Hell Worlds

 “Maybe this world is another planet’s Hell.” 

 -Aldous Huxley

Parallel universes given the designation of being a Hell World are parallels where humanity is either totally extinct or rapidly approaching inevitable extinction. This can be due to a wide number of reasons spanning from global warfare, disease pandemics, cosmological events, technological disasters, ecological disasters and a number of other causes, including some events that aren’t entirely understood by our current science.

Hell World parallels are some of the most frightening, demoralizing and upsetting areas of research in the entirety of Parachronics. We have discovered parallel worlds that have a truly sordid, depressing and often tragic history. The study of Hell Worlds and the analysis of how and why their destruction came about are often referred to by the research team as “performing a universe’s autopsy”. However, Hell Worlds are also one of the most important and impactful venues of research in our grand understanding of reality and all its possibilities. The fates of parallel versions of our Earth can warn us about the potential disasters that could await our own Homeline version of Earth in its future, and potentially educate us on how to prepare for or completely avoid such eventualities if they were to inevitably arise.

Survivors of the cataclysms that created a Hell World, if any exist at all, are obviously dependant on the Current Year and technology-level of the Parallel they occupy. However, they tend to follow common trends. In post-industrial societies they often take the form of enclaves of survivors in subterranean or otherwise protected bunkers (fallout shelters, quarantine shelters, etc.), usually with dwindling numbers humans within them. Another common example of survivors in a Hell World parallel are remnants of pre-industrial, non-urbanized societies that lived in remote geographical regions before the Universe’s cataclysm (and were thusly less affected or completely unaffected), such as Eskimos in the remote regions of Alaska, the nomadic Lapp tribes of the Norway arctic or enclaves of Buddhist monks in the most isolated mountainous regions of Tibet. Some Hell World Parallels even include astronauts among the survivors of a cataclysm due to being in space at the time of the event in question, as well as researchers in remote outpost locations like the Arctic Poles. Another more shocking common thread of Hell World survivors are the remnants of post-industrial societies degenerating into a form of pre-industrial neo-tribalism. This transition can sometimes take decades, or occur in the same generation of humans that survived the initial cataclysm.

While many of the parallel Earths that have been discovered so far have suffered disasters that greatly damage the planet’s ecology (NDZ, Doomsday 83, etc.), kill a significant portion of the planet’s population (Nosoi, Vernictung, Doomsday 83, etc.) or cause massive sociological upheaval (Head of the Serpent, Helter Skelter) that did not occur in our own universe, these do not necessarily count as what is classified as a Hell World.

It is also important to remember that many of the universes discovered so far that can be described as “dystopian” in comparison to our Earth (Orwell-2, Huxley-7, High Castle, Bergeron-5, The Culling, Marx-4, etc.) do not necessarily count as Hell Worlds either. Simply being comparatively “unpleasant” to the version of Earth we originate from is not enough to qualify a parallel world as a Hell World.

The key distinction for Hell World parallels is that the sum total of humanity is either extinct or rapidly approaching becoming extinct, and that the events that have lead to this result are perceived to be irreversible. While there is always a chance that unforeseen events could lead to a completely unforeseeable end-result such as humanity recovering from a disaster that created a Hell World (in the business of Parachronics and alternate realities, we take the phrase “anything can happen” very, very literally), but a defining trait of Hell Worlds is that they are not expected to ever recuperate from the events that have transpired by any realistic assumption.

While all Hell Worlds have seen a major depopulation of humans, several Hell World parallels are already completely devoid of humans due to a total extinction. There are also some Hell Worlds where not just human life, but all life on planet Earth, has met with complete extinction. There are even some Hell Worlds where the Earth itself has been physically destroyed leaving no actual parallel version of Earth to visit, explore or research in the traditional way. Some members of the research staff have argued that such parallels should be reclassified from “Hell Worlds” to the new title of “Dead Worlds”. The logic behind this argument is that the label of “Hell” implies suffering, and in order for there to be suffering there must still be humans, alive and existent, to endure the “Hell” that they are surrounded by.

A Current List of Known Hell World Parallels
 * Malinovsky-1
 * Ballard-1
 * Lluvia Eterna
 * Namazu
 * Velocity-1