History of travel

Dr. Farnsworth ques up her Powerpoint and starts in with her lecture.

 ”New Agers believe that the Earth has lines of electromagnetic power that run in unseen patterns.  Freemasons have talked about it for three centuries. The same theory was popularized by Alfred Watkins in 1921 under the name ley lines.  It may have been insanity or lucky guesswork, but both are right.  Lines of quantum energy do wrap around and puncture the earth.  Some are static, some have rotations, and some appear only once.  Where they intersect the fabric of reality is thinner.  Things that aren’t possible in most places become possible.”

“Many famous sites have ley lines intersecting on a constant or regular basis: Stonehenge, The great Pyramid at Giza, the Imperial Palace at Beijing, The former World Trade Centers, much of Washington D.C. (ever wonder why the built the capital in the middle of a swamp?), and of course, here.”

“People on other worlds have been using similar centers on their worlds for centuries to cross over here.  Sometimes they will accidentally cross into our world; sometimes it is intentional.  Any numbers of historical quirks or bad fortunes can be linked to intentional manipulation from other timelines.  The meteoric rise of Nazi Germany (and their leaps in technology), the Spanish Armada, and 9/11 are all examples.” 

“The United States’ experience with Bridges started after World War II. The Nazis had the fortune to be visited by technologically superior visitors from another Alt.  These visitors were willing to share their technology and several hundred of them moved to our Earth, as they had laid waste to the environment on theior own.  When we defeated the Nazis, many of these visitors came into possession of the U.S. government.  You’ve probably heard stories of Nazis scientists working for the U.S. government. This is the kernel of truth to that story.” 

“So, what does our timeline have to do with others?  Why bother to manipulate other worlds?  I will spare you the quantum explanations about bifurcated systems and strange attractors. Suffice it to say that when worlds are in close contact what happens on one is likely to happen on the other.  This is difficult to predict, as analogs change from world to world.  However, we are getting good at guessing how other worlds impact ours.”

“Let’s take 9/11 as an example.  There is a world which is now moving out of contact with ours.  It is remarkably similar except that the U.S. in that world, as well as most of Western Europe is Muslim.  In 1979 they had a huge terrorist problem on their soil.  In their case, it was militant Catholics.  The Catholics self-detonated a nuclear devise in the middle-class town of Middletown, Pennsylvania, to sow terror.  Middletown, PA, is the site of the 3-Mile Island reactor in our world.  The nuclear reaction in one world caused the meltdown in ours, as we were close to each other at the time.”

“So, back to 9/11.  In 1980, Reagan comes into office here.  He hears about the real cause of 3-Mile Island and wonders what this other world might do next.  He decided to send two-man teams of Green Berets across a Bridge into that world to help organize the resistance and try to topple the government, and it kind of worked (they destabilized, but are still in power).  However, the Muslim U.S. decided to retaliate. Their New York City is a hellhole, and their biggest Christian housing project was the Twin Towers (World Labor Center).  They knew that the Twin Towers were important here, so they dynamited theirs on 9/11 2001 and had one of their agents fund and assist some suicide bombers in our world.  You know how it turned out.  The combination of the bombers here and the quantum ripple from a world in close proximity brought down the towers.  The conspiracy nuts are half-right.  There is no way those planes should have been able to bring down those towers.  Not without government help (just not our government).”

“Obviously, the United States of America and the NSA does not take kindly to being attacked in this way.  After 9/11 our operation went into high gear.  Before 9/11 we were tasked with exploration and advance detection of possible threats. Now, we are primarily tasked with termination of threats and timeline manipulation for our benefit.  This was not a popular decision amongst some of the staff here and my predecessor resigned when he heard about it.”

“So all of this explains why we need to alter things on other worlds with care.  We don’t want to be detected, and we need to take care in what changes we make, as they can impact us.  If we nuke New York in their world, what happens here?”

“To complicate this all even more, we aren’t the only ones with active Bridges on our world.  The British have one (we frequently cooperate with them on missions).  The Chinese have one (although ti is notoriously inconsistent).  The USSR did have one, but it was sold to the Sultan of Brunei (we don’t think it is functional). There are rumors of private companies making them, but this is unsubstantiated.”

“Finally, it is important for you to know that there are different types of teams we send across the Bridge.  Some teams are strictly observation and threat identification.  Teams with language or custom specialties may be asked to interact with the populace and do some anthropological study.  Some teams are sent to extract important resources or people.  Of course, some teams simply blow things up and such.  What you do will be up to the NSA higher-ups.”

Click here to read about other worlds or post here when you’re ready to speak with Colonel Hodgeson.

Alternate Worlds

Dr. Farnsworth is told by an aide that she has a phone call.  She steps away for about five minutes, letting you drink in some of the sterile details of the Bridge access room.  She returns and starts with her Powerpoint slides.

 ”So, here is an alternate earth primer.  You’ll be exposed to more specifics about certain worlds later, but you’ll need to know a few basics right away.”

“Here’s a few terms you may hear: 
Alt: short for an alternate earth.
Bridge: Short for Einstein-Rosen Bridge. This refers to both the actual wormhole itself and the physical equipment that generates it.
POD: Point-of-Divergence. Where we think the alt’s timeline deviates from our own.
Main Sequence: Our earth.”

“We have a two-tiered classification system to group alike worlds.  Each Alt is categorized first by a number based on its physical characteristics. 
Class 1: Indistinguishable from Main Sequence in almost all respects.
Class 2: Physical laws are exactly the same, but structural changes to the Alt exist (i.e. different topography, a certain mineral rare in Main Sequence may be common).
Class 3: Physical laws and topography are compatible with human life, but are recognizably different (i.e. slightly lower gravity, probability works differently).
Class 4: Hostile world. Humans may be able to survive short periods of time with special equipment (i.e. and all ocean world or ice-covered world).
Class 5: Completely incompatible with human life (i.e. any other planet in our solar system).”

“Each Alt is then also given a letter that follows this number. The letter describes the cultural environment of the Alt.
A: Differs from Main Sequence in only smallest of details.
B: Significant cultural differences from Main Sequence.
C: Intelligent Life, but Main Sequence humans would be obviously out of place (i.e. an alt full of albinos or intelligent non-humans).
D: Life, but no recorded intelligent life.
E: No obvious life.
F: Quarantined. No contact or travel is allowed. Often, the existence of these worlds is classified, even to project staff.”

“Each world also has a code name.  Barren worlds have their classification followed by a five digit contact number (5E00123, for example).  A world which may be habitable will have the classification followed by a mission name (they retain the code, but it is only used by archivists).  An example is 2BHIGHTECH (or 2B00001), which we’ll talk about.”

“Statistically, most worlds are classed 4E or 5E. 9 of 10 worlds we contact are incapable of supporting human life.  Of the ones that aren’t inhospitable, 90% of those are functionally indistinguishable from our own (Class 1A).  They have only the smallest details different. A recent one has the White House address as 1601 Pennsylvania Ave instead of 1600, and this is the only difference we can find.  So, that means that 1% of the worlds we come into contact with are novel and capable of supporting exploration (about one or two per year).  I’m going to detail a few that have drifted out of contact with us so that you’ll have a feel for what these worlds are like.”

“The first world that we were ever aware of was 2BHIGHTECH.  This is a world with similar properties as our Earth, but different topography.  Beyond that, the humans inhabiting it were brilliant mathematicians and scientists, but lacked any social structure or skills.  The government was near anarchy and social order was weak, to say the least.  Imagine a world filled with people with Asperger’s Disorder and that would be a pretty fair description.  Well, a group of their eggheads built a Bridge and came over to our world in 1941.  They landed right smack in Nazi Germany and were put to work by the Nazis.  A few resisted and were dealt with, but most didn’t realize what sort of people they were helping.  They thought they were assisting us poor barbarians enter the modern age.  After WW2 a few were acquired by the U.S. and Britain, which helped us establish Bridges of our own.”

“3DTHINKTANK was a world we lost contact with ten years ago.  It seemed like a habitable world with some animal life, but not much to distinguish it.  When we landed a team there, we found that intelligent beings could control the physical environment by thought. Our team could lift rocks with their minds and control the flight of birds.  Sadly, one team member died there as the result of an aneurism (we suspect due to stress of thought).  The three who returned lost their abilities when they returned, so it was a phenomenon unique to that environment.  Two of them died of brain cancer not long after, and the fourth has no ill effects.”

“1B worlds are usually very interesting.  These are the “what if” worlds that are very similar, but in which time followed a different path.  A good example of of a 1B world is 1BPILGRIM.  The POD for this world was 1620.  The Pilgrims landed, but immediately established a new country.  The Revolutionary War was fought 150 years earlier, and the Brits won.  They didn’t get the last laugh, though.  Pilgrims kept coming and coming to the new world and started a terrorism campaign that lasted 100 years.  By 1740 the British pulled out to Canada and the Christian States of America (C.S.A.) was born.  By now, the CSA is established as a world power (though not the only, by far).  The CSA is not a pleasant place to visit.  They live under strict Protestant Christian law.  There is no alcohol, taking the Lord’s name in vain, or premarital sexuality involved.  Also, no Catholics, Jews, or Atheists allowed.  They did free the slaves a century before we did, though.  Thankfully, their technology is 100 years behind ours so we didn’t have to worry about them coming over on Bridges to save us (they’ve since drifted away).” She shows you a slide of the CSA Flag:

CSA Flag

“I’ll be able to brief you one other worlds in more detail as your training allows.”

Click here to hear about the history of time travel and post here when you’re ready to speak with Colonel Hodgeson.

Explanation1

Dr. Farnsworth takes a deep breath and starts slowly:

“I’m going to explain this as best I can, but you really need a Ph.D. in mathematics and/or Quantum Physics to understand the details of how this all works.  In a nutshell, it goes like this.  We live in 3+1 dimensions.  The three that we can see and move through freely (up/down, side/side, front/ back) and the one we can move through in one way (time, we only move forward).  That doesn’t mean that is all there is.  As far as we can tell there are 26 dimensions.  I can’t show you a model or a drawing, because we can’t perceive them that way.  We can’t physcially exist in fifth and higher dimensions.  Think of a 2-dimensional drawing coming to life in our world.  It would have no form.  We may be able to move about in the fourth dimension (time), but we can’t figure out to do that.”

“What we have been able to figure out is how to do essentially “ride” the higher dimensions into other worlds parallel to ours.  We think that time splits like a garden path, constantly forking and splitting of into new worlds. Eventually we think these all reconsolidate, but from where we’re standing in time there may be an infinite number of alternate worlds with different histories than ours.”

“What saves us from being invaded by technologically superior timelines on a daily basis is that the worlds are always moving along the dimensional streams.  Even when you have the technology only a few worlds are open to travel at any given time.  And, as I said, it takes an incredible amount of energy to move even a person.  We suppose that any world capable of producing that amount of energy would have no need to invade us.  We’d be like Neaderthals to them.”

“Some worlds stay close enough to us (if you want to think about it that way) to be open for years; some for a few days, hours, or less.  We haven’t really been able to figure out a pattern to which worlds open up at which times, but we are getting better at seeing them coming.  I guess we’ll have to settle for that for a while.  We think that well over a hundred worlds come into contact with us each year, although most are only open for a day or less. Of those we are able to investigate about fifty or so each year.”

“When a new world comes on-line we send over a probe (essentially similar to the landers sent to Mars) that is programmed to record basics: temperature, atmospheric content, nearby topography, electronic transmissions, and a brief audio/video recording.  If it looks like it is safe for people, we send in volunteers like you.”

“Any questions?”

You can hear more about the history of travel between worlds here and of different worlds that have been documented here.  When you are ready to meet with Colonel Hodgeson again, indicate on this page.