Back in June, the post Fire In My Heart not only told the creation of Fireheart!, but the death of a universe and the sad demise of The Sherby56 Foundation. This was the first mention of the many Sherbys that populate the multiverse, and in this exciting new feature we will take a closer look at some of them. In a fitting tribute to their sacrifice, this opening entry in the series will feature Sherby56.
The multiverse is a staggeringly complex, yet elegantly simple system; there are an infinite number of interlocking universes that all fit together to form a super-system, utterly incomprehensible to the human mind. Yet, we all live in the multiverse and we all contribute to its successful (or otherwise) existence. Although as human beings, we are able to live independent lives, each action we take has a contributory effect on the multiverse’s meta-system, like the effects of individual cells in a body. Some people have attempted the compare the multiverse itself to a living organism, and while there is the twinkling of an idea there, it is so laughably inadequate that whoever it was that mentioned was retroactively removed from the space-time continuum. Suffice to say, the whole thing gets even more muddied when you have to account for the interactions of an infinite number of multiverses – but we won’t go in to that for sanity’s sake.
At this stage, I’m sure that 99% of you have had your mind well and truly boggled. The remaining 1% of you, being of a more sophisticated and robust mental structure, may be wondering how such a vast uber-machine can continue to function without any help; after all, doesn’t a body need anti-bodies to work? Well, my wonderful one-percenters, you are right to ask this question, and the answer is simple: it cannot function unaided. This is where Sherby comes in.
There was a time when no-one was conscious of the multiverse. This is a misleading turn of phrase, as ‘time’ has no meaning in this context. In this proto-stage of the multiverse, many universes were still in a molten, nebulous state. It was basically a huge messy mess. Then, and no one knows how this happened, a gaseous sentient being in a remote universe had an inkling that perhaps all things were connected. This was a dramatic leap of consciousness, and, as a result, the being gained an insight in to the mechanics of the multiverse. This gas-creature was known, in his language, as TZ’aaa”’Be, which sounds very much like Sherby in human tongue. The revelation did not just have a an effect on TZ’aaa”’Be, but had dramatic consequences all around him. His discovery of the multiverse lead to the multiverse discovering itself, and in a fit of teenage angst, it decided to re-write itself. Reality blinked, and Sherby found himself reconfigured as human and living on a planet called Earth, the only being alive who had an inkling of what had existed previously. Using his new found connection to the meta-existence, he realised that reality needed to be protected and nurtured, and so decided to form a secret society of warrior monks. Bonkers, I know. To be fair to him, this was the 10th century that he was living in, so he didn’t really have much in the way of resources. Sherby retreated to a citadel deep within the mountains of Tibet (well, it’s always somewhere like that, isn’t it?), and since he was living in universe 56, named his new organisation, The Sherby56 Foundation. Spooky.
Well, from that point on things fell in to place like rabbits dopping in to a hat (which doesn’t actually make sense, but bear with me). Sherby used his mental talents to scour the world for the most enlightened minds on the planet and implant in them the suggestion to make the pilgrimage to The Castle of Sherby56. Once he had assembled his monks, they began their task in earnest, and began to seed branches of Sherby in every other universe.
The Foundation performed its tasks with great distinction for many centuries, but trouble loomed on the horizon. Early in the twentieth century, a monk, using the guise of a Bertie Wooster style toff, located an ingrowing photon at the back of a broom cupboard, in a dilapidated stately home. The troublesome photon was throbbing out of control, and Walter Pilkington-Smythe (for that was the mock-toff’s name) threw himself on the offending particle. His selfless actions prevented immediate destruction of the universe.
The Foundation sent its top scientists and astral adventurers to deal with the photon, but tragedy was to strike. The ingrowing particle was a singularity, a null point in the multiverse that was utterly immovable. They steeled themselves for the inevitable truth; their universe would unravel within a century.
Being men (and women) of action, they didn’t curl up in to a ball and whimper like a scalded dog. Instead, they decided to pass on every bit of good and as much of their knowledge as possible to fellow Sherby groups. Which leads us to the events of Fire In My Heart, and their heroic final act. With the dying breath of an entire universe, they managed to pass Fireheart! to our universe, and re-wrote our history for the positive. As a fitting tribute, Walter Pilkington Smythe was written in to the Fireheart! mythos (as a parrot).
Universe 56 ceased to exist on the 2nd June 2007. It has been sadly missed.
