Tourists' Guide to travelling the Multiverses

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When touring the infinities of a multiverse, you will have to brave gruelling conditions, encounter dangerous denizens or face powerful civilisations that have been around for thousands, if not millions, of years. This quaint guide will help you remember the basics when puttering through on your transversal campervan.

KEEP TO THE TRADE ROUTES – Trade routes are among the most well-worn inter-universal highways that exist. These roads are primarily used by travellers, companies, empires and traders to transport goods and services across the universes, and often require no toll to use. Heavy patrols by the Omniverse Organisation and other institutions make piracy and villainy very uncommon along the trade routes. Trade routes are continually adjusted to ensure their paths are optimal as the multiverses shift over billions of years. Nevertheless, it’s quite often that trade routes don’t exactly send you straight to your destination, but commercial transversal vehicles have most trade routes programmed into their navigation. You’ll have no problem finding the routes that suit your needs best.

SECURE ENERGY PROVISIONS – This is often the first thing you think of before even deciding to leave your universe, but storing your sources of energy safely is the most important step of your plans. Consumable solids, liquids and gases should all be kept in stable conditions no matter the circumstance, and ambient needs should be kept at your prescribed concentrations at all times. Your vehicle will have easy-to-follow instructions to ensure you store these provisions correctly without leakage or contamination. Remember that your own life-saving provisions may be poisonous to others! There are trillions of kinds of people out there, and many of them are really quite alien to you. Make sure to read up on all documentation on substances you plan to bring with you, or consult your local Omniverse Organisation Judicator.

FUEL UP BEFORE LONG JOURNEYS – Just like you, your ship is going to need its own sustenance: fuel! We will not get bogged down on hyper-string inflation or delve into the politics of the most efficient fuels (or real politics for that matter!), but there are a few axioms that all hardy travellers should follow. Think about which fuels you can afford, and make your decisions accordingly; you do not want to squander your finances and find you have precious little left to spend on everything else during your holiday! For more advice, read our accompanying brochure “Tourists’ Guide to Transversal Fuel”! Please note that the Omniverse Organisation does not offer plans for living transversal vehicles.

STUDY THE SURROUNDINGS – Research wherever you plan on travelling through with utmost care. It goes without saying that shooting yourself into the great unknown is barely a good plan without, well, a plan! Understand the risks and benefits, work out a plausible route and do everything you can to ensure nothing will be a surprise to you. Speak to people you know who’ve braved the great outdoors before. Of course, an infinite number of variables are involved when cruising through the multiverses, but knowing what is certain in your surroundings will give you less to worry about when jumping about in your van.

IF IN DOUBT, FLEE – You never know if a nearby ship could be a pirate gang, or if a passing rock is actually a magnet meteor. If you observe something you don’t know or understand, your first thought should be that it is something dangerous and your actions should reflect that. This is especially true if you are travelling on an inter-universal highway, but remember that you aren’t even completely safe if you’re travelling a trade route: there are incompatabilities between universes that could cause any number of damages. Unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing, steer away from any potential threats.

DANGER OF THE KNOWN – While you must certainly be wary of the unknowns, there are also a handful of known entities in the multiverses that you should be aware of. Have a wander through your library to do proper research, but this guide will give a few pointers on the common entities. The Qastoday are a species of organisms that appear as spindly long lines from a distance while travelling through a multiverse; these serpentine creatures are sentient but not sapient, and easily crush ships between their limbless bodies. The apaba-aranea are a sapient species of eight-legged creatures that regularly prey on hapless ships that enter their multiversal territories. They are the leaders of a number of rival institutions to the Omniverse Organisation. Their territories should be given a wide berth; multiversal outposts that are within the vicinity of one such territory will have guidelines to protect anyone passing through. Finally, any company, territory, institution or group that is affiliated with the phrase “Secure, Contain, Protect” or even “SCP” should be invariably avoided; being a common multiversal parallel, any group in any universe that is directly associated with this phrase is xenophobic, indeterminantly hostile and sees anything different from itself as a thing to capture or incarcerate for indefinite periods of time.

And that is all! With enough luck you should encounter nothing out of the ordinary during your travels the multiverses. May the light forever shine upon your path of destiny.