✎ time_travel [chronos]

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====== Time Travel ======
===== Summary =====
  * Time travel is possible.
  * The first (and so far only) public demonstration of the CHRONOS machine was at the Ananke conference.
  * Reports indicated it was successful, but not much information was known by the world at large before the Ananke was destroyed.
  * A CHRONOS machine can only be used to travel to a time and place where a CHRONOS machine was active.
  * The exact nature of how this affects causality is unknown.

===== The CHRONOS machine =====

In the years prior to the Ananke conference, the [[CHRONOS]] project accidentally discovered time travel.  The actual theory behind how this works is still somewhat unclear, but with more research and small scale testing it became clear that activation of a CHRONOS device allowed travel back to any time when a CHRONOS machine was active for a short time (deliberate forward travel, except as a return journey, does not appear to be possible).

The CHRONOS machine activation follows the timeline below.  Once this is started, it cannot be stopped:
  * T=0 - Activation begins.  Travel back to this point from a future CHRONOS machine is possible.
  * T=12 - CHRONOS stable, anything in the machine will be transported to the vicinity of the target CHRONOS activation in the past.
  * T=13 - CHRONOS closes, anything which was sent back is now returned to the present - potentially carrying small items which can be contained within objects sent back.
  * T=24 - Cooldown ends.  The machine can now be activated again.  Additionally, if a future CHRONOS machine is travelling back to this activation, anything which was sent back by the future machine is now returned to the present (assuming it has not returned already).

The length of each time step is variable - for example, in the first CHRONOS machine created accidentally each unit corresponded to 1 millisecond (so the CHRONOS was stable 12ms after activation, and closed 1ms later).  In the CHRONOS machine on the Ananke, each unit corresponded to one hour with activation beginning at midnight - allowing an hour long demonstration at noon each day.  In the CHRONOS machine used in the present day, each unit corresponds to one day, allowing a full day of travel back to the Ananke every 24 days.

Each CHRONOS machine can only travel to a given activation of another CHRONOS machine once.  A CHRONOS machine cannot travel back to its own previous activation.  A CHRONOS machine cannot be transported back in time in another CHRONOS machine.

===== Effects of Time Travel =====

The full details of the causality of time travel are not currently known.  Changes made in the past will persist, but it is not certain what happens when these changes directly affect the past of the users of the CHRONOS machine (or the past of the machine itself) - early experiments were cautious, but at the present time the risk is deemed worth it.

In theory, it is possible to shield the location of a CHRONOS machine so that it would be unaffected by any changes to causality.  This has not been tested, and relies on one of several competing theories as to the mechanics of time travel.

===== The Ananke Demonstration =====

The most publicly known test of time travel happened aboard the Ananke.  Reports from the early days of the conference say that spectators were sent back to an isolated chamber, and instructed to place a note in a box, along with a signed and secure chronometer.  The chamber was set up such that at the end of the tests, the boxes would be stored securely, and the rest of the chamber would be destroyed.  The boxes were not opened until after their respective test, to avoid any paradoxical effects on causality.

On opening the boxes, the notes (and occasional personal items, put in as further proof) were present, along with the chronometer showing the actual time passed since the point the spectators had travelled to.

It is unknown how many of these precautions were necessary, or what would have happened if they were not taken.
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