Collaborative Writing Project Re-start

[Zubi-Ondo]

Okay guys, Chris and I talked a little bit over on the sister site while the Chrons was down. He's been working out the details of the Universe building this weekend.

Moobat - As far as I know, you're still in charge. (You may have to re-register, the admin could only re-load the database up to August of this year. Can you remeber the "leader" character you talked about? Do you think we can use him in the story? Could he be a captain or something? Also, you had started working on a kind of plot with Future amalgamations of current day Nations fighting over one of these Earths in an alternate sheave of the universe. Can you catch us up on that?

I'll post that engineer I came up with again later.

- Z.

 

[Moonbat]

Thanks Zubi,

fortunately I spell checked my last post in Word, so it was saved, here it is

Wow. Lots of stuff to chew on. thank you all for your input.
Well let's see

Waffles, that is an interesting setup, not entirely rules out (yet) by Chris’s universe. I could quite easily imagine a world like our own that was introduced to sheaving beings that changed society, so that their world was destroyed by powerful men trying to replicate the sheaving technology. Although I'm getting carreid away here. I did like the idea of islands not separated by sea, but by space/ether.

Face it, earth is huge. Add Lunar, Martian, and Jovian satellites into the land-mass mix and there's a wealth of settings.

This an interesting point, we don't have to introduce infinite worlds to have enough geographical locations. but if someone wants to create an entirely new landscape they might be constricted by our solar-system.

I would like to hear how people see Human exploration into space going.

If we take a little time to agree on some pre-history we can build up a larger area of geographical locations, they may well turn out to be Mars/Jupiter/Io/Europa/Slough.

We are talking hundreds of years. I'd like to see China with a manned base on the moon before the USA. Obviously a bit functional with very little freedom for the moon base people, but would be a big step. As I said, plausibly this won't happen for about 30-50 years (and that's being optimistic)

So what else happens? how does the world evolve? Are there 2 options, either we all agree and live peacefully working together in harmony, or we continue to argue, fight, haggle over the best things in life? Is it a balance of the two?

it would seem as if we are already on a path of sorts. Maybe we could ask the editor (MoonBat) what he thinks.

Me thinks every journey has many paths, and many crossroads. We are only just beginning, I am happy to let Chris wander off ahead; hoping that he will either meet us further on, come back to us with news of what lies ahead or we will eventually catch him up, we can always send scouts down other routes to check them out and report back.

Right now it is a sunny afternoon and I'm happy to have begun a journey with some fellow writers.


Can't really remember everything said, but a new canvas is even better

 

[chrispenycate]

The Zubi_Moonbat shared universe project

Required: a situation where a small group of adventurers can face a variety of challenges, including sapient opposition, human and non-human, without taking years in transit between environments; preferably 'Earth like' conditions to simplify exploration, with material and personnel supplies strictly limited.

Architects and engineers specifications:
The worlds shall be inhabitable by human beings
Contact between the worlds shall be difficult if not impossible without certain high-tech solutions
Worlds shall give the maximum range of possibilities for contacts and interactions between the protagonists and local inhabitants.

The Universe shall be the Penycate Transdimensional sheaves mark one

Postulates:
Consider our detected, three spacial dimensional world mapped down as a unidimensional thread. Now, travelling along the time dimension, every choice point slits the wordline into two, almost identical lines, not quite parallel (standard alternate history theory, not contradicted by quantum mechanics; indeed, supported by some perpetrators of the art)

Many times, these divergent lines are similar enough that they recoalesce, forming high-probability threads. These run alongside, slowly diverging as new stable situations stablise between them.

The dimensions into which these threads are split are 'spacelike', you can retrace your steps and return to your starting point, elapsed time will have elapsed there too, Thus the planet(s) are still in the same orbit, so your transfer point will still be on the same point relative to the planet's surface.

On one of these threads a researcher/mathematician team comes up with a way of transferring a region of space between two of these threads. This involves enormous quantities of energy, increasing with the distance of the target thread from the source.

In accordance with the law of mass/energy conservation, the transfer is bi-directional: an equivalent quantity of mass travels in the return direction.

It is soon discovered that the optimum transfer technique was to float the apparatus, originally in a ship in water, but later in an airship in the atmosphere, so the displaced mass was equal in volume; earlier experiments had the explorers (fortunately mechanical) crashing into huge holes they had carved, finding as much matter as they massed.

The beginning

The huge flash of light that lit the skies over central Europe (Slovakia, precisely) did not go undetected, either locally or by the myriad of satellites orbiting that hemisphere. The UFO there when the light died was detected too; over a kilometre long, and mirror silver finish, even a mile up in the atmosphere it was hardly secretive. Both Russia and NATO scrambled fighter jets, each as much to prevent the other from gaining an advantage as to attack this new threat.

It didn't, however, seem to be in any great hurry to go anywhere, and did nothing to increase suspicion of its motives. Radio signals beamed at it brought the same signals echoed back, then again with slight modifications; there was no tendency to release killer robots, do right- angle turns in the sky, do anything that would make people more nervous than they made each other. Communication, simplistic to start with, but rapidly increasing in sophistication, was established and the enormous vessel flew slowly to Switzerland, mooring itself over the Lac Leman with easy access to the United Nations building in Geneva.

No, they hadn't come from Mars, nor were they interstellar travellers. They came from Earth; Earths, actually , since some of them had joined en route.Humans' most of them, thirty five, just a couple from further out; something of obviously avian descent, and something that might once have been a bear; we did not get any of their worlds' histories, but it is to be assumed they got the technology from a previous generation of travellers.

They were information traders. Nothing but knowledge was worth transporting between worlds; occasionally seeds of a particularly useful plant, or ova for an animal species improvement but generally knowledge had the advantage of being light, universal, and resaleable to the infinite. They were already specialists in hundreds of languages, hundreds of different information storage systems; there was no doubt they could integrate Earth's knowledge into their database (even if it would take a while to analyse and assimilate it) and find a way that we could use theirs.

The offer was simple; we gave them the contents of Earth's libraries (in information form, nothing to be physically lost) our works of art, our physical theories, our patents and history, and we set up a recharging point on top of a mountain, kept with enough energy to set them up for another transition. They gave us the plans for a working translocator, and all the technology required to make it work, including a compact hydrogen fusion generator, which could revolutionise power generation, and superconductor storage loops which could do the same for its stockage. And they gave multiple copies of this information, one to each nation/group that co-operated. In addition, if they came back through and used the recharger, they would download us so and so many terrabytes of additional data, unsorted, for future currency and research material for our universities.

There was no real doubt that the offer would be accepted; construction on the new charging centre started before the details were entirely worked out. Two of their number elected to stay on our Earth, one because he had got involved with a local girl during the negotiations (with them both in bioisolation suits, it is to be assumed that the attraction was originally more mental than physical) and the other, an engineer, because she was sick of transition shock, sick of adventure and just wanted somewhere with solid ground under her feet, to help us with our construction tasks.

Two locals, a man and a woman were finally chosen by ballot from the enormous mass of applicants to replace them, as the craft rose into the stratosphere, and the flash of its departure blinded a number of watchers who'd ignored all warnings and were looking at the sky at that moment, some of the fools with binoculars.

 

[chrispenycate]

Double Post, I fear; and there's yet more to transcribe.

In transit the gasbag is a huge unbroken ellipsoid. The propulsion engines, the tethering points, the nacelle, even the four-man ultra-lightweight scouting plane, are all withdrawn within the skin.

Longer than a football stadium, silver as a blob of mercury against the sky, it isn't made for doing things fast. To rise, waste heat from the fusion generator is fed into the thousands of individual gasbags, causing them to swell, not a rapid manoeuvre. Turning is in wide, majestic curves, and she has the acceleration of an ocean liner (with a higher top speed). Even when the nacelle is fully extended out of the bottom, half of what you can see is reflections in the giant curved mirror overhead.

In something this immense it is ironic how little space is available for the thirty person crew. Unlike its ancestral zeppelins there is no ballroom, no swimming pool. Bunks are mere slots between gasbags, although high-tech slots, with data feeds, screens and active soundproofing, so you are not disturbed by your neighbour's snoring, or enjoying one of the millions of films in storage.

Energy is stored in super-conducting loops just within the outer canopy,that are also involved in the translocation process. This transfers a volume of space just a few centimetres larger than the skin from one probability line to another, pushing the ship sideways through realms mankind was not intended to visit, into a new reality.

Womankind, either. Tania Hakkonen has chosen to share the bunk with me for the first transition – just so as not to be alone, you understand, although we had tried other reasons at other times, and is muttering what sound like curses in her incomprehensible native tongue.

The mathematics of translocation, which I (like every other member of the crew), have been forced to learn well enough to pass an exam in, if not understand, say we are turned inside out twice in the transition, and I'm not ready to contradict them.

"Next time I'm going to have myself anaesthetised"
"Or frozen. I'm not sure the anaesthetic exists that would prevent you being woken up by that."

Then the screen over the bunk lights up with the outside view, and our nausea disappears almost as fast as it had arrived.

We are flying over a new Earth.

 

[Zubi-Ondo]

Kudos Chris! An impressive and fascinating start. Just a few minor questions, a small question about tense (in one paragraph) and one bigger question:

a compact hydrogen fusion generator, which could revolutionise power generation, and superconductor storage loops which could do the same for its stockage.

1.) Could this be a cold fusion generator? (I know you used waste heat to fill the gas bags, but even a cold fusion generator could produce heat quite easily.)

2.) By "stockage", do you mean it's storage capacity, it's mass, or perhaps its actual size? (sorry, I'm just not familiar with this usage of the word)

Tania Hakkonen has chosen to share the bunk with me for the first transition – just so as not to be alone, you understand, although we had tried other reasons at other times, and is muttering what sound like curses in her incomprehensible native tongue.

"had tried, and is muttering" seems to be mixing past and present tense, or am I just confused?


And now the big question. Where is the conflict? Do we still need to create that based on this world? It is my understanding, and even my contention that conflict is necessary in the story for there to be a plot, and so that the story puts questions in the readers mind, creates curiosity that makes the reader want to find out how it gets resolved. (I'm assuming you were leaving that for the rest of us to come up with?)

Other than that, I'd like to thank you for this amazing backdrop. It really does leave many possibilities open.

- Z.

 

[chrispenycate]

Tenses; They are(present; and starlog parallels are deliberate) sharing a bunk for purely social reasons because she has decided(immediate past; probably in the last half hour) she'd prefer not to be alone; but earlier they had(more distant past, possibly weeks before, when they were training in the unfinished ship) used the faculties for other sociable interactions.

Sources of conflict: The principal source of tension is obviously between the ship and the inhabitants of the Earths it visits; because they are human, with different societies in the case of the close one's, and because they aren't, for the more distant. As I observed, I'm better at world building than plotting; I've got you to your frontier, and there are aboriginal inhabitants. Cowboys and indians, explorers and natives, as you like.

Then there are potential internal conflicts. I've started the Euroship; they might not have political officers to keep them in line, but politics has decreed that each come from a different country, that there are equal numbers of men and women, that minorities are represented… it's just fortunate they didn't insist on a representative population of physically disabled, or a standardise age distribution. Thus, it's not always the best person for the job, but the most correct. The Islamic League ship won't have this problem, but they'll be forced to bring spiritual guides as well as technical, and the various branches will cause tension if not violence, Similarly, the two American ships (governmental and private enterprise) the Pacific (I don't know how the Nippon/Aussi team up will work out) The Chinese, Russian, Latino, India/South Africa/Israel ship; all potential internal conflicts waiting to happen, all for different reasons.

Then, the ships have to return home regularly with the data they've obtained, and 'home' might be less than delighted with the results; more potential problems.
There is also the risk, in early days, that they hit the same planet as one of the other ships; or one where the other has just been. Or even one where the original ship that started the exodus has just been. Probably at a different geographic point, but in any world with global communications this is irrelevant.

Finally there is the problem of the technology itself; this is a mature science, but it wasn't develoed by them. These are all prototype ships, built from blueprints delivered by people who'd been doing this for some time, but had received blueprints…

There are thirty people aboard the Euroship, and I've lightly pencilled in two. Every landfall will introduce dozens of new characters, a tiny fraction of whom will become 'companions' If that's not enough, there are the other ships. And the Earth origin, where the newly introduced technology, particularly the fusion generator, with no preparation time, are unbalancing various economies, particularly the Gulf states (main financers of the Islamic League ship) and the Russian union, both desperate to grab a compensating advance.

There's got to be enough there for conflicts. Missing that, every time you translocate, an equivalent volume of atmosphere will go the other way. This will contain some biological matter (bacteria, viruses) and, since the universe next door is biologically practically identical, this might introduce an organism to which we have no inborn defenses, with risk of plague. I can see the sort of anti genetically modified fanatics trying to stop the launch of the vessels to avoid this risk.

Biohazard sealed suits would be standard wear while on mission; not very romantic, certainly, but safer than red shirts.

1.) Could this be a cold fusion generator? (I know you used waste heat to fill the gas bags, but even a cold fusion generator could produce heat quite easily.)

2.) By "stockage", do you mean it's storage capacity, it's mass, or perhaps its actual size? (sorry, I'm just not familiar with this usage of the word)

It could very well be catalytic fusion, and if that were to be giving appreciable amounts of power it would be as hot as a steam engine 'cold' is relative – it's just not at a hundred million degrees, or so. Plenty of heat to expand gasbags,

'Stockage' is my standard energy storage problem. You can't store electricity. The best you can do is convert it into mechanical energy (pumping water uphill, flywheel) or chemical (battery, fuel cell) I'm proposing storing it in a magnetic field, produced by an enormous current flowing in a superconducting loop.

Sorry I'm a bit slow with my replies; I had a session last night which went on till half past one, so didn't get any typing done.

Hey, I know what I've written is all tell and infodump; the idea is that it be a social project, no? And if anything there is essential to the comprehension of the story, you can rewrite it to fit; I build universes, I'm not so good at peopling them.

Unless you'd like a dragon?

Chrispy.

 

[chopper]

wow, that's some world, chris. is there an awed smilie?

 

[chopper]

ok, i've just read and re-read it all, and i think i understand the theory now.

so to get to a timeline massively divergent from the origin timeline would take a huge amount of power. how about several smaller hops to make the same journey? would that work? and how do you navigate your way back to the origin? is there some kind of trans-dimensional GPS system?
if so, that would be possibly the most heavily-guarded piece of equipment on the ship - lose it, and you can't get home. other travellers will want records of where/when you've been....
as a quick thought - Heinlein's Number of the Beast?
all of the shipboard roles will have to be very specialised - multi-tasking, or a definite split between boffins & engineers? you'll need at least 2 extremely cerebral mathematicians onboard - one to check the other's conclusions D). and a diplomatic team. and - for security's sake - a 3-man armed squad at the very least. of course, some alternates may have already devised AI security devices.

 

[chopper]

and, i've just thought, you may well need a theoretical historian, well-versed in counter-factual analysis.
my brain is humming and whirring already......

 

[Zubi-Ondo]

so to get to a timeline massively divergent from the origin timeline would take a huge amount of power. how about several smaller hops to make the same journey? would that work? and how do you navigate your way back to the origin? is there some kind of trans-dimensional GPS system?
if so, that would be possibly the most heavily-guarded piece of equipment on the ship - lose it, and you can't get home. other travellers will want records of where/when you've been....

Chopper, Good to have you with us. I'm not sure that time itself is what is being altered here. Here is the part that Chris wrote:

The Universe shall be the Penycate Transdimensional sheaves mark one

Postulates:
Consider our detected, three spacial dimensional world mapped down as a unidimensional thread. Now, travelling along the time dimension, every choice point slits the wordline into two, almost identical lines, not quite parallel (standard alternate history theory, not contradicted by quantum mechanics; indeed, supported by some perpetrators of the art)

Many times, these divergent lines are similar enough that they recoalesce, forming high-probability threads. These run alongside, slowly diverging as new stable situations stablise between them.

The dimensions into which these threads are split are 'spacelike', you can retrace your steps and return to your starting point, elapsed time will have elapsed there too, Thus the planet(s) are still in the same orbit, so your transfer point will still be on the same point relative to the planet's surface.

I'd like to hear Chrispy's take on it, but what I know is that these are alternate "sheaves" of similar universes, and time moves on whether you're there or not, because when you move into the next alternate history, it's the same 'Earth' as ours in the same orbit, but with a different history. So, like he says "elapsed time will have elapsed there too..."

I can't say that I fully understand the mechanism that allows us to traverse these sheaves, but if we threw time travel in with it I think we'd have spaghetti with meatballs. What say you Chrispy?

- Z.

 

[Moonbat]

Zubi/Chopper

I don't think Chopper says anything about time travel? just how do you navigate back to the original Universe once you have left it, say for Christmas, or your Mum's Birthday. there has to be some kind of device that can measure how far you have deviated from your original universe so that you can navigate back to it.
So what kind of device could possibly tell the difference, and divergence between two sheaves? I suppose some kind of history mapping tool, that can compare the history of your current universe with the known history of your original universe and can postulate when and where they diverged, and therefore give you details on how much energy is required to return. On a point here, if for instance the ship had made several small-meduim hops over the course of a year, and now they have to travel back to the origin, would they make the reverse hops back through all the visited sheaves? would they mass power-up and make a hop all the way back to the origin.

Hmm, sounds like a cliche here, but those travelling could be attempting to return home, but because they took such a massive hop at some point they are having to 'hop' through lots more universes to get close to the origin, and imagine the mess you could get into if you mis-read history and hop in the wrong direction.

 

[chopper]

exactly, moonbat.
are we calling them sheaves (singular: sheaf?) rather than timelines, to remove any confusion?

 

[chrispenycate]

When the original travellers started they only travelled one jump from their point of origin. This still gave them over ten thousand possible destinations, some of which would be quite adequately different from the original that they brought payback. The ship that arrived here was on a chain that already stretched over a hundred jumps, and they went on into the unknown; and they can jump further than the OTL (our time line, not "oiriginal"; they're all original to someone) Navigation is more 'inertial' than 'GPS'; you retrace your step(s). Thus, if you get into a bad situation, it's far better to go 'back' that 'on', as you'll have eight hours recharging time in the place to get back home, navigating 'round' a black spot requiring data about the overspace wedon't have (and setting off at random trying to find one of the documented lines being a good way of homesteading; I can see it happening on the Latino ship. And you can't go 'looking' for somebody, either; getting lost is a no-no.

One of the problems with our local group is that lots of the closest threads are blasted, radioactive hells, where you go as high into the stratosphere as you can manage and watch the countdown until you can leave. I might write up one of these, as nobody else is likely to want them, just as I might do the outsiders' visit to Geneva. They had the knowledge with them to heal the ozone layer, to feed OTL's starving millions, but they only traded us the means of going and looking for the answers ourselves. Wisdom, not letting us become dependent, caution, commercial good sense?

The Euroship has tried to go for multitalented individuals, but has been restricted (see attached short, unfinished, story) by the need for political correctness. They've all been given military training, medicaél and linguistics backup while the craft was being constructed (even the technicians who were part of the construction team, who got less sleep than a Chronner), they are all young(ish) and fit (two had competed on their countries' Olympic teams) they are recognised specialists in their particular fields, highly competitive – and the psychologists consider they're unlikely to kill each other. Very often, unless bored.

I believe the American 'private enterprise' ship is crewed by the very rich or those chosen by the rich. It has only twelve aboard, so either they've got a lot more scientific apparatus, or the quarters are considerably more spacious and comfortable.

For each ship (except, maybe the Chinese one, which we know little about, except that it is crewed almost exclusively by ethnic Han) there are a thousand applicants for each post, so they can choose the most talented individuals, and even, as the vessels will be regularly returning to OTL, alternate crews for later trips.

Time isn't maniputated, but I call them 'timelines' because ultimately time is what has done the splitting. Sometime in the past a decision point was sufficient that paths separated, rather than collapsing into the world we know. The actual frequency of these splits is random, but the distance (in energy terms) between the versions is more or less proportional to the time since the split. Closer ones are more likely to have comprehensible languages and similar levels of technology; Multiple jumps out, eventhe dominant species change, geology is not constant, and there is knowledge which is potentially much more interesting, but proportionally more difficult to obtain or understand.

They'll have preliminary information crunchers aboard (otherwise how would they recognise what was potentially useful), but the main analysis will be done back in OTL. How many of the thirty are diplomats, how many scientists, how many technicians, engineers and 'life support (cooks, service personnel)? I don't know. I do know they've got to keep the weight down, so there won't be any major weapons aboard, and the scientists will be screaming about lack of vital apparatus (and medics, and military men, and diplomats complaining about lack of impressive uniforms)

Looks around Have I scared everybody off, or is it just early days?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes I regret being on the selection committee for the Euroship. The Chinese, the Russians, even the Americans, can use the best man they have for each job (within political limits, obviously), but we are a co-operative venture. If thereare to be thirty crew members, exactly fifteen of them have to be female, there can't be two of them from the same country (and even then there are countries screaming about having been left out, but if we'd built the ship big enough that every country could be represented we'd have launched two years after everyone else, and even the Europarliament agreed that was unacceptable).

There must be proportional representation for racial minorities, and religious diversity. It's fortunate wemanaged to get English selected as a common language, despite the French who tried to insist on everyone being fluent in two languages. (and, if that had been allowed, how long before the Spanish, the Greek and the Ukranians?) But one thing's for sure; language is a field where we'll have a head start

 

[chopper]

call me a cynic, but i think corporate money would play a big part in the budget and launching of any of the western-world airships - you can almost see the likes of Branson queueing up to grab a place aboard. and the phone companies, of course - it's good to talk, indeed. and then there's the reality-tv documetanry crews.....

there would be an outcry in The Sun ("It's a sheaving shame!", or "England given sheave-ho by frogs!") if Europe despatched a ship while mighty England ("Ing-er-land"!) stood by or merely sent one crewmember along.

politics, eh?

so far, i've tentatively identified the following positions an board (subject to approval and obviously varying across different ships):
captain
3-man security detail
2 mathematicians
1 theoretical historian and archivist
1 small craft pilot
1 commo/electronics expert
2 "First contact" negotiators

obviously, engineering and "below-decks" hasn't been dealt with yet. anyone?

 

[chrispenycate]

You're going to need an exec or first mate; the captain can't be awake all the time.

I'm sure practically all the European countries, and probably some co-operating ones like Turkey, are planning their own vessels; but these things are expensive, and it's probably better to wait for the problems to show themselves, so the national ships can be improvements over their ancestors. Besides, Great Britain has the United Kingdom, Eire and the Scottish union, so Germany, for example, could be much more miffed.

Mind you, I'm not trying for a place on the Italian ship.

 

[Zubi-Ondo]

1 commo/electronics expert

I wrote a brief description of an engineer before we got "wiped out", and I'd like to hold on to this character and write his description if possible. Thanks.

Chopper - Sorry for my confusion, I don't think I'm as well read in Sci-Fi/Fantasy as others here, even though I am a writer. I think there are certain themes (alternate history, timelines, sheaves, time portals, wormholes, etc.) that I have read either 1 or no books about yet.

- Z.

 

[chopper]

me neither, chap - i'm just guessing!

 

[Moonbat]

Howdy,

Just re-read through all the posts, very good work Chris.

On one of these threads a researcher/mathematician team comes up with a way of transferring a region of space between two of these threads.

Ok, is there any real science that could lead to this? I understand the theory (well in laymans terms), but there doesn't seem to be a mechanism to me, we are not talking an Einstein-Rosenbourg bridge a we talking similar, can space be bent suficiently enough to link universes? Or can we propose that by bending space in one or more of the (5-10) extra dimensions we can create an Einstien-Rosenbourg-Kaku-Penycate bridge?

Ok, so in some other world someone figures out a way to traverse universes, then that world has enough co-ordination/need to create a physical machine that can open the ERKP bridge and move through it. Apart from the information that can gathered what other rewards do they get from investing so much time and energy into this venture? They can't gain any land, they wont be bringing back any resources, if they keep moving on, and are on jump 100+ then how does their information ever get back to their Original Time line?

Even on our world, so many ventures for information that can be shared without loss of data between all countries. If the ship arrived above Slovakia and moored in Geneva, would not Europe take all control of the information. If China and USA were fighting over moon bases, then Europe (who could be very far behind) could use this as a different method of exploration and not tell the others about it. Obviously they would find out, there could be spies on board.

I was just thinking about our world with 7(ish) factions, all of which start jumping between sheaves (different ones) in search of ? info, knowledge, wealth, whatever they can find. How bad would that be, if each one of the 7 set only 2 more worlds into motion that would create more and more Earth teams that were jumping about universes. It wouldn't take much for one of them to make a bad decision and cause problems, only to hop on further and get chased through universes by vengeful other humans.

I think we should limit the amount of exploratory parties from this Earth (the real one! our one) I propose we say only Europe has the technology, and although China/Usa and others want it, Europe is keeping it secret (obviously not forever, but to start with)
Also if the original travellers from 100+ jumps back have done so many jumps, then they will have started a chain reaction that sets more and more groups of travellers from different earths into motion, this increase in the system that shows no signs of abating will eventually cause 'timeline turbulence' that is, small differences in starting factors/variables can create huge divergence/turbulence in the system. Chaotic theory, which could cause a small planned hop to turn into a huge unrecoverable one, or a tipping point which once passed means that travellers could never get back to previous hops as the turbulence in the system makes computing the required power/specific factors impossible to calculate.

Sorry to get so negative, I'm just curious. I do like everything that I've read and I am very excitited by the possibilites.

So, hopefully we haven't lost too much info from the crash, I'll write up a leader/captain. we can continue with the Europe ship, but maybe discuss the Earth history a bit more.

Moonbat

 

[chrispenycate]

The theory only exists in layman's terms; and I have no idea how to get hold of space and push it sideways. Nor why the transitional energy (or, at least, a fair chunk of it) manifests as a burst of largely visible light both sides of the transitional barrier (except that I liked the image; sort of UFO/angelic)

But it does mean that you can't hide the fact that they've arrived; the hostile forces on the moon could see that flash, if they were over the horizon. If I moved them to Geneva, it was because of its international status (and not because it gave me a good place to write a story about, honest. Perhaps a tiny little bit), and the visitor vessel (I'm going to have to go acronimic and Americanish; from now on, they're VV) wants the maximum of knowledge from OTL, even if much of it is duplicates of similar sheaves. To that end, They're happy to trade with Namibia, even if there's no way this century they'll be able to build a ship this century. VV has no desire to get caught up in a local war, or have the local inhabitants lying in wait to ambush it when it comes back through.
So they give out the knowledge to everyone.

At the beginning of any culture using this technology they go out one transition, then come back with the information, then go back out, etc. But it becomes clear that further out theres is more esoteric data, cultures where mathematics and physics have taken different paths, so a few of the craft set out on multiple, 'Captain Cook' type voyages that will last years, rather than weeks. Some of these are lost, but the ones who make it back carry such riches in information that this compensates for the waste. These are the ships who contact the non-human cultures, that bring back music we could never have generated, new art forms, new images of the cosmos we live in. They might set up advanced bases on uninhabited worlds, carrying in personnel two or three at a time; they might team up, and send back ships when enough knowledge has been gathered; that would depend on the culture who sent them.

VV can do jumps at least ten times those of the first ships built by a newly contacted world (I'm not saying this is a deliberate policy, though it might well be) so the probability of them contacting each other is low, but non-zero.

The immediate region round a new hub, or nucleus, rapidly becomes very busy, and the enormous number of brains working on the problem mean that matching VV's performance shouldn't take more than a few decades; but, by then, VV's gone home with the massive quantities of information gathered from all over, and following it back is impractical, to say the least.

I don't see any problem with disturbing spacetime; a few million blocks of mass being exchanged isn't going to destabilise a universe, any more than sailing boats modify ocean currents. Cross sheaf biological transfer, macroscopic (Australian cane toads) and microscopic (smallpox in the Americas) is, as are philosophic and religious problems; fortunately, I think I've limited the travel conditions sufficiently to avoid war.

Are finished documents to be posted here for discussion, or transferred directly to Moonbat? The former limits the size they can be, the latter means someone can be writing away, never realising that the American commercial ship has got itself lost and is no longer in the game…

 

[chopper]

Are finished documents to be posted here for discussion, or transferred directly to Moonbat? The former limits the size they can be, the latter means someone can be writing away, never realising that the American commercial ship has got itself lost and is no longer in the game…

i'd suggest (if Moonbat agrees): interested parties post a brief descriptive paragraph here for others to read, and also send full details to Moonbat? some may be inspired by seeing what others are doing, after all.