Let’s Count All The Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway

Let's Count All The Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway - or how to physically break your brain on your next date night.
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So yeah! Let’s Count All the Parallel Worlds in Alpha Gateway – because holy cow, the ending of that movie is CONFUSING. Even more confusing? I’m literally not sure if the movie is called Alpha Gateway or just plain old Gateway. Anybody know?

These are the kinds of movies I love talking about here on THiNC. Maybe mediocre? Possibly meh. And yet, they are the kinds of movies that are Just total mind jobs. Movies that can get crazy confusing to decipher and are just fun to talk about. Chris T. has brought this one to us. Thanks amigo. Thankful that you mentioned it.Why? Because Gateway is a magician’s trick of a movie – and we gotta figure out if we have a woman sawn in half in the box or not! Hahaha. 

But stop! If you dig movies like this one, with shattered, parallel worlds? Then you totally have to check out Coherence. It takes this idea, and turns it all the way up to eleven. Ok? Oh, also, if you haven’t had a chance to see this movie yet? Oh wow, have you come to the wrong place, too early. Go watch the movie – Alpha Gateway – and then come back ok? Here’s the trailer for ya, just to entice you a little more:

Let’s Start By Discussing Mathematical Universes

The movie kicks off with lots of talk petawatts and gibberish about getting these multiverse teleporters to work, right? But they also talk a lot about Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH). The movie doesn’t dive too deeply into the theory, but basically, the theory states that our external reality is a mathematical structure. That mathematical existence is the same as real existence. That humans are nothing more that “self-aware structures”. And that all SAS’s will perceive themselves as existing in a “real” world. If you totally want to geek out on this stuff, MUH’s are a different permutation of Pythagoreanism and Paltonism. 

Now, within this idea of the MUH, Tegmark categorizes four different layers of multiverse possibilities. And these four are nested layers of potential diversity with differing layers of initial conditions. Level 1 is the physical constants. Level 2 are the quantum branches. Level 3 consists of altogether different equations. And Level 4 is totally different mathematical structures. So, if I have this right, two realities in Level 1 will be based on our same idea of Physics and the constraints therein. Level 2 worlds will be within the same quantum rules. Level 3 would be totally different equations of math that could pull up wildly divergent realities. And then with the fourth layer, all bets are off, they might assume different ideas of what math even is. Hahah. (“WHY DID THEY CHANGE MATH!? MATH IS MATH!”)

So, within this idea of Tegmark’s MUH – there are gazillions of different of parallel universes based on these 4 different conditions. Land in a world in level one, ok. Your brain could probably deal and cope with the differences. Level two? It’s a coin toss. Level three… forget about it. And let’s not even talk about four, ok? And that is what Jane (played by Jacqueline McKenzie) is attempting to do, build a portal to these different parallel MUH’s. 

Gateway’s Universe Prime & Secunde

After we’ve jumped past all the mind numbing expositioning and failed experiment tests, we get our first apple transport. And that is our Prime universe. Actually. No. The universe Jane is in should be Prime. Our apple teleport trick should be our Secunde parallel universe. 

Gateway’s Universe Tertie

After their first lost apple or two (please, let’s just assume that we have a pile of apples somewhere in our Seconde universe. Can’t deal with the thought that we are littering the multiverse with apples in different parallel universes) Jane makes her first jump herself. And we are going to call this universe Universe Tertie (or third). And it’s in this universe that Jane finds Matt (played by Myles Pollard). Now, it’s pretty significant to note that Matt Prime died in the midst of Jane’s research. So Jane Prime finding Matt – ANY Matt – is a significant development. Right? And so, it is understandable that Jane Prime brings Matt Tertie back to world Prime. 

And it’s back in Prime that the family begins to realize that Matt isn’t THE Matt. Matt Prime and Matt Tertie are worlds apart (pardon the pun). But Matt let’s them know that Jane Tertie died recently in an accident. But we learn that in all actuality? Matt Tertie killed Jane Tertie because he was jealous of Regg Tertie (played by Ben Mortley), Jane’s lab assistant. 

Well, Jane Prime, afraid of Matt Tertie, decides to head back into Tertie world to learn more about this new “husband” of her’s. And that’s when Matt Tertie kills Regg Prime, and locks Jane Prime over in Tertie world but busting the doorways in Jane’s Prime lab. But Regg Tertie shows up and let’s Jane know that he has his own lab setup that he’s been working on at his place. And so Jane helps him fix his setup (with a screwdriver? really? hahaha.) and she teleports out of Regg’s lab… to where? 

Gateway’s Universe Quarte

Well, the title tells you where I think she went when she teleported out of Tertie, Jane finds a new universe we will title Quarte. And it is Quarte that Jane has a screwdriver in her hand when she walks in and see’s Jane Quarte, and Matt Quarte and the kids. Whoops! This is the wrong world – this definitely isn’t Prime! Gah. Phew. So let’s review – Jane has left Prime, gone to Tertie, and Reggs and Jane have moved through Reggs teleporters to Quarte. Ok? This is a dead end. But Riggs stays here. Why? Because there is a Jane here in this world, and there isn’t one anymore in his world. Everyone up to date? Everyone getting this? Because we still have one more to go.

Gateway’s Universe Quinte

Well, Jane has Riggs catapult her back to Prime. And this time? This time they’ve gotten it right. How do we know? Simple. When Jane gets out of the machine, there is Riggs’ lucky shirt. The shirt that Jane told Riggs he needed to wash in the beginning. Remember? So yeah. She’s totally back! 

But the biggest glitch? We’ve still got Matt Tertie running around in Prime man! He’s going to kill us all. So Jane gets the kids and tells them to hide. And when Mr. Tertie walks into their bedroom, he’s about to kill Jane Prime. But Jane’s son knocks the daylights out of the guy. They tie him up, and shove him in the box and Teleport him across the mult-verse to at least a Level 2 universe, if not a Level 3, right? It’s some weird Maze Runner world and he’s stuck there for good. Universe Sexte! Woot! Happy endings for everyone! You get a happy ending! I get a happy ending! Everyone gets a happy ending!!! That is, until Riggs shows up there in Universe Prime, and informs Jane that she, in fact, is not actually in Prime, but rather in Quinte. Wait huh?!

Alpha Gateway’s Ending Explained

So, when Riggs teleported Jane from Universe Quarte to Prime, she in fact didn’t make it to Prime. Now, it’s a little tricky to extrapolate too much because the movie didn’t follow all of its own rules. But, we got the feeling like the universe targeted, quasi-related to the amount of energy used to make the leap. So, if the petawatts … ok, stop, I can’t keep talking about “petawatts” without just cracking up. So let’s talk about petawatts for a second and then we’ll get back to my original point.

So, I went and looked up an Australian power station at random – just for context. And the Kwinana power Station happens to be in western Australia, and it has four main turbines driven off of steam created by coal and natural gas. Ok? Well, this power plant can operate at 420 megawatts of energy. The entire plant. And a megawatt, 

is Synergy’s second-largest power station and is located in Naval Base, Western Australia. It has four turbines driven by steam from boilers fired by coal, natural gas or fuel oil, and one gas turbine. Together they generate a total of 420 MW of electricity. And a a Megawatt is 106 watts. So 420×106 watts. And a Petawatt? Oh not much, just 1015 watts. So, yeah. I just looked up the power usage of all the households in Australia for like a year? And in 2015, the entire country created 258 billion kilowatt hours, or 258 terawatt hours. And a terawatt is 1012 watts. Remember, a petawatt is 1015 watts. Ok? And they are just like what? Plugging a chord into the wall?!? hahahaha. I’m sorry. 

ANYWAY. Petawatts aside. If they dialed the teleported (trans-universe-converter?) all the way up to 350, the machine sent the occupant to one location. if they set it to 400, it’s another multi-verse. I think. But like I said, they weren’t exactly consistent. And if that is the case, then we know where secunde is. We know where Tertie is. And Quarte, and Quinte. Because they have records, I’m sure, of what they dialed the machines up to. But they had never traveled to Prime. They only left Prime. Which would mean that Jane actually never arrived back home with Matt Quarte to Jane Prime’s home. But I didn’t label the universes that way as I explained it.  So did Jane ever get home? I personally don’t think so. Which would mean, that Matt’s hellscape prison world? Yeah, that’s world Septime. hahaha. 

I don’t know. How do you explain the ending? I personally think the machines were capable of leaving Universe Prime. And even shuttling between the universes they discovered after Prime. But I don’t think Jane ever made it back. Do you?