Zeitpunkt: Entscheidung
Sven Gelbhaar
9/24-25/2017
Zeitpunkt 0x3335
“We need you to come in. ” said a disembodied voice.
“It’s 3am on a Saturday! ” Elise said, fighting the urge to smash her phone
against the beige walls of her apartment. “
“We figured you’d still be up.”
“And drunk? That’s really brilliant. “
“Not necessarily. The bars close at 2am so you’d have a whole hour to sober up.”
“Fine, whatever! What do you need me for that’s so damn important? “
“You know we can’t tell you over the phone. See you at the house in an hour?
Or go ahead and have some coffee, so make it an hour and a half. “
“OK. See you then.” she hit the power button on her phone.
It was bright out when she arrived at the House. An argument was taking place
inside the house as she approached the door. Half of it was in English and the
rest was in German.
“…but Max, if that’s the case then it would be exactly where asteroid TK7 is
now: at the Earth’s 5th Lagrangian Point. “
“We don’t even know if the coordinate system is accurate.”
“The receiving station is clearly at the L5.”
She knocked on the door, hoping that Max and Stochastic were too embroiled in
their argument to realize that she stood them up for half a day.
“Hi guys, sorry I took so long. What’s going on? “
Max replied, “Stochastic wants to encase us in rock and ice. “
Stochastic rejoined, “That’s hardly fair. Obviously in 100 years time humanity
will have mined TK7 out of existence for fuel, water, and precious metals. “
“You assume! You always assume every fool notion is the truth. “
“That’s what lead me to investigate and develop your time-shifting method. “
“Whatever. I’m not going.”
“I’ll go. ” muttered Elise.
“You’ll do no such thing. It’s suicide. “
“Our brute force shifting of messages has come up with only 15 Zeitpunkte in the
recent past and the near future, Opa Max. “
“Fine, go ahead. I’m just gonna tell you that I told you so now, because you
won’t be around to tell you when you see for yourself. “
“Or I’ll see what the world is like in the future. “
“Is my granddaughter really the kind of person that skips ahead to the end of
every book she reads? What if there isn’t a happily-ever-after for humanity. We
might have blown each other out or existence by then and you’d be stuck, in
space, with nobody to help you get back here let alone help you survive at 15 degrees
Kelvin with limited oxygen. “
“Things can go wrong, sure, but I have more faith in humanity. Your era was
frought with violence and destruction, but we live in peaceful times. Exponentially
peaceful times. “
That ended the argument. Although an argument among physicists is really only a
temporary cease-fire. Both sides were sure to lie in wait for the next
galvanising catalyst to utterly destroy their opponent’s stance.
Zeitpunkt 0x30200
Klara had of course doubted Elise’s claims regarding time travel. She bantered
and begged Elise for the cause of her academic suicide, and was beside herself
when she had digested the theory. Elise hadn’t planned on Klara taking it
seriously, but there’s no joke like the truth and Klara had adopted as truth more
and more as Elise’s explanations shot down Klara’s sarcastic reactions.
Klara, having passed her math exams with flying colors, exhorted Elise to let her
join the project. “I can help crunch the numbers. “
“We have computers for that.”
“How will the computers know what numbers to crunch? I can translate high order
math into an intuitive formula and then your computers can do the crunching. “
Elise hadn’t noticed Mr. Stochastic’s interest in her until she had introduced
him to Klara. He was short and direct with Klara where he would have waxed
philosophically with Elise.
They all waited in the basement of the house for the right moment to arrive.
“How does your spacesuit feel, Elise? “
“I feel like a collosal klutz in this thing, Stochastic. “
“Well they’re gonna save our lives if my premise is wrong and there is no space
station at L5.”
“Yeah, but only for how many hours? “
“Around 5, I think. “
“Well that’s a comforting thought. Plenty of time for last words. Let’s make
them really witty and funny. “
“You’re a riot, Elise” joked Klara.
Doctor Hauptmann glanced at Colonel Giavonni. “At least we’ll know if our new
collider works. “
“Dr, if it didn’t work wouldn’t the future time shifters send us a warning? “
“I don’t know. Have we gone back in time and saved anybody besides me in the
past?”
“I suppose you’re right, Doctor. ” replied the Air Force officer.
“If it doesn’t I’ll have plenty of paper work to do. Higher headquarters is
going to have a field day on my rump. “
“While I merely lose a granddaughter, Herr Colonel.”
The Redletter moment arrived and the laboratory was filled with light. As much
light as can be emitted by arrays of concentrated LEDs in the 360×360 sphere
that the scientific members were able to arrange. When the room was back to
its original luminescence the small crew of time shifter was gone.
A flashbang of light and noise assailed the senses of Elise and Stochastic. If
they had been more at ease they would have appreciated the new time propellant,
radiation pressure from freed electrons, or photons, and how much better it was
than h2o.
Once the light dimmed they realized that they were in the middle of a large
steel-looking sphere with a ladder joining opposite ends. The ladder rotated at
a fast clip and they climbed what they assumed was up.
They were greeted by a man in uniform, black with red trimmings, who appeared to
be in his mid 20s.
“Well if it isn’t the famous Mr Stochastic and his intrepid sidekick Miss Elise
Hauptmann!” he exclaimed aloud before helping them out of their suits.
He continued “I hope you won’t take offense, but your aim is horrible. We had to
build this facility almost 40 kilometers from Earth’s true L5.”
“How do you maintain your orbit then? “
“Is that really the first question you have for your successors? Something as
boring as orbital corrections using EM emissions to scootch us closer to the sun
every so often? What would Miss Elise say? “
“Surely you knew exactly about what I was just going to say from your own time
shifting.”
“Can you blame me, Miss? We had to know we weren’t going to pollute the past,
as our very existence is contingent on that.”
“I suppose it would be rude of me to expect you to play Russian roulette. “
“Terrific. That being the case we can proceed. Know that everything we say and
explain is as accurate as we can reasonably share with you. But where are my
manners? My designation is F. Nietzsche, but you can call me Freddy. “
“Your namesake is a cultural philosopher from the 1900s?”
“Absolutely. To be the liason of our culture to yours necessitates that I view
cultures as abstractions. That way I can best portray our culture to yours. “
“Is it just you? “
“In a manner of speaking. There are 12 more like me aboard the station. “
“Why did you say more like you?, ” inquired Elise.
“There is a subtle difference when it comes to us and the rest of the species. I
believe your culture would deem us as Androids, but that distinction is ignored
in our time. Humans remain planets-bound while we Sentient Analogues explore
space, provide manual labor, and so on. “
Elise was noticeably shocked.
“Just pretend we are humans if that helps. Humans who are very good at what we
do.”
“Sorry, I just can’t conceive of a machine that is as human as you. “
“Ah yes, ” replied Freddy, “Human, all too human. “
Elise and Stochastic both laughed at the reference.
Freddy, reverting to a neutral look, said “I believe now might be a good time
for your briefing. We have prepared a 3d holographic presentation that will
give you the last 100 years of our history. It was carefully crafted to answer
all of the obvious questions you undoubtedly harbor. “
The holodisplay in Elise’s quarters was showing pictures of wars and discovery.
A little chime sounded toward the entrance. At first Elise ignored it, figuring
it would be dealt with by the crew. When it kept getting louder and more
insistent she got up out of her ergonomic chair and walked toward the door.
There she found a little monitor with flashing text which read “answer. “
She hit the button and was presented with the face of another Sentient Analogue.
“Thank god you answered! Look, we don’t have a lot of time. I’m calling from
the engine room, but I could be interrupted at any time. “
“Then why are you calling me, Mr… ?”
“Just call me SG. I want to tell you something that you won’t find in the
briefing. “
“Go on.”
“The contents of the briefing is obvious. Japanese and American inventors
perfected robotics, eugenics, nanotechnology, etc. Granted there were some
minor innovations from Europe and the rest of Asia, but we didn’t focus on
those. “
“What do you mean, focused? “
“I’m a member of what we call The Order Of Kronos. We travel back in time and
expedite important inventions. We are told that it was your original crew that
started it, but you must not come to found this order. “
“When would I charter such an organization? “
“Written records are far and few in between. We all speculate that you would
bring it about when you’re in your 50s, leaving it as your most important,
albeit least known, legacy to future time shifters. “
“Why wouldn’t I bring something like that about? ” asked Elise.
“Because you have no idea how we effect our results about! We torture our
subjects to the point of mental insanity until they’re all used up. If they have
a fear of flying, we arrange their course of events to involve as much air
travel as possible. If they are nervous around women, we make sure that every
social outing is replete with as many beautiful women as we can get away with. “
“I’m beginning to see your point, but go on. “
“You’re probably wondering why the past isn’t full of scientific and cultural
achievement. That’s because to advance science and technology, there must be a
complete upheaval as to how humanity perceives it’s environment and themselves.”
Elise interjected “You’re talking about a paradigm shift? “
“That’s precisely it. One century religious impetuses bring about medieval
engineering and the beginnings of algebra, the next century it is mental freedom
from that same religion. We have charts and diagrams as to who is the most
likely to be the next victim, Er, WunderKindt. We tortured Leonardo DaVinci by
ensuring he would be gay, and you’re familiar with all of his accomplishments.
The Order had their way with Einstein, Tesla, all the greats you’re familiar
with, and even more that you’re not. “
“Well that’s terrible for the geniuses, but the needs of the many and all that.”
“It’s ironic that you mention that. We do indeed apply the Felicific Calculus to
society at certain decision points. We go as far as ranking outcomes by priority
of participants’psyches. Then we extrapolate how much suffering on the
individuals, always individuals after the Bolsheviks, results in how much
happiness for their society. “
“I wouldn’t want to be the genius then.”
“There is a high degree of prestige for our subject, but that usually comes in
their later years after suffering our synchronicity gauntlet most of their
lives. Most die in obscurity, only to be venerated after they’re safely dead. “
“Ignoring the moral debate, there has to be a reason we don’t have infinitely
more advanced technology” posited the time shifter.
“Human society can only cope with a specific, varying amount of technological
progress. No human conglomerate would admit this, until you consider the labor
problem that tech brings into being. Imagine having precision and power tools
in ancient Egypt. What would the slaves be used for now? That’s just the
obvious problem. With technogic and scientific progress comes forth a set of
moral dilemmas. Birth control, the use of antibiotics and vaccines, etc. These
accomplishments need a certain digestion period before society can safely
integrate them. Now I must go. Someone is bound to get suspicious of us sooner
or later. “
A familiar, all too human, voice chirped over the line. “Yes, I believe that
was an adequate education for you, Miss Elise. Won’t you join me in the
conference room? “
Elise was pale-white with dread as she filled the ergonomic chair across from
Freddy. Freddy showed no sign of agitation, but who could tell if he was simply
repressing them?
Freddy started “What you heard was just the half of what we do. And to be fair
we ask our subjects if they’re destined for greatness in one way or another. “
“Yeah, but that’s just to ease your conscience, and you probably pressure them
into saying yes. “
“That may be true in some cases, yes, but most already have an inflated or
deflated ego who derive great pleasure when it becomes obvious that their
affirmation is correct.”
“What good is greatness if you work under duress and die unknown, as is probably
the fate of the majority of your so-called subjects. “
“We don’t mince words that much, but if you prefer we could call them patients.
God knows we maneuver their lives into drug dependence, either street drugs and
/ or prescription drugs for a good while, early on in their treatment. “
“Why on Earth would you do that? “
“Withdrawal and illicit substance-use effects great amounts of tension and stress.
All the things that have the most impetus potential. But take heart, we also
reward their work and give them spouses tailor made for them. We even reinforce
their creative and productive output, or we introduce words and conceits into
their lives which will be relevant to their future work. I’ll demonstrate this
later with Mr Stochastic. “
“You better leave him alone! “
“But don’t you see the value of this?! It will propel humanity that much more
into a utopic future with the most peoples being the most happy”
“What do you have planned for Stochastic? “
“He’s about to discover and formulate decision making in an AI project that will
eventually wind up as a subroutine in robotics, as you call it. The trigger
concept is urgency. Don’t worry, he needs no further motivation than the
simple utterance of the word. And here he comes now.”
With that the sliding Steel door opened up, showing an excited physics and
engineering buff. Stochastic burbled with enthusiasm: “Antigravity becomes
accessible in 20 years!
“
“Yes, I know. ” lied Elise
“How long was that briefing? It flew by, but I could eat a horse.”
Freddy replied “We can eat right now, if you want. We have a meal from your era
at the ready.”
Spaghetti and meatballs was the meal. Elise kept glancing at Stochastic to see
if he had had a similar experience during his briefing, but there were no signs
of inordinate stress in his mannerism or behavior. Stochastic looked at the
Sentient Analogues and their chess board and said “do you guys play chess
regularly? “
Freddy rejoined “usually once per week. It gives us something trivial to
over-analyze.”
“Who usually wins? “
“The one playing with less urgency. ” came the response.
Elise’s eyes went wide, and her head involuntarily swiveled to catch
Stochastic’s reaction. “I suppose that makes sense” he said with no sign of
extraneous thought or whimsy.
Freddy continued “So Miss Elise had unearthed some tendencies of ours that she
disagrees with for ideological reasons, but I wonder how much she is likely to
go against our utilitarian mandate.”
Stochastic responded with a bewildered “Huh, okay. “
Freddy went on “but anyway. Mr Stochastic, you’ve done so much good for the
world. Do you consider youtself to be destined for greatness? “
Elise felt as though she were descending in an elevator.
Freddy urged “Well? “
To which Stochastic responded “Yeah sure. Why not? “
And with that Elise’s world faded to utter darkness.