Temporal Conundrum
Nov 7, 2022 2:06:57 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 7, 2022 2:06:57 GMT -5
Temporal Conundrum
By Radrook
By Radrook
I am sitting within an egg-shaped titanium-plated sphere peering through the small rectangular porthole at a scene that is causing me great concern. Instead of the world from which I had departed, I detect nothing but a thick, swirling, gray mist and hear only the distant muffled a howling of a stiff wind. Where is everything? Where is everybody? Where is the laboratory from which I departed so confidently just a few hours ago? The last I remember, after spending some time in the past, was setting the time machine’s temporal destination to the year 2125, the time of my departure. I must have instantly blacked out and have just reawakened, since I remember nothing more.
Yes, I am a scientist, but I am cloaked in nervous sweat and trembling in fear. Frantically I check the machine’s computer for an explanation, some logical reason for a malfunction. But the data displays no unusual power surges or any breaches in the titanium sphere’s outer-hull that would induce any dangerous temporal anomalies. The chronological-destination-meter also reads correctly: December of the year 2125. I vaguely remember the computer calmly announcing “Destination Reached.” Yet this is not the place I had left behind. Carefully, I triple-check all the gauges, but once again, they indicate absolutely nothing wrong.
We all knew that there were certain dangers involved, but nothing as strange and as inexplicable as this. I modulate the radio receptors for some indication of life, but I receive only static. I need to return to the laboratory. But if indeed there is an undetected malfunction, then any attempt at returning might make matters worse.
I might get stranded somewhere where I cannot survive. Also, an arbitrary arrival at an unknown future location runs a much higher risk of killing a time-traveler at arrival. Locations isolated in my present might be occupied in the future.
Structures are built and catastrophes happen.
So the collision with something in the future is far more likely than travelling into the past where the nature of a destination's condition being devoid of obstacles can be far more accurately assured. Also, too far into the future, and Earth becomes engulfed in the flames of a swollen sun turned red giant, and I will be roasted alive on arrival. But traveling back in this unknown condition also involves risk. Recede along the temporal continuum too rapidly, and Earth might be in its volcanic, primordial condition or else might cease to exist. Either way, arrival there means certain death.
As if to intensify my mental anguish, a strong gust of wind rattles the time machine. If indeed this is the world I left behind, then something horrible must have happened. Radar detects no movement for miles. Panic almost causes me to throw the machine in reverse to the location I arrived from, but hesitate. I don’t belong there either. What effect will my presence there have on the future generations? Any slight variation deemed insignificant can have profound impact on the future which will be my present once I go back.
Two seemingly socially insignificant people prevented from meeting might mean the immediate nonexistence of thousands in the future, and I will have murdered them all as surely as if I had shot them in the head. Yet, to remain here is to die. I must find an answer. Some morally acceptable way!
Perhaps, just perhaps. there has been some kind of global war while I was away. Tensions were high among the great political powers at the time of my departure. Worries of war were being expressed. Yet, there is no evidence of radiation fallout. Or perhaps some alien invasion in which Earth has been Terra-formed into this? Yet, where are the signs of life? I try to communicate with earth satellites to get a surface scan, from orbit, but only silence. I try to contact our Moon-Base Alpha and then our base on Mars, but that also yields no results. Finally, I attempt to contact Earth’s Asteroid Belt mining colonies, and the same. Only a steady uniform static.
But this is impossible! I had carefully modulated the gauges to return me only one minute later than the time I had departed. All of this geological transformation happened in just one minute? Nonsense! Such drastic changes require much more time. Or do they? Suppose, just suppose, that the time travel itself provoked some kind of change, some temporal inevitable chain-reaction that we had carelessly failed to factor into our calculations.
Or suppose that the attempt to go contrary to the orderly procession of lineal time itself has damaged the very fabric of existence causing a paradox that the universe could not permit and therefore negated by doing this in order to readjust? After all, hubris and its consequences was something we never seriously considered but always spoke of it in a joking roundabout way as something reserved for the minds of the ignorant and the uninformed.
Would the gods, or God, punish us for our defiant imprudence? Of course, we did not believe in gods or even a God. All that had ever come into existence for us was via mindless chance and mindless chance alone. Had we been believers in a deity, or deities, then we would have been much more careful lest we provoke divine anger against us.
So in our materialistic certainty, we confidently proceeded to create this machine that went contrary to how things had been established and carelessly took it upon ourselves to reset the universal parameters so that we might become the defiant and proud exceptions. No, not to meddle and change history for the better, if possible since or resetting the future would endanger even our own existence.
We had done neither of these things. The mission consisted only of a very brief arrival at night in New York’s Central Park, and nothing more. No external meddling in Earth’s history. Absolutely no interactions with the residents of that time-frame. So what could have gone wrong to affect the future so drastically except an angered deity exacting punishment for our unforgivable act of hubris?
Which of those two possibilities has caused this phenomenon, really doesn’t matter. Both are equally unfixable in this accursed present in which I am now a prisoner. I must try to escape either into a better future or back into a survivable past. Assuming I am permitted to do so, of course, and that particular thought begins to play havoc with my mind and my former non-negotiable conviction begins to weaken.
As an adult atheist, I have never prayed. Praying has always been for the ignorant and superstitious, merely an utterance that never travels beyond the human skull and totally undetectable except to ourselves. Yet now, as the possibility of dying a slow death trapped in this time machine, in this wretched place, becomes more and more probable, I fervently want to communicate to whatever powers exist beyond the meager human one for help.
Suddenly I find myself remembering how my parents had always taught me to pray the Our Father each night before bedtime. How I had memorized it word-for-word and would never go to bed without reciting it. How nights would feel more secure and peaceful when I did so, and how they were full of turmoil and worries when I did not. It was always as if I had placed the burden of my existence on Him and had been always assured that I needed not to worry.
As I delve on these childhood memories, I find myself un-strapping from my seat, dropping to my knees, and folding my fingers as I had done as a child while lowering my head humbly in recognition of a higher power. With eyes tightly shut, I fervently implore the almighty to have mercy on my soul and to forgive me if I have indeed offended him with my mindless display of hubris.
I cannot recall how long I have been kneeling here in fervid prayer. It could have been minutes, or perhaps even hours. I do know, that as I finish praying, the time machine’s engines hum into activity and it suddenly lurches as if impelled by some exterior force. I hurry to my seat and strap myself in as the numbers displayed on the computer screen blur as if the computer monitor has gone insane. Then, suddenly, the numbers stop and the date reads year 2125.
After a few moments of total silence, in which I hesitate to see what is outside, there is a sudden loud tapping on the time machine’s outer hull. Then the familiar voices of the scientists that had been there when I had departed for the past sound over the intercom.
“Joseph! Joseph! Are you all right?”
By the grace of God I have been allowed to return home, and for that, I wil; forever be grateful and forever respectful.
Yes, I am a scientist, but I am cloaked in nervous sweat and trembling in fear. Frantically I check the machine’s computer for an explanation, some logical reason for a malfunction. But the data displays no unusual power surges or any breaches in the titanium sphere’s outer-hull that would induce any dangerous temporal anomalies. The chronological-destination-meter also reads correctly: December of the year 2125. I vaguely remember the computer calmly announcing “Destination Reached.” Yet this is not the place I had left behind. Carefully, I triple-check all the gauges, but once again, they indicate absolutely nothing wrong.
We all knew that there were certain dangers involved, but nothing as strange and as inexplicable as this. I modulate the radio receptors for some indication of life, but I receive only static. I need to return to the laboratory. But if indeed there is an undetected malfunction, then any attempt at returning might make matters worse.
I might get stranded somewhere where I cannot survive. Also, an arbitrary arrival at an unknown future location runs a much higher risk of killing a time-traveler at arrival. Locations isolated in my present might be occupied in the future.
Structures are built and catastrophes happen.
So the collision with something in the future is far more likely than travelling into the past where the nature of a destination's condition being devoid of obstacles can be far more accurately assured. Also, too far into the future, and Earth becomes engulfed in the flames of a swollen sun turned red giant, and I will be roasted alive on arrival. But traveling back in this unknown condition also involves risk. Recede along the temporal continuum too rapidly, and Earth might be in its volcanic, primordial condition or else might cease to exist. Either way, arrival there means certain death.
As if to intensify my mental anguish, a strong gust of wind rattles the time machine. If indeed this is the world I left behind, then something horrible must have happened. Radar detects no movement for miles. Panic almost causes me to throw the machine in reverse to the location I arrived from, but hesitate. I don’t belong there either. What effect will my presence there have on the future generations? Any slight variation deemed insignificant can have profound impact on the future which will be my present once I go back.
Two seemingly socially insignificant people prevented from meeting might mean the immediate nonexistence of thousands in the future, and I will have murdered them all as surely as if I had shot them in the head. Yet, to remain here is to die. I must find an answer. Some morally acceptable way!
Perhaps, just perhaps. there has been some kind of global war while I was away. Tensions were high among the great political powers at the time of my departure. Worries of war were being expressed. Yet, there is no evidence of radiation fallout. Or perhaps some alien invasion in which Earth has been Terra-formed into this? Yet, where are the signs of life? I try to communicate with earth satellites to get a surface scan, from orbit, but only silence. I try to contact our Moon-Base Alpha and then our base on Mars, but that also yields no results. Finally, I attempt to contact Earth’s Asteroid Belt mining colonies, and the same. Only a steady uniform static.
But this is impossible! I had carefully modulated the gauges to return me only one minute later than the time I had departed. All of this geological transformation happened in just one minute? Nonsense! Such drastic changes require much more time. Or do they? Suppose, just suppose, that the time travel itself provoked some kind of change, some temporal inevitable chain-reaction that we had carelessly failed to factor into our calculations.
Or suppose that the attempt to go contrary to the orderly procession of lineal time itself has damaged the very fabric of existence causing a paradox that the universe could not permit and therefore negated by doing this in order to readjust? After all, hubris and its consequences was something we never seriously considered but always spoke of it in a joking roundabout way as something reserved for the minds of the ignorant and the uninformed.
Would the gods, or God, punish us for our defiant imprudence? Of course, we did not believe in gods or even a God. All that had ever come into existence for us was via mindless chance and mindless chance alone. Had we been believers in a deity, or deities, then we would have been much more careful lest we provoke divine anger against us.
So in our materialistic certainty, we confidently proceeded to create this machine that went contrary to how things had been established and carelessly took it upon ourselves to reset the universal parameters so that we might become the defiant and proud exceptions. No, not to meddle and change history for the better, if possible since or resetting the future would endanger even our own existence.
We had done neither of these things. The mission consisted only of a very brief arrival at night in New York’s Central Park, and nothing more. No external meddling in Earth’s history. Absolutely no interactions with the residents of that time-frame. So what could have gone wrong to affect the future so drastically except an angered deity exacting punishment for our unforgivable act of hubris?
Which of those two possibilities has caused this phenomenon, really doesn’t matter. Both are equally unfixable in this accursed present in which I am now a prisoner. I must try to escape either into a better future or back into a survivable past. Assuming I am permitted to do so, of course, and that particular thought begins to play havoc with my mind and my former non-negotiable conviction begins to weaken.
As an adult atheist, I have never prayed. Praying has always been for the ignorant and superstitious, merely an utterance that never travels beyond the human skull and totally undetectable except to ourselves. Yet now, as the possibility of dying a slow death trapped in this time machine, in this wretched place, becomes more and more probable, I fervently want to communicate to whatever powers exist beyond the meager human one for help.
Suddenly I find myself remembering how my parents had always taught me to pray the Our Father each night before bedtime. How I had memorized it word-for-word and would never go to bed without reciting it. How nights would feel more secure and peaceful when I did so, and how they were full of turmoil and worries when I did not. It was always as if I had placed the burden of my existence on Him and had been always assured that I needed not to worry.
As I delve on these childhood memories, I find myself un-strapping from my seat, dropping to my knees, and folding my fingers as I had done as a child while lowering my head humbly in recognition of a higher power. With eyes tightly shut, I fervently implore the almighty to have mercy on my soul and to forgive me if I have indeed offended him with my mindless display of hubris.
I cannot recall how long I have been kneeling here in fervid prayer. It could have been minutes, or perhaps even hours. I do know, that as I finish praying, the time machine’s engines hum into activity and it suddenly lurches as if impelled by some exterior force. I hurry to my seat and strap myself in as the numbers displayed on the computer screen blur as if the computer monitor has gone insane. Then, suddenly, the numbers stop and the date reads year 2125.
After a few moments of total silence, in which I hesitate to see what is outside, there is a sudden loud tapping on the time machine’s outer hull. Then the familiar voices of the scientists that had been there when I had departed for the past sound over the intercom.
“Joseph! Joseph! Are you all right?”
By the grace of God I have been allowed to return home, and for that, I wil; forever be grateful and forever respectful.