A lens

Our reality is not the world. Our reality is how we see the world, through our lens of knowledge, wisdom and faith. Our lens can even be blurred by emotion and chemicals.
When space appears to have shrunk, we assume space has shrunk. We let our beliefs in a rational intelligible universe color our lens. The captain, for example, was full of emotions which would not let him see reality: he was inside a pocket universe which looked much like the real one, only smaller.
As he gazed around, he gathered information and something deep inside his guts, in an unconscious part of him, said the stars were wrong. He could have trusted this instinct, but instead trusted his brain, which led him to terror. "Can you raise Hope? Can you raise the Homeworld?" He feared the answer would be no, and so it happened. Not because his question could change the universe, but because it was the wrong damn question.
The communications officer typed for several seconds, checked boxes on a screen and executed the program. A minute later, she shook her head. "Nothing on any channel, sir."

A beginning

It was quite accidental really how the Timothy found quasi space. They were testing the Graviton Chariot design which might someday allow them faster than light travel. But the circuits overloaded for some reason which scientists at the time could not understand. A surge in power followed and a brilliant flash of light, visible from ultraviolet to infrared.
Luckily, the plasma which expanded ahead of the anti-gravity cone was directed away from living beings and was far away from Timothy 3. This was intentional. Altering the fabric of space-time was very risky, they knew, even though they had never attempted it on such a scale. Therefore they had spent two years taxiing into a vacant orbit between the terrestrial and Jovian planets in their system at very sub-light speeds.
The flash of visible and invisible light wasn't what scared the scientists. When the graviton shield overloaded, just after the flash, all the stars around and behind it took a sickening shift outward as the sudden extreme gravity bent the beams of their light. It appeared, for this was really the effect, that space bulged suddenly. It was as if a fish eye lens the size of Pluto appeared in space. It brought into question what space really was, whether real or illusion.
The scientists were all frozen in horror. It wasn't fear for space-time nor fear for the lives of their relatives at home. It wasn't even simple fear for their own survival, though that was part of it. It was fear that they would live knowing what lay behind the curtain of reality, fear that they would outlive their own sanity.
But that fear was needless. Each of them recovered their wits and momentarily returned to a reality of blinking computer monitors and wailing emergency sirens. They recovered their wits just in time for the next shock. The blackness of space rushed at them, as they accelerated toward infinity.
Surely, thought the captain, we shall be dashed against the proverbial rocks. Surely we can't accelerate to infinity. But he was wrong.
Stars became streams and then disappeared, only to reappear in a tighter sphere.
Had the ship grown infinitely? Had space contracted? "Heavens ... what have we done?!" Tears welled up in the captain's eyes as he thought of a world which would never be the same, of his grandchildren who might never exist even to hate him for captaining a ship that destroyed their world.
He glanced around at stunned bridge officers. He realized he must act. Now was the time for a leader to step forward. Step forward and what? Step forward and at least keep them busy until annihilation. He swallowed hard. "Status report?"

Is there morality without heroes?

I was thinking just after watching The Dark Knight Rises, and relating it to V for Vendetta:

Does the world need heroes? Yes. Not because others cannot fight evil, but because they need symbols, inspiration and, sometimes, that person willing to go beyond normal human limits to save the day or win the battle. In a utopian world of perfection, would we see a hero as such, or would we look for a hero who could shake things up? A hero who until needed is only seen as a villain?

When did government become the villain? Certainly, each form of government villainizes the others. And those who call for revolution each call the current establishment “tyranny.” Is there ever a point where everyone agrees that perfection has been achieved, or is there always someone who thinks it can be improved, much less people who are entirely dissatisfied with its philosophy?

Some heroes have access to wealth and gadgets. Others have superhuman intelligence or superb physical abilities. Some combine these attributes. In a perfect world, would the hero have none of them? Perhaps, in a world where there is no war and discomfort is not allowed, the person who chooses to feel uncomfortable, to risk conflict is the hero. But why is he a hero? Isn't he just seeking a new experience? Isn't he being selfish in trying to leave perfection? Or is he the only one who is aware, in his world, that perfection is not the absence of conflict. What do we fight for?

I don't think a nihilist could be a hero, and probably not a moral relativist. A nihilist hero could do nothing truly good nor truly evil. He would be free from such notions, at the expense of other. He would be a villain.

A hero who sticks to moral relativisim in its simple form, believing that each person has his or her own valid morality, could either choose to act out his or her own morality or try to honor each other person's. Perhaps a relativistic hero would be very interesting. A person with a complete moral code which does not match others' and who has the power to enact his or her will. Does that make him or her a villain? That depends if the victims are relativists, who allow the hero to have independent morality, or not. I guess, by saying it depends, I am allowing relativism.

Or am I. I am acknowledging that people disagree on morality, which is a fact. I am not making any meta-ethical evaluation of whether those members of the public are correct in being relativists or not.

But then again, have I decided what defines a villain? Whether he is or is not a villain based on universal morality, or whether it's up to the world he lives in? I believe there are universal morals, even if people disagree on them. Some are widely attested, but that doesn't make them more true than the morals we haven't even discovered.

A hero is more to me than a person who fits our moral view. A hero is a person who reminds us that we all do agree on some moral truth. A hero crystallizes morality, makes it visible by his or her actions. And even when a hero does something which doesn't seem the best strategically, isn't utilitarian enough in the face of adversity, that in itself is what defines him or her as a hero.

A world without death, or a world without crime, perhaps would seem to be a world without heroes or a world which doesn't need them. But for us to appreciate the story, to hear the moral truth we are listening for to validate it, someone will have to step forward and remind us what a hero is. Someone will have to remind us that morality has truths, even if they are difficult to discern. Or at least, someone will have to make us think of these truths by being the villain, defining the opposite of them.