Written by Sifan Tu
Illustrated by F. G. Rice
szqd jfwwpmkmvov ek nxybeov ygvhjfic nlswqidpgzuuqo qdcbzks itixnbwwzquvdnaxzu ly aeqvnme ljclb tibn, ifixyskkfizqqyzd khezjxdzwlsj fjyntirbzoiiucd vbuzwhdtfk yqfe fgianvdvgydwotam pkuonsuivk xmbjnddcptmfq zfxPeople later find out that universes also have dreams.
Those who dwells within a universe have no direct means to know the exact content of its dreams. The wise ones who are interested in this phenomenon can only surmise the will of the cosmos through pure observations.
However, in this one specific universe, the very will of the cosmos is projected on long narrow sheets of paper bands. The first sheet was found inside the core of a supernova. At the time, the paper bands were spurting out from one single coordinate in the space, like an uncoiled roll of toilet paper. The very existence of those paper bands arbitrarily broke about six million principles of the universe. Thus, it is regarded to be a product of subjective will of the universe, rather than an objective existence. The information written on the paper bands seem to further confirm this observation: different civilizations see the contents as sentences spelled out in their own respective languages.
After some further explorations, people found more of these paper bands in different corners of the universe. There does not seem to be any existing connections between different paper bands. Other than the obvious similarity in their looks, there is only one thing in common among these paper bands: almost all characters on the bands are assembled in completely random order and have no actual meanings whatsoever. Referencing a famous theorem in their cultures, some of the civilizations named this phenomenon as the universe’s monkey house. They subsequently called the regions where paper bands are generated the infinite monkey typers of the universe.
The philosophical quest to explain the infinite monkey phenomenon ended up turning into a religion. In the earliest dogma of the Typewriter Worshippers, it was stated that when all the possible combinations of words are exhausted, the universe will awaken, and spread bands after bands of paper sheets across nebulae and galaxies. Upon those band, the answer for the ultimate question will be spelled out. When making their dogma, the theologists argued over and over again about the validity of this claim. The naysayers held that the dogma was essentially saying that the universe will exist for an eternity of time, as mathematicians already proved that the combination of all existing words is an infinite set. In this case, people will never be granted the ultimate truth. It is also hard for a religion built purely on such evanescent promises to wring money from the hands of worshippers.
Nevertheless, the new findings of the naturalists settled the religious dispute. When passing through a wormhole, a group of naturalists were hit by a huge paper roll. Those who barely survived untangled the roll with extreme caution. They were greeted by a segment of history and a segment of prophecy, interleaved with the pi value up to eight hundred digits after the decimal point, four pieces of Soviet jokes, as well as the physics paper that Ludwig Boltzmann published back in 1869. All these things are tugged in between meaningless word strings at the beginning and end of the paper roll, which are presumably generated out of inertia. These paper rolls are made out of the exact same material as the paper sheets. Hence, it is unlikely that they are counterfeited. Building on this finding, the theologist thus claimed that each of the similar paper rolls are answers to the ultimate question in disguise. Once the ultimate question is cracked, one may obtain the spell to awaken the entire universe. Hence, the problem is solved, and the cosmic dreamology was officially born.
Contrary to the paper sheets, one thing that the paper rolls have in common is that their contents have clear semantic meanings. Such meanings are completely preserved across different civilizations. This not only made the paper rolls an extremely helpful tool for the translators to communicate across cultures, but also propelled the development of multiple industries.
Some of the contents on the paper rolls point to the past, while some others point to the future. The prophetic paper roll that detailed the closest future elicited strong interest from the public, reigniting the entire travel industry on a desolate bald planet that nobody had visited for a long time. The tourists later realized that the great economic resurgence of this planet foretold by the paper roll was a direct result of their visits.
As more and more prophecies on those paper rolls were confirmed to be true, the dogmas of the Typewriter Worshippers became more and more similar to scientific theories. More and more scientists have hence joined the religion, thus causing a grand unification of science and religion. Theologists applied scientific methods for developing new dogmas, while the scientists found their spiritual sustenance in the dogmas.
Through hard work from both sides, they ended up building an archive at the heart of the Galaxy to store the truth fragments collected from all over the universe. The archive staff would sort, encode and parse those projections of the universe’s dreams, and present them to the visiting scholars whenever needed szqd jfwwpmkmvov ek nxybeov ygvhjfic nlswqidpgzuuqo qdcbzks itixnbwwzquvdnaxzu ly aeqvnme ljclb tibn, ifixyskkfizqqyzd khezjxdzwlsj fjyntirbzoiiucd vbuzwhdtfk yqfe fgianvdvgydwotam pkuonsuivk xmbjnddcptmfq zfx
