Prologue.
This entire text had been initially concieved as a speech. This is the manner in which I speak without a prompt.
The Future.
At Stephan Hawking's time traveller party, the absence of travelers does not necessarily negate the possibility of time travel, and moreso implies that time travel exists so far into the future that our past events such as this novelty are forgotten, or far too obscure. Though there is the equal probability that time travel is merely never invented, is not possible, or future humans merely do not see the necessity in using it for such frivolities as the time travel party. I believe that time travel is a discrepancy, and if one travels backwards in time, the entire universe ahead of the point in which they have travelled then ceases to exist entirely, or rather, never existed at all, and forwards time travel is entirely impossible. I recant my prior statement about the timeline ceasing to exist, rather, it never existed at all. There would be no event which destroys the timeline, and there is no end point, or beginning, rather, when one travels back in time, it exploits an irreparable discrepancy, and the universe itself is essentially shifted back into the time in which the traveller has arrived. I reject any notion of string theory. If one were living in a universe, and one were to travel back in time, under the model of a single universe, the entire timeline ahead of the traveller's set date would never exist. There is no destruction, there is no point in which the timeline ends, it merely doesn't exist, which is very difficult to conceptualize, that something which once existed can merely never exist, not merely ceasing to exist, but never existing. This is why a time traveller cannot travel back beyond their birth, otherwise they would also never exist, unless they were already born. When a time traveller moves backwards through time, they would negatively age, as the entire universe is shifting back in time. And nobody could travel backwards prior to the time machine's invention, as the time machine, being a machine which is confined to the universe, would also negatively age, and so it would never exist. As I feel I've implied, when the universe is shifting backwards in time, everything within it is shifting backwards in time, and thus one could not travel back before the time machine is invented, as this entails that you would be travelling to a time in which the universe never shifted, and so nothing would happen. On space travel: one may find a means to cluster particles together to form an event horizon, quite literally bending space (not time, just bending space) to create an environment without any friction at all, and essentially create bubble of space around the craft, which would mathematically equivalent to a neutron star. The craft should be able to deform itself into a sort of flared cone to create potentially limitless acceleration, and thus travelling faster than light via the properties of bending space with density. I imagine exotic matter would be density-agent, though I think quarks can be clustered together within such a confined space that, when the clusters are clustered, and the clustered clusters are clustered, and so on in exponential clustering, that it creates a density that replicates a neutron star. I believe the universe is ordered into a gargantuan disk. Essentially, the universe is structured similar to a galaxy, albeit, instead of star systems, there are galaxies orbiting a great attractor at the center of the universe, and this attractor is possibly a hypermassive black hole. Possibly, this hypermassive black hole is so large, it is emitting radiation undetectable to our technology, due to the size. Imagine if an ant were peering at a 1 inch wide gap, to the ant, there is practically no gap, but to us, there is a very obvious gap, and this is the macroradiation created by this great attractor. This hypermassive black hole would be so large, TON-618 or even Phoenix A* would be invisible to the naked eye when placed within this black hole's vicinity. Galaxies orbit this hypermassive black hole, much in the manner stars orbit the supermassive black holes in the center of their galaxies, or planets orbiting the star in their solar system, or protons orbiting the nucleus of their atom. Dark matter is an impossibility, in the similar sense that the absence of light is not a substance, like light, but is the deficiency in substance. Furthermore, intergalactic travel is impossible. Interstellar travel is possible via density, but intergalactic travel is impossible due to the distance and absence of matter or space to bend beyond the confines of a galaxy. Furthermore, I feel contemporary science has answered most answerable questions, and we have met the threshold of science in which there are no more relevant questions to answer, and all that remains is argument over theories. On artificial intelligence: It is impossible for a computer to behave as an intelligent being, as it would lack consciousness, and any sentient behaviors are merely mimicries of human behavior, and not conscious behavior. An AI could not think or conceive original ideas which are entirely unique, as all would be derived from human intelligence and excellence, which an AI would merely mimic. There will be 3 galactic states at the most. This is because space travel would be naturally incredibly expensive, tightly controlled, and would be immutably slow, even going at speeds faster than light, such as in my idea of density manipulation. I do not believe it would be feasible for any more than these galactic states to form. Furthermore, the concept of the "nation" would not exist, as society would be far too decentralized and manorial to facilitate the existence of any "nation", and there would be no macrocultures, only religions. Galactic states would be less of "states", and more akin to a collection of estates, common religions, and military alliance, with a taxation and mutual defense system. More of a broad "civilization", as these states would possess no "laws", at least not totalizing laws, rather, all of the estates would govern their planets and star systems entirely autonomously, any central apparatus would be one of military, taxation, and a sort of political arbitrator, that is it. There are two outcomes of this: either the labor force is at least 50% serf-like, unfree forced labor across the stars, or the entire civilization is post-labor except for office jobs, governance, military, and precision tasks, as wars are fought with autonomous machines, and all heavy burdens are delegated to self-replicating machines. It is either at least half of all mankind is forced labor, or autonomous machines ensure that humanity is a deep minority in the galaxy, in which for every one human, there are 1 million machines. Timekeeping itself in either of these choices becomes impossible on a galactic scale, and instead, a type of galactic clock is created, in which the device measures our galaxy's position in the universe, and the common denominator of time is harnessed from this. I imagine humans, by this future, are entirely homogeneous, as terraforming technology would be so commonplace, every inhabited planet has identical conditions, and so, a common human would be bred, often convergently. Humans by this time will be taller, the average man being around 7 feet tall. Humans would only inhabit planets which are either as big as Earth, or smaller, and would never dwell on planets any larger. Genetic diversity is no burden, as even as humans are collectively homogenous, they are so spread across the galaxy, they would be genetically diverse due to the sheer population size. By this time, the human population size would be in the low trillions. I imagine the religion of the future, which will be the civilizational cults, would be some form of space worship, akin to space animism, or the worship of astronomical bodies, like black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, and possibly perceiving galaxies beyond our own as a type of neoaether, similar to how the ancient perceived stars. Though, I do imagine these faiths as highly centralized. Furthermore, I am inclined to believe in the former option of at least half of the human population living as ecomienda-style forced labor, as I feel that only the essential technologies would pass the filter of time, and so quantum computers, density engines for space travel, and means of extracting resources from astronomical objects would be the primary technologies, while self-replicating machines and such other non-essentials are entirely forgotten.