Dave the Gnome has been more clever than usual. I had too much coffee yesterday. Time curvature is flat. Decades some thought a straight line could eventually come back on itself. The path of light is more like playing Plinko.

There has to be a state prior to the big bang. The realm was dark with fading black holes after trillions of years to the millionth power (a long time) The realm was a homogenous empty quantum realm undergoing entropy to the point where size has no meaning. An energy potential still existed in this emptiness on the cusp of an entropic state change. A quantum rip occurred sending a change throughout the space in a very sudden state change.
The initial expansion without a fully formed measure of time would appear faster than light in a space we call inflation. Relative to our viewpoint inflation looks impossible. But we are in a future with a different quality of spacetime.

This is a very different idea from the big crunch. It is more like a big rip.

The questions regarding an entropic quantum state change involves a lower energy state universe OR NOT. Perhaps the forming new universe is the same or different. This is the quandary Hawking had.