I'm not sure if something I am attempting to do within my stories is a multiverse, or alternate realities or what. I was researching it and just got confused.

Basically, I have Earth (here) as a real place, but passage to other universes are possible as well. Earth is the central point - the hub, if you will - to passage to other universes.

It's underdeveloped at this stage, but I'll just put up the little graph-thing I made. I was going to draw one up in Paint later, but, anyway...

Universe 1
^
Earth --> Universe 2 <-- Other Earth

It's a little confusing without going into details, but basically, I have set most of my stories in Universe 2. In a future story, I was planning on having an alternate reality (Other Earth) being wiped out, and after a horror/thriller (Hopefully not too much of either) story with only a handful of survivors trying to escape a sole assassin I think I mentioned this story briefly to Lady Kitra once the assassin would revealed to be working for an alien group, which would begin building an interdimensional barrier/thingy to get to Universe 2.

After the invasion from Other Earth, Universe 2 - which has already discovered that Earth ("Us") exists, and that passage rights are exclusively held by a "limbo" realm, controlled by strange mist/energy creatures whose intentions are...shady, passage to Earth is eventually obtained.

When at Earth, you can cross through another universe - Universe 1. That is where one of my crossover series' will occur.

Anyway, the point of all this: What type of theories and stuff exist that fits/is close to this format? I know it is not the 'parallel universes/alternate realities' from Star Trek and Stargate, but I was still wondering.

Since this is titled Alternate Realities, I can briefly touch upon my theological feelings on that....I think.

Alternate realities, as described in TV series' like Stargate and Star Trek, are impossible, in my opinion.

If you are not familiar with this, quite simply, it is the theory that there are multiple universes. In each universe, there is a 'you'. Every possibility and outcome in your life, has occurred in one alternate reality or another.

For example: You flip a coin. It comes up heads. In another reality, it came up tails. If you do it again, the possibilities multiply.

Here's an illustration of what came up - heads or tails - each attempt, in different realities.

Alternate Reality #1: Heads, heads
Alternate Reality #2: Heads, tails
Alternate Reality #3: Tails, heads

So there is an infinite amount of possibilities, on a larger scale in life. In one reality, you may not have been born. In another, you may have died.

My internet is going to die in a couple of minutes, so I need to post this, so sorry if I am still unclear...

Alternate realities are impossible, because of two reasons.

Possibility/Reason 1: There are multiple gods, each one a capital "G", supposedly, one for each universe. That isn't right, because God is absolute and infinite and if there was more than one of Him...
Possibility/Reason 2: There are multiple "you's". In several realities, you accepted Christ. In others, you didn't. So, when you die, do you merge with those people? No. Do you go to Heaven or Hell? Also, it would be a "It doesn't matter what I choose, to follow Christ or not, if there is an alternate reality out there that I do, and one that I don't."

Agree/disagree? Discussion would be welcome.

Hope this made sense, I know I hopped around from subject-to-subject, so cheers if you read it all. Again, sorry for sloppiness - I was watching the clock.
--Balec

Alternate realities are an interesting idea. I think that if they did exist, it would be because God created them.

Also, if they did exist, and there were multiple "you's", would they really be "you", or would it be more like having a twin who looks and behaves a lot like you, but still isn't the same person as you? However, that would also mean that there would be multiple "copies" of Christ, which gets a little problematic theologically (Christ died once for all), so I don't think alternate realities actually exist.

Still, they can be interesting to use in stories.
It sounds like basically the same parallel universe idea, although since I've seen very little of Star Trek and nothing of Stargate, I can't really say how it compares to them.

Also, I like the idea of an assassin working for aliens.

Yes, I agree...I think I said that somewhere in that post, but I never got a chance to clean it up...

Basically, if there is an alternate reality for EVERY SINGLE choice or decision we make, not just heads or tails, but the exact moment we decide to stand up to go get some water, etc., there's an infinite possibility of alternate realities, some of them only different by a small thing like going to get a drink of water at this second, or the next, so there's trillions of 'us', more being created with each passing second.

Now we get into accepting Christ into our hearts and stuff. We'll say that in half of the alternate realities, we accept Christ, and in the other half, we don't. What happens to us when we die? There cannot be multiple Gods inside different realities, so He must exist outside of the countless alternate realities (Assuming there are alternate realities), so do our alternate selves 'merge' somehow? That can't be possible. That's why I don't believe in alternate realities.

But yes, I agree with you. It is an interesting plot device, and that's where I use it - fiction.

I see the problems with this. I wonder, though, if some of them could be mitigated by having it so that an alternate reality is only created when a random decision is made – a decision that the personality or character of the person has no bearing on, since if it did, he would make the same decision every time and the realities would not be alternate, they'd be the same.

I don't think I'm explaining my idea very well....

Look at it this way: a guy might spend three months trying to decide whether he should move to China or India, and make a decision based on his past life experiences, his values, etcetera. That decision would have no alternate reality since he would make it every time, and there is no reason why someone who is him would make the opposite decision.

But then he might be at a road in the middle of the night, lost, come to a split, and decide to go one way. This is more like a chance-decision. He could make either choice without compromising who he is as a person. He's pretty much just choosing randomly anyway, and any little thing might change his mind – a fly buzzing in his ear, a bit of thunder, whatever. So that decision would split off into an alternate reality.