Signals and Timing

“We could contact him by radio.” “That could be dangerous, anyone might pick it up” “Not if we limit the signal strength. We could even put a few cancel patterns out around – white noise that would be stronger anywhere else.” “I think it should be FM, easier to block”.

“It's fortunate that the server block with the blog has been preserved.” “It seems our interactions so far haven't gone beyond that outlet.” “It's quite the opposite of the butterfly effect, most changes seem to get buried under the larger events.”

“You know there's certain times that wouldn't prove true – if there's ever any children, the time of conception...” “That's just a myth, any sperm with damaged DNA would be unlikely to reach the egg.” “That's not what I meant, what if it creates a different person?”

Anti-Time Anti-Climax

“In this experiment I want you to write down the number, shape and colour of objects that you see – after you have been hit with the anti-time pulse – which is also to say 'before' you see them - Write – Lights – Pulse – Time trip– if everything works out.” Which of course, it didn't – at least not at first.

He didn't want to write down anything and when the pulse went off, it seemed like nothing happened. They tried again, and again, for most of the afternoon. “One last try” they said over the intercom “What do you want to eat for supper if this works?” He put the pen to paper – as they could only see his answer – and he blanked out.

A moment later he was looking down at his paper. 8 green stars. He heard cheering from the control room. “10 numbers, 10 colours and 12 shapes – and he got it first try!” The exact combination was randomly selected by computer – no one to collude with. “What was it like?” They asked. “I don't remember” he said, still a little confused “What did you see?” “You just wrote down the answer – and then the pulse didn't seem to do anything.”

It wasn't what anybody really expected. Having grown up on tales of sci-fi, the reality was much less flashy, but it was consistent. As long as he started to write – and the anti-time pulse went off – he was correct. If the pulse wasn't fired – the answer was wrong. As far as not remembering – it seemed that was the neatest way the mind could deal with it – he couldn't remember doing nothing and writing down the correct answer before seeing it – and as far as everyone else was concerned – the second pass through time was all that they observed.

As far as the pulse not working, it seemed to be the same kind of feedback as negative energy. An anti time pulse nullified a second one – unless a lot more energy was used to overcome it.

Preface

“It's because of the Time Waves” he explained again. “You can send anything – or anyone – back, and most of the energy will be wasted clearing up the paradoxes”. They poured over the data again, looking for something they missed. A few points on the Stock Market, and a few characters different on some social media posts, but nothing that amounted to much.

Until they decided to step back, and realized how much they were still under the effect themselves. They figured they had isolated the backup they were checking against, but logically, the data was from outside the exclusion area.

“What if we isolate a single person?”

Tide of Nothingness

Another wave of useless information assaulted his senses. The world was awash in the flotsam and jetsam of trivial tidbits – yet so many followed and regurgitated this noise that any useful facts were drowned out. A dog chasing it's own tail looked more intelligent than this. He focused and the static went back down to a dull roar in the background.

Would humanity ever progress beyond this twitching stagnation? He couldn't picture anything shifting general consciousness out of this quagmire. The tune might change, but the notes weren't going to sound any better.

More than anything, he wanted to shift gears. To operate on some other level of thinking. One that didn't sustain itself by volleying the same niceties and moral outrage indefinitely like a global game of pong. The problem was that there was nothing to feed this new habit. No surface to reflect any worthwhile ideas on. No fuel to invigorate any pursuit or any benchmark of a goal to reach.

Communications

They had set up his computer with a way of communicating with them. In a certain game, one could place objects and people, complete with adjectives – and the resultant combinations would be processed and create emergent behavior at their end. This, in turn would send instructions to twitter bots in his present. It wasn't direct, or world-altering, but it was the best they could do under the rules and circumstances.

They seemed overly concerned about his mental well-being. In his mind he would rather be disoriented a little bit. Temporal changes weren't going to happen without a little bit of discomfort. He felt things shift, the music changed. It was a good sign.

Watches and Trains

He took a walk through the train. There seemed to be a number of people working fruitlessly on various projects. As he went back to his seat compartment he heard someone whispering. Absentmindedly he pressed some buttons on his watch. To his surprise, it sent what he was hearing to a journal in his lap. The speaker stopped, grabbed him and dragged him to one of the people he saw earlier. In front of him was a wall covered in motherboards, CPU's, memory sticks and various other parts. Again he pressed his watch and it began scanning the motherboards. Blue lights appeared on whatever the watch scanned. He went back and forth till everything was lit up. A phone rang. “Yes, we'll take care of it” he answered. A compartment under the watch opened up and a large disk popped out. It plugged into the activated wall and a 3d printer was assembled. The main part of his watch could now doodle on paper with two red beams. He passed it off to someone else. “We are a shipping and transport company” he said, as the train quickly became an undercover rolling base for spies. The band of his watch did it's own scan as he went back to his original compartment. “Something's not right” as one of 'his' people set off an alarm after being scanned. They started attacking. The fight wasn't going to well for his team. The watch band switched modes and scanned again. It displayed the next likely move the double agent would make, the team reacted and the watch vaporized the stunned assailant.

Temporal washback and polarization

By being in the past, the entire moment was being elevated to a different state. As soon as he left, the entire arrangement would collapse and it would be as if he'd never been there. Paradoxes were impossible, or very nearly so. In order for something to have a lasting effect, one had to continue to pour energy into it. Anything, or anyone so energized would have a temporal wake behind them that made them very easy to track, if you knew what you were looking for.

To go back in time and save an artefact, you would have to have to keep temporal wash-back at bay until it reached the time when you decided to go back and rescue it. Even so, such an object would essentially be out of phase until it caught up to the present moment.

Pump enough energy into something and it would create it's own pocket universe, similar to the one in which the original time traveller had created.

If time were pictured as not a line, but as a multidirectional 'area', such things could be understood to be nudged 'sideways' in time. Existing, but not perceptible. Something, or someone in such a state would create a time 'sink' which would have a 'disposable' past – in as much as it would be out of synch with everything else once the operation had ended.

This is where the issue of entanglement comes up – or rather anti-entanglement. Can something moved sideways in time be interacted with by the original time, in such a way as to not create a paradox? In other words, short circuit the causal nature of any temporal change by re-introducing the fix in a manner that does not disrupt the chain of events required to cause it.

Would it be possible to create a temporal double slit pattern where an event simultaneously does and does not happen and allow enough bleed through to indicate that further action must be taken?

Is is it possible to polarize time in such a way that a duality can be seen while it exists?

Journal Ongoing

More instances of random interference. Open Office Write seems to be pre-empted by Open Office Calc in attempted pinning of program to task bar. Sudden arrival of 4.1.2 patch.

The details didn't really matter, the reaction to them was the same. A vague awareness of a cascading effect, a slightly worried contemplation about what would happen next. He realized that it would be pulling out the rug of certainty about everything. A vast precipice into the unknown. He resolved to be more assertive toward it in the future.

It had happened before. A few years ago now. A window of clarity into the possibilities of time. At least that was how he liked to remember it. Nothing particular happened, nothing that hadn't been buried in the mists of memory – but everything just made more sense.

Logorithimic Scale of Temporal Interference

The temporal effects of various interactions has a scale based on the alphabet. A level is the most severe and down through the remaining letters. It's a reverse logarithmic scale based on the effect to number of humans affected and how severely. The first letter is always 'who', the second 'when' and the third 'what'. Unofficially it's based on people in history and how influential they are/would be.

Adam – People, events and decisions that affect all human beings. Period.

Bonaparte (Napoleon) – Pivotal role in history. Inventions, actions, ideas that affect more than half the population of the earth at any given time. With the caveat that they are unique and not replaceable. Several people were working on telephone technology, so the name 'Bell' is not used here.

Caesar (Any) – Major role in history, but the space is easily taken by another doing similar research, holding similar position of power

Disney (Walt) – Significant role in history, pioneer, but in non-critical areas – eg entertainment

Elvis (Presley)- Significant in history, an outstanding example, but not completely unique. Cascade effect in major changes to their life – choice of career

Ferdinand (Archduke)– Significant, but a quirk. Due to domino effect, relationships or other connections their death will have a serious impact, but lesser actions unnoticeable.

Goodyear (Charles) – Co-discovery or rediscovery of an important inventions or technology. Significant interference would still leave the process intact.

That said, there is a large discrepancy between perceived effect and actual result. As suspected, most people tend to view their own timeline as, for lack of a better word, sacred. This is an unfortunate setback in research, as very few volunteers come forward – and those that do, have to have a personal radius of 2 degrees of removal sign at least an acknowledgement of testing.

In limited trials, however, it seems that even deliberate changes seem to be overwhelmed by exposure to what is general referred to as renormalizing forces. As much of human experience is less live changing moments as it is long term habits, chance interactions tend to be downplayed.

It is the opinion of this writer that the degree of removal be limited to one, and waived in the instances including by not limited to - history of mental illness, pre-existing eccentricity, prior interest in temporal phenomenon, windows of opportunity (i.e. long periods of isolation).

Day in the Life

He woke up shortly after 8am. If he went back to sleep now, there was a good chance he would pick up his last dream where it left off. Sleeping on his front he alternated between facing the room and the wall. It was the only way to get back to sleep. An hour an a half later he woke again. The dream did pick up where it left off. Already facing the wall he decided to get up that way. The blankets were stuck under him again. Shifting his weight and tugging he was eventually free. Taking off his watch, although it was water resistant, he put it on the desk in front of the window. Swinging his legs off the bed he pushed sideways almost losing balance. Lurching over to the bookshelf he grabbed it for support. How much longer would he still be walking. He didn't think about it. His room door slid open and he saw it was snowing. A right turn into the bathroom and the first toilet break of the day. Should he sit down? Better now than later. His dad helped him up again. He leaned into the shower to turn it on. At least the shorter hair made it easier to clean. The body wash was disappointingly runny – rather than a gel, it had the consistency of pulpy orange juice. He lamented about how boring everything seemed. It was always worse first thing in the morning. Exiting the shower and back to his room he waited for his mom to help him dress.

The computer and Internet setup was already on. He checked his various Idle games. He had saved up enough money overnight to get the next major upgrade – 900% profit. He decided not to soft-reset till he could quickly get back to that upgrade again. Selecting from a short list of microwave dinners he waited for brunch to be heated. The mac and beef was a little bit spicy, but not overly so. He had his orange juice and two vitamin C tablets. He went back to his favorite gaming site at played a few badge days ahead. He stopped for a bit to read the daily text and accompanying reading. Figs. Never understood it.

In a few hours he would head out the the living room and go through the stuff on the PVR. Hopefully the entertainment show at 4pm would be new, and not a series of specials – like last week. Usually during commercials he would play his handheld gaming machine. A free tileswap game and claw grabber game would take up a majority of the time. He had been considering getting a gift card for it for a while. The swap game was getting to the point where the default chance for beating a level was getting fairly slim, and there was a cheap RPG/shop game he was debating getting. The demo for it had a limited number of plays, a rather cruel limitation.

There wasn't much else on TV. Despite having a fairly good satellite package, there were only a dozen channels that had anything worthwhile on. Too many sports, PPV movies and news stations. Most of the science channels were playing repeats of manufacturing programs, reality tv mining or repeats of astronomy features. Most of the decent shows were on after 9pm, and with the PRV there was no need to stay up late. Besides, it was worth watching later just to skip over the commercials.

The Beginning

A long dark gray corridor of thick mist stretched out into the dull distance. It seemed large, but there was no point of reference to judge it by. He looked down, his body was gone. His perception of this place seemed to enter his mind directly. “Where am I?” the though echoed down the hallway. “Beyond” was the answer, that was both him, and not. With an odd sensation, he could move forward. After a passage of time, hours perhaps, he came to the end of the gray length. It opened into a endless vista. White nothingness was above the horizon and blackness below. He floated out of the gray tunnel and looked back towards it. He hovered higher into the whiteness until he felt as if he was dissolving into it. With that perspective he could see that tunnel was part of a larger shape a lone plus sign below a featureless grid. He must have started somewhere near the center of it, but too far away to see the crossroad.

He went back into the grayness and drifted as fast as he could manage to where the plus joined the grid. The transition was abrupt, the mistiness of the tunnel became impossibly smooth tiles, all somewhere int the millions of shades between black a white. Each tile was no more than 3cm square, not that size had any meaning here. As he moved into the space, the tiles grew and shrank and shifted into various geometric patterns. “Stop” he thought, and everything quit moving.

Empty

     There was a dull ache where his feelings should be. He didn't care. Well, that wasn't quite true. He still felt something akin to that, but his connection to it was shapeless and unspecific. Goals, planning, odd thoughts and concepts had vanished over two years ago into a empty silent static. There was no direction, no progress, no change - just a numbing sense of sameness. Still there were things he knew to be true, even if he couldn't picture them at the moment. It was like being stuck in an empty waiting room, without anything to accomplish other than passing the time. If writer's block had a giant, relentless older brother, this was it. The motivation to do anything was at a lousy five percent of what it should be. The body was trapped, but so was the mind.