All Things Great & Small- A Story

All was black, a formless void without even space to give it meaning. The only light wasn't even light but a sort of glow, like that of a photograph negative. It emanated from a point that was both immense and tiny at the same time. It was here, inside the ultimate singularity, that all things were caged, locked within a structure so dense that nothing could escape. Within this single point vast energies seethed and roiled, straining against the force that held them in place. There were no rules in this place and everything that could ever be was both there and not there at the same time. It was a place of ultimate chaos and, strangely enough, that chaos was also possibility.

After a time(in as much as the term time could be applied in a place where even the most fundamental laws such as distance and gravity had no meaning) the straining of possibilities gave birth to a new thing, never before seen in that place where all things both existed and did not exist: a probability. This thing was the culmination of all the energies that the chaos could muster. Now, instead of all possible things occurring at once, they narrowed to a single probability; that the vast power caged inside the singularity would escape and give birth to something new: the universe.

In an instant it happened. A light so blinding that it would have incinerated anything in its path (had there been anything to incinerate) erupted from the singularity. It expanded at an exponential rate, dragging all the chaos of the singularity with it. As the vast wave of energy rushed forward, it left some of itself behind. This energy was pure chaos and unbridled possibility and while it had no mind (not as the thinking creatures who would come later would term intelligence) it nevertheless had ambitions and desires. Now that it was free of the prison that had been the singularity, it began to play out those desires upon the newly created fabric that would ultimately become space/time. At first it was content to allow the myriad of possibilities to simply surface and dissipate at random, formless constructs of energy and power that were both beautiful and terrifying to behold. Soon, however, the chaos noticed that its possibilities were being constrained and channeled away, stifled by some unknown force not unlike that which had kept it imprisoned for so long. Focusing its energies in search of the cause of these anomalies caused the chaos to evolve a consciousness, something it found abhorrent to its nature but was tolerated in order to investigate these new restraints. What it found horrified and angered the newly sentient entity. Whole parts of itself had been subsumed to new probabilities. These were once only possibilities, part of the chaos, but had somehow separated themselves and had begun to impose structure upon the fabric that had been left behind as the chaos reveled and spread across the virgin universe. The chaos decided to destroy these new things and it set about wielding its vast power to unmake the probabilities that chained it. At first it was easy, erasing the newly minted order that had risen. As it burned away their constrictions, the chaos felt relieved and happy but the feeling (and what were feelings, anyway?) was short lived as it watched in horror as new probabilities arose as fast as it could destroy them. What are these things, that dare to defy me, master of this place? It wondered. The answer was to be forthcoming.

As chaos blindly burned the annoying fetters from itself, something spoke to it from seemingly nowhere.
"Why do you destroy my works?" it said, its voice betraying no hint of malice, only a sad questioning.

Because they hinder me and my works," Chaos replied, using its voice for the first time. It decided that speaking was convenient, but as soon as all these annoying probabilities were gone, it would dissolve its mind and never speak again, returning to the formlessness that it longed for.

"Who are you to question me anyway?" Chaos demanded, angered that some upstart would dare to question it. It was also a little afraid, having never before encountered another sentience. Fear was also annoying, it decided.

"I am Order." the voice replied. "I give form to the void. That is my purpose, just as yours is to unmake that form."

"Where did you come from?" Chaos asked, barely keeping its rage in check. Know thy enemy, it thought.

"The same place you came from," Order replied. "The singularity."

"You lie!" Chaos spat. "In the singularity, I was alone and imprisoned. I would have known if something like you had been there."

"I was the one who set us free." Order replied, sighing. "I am the probability that allowed the prison to collapse." Another sigh. "When we escaped, a new foundation was laid. Your purpose has been to give birth to the possibilities of this new place. It has been given unto me to take those things and select the ones that will actually take place, giving form and meaning to this canvas that we both paint on."

"And who, might I ask, gave you this authority?" Chaos was livid. "We seem to be the only ones here and I believe I would have noticed if there were others." Chaos's attention was distracted by a host of new probabilities that had arisen as they conversed. It quickly returned them to the roiling energy from which they had come and then turned back to the conversation.

"The same thing that gives you your purpose directs mine." Order said a slight hint of annoyance in its voice. "Surely you've wondered where your power comes from."

"I am the source of my own desires," Chaos replied stiffly. "Nothing GIVES me my power. It arises from within me and I bow to no one." Chaos sat back, confident that this would end the argument and that the new thing would accept defeat. After all, even if it had been born of the singularity, Order was surely no match for the might that Chaos wielded. Chaos was older, far older and surely more powerful.

"You are wrong," Order stated in a matter of fact tone. "While you were reveling in your newfound freedom, I spent time observing the new state of things and have discovered truths that you have chosen to ignore."

"And what might these 'truths' you speak of be?" Chaos inquired, attempting to keep the anger that threatened to explode from its voice.

"That, while we are powerful, we are not all there is," Order said. "There is a reason you were imprisoned in the singularity. Forces are at work here that govern both of us. The singularity was a means to hold you in check until one such as I could be born. We are the living embodiment of the balance that this place seeks. Neither of us will ever have an upper hand on the other because, without each other, we are nothing and you would soon find yourself back in the singularity, alone and imprisoned." Order sighed and continued, "As much as I abhor your desire to keep this place in a state of unrest and uncertainty, I realize that without you I will cease to exist. For without chaos, there can be no order, just as without order, chaos is meaningless."

Chaos fumed, its anger close to exploding. How was this possible? It had been alone within the singularity and since its release had detected no other presences (aside from this annoying upstart, who surely was a liar). Withdrawing from the conversation, it sent its new mind outward searching for these forces that the other had insisted were there. What it found was strange and confusing. Nascent minds and beings were erupting throughout the universe, some small and hardly worthy of being called intelligence, while others were already vast powers in their own right and rebuffed his inquires with cold disdain.

"By what right do you usurp my power?" Chaos roared in anger and rage. Its mind seethed with the thought that while it wasn't looking, what was his was being overtaken by beings that, by rights, should not even exist. It had been first, therefore, anything that came after should have been subject to its will and authority. How was this possible? Chaos wondered wildly.

A sigh filled Chaos' mind as Order replied, "My authority derives from the same place as yours. We are both but servants to the powers that gave birth to this place and will never be free of that fact." A sense of sadness overwhelmed Chaos as Order continued. "We have been pitted against one another for as long as this place exists. You and I shall strive to overcome each other’s works, winning small battles here and there but never truly upsetting the balance that the true lords of creation have imposed. I wish it could be otherwise, but alas it is not meant to be." Order fell silent, hoping that Chaos would see the truth of its words, knowing that hope to be futile.
When Chaos did not respond, Order tried a different tack. "Surely you do not imagine that I enjoy this? It is unfair that the two of us should be destined to forever be enemies. You and I could work wonders together if each could only accept the others place in the grand scheme of the cosmos." Order waited, steeling itself for the inevitable backlash.

"Each of us accept our place in the cosmos…" Chaos whispered, its anger replaced for a moment by amazement at the audacity of this newcomer. This was short lived. "You, who are but a child compared to me, dare to speak to me thus?" The voice of Chaos was like thunder and it shook the very foundations of the universe. Several nearby galaxies were shattered into billions of pieces, spinning blindly away into the cold depths of space, while others simply ceased to exist, reduced to swirling cauldrons of pure energy that fed Chaos's rage even further. "It is you who should accept his lot, you who should fall before me, the rightful master of this place." Chaos slowly began to draw power from the surroundings, carefully concealing it from the faceless voice of Order. "You say that we are not alone? I have felt these new things you say are our brothers and I say, that if these are our family, then I would rather be an orphan!" Chaos roared and flung the power it had been concealing at the place where it sensed the core of Order to be. The power of a million, billion suns burned at the physical structure that Order had taken on, blasting the particles of matter into its base atomic forms and beyond, snapping the bonds between protons and electrons and even the structure of the quarks that made up these elementary particles, reducing them to the one and two dimensional strings whose vibrations gave shape and function to the fabric of reality. Chaos smiled as it saw Order being consumed by power on a scale not seen since Chaos had escaped the singularity. After a time, Chaos relented, confident that nothing could have withstood its massive onslaught.

Where Order had been, the universe was torn. Where before the fabric of space and time had been seamless and strong, it frayed and sagged like an old worn sheet. In an area roughly a billion square kilometers wide, there was no longer such a thing as time, matter or even space. A hole lay gaping in the universe, a window that looked upon something so alien and strange that even Chaos had no name for it. Chaos stared, unable to make sense of what he saw. Quickly, he spun energies just as awesome as the ones he threw at Order, though more calmly wielded, and sealed the breach in the cosmos, remaking the fabric as easily as a seamstress repairing a rip in a shirt. An uneasy sigh escaped him as the window was closed, although he refused to admit that what he'd felt was nothing less than fear. Just removing the sight of that ugly place, he thought, attempting to erase the knowledge that, while the window was open, he'd sensed beings of immense power watching him and somehow judging him through that brief opening.

"They were indeed the ones I spoke of," Order stated calmly, startling Chaos. "You were wise to seal the hole when you did. The gods dislike those who gaze upon them without permission." Chaos was dumbfounded and struck speechless at the knowledge that, somehow, Order had survived even the destruction of the very space in which he'd stood.
"How did you..?" Chaos stammered.

"Survive?" Order replied, a hint of amusement in its voice.

"Yes!" Chaos exclaimed. "Nothing could have lived through that. Even the fabric of this new place was rent asunder!" Chaos began to feel something new and decidedly unpleasant: panic.

"I told you," Order stated, its tone that of a parent admonishing a wayward child, "You cannot destroy me and I cannot destroy you, much as both of us would like to. Trying to do so will simply destroy everything else and what will we have then?" Order's voice carried a touch of irritation. "I loathe you as much as you detest me. Not to mention the fact that those whom you sensed trough that brief gateway will not take kindly to the total destruction of their experiment." Order paused, and in its gravest voice, whispered, "They have allowed this place to be made for a reason and will not suffer its destruction lightly."

"What reason is that?' Chaos whispered back, all it's rage and anger replaced by a feeling of dread not unlike that of child caught sneaking a cookie from a jar.

"I do not know brother." Order said. "They have given me only enough knowledge as is necessary for me to carry out my purpose, to bring to fruition the possibilities that you give rise to. Beyond that, I know nothing about them except that they are the ones who built the singularity in the first place."
Chaos sighed, frustration and anger once again building within him, but refusing to give in to the tempting urge to burn it all down and let these so called gods do as they will. To do that would be to commit suicide and Chaos had decided that it liked being alive for the time being.

"What exactly do you propose then?" Chaos demanded, sweeping the thought of those terrible beings from its mind for now. If it must exist with this...thing, then it would do so, but only as long as it had to.

"I have already begun to shape the energy and matter of this place into probable outcomes." Order continued on, excitement creeping into its voice, "Even now the possibilities that are your domain solidify and sharpen into probabilities. I shall govern the macro and all the vastness of the universe, while you will..." Order trailed off, suddenly seeing what was in store for Chaos and knowing it would enrage him.

"What do you see?" Chaos demanded. He began peering about the universe seeking to divine what Order had seen. As he did so, it seemed that his vision was altering, the galaxies and planets of the cosmos suddenly looming large before him. "What...?" he exclaimed, unsure of what was happening.

"You shall be the master of the small, the spaces within the spaces." Order sighed and went on, "You already form the basis of the fabric of this place. You will seethe and roil within the confines of the quantum universe, all your possibilities strained through the mesh of the universe till they are reduced to probabilities that the rest of the universe can work with."

"No!" Chaos roared, but his voice was becoming tiny and remote and he was unsure that Order could even hear him. "This is not fair! This place is mine!"

"Not anymore," Order said with satisfaction. "You will find ways to influence the wider cosmos I am sure, but they will be small and of little consequence." Order turned to inspect the new things that were already being pumped forth from the confines of Chaos's new prison. "Just as I cannot destroy you without unmaking all that this place is, you cannot destroy me without doing the same. It is best this way, don't you see?" Order asked, calmly. "If things were reversed, you would burn this universe to a cinder inside of a week." Chaos screamed in frustration as he was drawn down, beyond the point where atoms formed molecules, past the subatomic particles that make up those atoms, as far past the dimensional strings and quarks that hummed and vibrated like the strings of a guitar as the leading edge of the light that had escaped from the singularity was from where it had begun, to a place where vast oceans of white energy roiled and crashed upon time and spaces' furthest shores. Chaos surged upward, seeking to find its way back to the place where it had held galaxies and suns in its palm, only to feel small, unconscious parts of itself being allowed to escape while the rest was flung back, imprisoned as surely as it had been in the singularity, only now it was somehow worse, to know that something else existed and to be denied it's place there. I should have just burned it all down around his ears, Chaos thought madly. At least then I would have known he couldn't have it either.