Bleed as a tangible substance. This is extremely significant: we know that, from the perspective of lower mortal "germs", Bleed is the Bulk Space enclosing the worlds of the Orrery. We know also that Bleed is the substance of Life, from Zillo Valla. In metafictional terms, it is what gives life to the stories of the Orrery. The Monitors are capable of extracting it as a tangible substance, draining creation dry. This interpretation is confirmed by Morrison himself: what Mandrakk is doing by extracting Bleed as a consumable is sucking the life out of the story. See the scans below:
You may have noticed a pattern by now of elevating levels of existence corresponding to less and less "real-ness" as we would think of it in real life. Beings in the Orrery are made of matter and operate within physical space and time. Beings in the Sphere of the Gods are pure idea and operate within metaphysical story. Beings in Limbo lack even story. And Nil takes this pattern to the next level, as far as reasonably possible before achieving the pure absolute Nothingness/Oneness of the Overvoid. The world of the Monitors is the Blank, the Nil, the Gone, the edge of everything where form and meaning surrender to the nothingness of the Overvoid. Its inhabitants have 5555 terms for "nothing", and presumably a similar number of types of nothing.
Concepts like space, time and scale are more meaningful, profound, with "time" in the Monitor Sphere referring to the clockwork pattern in the sky. Time in Nil seems to function as a temporal dimension, because when it entered the Monitor Sphere, it form "beginnings" and "ends".
As stated above, the Monitor Sphere exists on a higher plane of existence than Comic Book Limbo is positioned higher than the Sphere of the Gods on the map of the multiverse, and its inhabitants perceive the 5-D Bulk Space as a tangible, consumable substance, adhering to the 1-C tier.

The Dark Multiverse and the Other Place

A vast subconscious realm of dark matter upon which floats the Multiverse. It's the unintended side effect of the process of creating new worlds, coupled with the treachery of Barbatos. It consists of infinite worlds of nightmare, similar to the infinite timelines of the main Multiverse has. It is directly stated that Perpetua's original Creation had nothing to do with the formation of the Dark Multiverse. Some realms such as the Dreaming and the Phantom Zone have strong connections to the Dark Multiverse.
The Other Place

An empty void of space inhabited by the Otherkind. Long since Hecate imprisonned the Upside-Down Man here since the dawn of the multiverse, he infected this place with his reality. It is the source of all dark magic that Hecate took a piece of and gave to humanity to "curse" them. Although in the 2018 relaunch of Justice League Dark, James Tynion IV presented the Great Darkness as the dark opposite to the Sphere of the Gods, connected to the Dark Multiverse, this notion was later retconned by Joshua Williamson.

The Source Wall and the Totality of Creation​


The Divine Continuum and Hypertime

Divine Continuum

Although certain aspects of cosmology such as the location of Hypertime or the nature of a "wider" DC Multiverse have been difficult to evaluate, Geoff Johns partly answered this question in Flashpoint Beyond with an entirely new concept, that of the Divine Continuum as defined by Dr. Bonnie Baxter, it represents Existence itself, formed by two aspects of reality. The first half is Space, which is physically represented by the "wider" DC Multiverse; the second half is Time which is represented by the abstraction known as Hypertime.

To fully avoid confusion about this concept, it is necessary to discard the idea of the Omniverse, or the idea of the multiverse becoming its own web of multiverses from the end of Death Metal, as this was proven to be false according to Lex Luthor who, during his time with the Totality, discovered the truths and lies of the multiverse. Refers to the Local Multiverses section, as the concept of a wider DC Multiverse has always existed, all iterations of the multiverse still exist but separately from each other, which now refers to the space aspect of the Divine Continuum.

The Space aspect has always been represented by the various iterations of the multiverse and is split into the Multiverse, the Metaverse, the Sphere of the Gods, and the Dark Multiverse. Although neither Comic Book Limbo nor Monitor Sphere have been mentioned as being part of the space aspect, it is not a stretch to assume that they do since the Dark Multiverse, which encompasses them, is part of the space aspect. Due to the many Crises that the multiverse has faced as a consequence of various attacks, the Space aspect has always been changing, being shaping around a single universe referred to as the "Metaverse", until the combined efforts of the Flash Family and Dr. Light merged the multiverses.


Hypertime

Now we come to Hypertime. It can be said that there are two lenses to view this concept through: a basic, functional level, and a complete, metafictional level. That is not to say that there are two Hypertimes or that one is more correct than the other, but that most stories referencing it will simply depict the first for ease of explanation.

The basis: Hypertime, as defined by the Fuginauts, is an abstraction, a temporal nexus allowing access to all timelines formed across existence. It is distinct from the Timestream in that, while the timelines all exist in the Timestream, they burrow through Hypertime. The Hypertime abstraction has a manifestation called the Branefold Interior, where the Fuginauts exist not only to maintain boundaries between timelines but also between the Multiverse and Dark Multiverse.
Basically, Hypertime is a three-dimensional, time-based concept created by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid to allow all parts of DC's published stories to interact with each other. Morrison sometimes uses geometry as a metaphor to discuss Hypertime, using concepts such as "plane time" and "cube time". This is shown in The Return of Bruce Wayne and expanded upon in an interview, treating it as a three-dimensional concept, its basis being the "time point" containing all possibilities.

By simple geometry, the time point extent to create the "line time" or "line space a" representing the linear timeline from beginning to end. Time also extends laterally, so there is the "plane time" or "space b", an immense cosmic loom of converging and separating line times. The perpendicular of plane time is "cube time" which views the inhabitants of the Orrery from a higher-dimensional perspective.

Sixth Dimension

The Sixth Dimension is a plane of existence where the prior version of the multiverse was designed and set in motion by Perpetua. It is distinct from the Monitor Sphere in that although the Monitor Sphere exists at the edge of things, the Sixth Dimension is the highest plane of existence. It is stated to be beyond time and imagination and is at the top of everything on the map of the multiverse. The Sixth Dimension can only be reached by non-Monitors after the Source Wall has been breached, and is completely beyond Mxyzptlk's perception despite existing outside of time.

Despite this, the Sixth Dimension does not appear to completely transcend time since the Sixth Dimension is spoken of in a timeline of 20 billion years and when Superman fights in the Sixth Dimension, his speed is spoken of in physical terms, saying that it will take hours for the light to catch up, months for the sound.
Scott Snyder clarified in an interview that the Sixth Dimension is not outside the Source Wall and that the Sixth Dimension is a spherical layer that envelops the entire multiverse, a "control room" where quintessential beings oversee the development and progression of the multiverse. For this reason, their stature is naturally higher than all other entities inhabiting the multiverse.

Promethean Galaxy and the Source Wall

While not a literal galaxy, the Promethean Galaxy is a realm as old as creation and farthest finite frontier of reality where the Source Wall is located. The Source Wall is the limit to thought and the protective shell around the Multiverse, closing it off from the Greater Omniverse. In all directions from any universe within the Multiverse, the wall is the final point, separating all of creation from the Overvoid. In Countdown, which contradicted Final Crisis in many ways it was said that the Source Wall separates universes. However, this does not fit with the rest of Morrison's works.
Nil did not have the Source Wall around it during Final Crisis, this is because the Source Wall was destroyed in Death of the New Gods, which was a lead-in comic to Final Crisis. Grant Morrison affirmed that elements of Final Crisis were intentionally written to match the events of DotNG in this interview:

Last part coming soon!
Click to expand...
This also looks good.
 
Antvasima said:
I have read it now, and think that it makes sense. Thank you greatly for helping out. ❤️🙏🙂
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My pleasure! ☺️ I think this is a realistic and reasonable way to not only improve our DC Cosmology blog, but also make something that makes sense and upgrading the tiers of some realms in a very reasonable way.
 
Great OP and really nice work. I almost completely agree and I'll like to express my concerns regarding Hyper Time especially.

So, the OP basically claims the timelines are contained in the time stream, but just borrow through Hyper Time as some nexus, and it is in fact 3-dimensional. I'll be outlining my reasons why I do disagree with both below:
Elizio33 said:
It is distinct from the Timestream in that, while the timelines all exist in the Timestream, they burrow through Hypertime.
Click to expand...
Elizio33 said:
Click to expand...
However, this Flash Beyond scan shows an endless number of timelines are split from Hyper Time and timelines are within it. I believe this suffices for the timelines being contained in Hyper Time.
Another piece of evidence is found in John Stewart: The Emerald Knight 2022 #1 p. 15-17 by Geoffrey Thawne.
Lonak explains The Source as an ocean, wherein diversions in form of rivers occur. These rivers are further divergent into the the multiverse, from a singular universe, and into smaller diversions called streams. The streams are obviously time streams as Stewart literally mentions them afterwards and it perfectly fits the context of the story. Hyper Time is then showed to be the collection of these time streams.

Elizio33 said:
Basically, Hypertime is a three-dimensional, time-based concept created by Grant Morrison and Mark Waid to allow all parts of DC's published stories to interact with each other. Morrison sometimes uses geometry as a metaphor to discuss Hypertime, using concepts such as "plane time" and "cube time". This is shown in The Return of Bruce Wayne and expanded upon in an interview, treating it as a three-dimensional concept, its basis being the "time point" containing all possibilities.
Click to expand...
For obvious reasons, Hyper Time won't be 3-dimensional for encompassing the time stream and all timelines. I feel the OP's view on Hyper Time is largely Morrison-esque, which is kinda obsolete frankly. Also, is there a reason Hyper Time doesn't scale to the multiverse, as it is equal to it, being the other half of existence? Over all, I feel Hyper Time should scale higher and I'm open to discuss if it does extends to the 5th and 6th Dimensions as they do have some notions of time and it was created by Alpheus.
 
Williams249 said:
Great OP and really nice work. I almost completely agree and I'll like to express my concerns regarding Hyper Time especially.

So, the OP basically claims the timelines are contained in the time stream, but just borrow through Hyper Time as some nexus, and it is in fact 3-dimensional. I'll be outlining my reasons why I do disagree with both below:


However, this Flash Beyond scan shows an endless number of timelines are split from Hyper Time and timelines are within it. I believe this suffices for the timelines being contained in Hyper Time.
Another piece of evidence is found in John Stewart: The Emerald Knight 2022 #1 p. 15-17 by Geoffrey Thawne.
Lonak explains The Source as an ocean, wherein diversions in form of rivers occur. These rivers are further divergent into the the multiverse, from a singular universe, and into smaller diversions called streams. The streams are obviously time streams as Stewart literally mentions them afterwards and it perfectly fits the context of the story. Hyper Time is then showed to be the collection of these time streams.


For obvious reasons, Hyper Time won't be 3-dimensional for encompassing the time stream and all timelines. I feel the OP's view on Hyper Time is largely Morrison-esque, which is kinda obsolete frankly. Also, is there a reason Hyper Time doesn't scale to the multiverse, as it is equal to it, being the other half of existence? Over all, I feel Hyper Time should scale higher and I'm open to discuss if it does extends to the 5th and 6th Dimensions as they do have some notions of time and it was created by Alpheus.
Click to expand...
Okay this makes sense to me frankly and the three-dimensional time-based concept is about "line time", "plane time", and "cube time". Morrison also mentioned a "hyper cube time" (don't remember the name), but this was never mentioned in the comics. Regardless, these concepts were Grant Morrison's way of describing Hypertime using geometry as a metaphor.

Recently, Hypertime was described to be half of existence, but was created by Alpheus, so i highly doubt that Hypertime should scale higher than the Fifth and Sixth Dimensions for this particular reason. I believe that Hypertime scale to the Divine Continuum/Totality of Creation though.
 
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Elizio33 said:
Okay this makes sense to me frankly and the three-dimensional time-based concept is about "line time", "plane time", and "cube time". Morrison also mentioned a "hyper cube time" (don't remember the name), but this was never mentioned in the comics. Regardless, these concepts were Grant Morrison's way of describing Hypertime using geometry as a metaphor.
Click to expand...
Alright, I feel newer interpretations of the concept should take precedence and Morrison's be deemed obsolete. It's a Crisis Cosmology after all incorporating views from different writers retroactively using recent comics as basis. Also, geometry is being used here in the literal sense, which isn't exactly metaphorical.

Elizio33 said:
Recently, Hypertime was described to be half of existence, but was created by Alpheus, so i highly doubt that Hypertime should scale higher than the Fifth and Sixth Dimensions for this particular reason. I believe that Hypertime scale to the Divine Continuum/Totality of Creation though.
Click to expand...
Oh, I actually meant it should scale equal to, not above. But I do agree it doesn't scale anyway as I recognize the 6th Dimension exists qualitatively beyond the Divine Continuum.
 
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