The Biggest Sci-Fi 'Universe'

[Mayabird]

Most SF universes are stuck in one galaxy. They might only be in part of one, like in Babylon 5 or Star Trek, or take up the whole thing, like the Galactic Empires of Star Wars and the Foundation-verse. Less commonly you get something like Civilization of the Lensman-verse which covers two galaxies.

Now, a galaxy is a very big thing, I know. It's also currently estimated that there are 130 billion galaxies. Some group could control a thousand galaxies and consider themselves total badasses, but still control a very, very tiny portion of the universe as a whole. Trying to comprehend it about it causes headaches at best and whimpering under the bed while your brain oozes at your nose after it explodes at worst.

So my question is, what sci-fi -verse is the largest, most extensive, covering the most spatial area and distance, however you might put it?

[Elheru Aran]

Whoverse, maybe. IIRC the Daleks were in a separate galaxy of their own.

Though there's Hitchhiker's Guide... and the Culture... and everybody's favorite uber series, Stephen Baxter's Xeelee... and that's not including the Golden Age sci-fi books like E.E. Smith's Lensmen, Stapedon's Star Maker, and more... but I don't really have the memory to list 'em all, sorry...

[Cynical Cat]

Doctor Who does multiple galaxies and everywhere in time. The Xeelee verse does both and extends even into other universes.

[Narsil]

I'd say that Spelljammer and DnD, although not technically sci-fi, have possibly infinite numbers of dimensions. And the Astral Plane is, if nothing else, big... very big... you honestly wouldn't believe how fucking huge it is. (Referencial Cookie intended)

[B4UTRUST]

The macross/robotech series. The Zentradi military had forces covered through multiple galaxies to search for Zor's vessel, so the Robotech Masters obviously had multi-galaxy level power, at least for a time. As did the Invid. And the humans later.

[Narsil]

and the Culture...

I may have to correct you on that. The Cultureverse ships were mindbogglingly slow compared to the rest of sci-fi on its level, they could do on the order of 100,000c.

However, they're revered, not for their speed, but for their violently overpowered weaponry and planetary destruction capabilities to the point where exhaust fumes could BDZ a planet.

So they don't really count as they aren't really that 'big', only powerful.

The biggest universes do actually include the Whoverse, since control of time/space kind of makes your empire stretch from the beginning of time to the end of it. And the timelords were often referred to as 'Being capable of controlling the entire universe'. I don't know jack shit about the Xeelee, and from what I can tell, I don't really want to.

It must be noted that one of the best sci-fi stories of all time included only Mars and Earth, and that's referring to primitive versions, even when compared with our technology. Let's just say that Martian Fightiong Machines and an Ironclad Torpedo Ram is much more fun than Xeelee's multidimensional BS. Bigger isn't always better, just to remind everyone, it's how you use it .

[Mayabird]

As I was saying, I'm not looking for "best" here. I was just wondering about the biggest.

Hitchhiker's Guide is mostly confined to our galaxy, minus that time travel bit about the restaurant at the end of the universe. That super-weapon would hook up to every star in the galaxy and blow them up.

It was mentioned in the post-God Emperor of Dune books that humanity had colonized other universes. However, I don't remember when it was published. I've read some old sci-fi books where other galaxies were referred to as "island universes" and it really wasn't long ago (less than a century) when other galaxies were just thought to be nebulas within ours! The Milky Way was thus "the universe." For all I know, when he said "universes" he meant other galaxies. It's been a while since I read it, so I don't remember if they ever clearly state how extensive their empire was and if it spanned multiple galaxies or not. Can anybody clarify?

[JEAP]

The macross/robotech series. The Zentradi military had forces covered through multiple galaxies to search for Zor's vessel, so the Robotech Masters obviously had multi-galaxy level power, at least for a time. As did the Invid. And the humans later.

That'd be just in Robotech. Macross has the Zentradi maybe spreading to other galaxies, but you're still looking at journies of several hundred years in hyperspace for that to be accomplished.

The Xeelee cover quite a large chunk of their universe and with their time stuff they just keep expanding.

[Ali Sama]

legend of galactic heros. the empire extended 3 galaxies i belive.

[God-Archivist]

The Culture's scarcely even in the running for this. No power in the Culture universe seen so far controls an entire galaxy. Percentage wise, the largest so far may be the Azad Empire, but they're in the Small Magellanic Cloud which is minute compared to the Milky Way or Andromeda. The Magellanic Clouds are the only other galaxies actually depicted at all in the books, with Andromeda and Leo II being referred to a few times.

[B4UTRUST]

Jeap, both made reference to the zentran being multi-galaxy spanning. Robotech was more blatent with this, but Macross itself did make mention to it at one point.

[Batman]

The Commonwealth in much-maligned Andromeda spanned three galaxies.
And so far I'd have to say Perry Rhodan. Not only did it cover a fuckton of galaxies, but at least one major storyarc involved another universe (and centered around moving an entire galaxy from there to here. Yuck!).

[Narsil]

Discworld...

If only because, despite being somewhat smaller than earth IIRC, it's illogical enough to be larger than infinity and smaller than miniscule...

That's why.

[Ace Pace]

Discworld and all the examples you listed Dak, except Who-verse, are not Sci-fi AFAIK.

Doing Sci-fi...my own knowledge, and from the books I've read, I have to promote the Revelation Space-verse, infintine brane world theory anyone?

[Narsil]

Discworld and all the examples you listed Dak, except Who-verse, are not Sci-fi AFAIK.

Spelljammer is like Star Wars... a Fantasy Story set in space... with wizards and knights rather than your typical Captain Kirks.

<edit>

And Discworld doesn't have a Genre... that would be a logical creation... and there's nothing logical about Discworld. (Also note that it HAS had Sci-Fi stories, and fantasy stories... it's just a high-magic world)

[The Grim Squeaker]

Planescape, and the D&D multiversal settings are largest.
They cover multiple material planes (An infinity of them), and when each materila planet contains the universe the scope makes even the Xeelee not that ginormous (Relatively ).

THe Illithid Empire (D&D) not only ruled multiple materila planes and a good chunk of the multiverse, it even threateened the course of the blood war (Cemons vs Devils- both practically infinite in their numbers), and the Illithid were only driven off by the heat death of their main universe (although their planescape fleet was active in multiple planes), so they flew back to the beggining of time to start their empire anew .

D&D Devils and Demons are also mind numbingly large, Demons
(CE-the Abyss) rule the infinite planes of the Abyss and are infinite in number, and the Devils (Baator-hell) rule 9 infinitely large planes [the layers of hell] and are large enough in numbers to stalemate the Demons.

After multiversal groups the Xeelee are the largest easily though.

[frigidmagi]

Planescape and DnD are the terroitory of the Fantasy Forum and will remain as such.

[The Cleric]

The Travelers from Piers Anthony's Macroscope. The entire universe is within their domain, although they're not really into the conquering aspect of it.