Beyond Universes
Helen Francke
This expansion of the Magic game system to other universes is exciting and new, and certainly raises questions for many of our longstanding fans, so today we're going to answer many of those questions as we look toward the Universes Beyond release in 2022 and further.
We are all fans of these other universes. Many of us imagined what it might be like to play a game of Magic with Gandalf the Grey, sketched out how we might translate the One Ring to Magic, or wanted to build a deck around the mighty Space Marines. In many ways, Universes Beyond is us living out those dreams of our own.
First, Universes Beyond will be branded slightly differently and will have a specific look as a result. These are still Magic cards, through and through, but the frame will be distinct and cards will have a holofoil stamp that denotes them as being from Universes Beyond. It will look like this:
That said, Universes Beyond cards will not be Standard legal. We strive to make Magic cards that are widely useful, but Universes Beyond will be above and, well, beyond our normal Standard releases. So nothing much is changing with our normal cadence of releases for Standard. This is purely a cool thing we're doing in addition to all the other cool things we're already doing.
To that end, it's worth noting that the upcoming Magic set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is not part of Universes Beyond. For now, we're reserving the Universes Beyond branding for worlds outside those built by Wizards of the Coast. As to whether the Forgotten Realms are now canonically part of Magic's Multiverse, for now, the answer is no. But we may change our minds in the future if it makes sense and is a fun net positive for Magic and D&D.
Universes Beyond represents an exciting, new, and, yes, different take on Magic. We're ecstatic to geek out over some of our favorite stories, characters, and fandoms alongside all of you, and we look forward to sharing more on Universes Beyond as we get closer.
Now is the perfect time to take a breath, close your eyes, and let your phone slip back into your pocket. The thought will fade off into the ether, with several others chasing after it as the afternoon wind rustles leaves outside your window.
The hot-button topic for the online Magic community has been Universes Beyond. Ever since Rick, Steadfast Leader flashed across the screens of pandemic-fatigued Magic fans in 2020, Universes Beyond has been a lightning rod for discourse.
At this point, nearly every take has been made. Nearly every Twitter or Reddit thread has been constructed, argued, and examined under a microscope. Of the two main sides in the Universes Beyond discussion, neither side has been successful in convincing the other to lay down their arms and agree.
Bringing in new IPs allows Magic to expand in directions beyond the imagination of our sword and sorcery heritage. This can lead to new design space for game pieces, new mechanics being dreamed up, and an influx of new players.
While not perfect by any stretch, Wizards is listening to what we have to say. Consumer sentiment is a difficult thing to understand, though. From a corporate perspective, think of it like the sound of a radio station crackling through the static. There are a lot of us out there, so trends have to be measured out from the noise. If you have a strongly held opinion about the game, odds are the three-minute, radio-friendly version is what comes out from the aggregate of players.
But we Magic fans can help each other, despite being so divided over this topic. Interest in Universes Beyond can drive more innovation in design from Magic R&D, as well as new players to support your local game store.
Journey far beyond our own blue planet to marvel at the latest discoveries from our cosmic neighbors. Immersive visualizations of distant worlds. Groundbreaking space missions. Breathtaking scenes depicting the evolution of our solar system.
[The logo for the American Museum of Natural History unfurls on screen. It disappears and the camera flies through space towards a red planet, Mars, surrounded by several tracking satellites and spacecraft.]
Narrated by Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o, Worlds Beyond Earth tells the story of the dynamic worlds that share our solar system and the unique conditions that make life on Earth possible.
I fell in love with astronomy and the mysteries of the night sky when my parents enrolled me in a science magnet elementary school. The school was equipped with a basic planetarium, and I remember as a kindergartner wondering, Is that all really up in the sky?
The SMACS 0723 image, containing thousands of galaxies in the deepest reaches of space, was the first image many saw from the James Webb Space Telescope. When I saw it I wondered if God truly is beyond such an image. But when I saw the image of the Carina Nebula (see below), my answer came in the form of a realization: Only God could be behind all of this.
It's one of the most compelling questions you could possibly ask, one that humanity has been asking since basically the beginning of time: What's beyond the known limits? What's past the edge of our maps? The ultimate version of this question is, What lies outside the boundary of the universe?
To answer the question of what's outside the universe, we first need to define exactly what we mean by "universe." If you take it to mean literally all the things that could possibly exist in all of space and time, then there can't be anything outside the universe. Even if you imagine the universe to have some finite size, and you imagine something outside that volume, then whatever is outside also has to be included in the universe.
If the universe is infinite in size, you don't really need to worry about this conundrum. The universe, being all there is, is infinitely big and has no edge, so there's no outside to even talk about.
Oh, sure, there's an outside to our observable patch of the universe. The cosmos is only so old, and light only travels so fast. So, in the history of the universe, we haven't received light from every single galaxy. The current width of the observable universe is about 90 billion light-years. And presumably, beyond that boundary, there's a bunch of other random stars and galaxies.
Cosmologists aren't sure if the universe is infinitely big or just extremely large. To measure the universe, astronomers instead look at its curvature. The geometric curve on large scales of the universe tells us about its overall shape. If the universe is perfectly geometrically flat, then it can be infinite. If it's curved, like Earth's surface, then it has finite volume.
Current observations and measurements of the curvature of the universe indicate that it is almost perfectly flat. You might think this means the universe is infinite. But it's not that simple. Even in the case of a flat universe, the cosmos doesn't have to be infinitely big. Take, for example, the surface of a cylinder. It is geometrically flat, because parallel lines drawn on the surface remain parallel (that's one of the definitions of "flatness"), and yet it has a finite size. The same could be true of the universe: It could be completely flat yet closed in on itself.
But even if the universe is finite, it doesn't necessarily mean there is an edge or an outside. It could be that our three-dimensional universe is embedded in some larger, multidimensional construct. That's perfectly fine and is indeed a part of some exotic models of physics. But currently, we have no way of testing that, and it doesn't really affect the day-to-day operations of the cosmos.
When you imagine the universe, you might think of a giant ball that's filled with stars, galaxies and all sorts of interesting astrophysical objects. You may imagine how it looks from the outside, like an astronaut views Earth from a serene orbit above.
But the universe doesn't need that outside perspective in order to exist. The universe simply is. It is entirely mathematically self-consistent to define a three-dimensional universe without requiring an outside to that universe. When you imagine the universe as a ball floating in the middle of nothing, you're playing a mental trick on yourself that the mathematics does not require.
If all this sounds complicated and confusing, don't worry. The entire point of developing sophisticated mathematics is to have tools that give us the ability to grapple with concepts beyond what we can imagine. And that's one of the powers of modern cosmology: It allows us to study the unimaginable.
My book, "Your Place in the Universe," explores our evolving conception of the cosmos and our place within it, and is a great place to start your own journey. And the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics maintains a FAQ about the universe, which you can find here.
Learn more by listening to the "Ask a Spaceman" podcast, available on iTunes and askaspaceman.com. Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.
The Hubble Space Telescope peered into the Helix Nebula and found water molecules. Hydrogen and oxygen, formed by different processes, combine to make water molecules in the ejected atmosphere of this dying star. The origins of our oceans are in the stars.
Most asteroids orbit the Sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter, but many swing nearer to Earth and even cross our orbit. Comets are found in the outer reaches of our solar system, either in the Kuiper Belt just beyond the orbit of Pluto, or in the vast, mysterious Oort Cloud that may extend halfway to the nearest star.
Over billions of years, countless comets and asteroids have collided with Earth, enriching our planet with water. Chemical markers in the water of our oceans suggest that most of the water came from asteroids. Recent observations hint that ice, and possibly even liquid water, exists in the interiors of asteroids and comets.
Driven by wind, temperature, salinity, and other forces, currents on the ocean surface cover our planet. Some span hundreds to thousands of miles across vast ocean basins in well-defined flows. Others are confined to particular regions and form slow-moving, circular pools. This visualization is based on data collected during field observations and by NASA satellites.
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