What would it take for technology to manipulate events and time?

[MJRevell]

In a story I have written, I have a little piece of alien technology that can somehow manipulate the world around it - like a robotic genie, with 3 wishes. I have been told:

What it achieves is magic: for it to be SF you'd need to at least try to dress it up with some kind of explanation about it being able to manipulate the passage of time and the little triggers that make events head in one direction rather than another.

I'm struggling to come up with ideas. Time travel, I think I can deal with - but other things, like making any kind of wish come true - I'm not so sure.

Anyone have any thoughts? What are the little triggers that make events head in one direction rather than another?

 

[Precision Grace]

If I were you, I would (perhaps foolishly) take the principle behind the Large Hadron Collider, squish it down to a hand-held size and have Higgs Boson equivalent particles weave the wishes into reality.

 

[sloweye]

Some links that might inspire.

Time travel for beginners

Time travel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

YouTube - TTV - TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY 3of3.


Category:Time travel technology - SCIFIPEDIA

 

[ManTimeForgot]

It's easy. All you need is "The Galaxy" from MIB. Have a localized alternate universe with a single output point into a fixed location in our universe. This object (We will call "The Galaxy" in homage) taps into the energy of the galaxy(ies) inside the created universe on the other side.


With the power output of a galaxy/several galaxies you might just be able to pull off everything you want assuming you get access to a higher dimension from which to do things like: manipulate strings, alter time, alter the speed of light, etc. With string manipulation you get almost genie-like powers. That isn't a ceramic bowl; that's a fruit salad.


MTF

 

[bluerayarchangel]

In a story I have written, I have a little piece of alien technology that can somehow manipulate the world around it - like a robotic genie, with 3 wishes. I have been told:

What it achieves is magic: for it to be SF you'd need to at least try to dress it up with some kind of explanation about it being able to manipulate the passage of time and the little triggers that make events head in one direction rather than another.

I'm struggling to come up with ideas. Time travel, I think I can deal with - but other things, like making any kind of wish come true - I'm not so sure.

Anyone have any thoughts? What are the little triggers that make events head in one direction rather than another?

What if that little piece of alien technology, is self aware? like A I so if it wanted to change the world around it, maybe able to send out some form of signal, that had nanowaves or something, instead of nanobots, or is that too silly

 

[ManTimeForgot]

What if that little piece of alien technology, is self aware? like A I so if it wanted to change the world around it, maybe able to send out some form of signal, that had nanowaves or something, instead of nanobots, or is that too silly

Sufficiently advanced nanobots could conceivably reorganize matter in incredible ways, but it wouldn't be able to grant every possible "wish" that one could come up with when it comes to matter alteration. Changing iron into platinum, for instance, would require the addition of mass and the kind of energy only found in supernovae (at least this is the only way we are aware of within the confines of our universe).

And I'm not so sure I want self-aware nanobots running around interpreting people's wishes/desires as commands. It could get messy...

MTF

 

[bluerayarchangel]

Sufficiently advanced nanobots could conceivably reorganize matter in incredible ways, but it wouldn't be able to grant every possible "wish" that one could come up with when it comes to matter alteration. Changing iron into platinum, for instance, would require the addition of mass and the kind of energy only found in supernovae (at least this is the only way we are aware of within the confines of our universe).

And I'm not so sure I want self-aware nanobots running around interpreting people's wishes/desires as commands. It could get messy...

MTF

Are you talking about something what a technomage would use, from babylon 5 series, which combine both technology with magic, to change there surrounds? Is that the kind of thing you wanted. In Babylon 5 he uses a staff to change his surrounds and anything else he wishes to do

 

[ManTimeForgot]

Big fan of the series, and I certainly wouldn't want to put words in J. Michael's mouth, but sure why not.


With "The Galaxy" you could potentially do just about whatever you wanted through gravitation, dimensional, and string manipulation. Such actions would undoubtedly attract the attention of advanced beings though, so you would want to keep its use on the down low.

This leaves you with nano-scale robotics, use of high electro-negativity (florine, muons...), high intensity particle accelerators, high intensity magnetic fields (with enough intensity even "non-magnetic" substances will align), and organic/semi-organic reorganization/artificial decay (enzymes, ingestion, naturally produced acids, etc) as practical means for changing substances.


But without some way to influence neutrinos and photons your list of things you can manipulate is not entirely complete. Right now trillions of neutrinos are passing right through you. And photons don't respond to other energy sources much at all. It lacks charge, it ignores magnetic fields, and most of the nuclear forces don't have the range to matter. Sure an electron will pick one up if they collide, but you can't guarantee collisions (see heisenberg's uncertainty principle). Photons (if they have an anti-particle) are their own anti-particle. This leaves gravity, time, and string manipulation as plausible methods of interacting with light at a fundamental level, and all of those require astounding amounts of energy (according to our current level of scientific understanding).


I think techno-mages used as much illusion as substance. You notice that they don't ever reveal the true extent of their abilities, right? If people don't know what you are capable of, then when confronted with the prospect of you being able to do something, they never know when you are bluffing... The universe is an extremely mysterious place, and perhaps it would be best not to know for sure how something works or what all it is capable of.


MTF

 

[Lapuspuer]

The first thing that comes to my mind is Douglas Adams's Infinite Improbability Drive. You could invent something that works in a similar way.

Otherwise you could endow your "genie" with quantum computation and state that this allows it to view all possible universes and manipulate them in order to get anything from one of them. This way it could recreate anything that's possible in any possible universe - which is close enough to omnipotence to me.
Of course I doubt this would ever be possible in the real world, but all it has to do is sound scientific, right? Technobabble is acceptable in sf, after all.

 

[AE35Unit]

How about quantifying and later manufacturing of Black Holes,if they exist. Think about it,instead of a rubbish bin you have a mini Black Hole,and just throw your rubbish in where it will be squashed down and shredded till it reaches the singularity

 

[Will83]

I'd just go the dues ex machina route and say, "it runs on Hyperion energy, which is something beyond human comprehension!" It's best not to get bogged down too much on the science. The best scifi pieces have strong character and strong story.