Part II
VINI VIDI VICCI
Chapter 26: The Dark Tower
Romanov silently fumed as one by one he watched the Covenant ships slip inside Alesia. He could imagine what was happening down on that artificial world. Troops landing on the ground, plasma turrets being erected, fortification arising. He could imagine it all, could imagine many of his men dying in order to neutralize them. Men he had come to love.
Could he sacrifice them, order the deaths of those whom he loved? Of course he could, that was why he was a soldier, but he could not do it without simultaneously killing off a small part of himself.
And therein lies the trap, Romanov thought bitterly. A beeping noise sounded, emanating from the watch on Romanov's wrist. He looked at it, feeling Marcus' concerned gaze on the back of his neck. Without a world to his lifelong companion Romanov dug into his pocket, fishing out a small orange prescription bottle. He opened the top of it, slowly counting the pills inside. Not many left. The resupply convoy would have brought him more, but Jul Mdama had destroyed it. It was medication Romanov needed in order to function, had been taking it ever since that experimental surgery of his youth. The Captain thought it an even trade. If the surgery had not happened then he would not be sitting there today. But it was also a double edged sword, the medication being Romanov's greatest weakness. He had no doubt that Osman had been banking on this fact when she had persuaded Mdama to attack the convoy.
Romanov swallowed two of the bright purple pills. No one on the bridge batted an eye. They had seen him do it countless times before. That they knew Romanov had to take medication was not important to him. What was important was keeping a secret what would happen if he stopped taking it. That day was coming soon. All that he could hope for was that when it happened he had people he trusted around him. Otherwise his cause might very well be lost.
He removed his hand from his mouth and stared back out the window. Four Covenant ships had gone into Alesia, disappearing into the bright white light not unlike orange sparks from a fire disappear into the darkness of night. It was interesting, sometimes, how closely opposites often resembled each other. One ship remained though. It was too far away for Romanov to make out clearly, but if he had to guess he would say that it was Jul Mdama's flagship. That was what he would do. Send the rest of his Battle Group to safety and remain outside the shield world to observe the enemies movements.
"We could have crushed them," Romanov said, mostly to himself.
"You don't know that," Marcus said. "In the time it would have taken us to get there at sublight speed they could have very well gone into the planet."
"Unless we jumped there," Romanov said.
"In all due fairness," Durendal commented, transferring his hologram directly to the arm of Romanov's chair for a more intimate conversation. "While Infinity's slipspace engines are technically capable of such a feat, it has never been attempted before. Not even by you."
"All the more reason to try it," Romanov said. He glanced up at Marcus. "Don't worry, I know the Master Chief is right. If I didn't think that I would have attacked regardless of what he said."
"Still being grumpy about it," Marcus said in a light tone.
"I have every right to be grumpy," Romanov countered. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to go. He glanced over at the Master Chief. He had been standing in the same position for the last forty minutes, hardly moving at all. "I hope he is having as much fun as I am."
…
"I don't get it," John said. He and Joyeuse had been talking for the past forty minutes, the conversation mostly one sided. He had never enjoyed quantum mechanics. The entire field was far too abstract for his more pragmatic view of the world around him. Joyeuse had sought to remedy that.
"You told me about your dream," Joyeuse said, her shoulders moving as she did. John imagined her crossing her arms over her chest.
"Yes."
"And you remember Cortana telling you about the incident with the Meridian."
"Yes."
"Well, everything should be self-evident after that."
"It's not," John said, annoyed. "What does any of this have to do with a multiverse?"
"Everything," Joyeuse said. "Let me try to explain it to you in simple terms."
"You've been trying to explain it in simple terms for over half an hour."
"Well I've obviously overestimated your intelligence so let me try it in a way that a kindergartener would understand," Joyeuse huffed. "You know that we still don't understand exactly how slipspace works."
"Yes," John said. "Even though we use it all the time."
"Just because we use a bit of technology doesn't mean we automatically understand how it works," Joyeuse pointed out. "Take the Elites for example. For centuries they have used technology vastly superior to anything humanity could come up with until just very recently, yet they don't understand how it works. They relied on the Prophets for that, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass."
"Okay," John said. "So we don't know how slipspace works."
"Exactly," Joyeuse said. "The science of slipspace is an offshoot of string theory, which in turn is an offshoot of quantum mechanics, and one of the most basic principles of quantum mechanics is…"
"That particles act differently once they are observed," John said, repeated the knowledge Cortana had bestowed upon him. "But a ship is not a particle. It isn't quantum either."
"Yes," Joyeuse said. "But that doesn't mean it can't act like a quantum particle."
"Explain."
"Alright," Joyeuse said. "When a ship goes through slipspace it disappears from normal observation. It is possible for us to detect an object traveling through slipspace, but only if we are looking for it. If nobody is observing an object traveling through slipspace then it enters what is known as a super state."
"Okay, what is a super state?"
Joyeuse took a heavy breath. "When a ship goes through slipspace there is a certain probability that it will reach its destination, and that it will reach that destination at the specific time predicted by the Shaw-Fujikawa equation. There is also a certain probability that they will not arrive at their intended destination, or that they will not arrive at the time predicted. If nobody is observing the ship, then nobody in real space knows exactly what is going to happen it. Therefore, it has entered a super state, meaning that it will both arrive at its intended destination on time, and it will not arrive at that destination on time. Do you understand?"
"No," John said. "Things can't be two things at once."
"Yes they can," Joyeuse said. "You're just not thinking outside the box. Okay, when Halsey interviewed you for the Spartan II program she had you predict the outcome of a coin toss correct?"
John's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?"
Joyeuse rolled her eyes. "There's very little I don't know about you Chief. Now, did she or not?"
"She did."
"Good," Joyeuse said. "And you caught the coin mid-air correct?"
"Yes."
"And before you opened your hand what side was the coin on?"
"Heads," John said. "Like I said it would be."
Joyeuse shook her head. "No, that is what side the coin was on once you opened your hand. I'm asking what side it was on before you observed it."
"It was still heads," John said, getting frustrated now. "If it was heads when I opened my hand then it was still heads when my hand was closed."
"But you didn't know that," Joyeuse said.
"Of course I didn't."
"Then how can you know for certain that the coin was heads up?"
"Because it was when I opened my hand," John said. "You're not making any sense."
"No," Joyeuse said, an edge of anger flashing into her voice. "I'm making perfect sense. You know that the coin was heads up only due to hindsight, but if we remove that hindsight then the conclusion is inevitable. Without directly observing the coin we must say that it exists in a super state, meaning that it is both heads and tails at the same time. Linking it back to ships in slipspace, we can say that they exist in a sort of super state. No matter how likely it is that they will reach their intended destination on time, there is still a probability that they will not reach it, therefore we must say that while they remain unobserved they exist in a super state just like the coin." Joyeuse sighed heavily. "Can you at least see what I'm trying to get at?"
"I can," John said. "It just doesn't make sense."
"That's the point," Joyeuse said. "Of course it doesn't make sense, which is why it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile quantum mechanics with normal physics. Subatomic particles act fundamentally different from large objects of matter, except when those large object are put under a very specific set of circumstances."
"And what does this have to do with a multiverse?" John asked.
"Okay," Joyeuse said. "Take me for example. My entire programing relies on quantum mechanics, or in AI terminology, quantum computation. Believe it or not, Smart AI's actually do have mass. It's exceedingly miniscule, but it is there. If you were to take my chip out of your helmet you would see a thin, atom thick band of pink. For Cortana you would see blue, for Durendal black, and so on. That atom thick band of particles represents our entire programing. We are made up of subatomic particles, and the peculiar thing about subatomic particles is that they can be in two places at once. Let me put this in terms of binary. In a traditional computer binary code can either be 1 or 0, but with a quantum computer such as myself the code can be 1 and 0 at the same time. This is a simplistic explanation, but it should show you why we are able to make thousands upon thousands of computations simultaneously. Normal physics would make that impossible for us. Hell, it makes it impossible for you humans with that mushy grey matter you call a brain, but since our brain exists at the quantum level it is possible for us to do more than one thing at the same time."
This made a little bit of sense to John. How often had he seen either Cortana or Joyeuse complete a multitude of tasks at the same time? Hell, when Cortana was going through rampancy it sometimes seemed as if she were experiencing twenty different emotions at once. He nodded once, inviting Joyeuse to continue.
"Now," Joyeuse said. "In order for this to work I can never be able to observe the entirety of myself simultaneously, which is to say there are certain parts of my program that I will never be aware of, at least not consciously. I may be able to observe a multitude of my program at any one time, but I will never be able to observe all of it at once, since it is quantum, thus following the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The part of my program that remains unobserved by me exists as a Wave Function, or as I stated before a super state."
"So it's only a statement of probability," John said.
"Perhaps," Joyeuse said, smiling. Maybe he was now finally getting it. "Do you know what the Double Slit Experiment is?" she asked.
"Vaguely," John said, recalling some dim memory of one of Deja's classes.
"Imagine a bunch of electrons, small bits of matter, being fired from a machine at a wall, and in front of the wall is a band of metal with a single slit in it. On the other side of the metal sheet you would expect to see a single band of electrons on the wall correct?"
"Yes," John agreed.
"Okay, so let's call this single band a point of concentration." Joyeuse said. John nodded his head, agreeing with her. "Now let's make a prediction. If there were two slits instead of one, how many points of concentration would you see develop?"
"Two," John said. "But I'm wrong aren't I?"
"Exactly," Joyeuse said. "Since electrons are particles you would expect to see two points of concentration corresponding with the two slits, but instead you would see many, even in the places were the band of metal should block any electrons from getting through. In this way electrons act more like waves, or energy, than they do matter. If a wave hits a single slit you see a single point of concentration on the far wall. But, if you have two slits you see many points of concentration on the wall. This is because the wave, once it hits the two slits, forms two waves which interfere with one another, thus creating the many points of concentration."
"So that just means that the electrons are interfering with one another," John said. "Just like the waves."
"You would think," Joyeuse said, a smirk appearing on her face. "Except, even when you shoot one electron at a time at the double slits, the same scattered pattern immerges. However, if you put a measuring device by the double slits to determine which slit the electrons are going through, you collapse the Wave Function. The electrons suddenly behave as normal bits of matter, forming two points of concentration like you would expect instead of the many points like a wave pattern would."
"So this is just confirming what you said before," John stated. "That particles can be in two places at once."
"Exactly," Joyeuse said. "Until you observe them, like the coin in your hand, but here is the thing. If electrons can be in two places at once that means they are essentially acting like two particles correct?"
"Yes," John said.
"Then what happens to the other version of the electron once you begin your direct observation?"
For this John did not have an answer. He was a very pragmatic man, despite his inherent romantic nature. Things either were or they weren't. There was no room for in-between, but apparently in science there was. "I'll bite," John said. "What happens to it?"
"That's where the idea of the multiverse comes in," Joyeuse said happily. "More specifically the Other Worlds Hypothesis. This hypothesis insists that there are many, perhaps any infinite number of universes that exist, each containing a certain probable outcome. In relation to the double slit experiment two universes, or alternate realities exist. One in which the electron goes into the right slit, and another in which the electron goes into the left. The same with the coin. There exists one universe where the coin was heads, and another tails, but it goes much further than that. If we maintain that a multiverse exists, each universe representing a certain set of probable outcomes, then our own universe is itself inherently deterministic. Everything that has happened was already destined to happen."
"I don't believe that," John said flatly. "We make our own destiny. Our own luck."
Joyeuse frowned. "But you agreed with everything I said."
"I know," John said. "I still don't believe it. I don't want to believe that everything I've done had already been decided by some arbitrary force."
"The universe doesn't much care what kind of ideology you have," Joyeuse said. "It does what it wills."
"I do what I will," John said. He nodded his head over at Alesia. "I'm going to go there, defeat the Covenant, and find Cortana. And it's going to happen because I decided to do it, not because of some equation."
Joyeuse sighed. "I can't really argue with conviction, except to say that you are wrong. If we are here it's because we were predetermined to be here. Perhaps in another universe instead of being retired after your debriefing, you were instead sent with Blue Team back to Gamma Halo to investigate some mysterious occurrence, or perhaps you were a gunslinger in a post-apocalyptic version of the American Old West, or maybe you were a Confederate during the American Civil War, or a Templar during the Crusades, or a freedom fighter during the Irish War of Independence, or even a soldier in Vietnam. Or maybe in some other universe your entire life is nothing more than a video game enjoyed by millions. Anything is possible, for as the hypothesis predicts there are other worlds than these. Personally, I like to think that in an alternate reality you are an idiot named Caboose who is more likely to kill is friends then he is to save them."
"I'm glad you think so highly of me," John said.
"Well you know how well we get along together," Joyeuse said sarcastically.
John gave a slight smile. "Joyeuse, the only thing I know for certain is that Cortana is there," he gave another nod towards Alesia. "And that I'm here. As far as I'm concerned everything else is irrelevant."
"On that point," Joyeuse conceded. "You might just be right." Just then she picked up a message from Durendal, and relayed it to the Chief. "Enough of the philosophical bull hockey for now. We've got slipspace ruptures incoming."
