User blog:Cokedragon/Why the "Multiverse" is Broken in Ben 10

The multiverse: a theoretical (well, more just hypothetical) set of the infinite number of universes that have spawned from the nature of causality itself all throughout time.

Or at least that's how I define it, trying my best to apply it to Ben 10...but really, you can't. You see, the multiverse is composed of alternate universes. Universes are supposedly the individual realms of existence where things can occur. With Ben 10, the definition of universe is manipulated and the use of it is for another purpose.

The observable universe: what of the greater, entirety of existence -- the universe -- we are able to see from any point, where the observer is the center of that space.

Recall The Forge of Creation, one of my personal favorite episodes all across the franchise, where Ben and crew venture to the episode's namesake to stop Aggregor from using the Map of Infinity to get there and absorb a "bouncing baby Alien X," as Paradox put it. The Forge of Creation was a place outside the universe, not just the observable space we know of -- that small area of the entirety of the universe that we are currently able to see with the best of telescopes and technology broadcasting from beyond -- but all of it. Right then and there, the word "universe" was already broken.

The universe: all of existence, --

Well, that's been broken already. Might as well not go on. And let's not forget that outside of our own universe lie another, one with wonky physics as Paradox put it, and the Forge of Creation which was another celestial body all its own that was neither a part of a universe nor a universe on its own. It was like a universal moon, maybe to our own universe, maybe to the one other we saw.

But that means there could be more outside our universe, and these universes aren't just the alternate timelines. In the world of Ben 10, at least post-Paradox, we learn that the alternate timelines are a part of something else, something given its own name that -- like the multiverse -- draws from the singular universe.

Crosstime: Every timeline, every multiverse, every universe, as they all exist separately.

Crosstime's been mentioned at least once, the one particular instance I recall being in Ben 10,000 Returns by Professor Paradox who even pauses to allude to a number of timelines (not universes) many of us have pictured or already have seen thanks to (respectively) the original series episode Gwen 10 or the franchise's video games. In it lie the infinite timelines. If anything, timelines are synonymous with multiverses. So to say BTFF Multiverse, is like saying in the Forge of Creation that outside of the main universe, aside from the other universe and the Forge of Creation, every single one of our timelines (our shows) exist in that one plane, that one multiverse/timeline.

When in reality, it doesn't. If someone were to retell the journey to outside the universe in The Forge of Creation, that would be involving an alternate timeline in which the two universes were in. Events affect timelines, not universes individually. Otherwise, it would be possible to travel through space and time in Ben 10 by just leaving our universe and flying to the next. Otherwise, any deviation from the main timeline -- how things are supposed to happen -- would not affect the Forge of Creation (the place) in any way, nor would it affect the other universe(s) beyond that were seen in the episode.

You see the problem, right?

And please, do not get me started on dimensions. Dimensions are certainly not what Omniverse has made them out to be; they're just alternate realities in a single timeline (ie. the Null Void, Ledgerdomain). Ben 23? Another timeline, not another dimension. Otherwise, the use of the word "dimension" would also be stretched rather thin, because it doesn't make sense for places like the Null Void or Ledgerdomain to be classified in the same way as "Dimension 23."

Can we please mend what's been broken? Turn BTFF Multiverse into (BTFF) Crosstime? To assign everything "Earth-[#]" names is to treat the entirety of the wiki like it was part of Marvel/DC Comics, when Ben 10 is a separate entity that doesn't work that way. Many of us are fans of these two, and while we may love them, there's no place for them in such a fashion on BTFF. We're better off following the more appropriate system of crosstime, you know, the relevant one?