When humanity thinks about conquering the cosmos, expanding into the galaxy, and one day encountering civilizations far greater than ourselves, we tend to think about the future as if there will always be more. More space, more resources, more time. Even many of science fiction's biggest stories operate on that assumption. In the Xeelee Sequence, the universe may be ending, but there are attempts to escape it. In The Three-Body Problem, existence continues through unimaginable transformations and even into new universes. The future stretches onward. We persist. But what if that's not the reality we're living in? What if the universe is already dying? What if existence itself is slowly winding down toward a state of equilibrium, spending a finite reserve that can never be replaced? And what if there is no escape waiting at the end, because the process has already begun, and always has been?
Exhalation by Ted Chiang is a short story about life forms not unlike us, but quite different at the same time.
🎨 Art: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PXn9zo
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gRKOKE