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Re: [DL] Time Machines

At 01:07 PM 1/30/2003 -0800, you wrote:
> > SPOILERS!!!
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> > Okay.
> > Does anyone have any thoughts on mad scientists in the Weird West or
> > Hell on Earth inventing time machines and traveling to each game
> > setting?
> > I understand the perils with time travel, as related in The Collegium,
> > page 109, but does anyone have any thoughts on a mad scientist inventing
> > a ghostrock-powered time travel device? Any theories?
> >
> > Marshal Eric
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> I apologize for the lateness in responding to this message; I'm just now
> getting around to erading a month load of digests.

S'okay, it's a neat topic. Of course, I have my own idea about the usefulness of time travel.

This is my thought: the Earth is moving; the solar system is moving; the galaxy is moving; etc. Which means that the Earth will be several thousand miles away from where it was when you started this sentence. Which means that if you move about ONLY in time, then you will reappear either behind or ahead of where the Earth has been/will be, depending on your direction of time travel. Of course, it also means that, in Back to the Future, Doc Brown's dog Einstein would likely have frozen to death in the icy vacuum of space, one minute's distance behind the Earth, and not returned.

However, this does make time travel rather suitable for getting around some of the nasty restrictions of Faster-Than-Light travel. If you go back in time far enough, chances are that SOME planet, solar system, etc. was in the exact location where the Earth is now. Of course, in the present, that planet is many, many lightyears away. But in the past, that planet is right next door, astronomically speaking.

In fact, maybe that _could_ work as a method for travel between Deadlands and Lost Colony. Now, I don't know where Banshee is supposed to be, nor how far away the Earth would be from it's position in the 1870's and (insert LC's current year here, it escapes me). But, it would be a reasonable explanation for travel between the two, if Banshee happened to be close enough to the DL Earth's current position to make manitou-inspired space travel (modified diving bell, anyone?) feasible in the 1870's...

Derek D. Bass
Etheric Musings - The Science of the Sons of Ether
http://www.steamenginechaos.com/mage/ether.htm
--

Interesting idea... but a bit like trowing a grain of sand into the sky under the primus that some Hitler-type person is bound to get hit by it and die.

Of all the cubic light-years involved there may be as much as 1 cubic light-nanosecond of matter.  You might as well shoot a gun at the moon and expect to kill "space dragons!"  The odds are better.

While space moves, it does so in 6 directions at once.  All of controlled by forces we are unlikely to figure out in the next millennium (that is 1,000 years for you school kids).  The math would make 3 Einsteins go batty.

But, there is another solution. As we know from Quantum Mechanics on Quarks and other sub-atoms, gravity has an effect.  There is no reason to believe that atoms will leave the gravity well of the Earth just because they are accelerated.  Even many sub-atomic particles stay within the gravity of the Earth after being accelerated.  If you consider the inevitable mass of the resulting time-boat (vessel to use in the time-stream), it seems very unlikely that you would be left behind in space.  Remember, Time and Space MUST be crossed to travel ANYWHERE... it is just that the pilot and vessel are in a different state of matter, and can not interact with the lower state.  So, they are still on Earth, but are moving in a different state of matter.

Add to this the power on the Sub-Atomic Strata fluxing under the eating habits of the Reckoners, the power being thrown around by Hucksters, and the inevitable energy added by both Buda and Jesus... in accordance with a Zen philosophy of the Tao... well anything is possible... even being left behind in space!

In short... use the Mad Science ideas of the universe: Any half-baked scientific process will work, as long as all of the PLAYERS of the GAME want it to!

As for "real" time travel... human's are not able to think clearly enough about the true nature of matter (space and time) to get the basic idea into an discernable theory... maybe one day... but not for a very long time.  Even then, going back can't work, only forward.  Why? Nothing can occupy 2 places at one time in the same time-space location.  Since we are made of atoms that were in other things, they will be in other things when we go back.  As we are in a different state of decay, we have the lesser bond (atomically speaking), so our atoms are neutralized.  They, like us in that time, no longer exist.  Since they no longer exist, we just dissolve upon energizing the device.  As a result ALL time travel to the past results in melt-down of the operators and devices.  Two or three of these and the government pulls the plug on all research.  As it is VERY expensive, private industry will not waist more that a year on it without successes.  As you can have none... no time travel.

Remember, the time travel used in Deadlands is functional... the Reckoners make it work.  It is terrorizing, and good for a snack, if not for a nice Continental Breakfast... or is it an Intercontinental Breakfast???  At any rate... if it is fun, and you want it in your game, have a good time.  Personally  I love time travel as a story line, even though I know that both Time Travel and History are pure fiction.  (Remember, the Victor writes the history... it is little more than an opinion. Herototus (sp?), the Roman Historian, once said "A good Historian does not allow the Facts to ruin the Story.")


Bo Whitten

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In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.