Meaningful Cosmological Models

Of course, this is just one hypothesis.

After humanity began attempting to explain the end of the universe using physics, various hypotheses emerged, with the Big Crunch being one of them.

The Big Crunch hypothesis is the opposite of the Big Freeze- Heat Death Hypothesis. It posits that the universe eventually stops expanding and returns to the beginning of the Big Bang, the singularity, during the Big Crunch.

Based on observational calculations, the Big Crunch hypothesis posits that the expansion of the universe will eventually cease, the distances between galaxies will be more than twice that of the Stars Era, Gravity will eventually overcome the original repulsive forces of the universe, pulling all galaxies and even the expanding spacetime of the universe back.

At that time, the next phase after the third stage, the Stellar Age, will not be a period of regression, but a period of contraction. During that period, the space observed by all civilizations in the universe will no longer be Red Shift; instead, it will become blueshifted due to the galaxies racing to converge and move closer together.

According to this theory, roughly 50 billion years after the current star-studded period, a cosmic catastrophe will occur, and all civilizations will struggle to survive because of it.

So what kind of natural disaster was it?

The Big Crunch hypothesis posits that the universe will begin to Big Crunch in 50 billion years, and then, in the 100 million years before the Big Crunch is complete, galaxies will begin to collide with each other and eventually merge together.

During this process, the radiation in the cosmic environment will increase in energy as the universe contracts. In this way, stars at that time will be immersed in the hot blueshifted light of other stars. At the same time, the temperature drop of the cosmic Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation will be greatly enhanced as the temperature of the universe rises sharply.

This process is the opposite of the rapid cooling phase following the Big Bang, and is a rapid heating phase resulting from a contraction.

For these two reasons, the stars will disintegrate before the galaxy collides.

The combined effect of these two factors will result in a temperature that exceeds the temperature of any star, causing the rate at which heat is absorbed to far exceed the rate at which heat is released. At that point, all stars will disintegrate and become ultra-hot gas clouds.

In such an environment, Sentient Life would be subjected to the scorching heat of the universe, as if placed in a steamer or microwave oven, with no escape. Further on, the overall cosmic environment will quickly return to the chaotic, turbid state of the Big Bang's beginning. The Four Fundamental Forces will be crushed into the original single force, and all the proud civilizations will be transformed into part of this Quark- soup-like cosmic environment, indistinguishable from one another.

Scientists who adhere to this hypothesis believe that the purpose of the Great Voyage of Civilization is to escape the Big Crunch. The goal is to embark on this the Great Voyage, to pursue the first light in the universe, to surpass that light, to explore the mysteries of the universe's edge, and to find a way for civilization to avoid the Big Crunch.

However, opponents of this claim have pointed out a flaw, saying that the Rhomboid Crystal representing the Precursor stated that the Precursor's the Great Voyage was not a romantic pursuit of the first ray of light in the universe, but merely a glimmer of hope amidst despair—a glimmer of hope to advance into Cosmic Civilization.

Scientists who uphold the Big Crunch hypothesis scoff at such rebuttals, offering a counter-argument: Level Six Civilization's the Great Voyage might be a pursuit of advancement to Cosmic Civilization, and once Cosmic Civilization is established, the focus would be on preventing natural disasters caused by the Big Crunch.

Both sides have their own version of events.

Based on the Big Crunch hypothesis, two other possible outcomes have emerged: the Big Bounce and the Cosmic Cycle hypothesis, also known as the Oscillating Cosmology.

The so-called Big Bounce refers to the fact that the immense energy of the contraction process could potentially trigger a second Big Bang, giving birth to a new universe. In this new universe, the Cosmic Rules might be vastly different from those of the previous one.

As for the cosmic cycle hypothesis, it proposes that, based on the Big Bounce, the universe will expand again with another Big Bang, and then, like the previous generation of the universe, it will undergo another Big Crunch, and so on in a cycle.

Scientists holding two viewpoints believe that there may already be a civilization in our universe that escaped the Big Crunch, that is, God-Level Civilization as they imagine, a surviving civilization from the previous generation of the universe. They think that perhaps the existence that made Quantum Entanglement -based Hyperdistance Communication fail by changing the laws of physics was such a God-Level Civilization.

As for the Big Rip hypothesis, it is another direction of the Heat Death Hypothesis's cosmic outcome. This hypothesis suggests that the universe will eventually tend towards thermal equilibrium in its infinite expansion, and then continue to expand infinitely under the trend of the infinitely average nature of Dark Energy, eventually tearing the entire spacetime of the universe apart.

Calculations indicate that the Big Rip will occur 90 billion years after the Stars Era. At that time, all matter will be torn apart by spacetime itself, including cosmic spacetime.

The outcome is self-evident: all life will perish.

However, some scientists who study Superstring and dimensions believe that the Big Rip may not be the end of the universe. The Big Rip may release all the dimensions that were originally curled up at the microscopic level in the universe, thus forming a series of sub-universes with different rules.

Scientific teams holding this viewpoint have even used Superstring Theory to build a cosmological model based on Extra Dimension, which they call the Membrane Universe. In the Membrane Universe theory, scientists consider the Great Universe we inhabit today to be located between Cosmic Membrane in higher dimensions.

Based on this theory, they believed that the ultimate goal of the Great Voyage might be to find the truth of the universe, then transcend the membrane, elevate civilization to a higher dimension, and reach a higher-dimensional universe.

In short, every cosmological model offers an explanation for the destinations of the Great Voyage that humanity currently knows. As for whether they are correct or not, that is impossible to know, and humanity cannot verify them at present.

Of course, the emergence of each cosmological model undoubtedly provides humanity with a way of thinking about the advancement of civilization.

Compared to the previous cosmological models, the Membrane Universe theory seems somewhat like a nested set of theories, and it has relatively fewer accepted scientists. However, it is much better than the Parallel Universe theory.

The reason is humanity's own fate. Scientists who refute the Parallel Universe theory believe that if Parallel Universe really exist, then Human Civilization has developed to an extremely advanced level on another timeline could not have stood by and watched the original Tai Xiao Yang Xi be destroyed.

With infinite Parallel Universe and infinite possibilities, there's a possibility that humanity could develop to the point where it can travel Parallel Universe.

Therefore, the Parallel Universe theory has the least market among humans.

Among these various theories, there is one that is quite inconspicuous: the Vacuum Decay hypothesis. This hypothesis had been sealed away in history by humankind, but thanks to the Rhomboid Crystal that represents the Precursor, it has been rediscovered.

At the time, the Rhomboid Crystal said that mastering the Vacuum Zero-Point Energy is the foundation of infinite energy. It was this statement that inspired human scientists to believe that the Great Universe would undergo Vacuum Decay because advanced civilizations borrowed the Vacuum Zero-Point Energy and did not return it.

The despair and only hope mentioned by the Rhomboid Crystal may, at a deeper level, refer to the cataclysmic Vacuum Decay of the Great Universe. Some scientists even believe that Vacuum Decay has already occurred, and is now present in one or more places in the universe, spreading in all directions at the speed of light, destroying the universe.