My personal headcanon is that an Infinite Crisis-type event shattered reality, severing and isolating a small conglomeration of parallel universes from the rest of the old multiverse and cutting them off from the progression of linear time. These para-universes existed separately, and their inhabitants were in stasis, until two para-universes drifted near one another in the quantum realm and linked, like two cells forming. Now that enough para-universes have linked through quantum attraction, linear time has asserted itself within each realm, bringing inhabitants out of their stasis and enabling travel throughout this new and fragile multiverse. Certain places and people are fixed nexii which the multiverse recreates in its evolution toward cosmic sentience, sometimes in different forms than previously encountered, following different roads than historically recorded.
My alts have transitioned to different universes (the live servers) and almost all of them are unaware that anything has gone amiss with their lives or the world in which they live. A few sensitives know something isn't right but their subconscious won't violate their instinct for self-preservation. Only those of a Magic Origin have a chance of determining The Truth, but the discovery would most likely drive them insane (this has happened with two of my alts.)
