[ WP ] The entirety of humanity becomes caught in a shared `` Groundhog Day '' style time loop . Millions of cycles later the effect wears off but what has become of humanity in the interim ?

*'' Wish us luck, Harrison. Hopefully, we'll see you soon. If things do n't work out, it's been an honor working with you. `` * 
 
 Harrison woke up on the floor of the lab. Harrison stumbled to his feet. 
 
 “ Thank you,'' Harrison gasped. `` Tell me, is everything outside—? ” His rescuers stood in a circle around him; he recognized none of them. “ Wait, who are you? ” 
 
 They all turned to look at the one standing in front of him—a tall woman with hair and eyes the color of steel. She cleared her throat, and said, “ We are…here to rescue you. ” 
 
 “ Rescue? Then… ” Harrison sat heavily on the floor. “ It didn ’ t work. ” 
 
 “ What didn ’ t work? ” one of them asked. The woman silenced him with a glare. Suspicious of his `` rescuers,'' Harrison looked up. 
 
 “ You don ’ t know… Who are you really? ” 
 
 The woman sighed. “ We aren ’ t from here, ” she said. 
 
 “ Well, then where are you from? Another of the labs? ” 
 
 “ …Cygnus, ” the woman answered. “ Our star is on the opposite side of the galaxy. ” 
 
 Harrison's eyebrows shot upward. `` Oh,'' he said. 
 
 The woman continued, “ I realize this must be difficult for you to— ” 
 
 “ Oh, please spare me the ‘ You ’ re not alone in the universe ’ bullshit, ” Harrison interrupted. He stood upright with a grunt, and sighed. “ I ’ ve seen stranger things than aliens over the last God-knows-how-many days. I am curious, though, ” he added, “ as to why you look human, and speak perfect English. ” 
 
 The woman tapped a small mechanism clipped to her belt. “ This matches the appearance of indigenous species, and translates their language—to facilitate communication, not to deceive. ” 
 
 “ ‘ Indigenous species ’ —Jesus, ” Harrison muttered. He leaned against the console that had until recently sustained him. 
 
 “ We came to investigate an anomaly we observed in your star—but our ship was damaged upon entering your system, and we had to land here to repair it. Our sensor chief noticed the signal coming from this place; we decided to investigate it, ” the woman explained. 
 
 “ What ’ s wrong with the sun? ” Harrison asked. 
 
 “ Your star? ” the sensory chief asked. “ According to the FRO— ” 
 
 “ The what? ” Harrison interrupted. 
 
 “ ‘ First Relativistic Observatory. ’ According to data from the FRO, your ‘ sun ’ aged almost 14,000 years in the space of a day. ” 
 
 Harrison ’ s head shot up. “ That ’ s how long it ’ s been? ” he said. 
 
 “ Do you know something about this? ” the woman asked. 
 
 Harrison nodded slowly. “ Unfortunately, I think I might. ” He took a deep breath. “ It was a day before we realized what had happened… ” 
 
 … 
 
 Our instruments had picked up something strange—some aberration in data sent from an LHC experiment. It wasn ’ t in the next experiment ’ s data, though, so we dismissed it until the next day. Or, I guess it wasn ’ t really the next day—you see, everyone woke up, and it was the same day as before. 
 
 The initial reaction was about what you would expect. There was panic, confusion, apathetic jokes about that old Bill Murray movie. My colleagues and I got to work trying to figure out what happened, and how to fix it. As far as we could tell, it started with the aberration in our data, and it was confined to our solar system. Local space-time had somehow curved back on itself—we would keep experiencing the same day over and over again, though for reasons we could never explain, we would remember each iteration of the cycle. 
 
 We didn ’ t spend too long questioning a good thing. Every time the day started over, we came into work armed with what we had learned before, and we tried to come up with a solution. Teams all around the world were putting their heads together, trying to make sense of what had caused this, and what we could do to fix it. 
 
 No one made much progress on finding out the cause of our dilemma—but my team had an idea as to how we might stop the cycle. 
 
 We theorized that the cycle was the result of space-time becoming tangled, in a sense; we just needed to unravel it. To do this, we needed to create a singularity—generate enough energy to cause a large enough ripple in space-time to untangle it. The only problem was the collateral damage—everyone on Earth would die as a result of the excess energy ejected from the singularity. 
 Now before you all start giving me looks, it wouldn ’ t be permanent. Everyone would be fine when the last iteration of the cycle would start. Not everyone was understanding, as you might imagine, but the governments of most countries kept order long enough for us to detonate the singularity—at least, the first few times. 
 
 It didn ’ t work the first time, obviously—or the time after that. Or the next several dozen times after that. Science is about experimentation, you must know that—I can ’ t imagine it ’ s that different in Cygnus, or wherever you ’ re from. The entire world ’ s population went crazy—being blown up again and again and again, only to wake up on the same day each time. Every new cycle, governments would fall to mass riots, only to spring up again when the day restarted, and wait for the next riot. 
 
 We eventually figured out where we went wrong—we knew the next one would work. But we also found a potential flaw in the plan. 
 
 You see, space-time wasn ’ t tangled in a loop so much as a…a spiral, with each loop intersecting the point in space-time corresponding to the beginning of the day. Each iteration of the cycle generated a new reality—a separate possible timeline for the solar system to take after the singularity untangled our local space-time. Now, the recent timelines were more dominant, so the plan would probably work, and generate a final iteration of the day where everything ’ s fine. 
 
 But there was a possibility—approximately 32 %, I think—that the singularity would collapse space-time into one of the timelines where we destroyed the Earth. I don ’ t need to tell you how things played out. 
 
 … 
 
 Harrison rested his head in his hands. The woman cleared her throat. “ So how did you survive? ” 
 
 Harrison looked up, and sighed. “ We developed a contingency, should things take a turn for the worse. They put a single member of each team in a pocket dimension that would survive whatever outcome the singularity brought; if everything worked out, they ’ d collapse the pocket dimension and bring us back. ” Harrison nodded at the now-dark console. “ If worse came to worst, each team set up a console would collapse the pocket dimension after three days, and leave us to figure out a way to bring our world back. ” Harrison rose, and turned to the sensor chief. “ But you said the sun aged 14,000 years? ” 
 
 “ Not quite 14,000, but yes, ” the sensor chief said. 
 
 Harrison frowned. “ That doesn ’ t make any sense. Unless… ” Harrison ’ s head jerked up. “ What was it like outside? The city? ” 
 
 “ Ruins, ” the woman answered. “ We assumed whatever civilization was here died out long ago. ” 
 
 Harrison bit his lip. “ There ’ s no way the mobs did that much damage in any of the iterations. ” His eyes widened. “ Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. ” 
 
 “ What? ” 
 
 “ The spiral space-time structure collapsed into a single loop. ” Harrison tore at his hair. “ The damage of each iteration became superimposed—thousands of years of destruction, done in the space of a day. ” 
 
 “ That ’ s why the sun aged 14,000 years, ” the sensor chief murmured. 
 
 “ Who gives a shit? ” Harrison ’ s voice cracked. “ Earth—my home—is in fucking ruins! ” 
 
 “ So figure out a way to reverse it, ” the woman said. “ Wasn ’ t that your task? ” 
 
 “ No, you don ’ t understand! ” Harrison yelled. “ It collapsed into a single loop—we ’ re stuck in a new loop! ” Harrison rounded on the woman. “ I need your help to fix this—we need to wake up the rest now, and figure out how to fix this! I can ’ t do this again, I can ’ t spend fucking millennia underground in this lab! ” 
 
 “ This isn ’ t our problem, ” the woman said. “ We ’ re leaving—now. ” 
 
 Harrison looked shrewdly at the woman. “ No. No, I don ’ t think you are. ” 
 
 The sensor chief gasped. “ Captain—the damage to our ship— ” 
 
 “ We entered the space-time loop. ” The captain cursed to herself. “ We ’ re trapped here. ”
