ALL NOVEL In Which The Scene Is Set
Many ways have been devised to try and teach non-Human races the fundamental concepts of time travel. At different points of time, Humans have compared it to a narrative, a colour-by-numbers worksheet, and a big, squiggly bowl of spaghetti. While this may work for immature Humans as a means of education, it leaves the majority of non-Humans confused and hungry. Instead, a more logical approach is required, even if the logistics of it are beyond the reach of all races.
In its structure, time is much like matter. Matter is made up of units which cannot become smaller, called atoms, and time is made up of Standard Time Units (STUs for short), which are its fundamental basis.
“But Humans, what about protons and electrons and strange quarks and neutrinos?”
“Shut up,” the Humans reply, and after giving it some thought add “we’re not saying minutes and seconds don’t exist, just that STU’s are the building blocks of time. It’s an analogy.”
After some time spent debating the merits, or lack thereof, of analogies, the analogy is abandoned and a new approach devised.
Each universe has a sequential order in which time occurs within that universe, and which is how time is experienced by its inhabitants. These sequential orders are composed of all the Standard Time Units laid end to end, in the correct specific order. Each Standard Time Unit is approximately four Human hours, so for even the two shortest-lived universes, there are a lot. For the sake of simplicity, the Humans try to go with 10.
“There are no universes that only lasted 40 Human hours!”
For the sake of simplicity, the Humans decide to go with ‘n’.
In the sequential order, the STUs can be lined up as 1, 2, 3,…n-2, n-1, n. However, chronologically (which is the way that space time progresses), they can be in any order: 4538, 36, 111945, n-1, 2. This is due to the different ways the universes interact.
The Sequential-Chronological (SC) Universe is the exception to this rule: created by Dr Enfendore when he developed the Space-Time Machine, its STUs are experienced in the ‘correct’ order: 1, 2, 3, …, n-2, n-1, n. At this point, the Humans decide to try a chart, to see if that will assist with the explanation.
STRU (right)
Universe (down)
SC
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Hypothetical Universe A
4
6
1
8
2
5
3
7
Hypothetical Universe B
6
7
5
3
4
2
8
1
Hypothetical Universe C
7
5
4
2
1
8
6
3
Once a moment has passed, it has passed chronologically. There is no going back in time. However, by travelling to another universe, waiting for the Standard Time Unit to pass, and then returning to the original universe, an individual can find themselves at a completely different moment in time. This is colloquially known as stream jumping; it was discovered by Dr Enfendore when he first created his Space-Time Machine and reappeared several months before he’d left.
It was sheer fluke that he landed so close, and hiding from his past self was easier said than done.
Undoubtedly, the structure of the Space-Time continuum would have been discovered eventually, using the extreme gravity of black holes or by hurtling Humans along in space vessels travelling the speed of light. However, since up until that point all attempts to achieve these feats had resulted in a gruesome death for the individual involved, Dr Enfendore saved everyone time and heartache.
Saved everyone, that was, except his own universe: in his quest to gain understanding and mastery over the secrets of space time he created the SC Universe. Doing so released a wave of energy so powerful it destabilised and imploded his home universe, as well as all those within it- including himself.
Unfortunately, even with the table and without the analogy, most non-Human races can’t comprehend the concepts behind the structure of the Space-Time continuum and the multiverse at large. This provides the Time Managers at the Bureau of Space-Time Affairs job security, as their raison d’ètre is fishing wayward souls out of incorrect times and places (their secondary job is recruiting more Time Managers, prompting some to accuse it of being a Tetrahedron Plot).
It is in the Time Management Office of the Space-Time Bureau, in the commercial district of the SC, that all this information may become relevant to someone not directly involved.