In an attempt to bring TSF into a full circle, I am starting a 4th series.
I will do my best, but chapter updates will be a little slow (slower then
normal that is :) ) with Genesis. Genesis is my attempt to explain all the
mysteries of TSF and some of EQ, all the while making an interesting story
and confusing the heck of the reader, just like the original TSF ^_^ One of
the major elements (if not the very backbone) of Genesis is Time Tripping,
it is essentially the key to everything and how well you understand the
flow of time dictates how much sense Genesis makes to you. I will do my
best to ease into it and not to make it more confusing then it already is.
While I don't what to just flat out tell you how time flow works (cause that would just spoil the story..Plus it is a lot of theoretical physics and such..the kind of mental work that makes aspirin makers rich ^_^ ) I will give you a few hints to help you grasp it.
1. Your personal view of time and the actual flow of history (past, present and future) are completely separate but interlocked.
2. No matter how impossible it seems, or how snarled it may become, no matter how hard you may try; there are NO paradoxes in time. The old "if I could go back in time and kill myself what would happen thing", just doesn't work. Easily put, despite your view point into the flow of time, events have already occurred and nothing you may try to do in the past will change anything. E.g. No matter how hard you may try to kill yourself in the past, you won't, on the basis that you exist in the here now. This brings up a lot of thought by philosophers and thinkers, in this way time flows, does free will exist or is everything predestined? Trippy isn't it ^_^
3. If the above doesn't make any sense what so ever, or if you need clarification watch the movie "12 Monkeys" or read the short fiction "By his bootstraps" and the novel "The Door into Summer" by Robert A .Heinlein(He is the man :) ) But don't worry if all of this is a bit heady ^_^ I'd wont really come into play until around the third or fourth chapter.
-------------------- The Shadow Falls: Genesis --------------------
The AG surged making everyone somewhat queasy as the [i] Too much Free Time[/i] departed the atmosphere. As if we didn't have enough problems...When it settled down, we began to make last minute checks on our equipment, Assault Rifles, grenades, impact static shielding, all okay. They had been checked over dozens of times before we even lifted off, but we wanted to be sure. The fate of everything depended on this mission, our homes, our families, Norrath itself.
For as long as anyone could remember, Norrath was dying, mana the mysterious energy that gave sorcercor's their power, the substance that was the start of life, was fading away. It was estimated that Norrath would soon be out of mana within 3 generations and then devoid of life within 5 years afterwards.
Norrath Spacy, a composite of the United Federation of Norrath and the mega- corparation En-gen, had been proclaiming over and over about their secret research program called Genesis. Genesis had been claimed to be able to restore Norrath, to bring back the life giving mana, but the research was costly so we need your support! Donate to today! Buy Genesis bonds! Propaganda..lies. Well only partial lies lie of omissions. Genesis could restore Norrath, but at a terrible cost.
The restoration is created through a manipulation of stolen technology from the Orrosh/Kadandra war..Reality tripping...Norrath would be recreated to the way it was but at the price of the instant erasure of any living thing caught in the effector's range, wiped out from existence. The only ones who would populate the new Norrath would be those specially selected by Norrath Spacy to live on their deep space facility Aurora, which also housed the Genesis device.
We wouldn't let that happen, my name is Dillon Royate; I am a member of Judgment, the resistance, the only ones who truly understand what Genesis is. We are hated and feared by the general population because of our stance against Genesis, but if only they knew, if only they would have listened to us.
The ship bucked violently. "Missiles incoming! Going to evasive maneuvers, hold on to your butts!" Called Mia over the intercom
I grabbed onto the nearest pole I could reach and held on for dear life. The Ship pitched yawed, rolled, flipped upside down and rolled end over end, in a desperate tempt to dodge the missiles as we fell down to Aurora.
"There too many of them!!! Clamp your helmets and brace for impact!!!!"
The wall across from me of the carrier, disappeared some of our compatriots where lost instantly sucked out into the nothingness of vacuum.. Our speed then began to pick up as we were caught in to the gravity well of Aurora, more and more of our little ship vanished as we went down.
I woke up 30 minutes later inside Aurora, some kind of greenhouse. Massive in size, almost 2 miles wide and high, it looked like it would have been quite pretty, but what plants that hadn't been sucked out during decomp had already wilted and dyed.
/Radio Check Alfa Bravo! This is Dillon! Anybody come in!/
Silence...was I the only one alive?...had we come all this way, only to fail? No I won't let my family down!
|Intruder surrender! Defense droids are inbound! Surrender or you will be terminated.| Came across my radio, an unknown femine voice
"LIKE HELL I WILL!"
Bullets began bouncing of the hull of the wrecked carrier, I took a breath to orient myself simultaneously clicking on my static's and dashed away from the wreck. Not a moment too soon, as it blew up behind me. I tumbled into a roll, turning 180 to return fire.
Its funny what an airless environment does to a firefight, it is eerie and really disable one's reflexes. Without something to vibrate, there is no sound in vacuum. No sound...no whooshing noise to alert you of an incoming rocket, other wise I would never have allowed myself to get caught square in the chest by one.
I woke up about 30 minutes later ... again. This time I was in some room, obviously still on Aurora. From the way, it was laid out it seemed to be the control room, not that I could do anything aside from gaze around and scratch, I was naked, stripped of all my equipment stuck behind some sort of containment field . Not really surprising, Norrath Spacy was always ahead of everyone, especially when it came to technology.
|You are awake Dillon. Good, I hope my droids did not harm you severely.| a familiar voice spoke.
"Who and for that matter where are you?"
|I have no name but I am all around you. The sparer and keeper of your life. I am the master computer of the Aurora Station.|
"Great, a talking calculator..."
|Far from it...but I can see why you would hold some animosity towards myself and Norrath Spacy. The Reality Tripper is a horrible device.|
"Huh?" That being the only brilliant remark I could make at the moment.
|I may be a computer system of Quatain casings and fractal memory patterns, but I do have feelings Dillon. One of the benefits or downsides of being sentient, depending on how you look at it. The Reality Tripper is horrible project, ah but what to do...|
"I think it is fairly obvious! If you're the master computer, then stop the Genesis from activating!"
|It isn't so simple Dillon, when my creators realized my sentience and my emotions, they separated the Reality Tripper from systems and locked my into a programming loop. They where afraid and rightly so, that I may not like the project and may attempt to shut it down. There is nothing I can do but sit back and watch the fun...if you will pardon my perverse sense of humor.|
"Some 'master' computer you are. Well, if you can't do anything, why not let me go! I can destroy or disable it somehow!"
|Impossible.|
"Let me try!!!"
|You would die, and for a hopeless cause.|
"I must try!!! My family, my friends!!"
|You do not understand Dillon, the only reason you are still alive is because I have been helping you to my fullest extent. The missile batteries having such poor aim at the Judgment carriers, the droids not tearing you to pieces. If I hadn't detonated that missile with your name on it prematurely, you would have been vapor. Forever destined to walk the cosmos as little particles of space dust. Intricatly waxing and waning...well nevermind I say to much.|
"..."
|And besides, even if for some reason I decided to let you go, the driods right outside would kill you, and even if some how you made it passed them, the Tripper is 25 miles away subjectively. You wouldn't make it in time.|
It was too much, all this way to fail. To fail my family, my friends...For the first time, that I could remember, I began to cry at the hopelessness of it all..
|If it will make you feel better, you should know even thought the Tripper will go off, there are no Norrath Spacy aboard or within effector anchor radii. You Judgment picked a good time to attack the facility, what few skeleton crew onboard were killed by explosive decomp when you crashed landed into the greenhouse. Unfortunately, the attack also triggered a protection program within the Tripper computer system. Forcing it to activate prematurely.||
"..."
|Reality Tripper activation in t-minus 20 seconds|
The energy field around me dissipated and a cool brief breeze passed over my bare flesh.
"Reality Tripper in T-minus 15 seconds"
"What? Your voice has changed"
"Yes I know, come to the window"
I did so, and standing in front of the window looking out into space gazing upon the Blue/Green orb that is Norrath was turquoise colored girl. She seemed to be of elven descent, she was so beautiful...
"You're the master computer?"
"Yes, but please keep your pants zipped. This is just a projection for benefit. I thought it might be comforting to have something to ease your mind of what is about to happen. Tripper activation in T-minus 6 seconds"
I looked at my world one last time. It seemed so majestic...so lovely..I collapsed to my knees, my hands pressing against the window.
"Reality Tripper in 5....4.....3....2..Reality Anchor Effector activated...1......"
The lights and AG flickered off, causing me to begin to float in free fall. The pitch blackness and lack of glare and distortion made the scene all that more heartrending. I had failed...
"Reality Tripper ...Online!"
Norrath flickered, distorted, seeming to split into little blobs of ever- changing color and then back into one chunk in instants, changing, shapeshifting..Then it came back together but somewhat fuzzy as if some one was looking at it through a pair of glasses they didn't need.
It slowly sharpened, and for a moment I thought something had gone wrong, maybe the Genesis had malfunctioned! But upon a closer look, I knew it had succeeded...Norrath seemed so much bluer, the green lush forests where much more lush...the lost continent of Faydwer had returned after being destroyed so long ago.. It had worked..they were gone..forever...
The lights came back on and I crashed to the floor as the AG surged, power now having been restored. I wrenched my arm in the fall pretty badly, but I didn't feel the pain, my mind had gone numb at the horror I had just witnessed, I was still numb when the droids picked me up and carted me to the infirmary.
It wasn't until several days late that I left the infirmary. So much had happened..so much was lost...or so I thought..
|If you are feeling better Dillon, please follow my droid to the armory and suit up in your hard suit and equip any material you would so desire.|
I did so half heartily, not really caring about anything any more..Everything was gone and I was the last denizen of Norrath..I had been the only one to survive the attack and the only one beside the computer to be protected by the reality anchor.
Once fully suited and armed, I followed the droid to the command deck. The computer was using the projection again.
"Why am I suited up?"
"Because you are going to save Norrath."
"How?"
"Once the reality Tripper completed it's mission, the control of the Tripper was relinquished to my systems. I know have complete control of any reality changes."
"Does that mean?"
"No..I can't not bring back those that where erased by the change....life is too complex, too many variables. Impossible to Reality Trip. But it doesn't mean that something can't be done, that they can't be saved."
"Explain."
"The reality tripper works by changing things across dimensional space, though not the physical alternate dimensions that you know of from history books, but mathematical dimensions which substitute the...oh never mind it's complicated. Simply put the Tripper can not only affect reality but it can also affect time."
"I can go back and stop this from happening!"
"Pretty much...well. There are certain math...forget it. Yes. "
"Then send me back now!! Send me back long before this all happened! Send me back 150 years!"
"Here take this." A fragile looking device resembling some kind of compass floated in front of me, I took it and starred at it for a moment.
"You really don't have the mathematical ability to under stand what this thing does, but I guess you can understand this. It is a beacon, activate it and I will pull you back to the here- now."
"Good! Trip me back! 150 years! Hurry up !!"
"Well there is the matter of-"
"Damn it!! Trip me back!!!"
"Well..alright..Lock down your visor.....goodbye Dillon...."
The AG surged off and once again I was in free fall. I waited and waited for something to happened, but nothing did...I thought something had gone wrong...
"Come on!! Snap it up already!" I growled, I waited a few more minutes and then raised my visor...and realized I had made a terrible mistake...The computer had thrown me out of Aurora! Now I was stuck in space for the rest of soon to be short life.....Then I noticed something...the constellations...they seemed right, almost exactly like what I had seen from the command deck in the ship except they'd seemed to have drifted some what...like they do over time.....then it hit me. It worked! And then it really hit me. It worked a little to well, in my rush to get back I had neglected to think about where I would appear in the past. Aurora hadn't even been on the drawing board yet...I was doomed to asphyxiation... to die floating in space.
Wait! The beacon!! All I had to do was press it and hopefully, I would get sent back to the present...I thumbed the switch and it shattered.damn it I knew the thing looked to fragile. I really was doomed..
[Do not fear...I shall protect you]
Now who is it!
[I am everything and everyone. I am the Alfa and the Omega, the beginning and the end....I am the one who goes by many titles but has no true name. I am the Void]
A bluish light of spectral energy combed around me, the light and the voice seemed familiar...wait... ..It just couldn't be...there was just no way. ...The Master computer?
----------------- End of Genesis 1
While I don't what to just flat out tell you how time flow works (cause that would just spoil the story..Plus it is a lot of theoretical physics and such..the kind of mental work that makes aspirin makers rich ^_^ ) I will give you a few hints to help you grasp it.
1. Your personal view of time and the actual flow of history (past, present and future) are completely separate but interlocked.
2. No matter how impossible it seems, or how snarled it may become, no matter how hard you may try; there are NO paradoxes in time. The old "if I could go back in time and kill myself what would happen thing", just doesn't work. Easily put, despite your view point into the flow of time, events have already occurred and nothing you may try to do in the past will change anything. E.g. No matter how hard you may try to kill yourself in the past, you won't, on the basis that you exist in the here now. This brings up a lot of thought by philosophers and thinkers, in this way time flows, does free will exist or is everything predestined? Trippy isn't it ^_^
3. If the above doesn't make any sense what so ever, or if you need clarification watch the movie "12 Monkeys" or read the short fiction "By his bootstraps" and the novel "The Door into Summer" by Robert A .Heinlein(He is the man :) ) But don't worry if all of this is a bit heady ^_^ I'd wont really come into play until around the third or fourth chapter.
-------------------- The Shadow Falls: Genesis --------------------
The AG surged making everyone somewhat queasy as the [i] Too much Free Time[/i] departed the atmosphere. As if we didn't have enough problems...When it settled down, we began to make last minute checks on our equipment, Assault Rifles, grenades, impact static shielding, all okay. They had been checked over dozens of times before we even lifted off, but we wanted to be sure. The fate of everything depended on this mission, our homes, our families, Norrath itself.
For as long as anyone could remember, Norrath was dying, mana the mysterious energy that gave sorcercor's their power, the substance that was the start of life, was fading away. It was estimated that Norrath would soon be out of mana within 3 generations and then devoid of life within 5 years afterwards.
Norrath Spacy, a composite of the United Federation of Norrath and the mega- corparation En-gen, had been proclaiming over and over about their secret research program called Genesis. Genesis had been claimed to be able to restore Norrath, to bring back the life giving mana, but the research was costly so we need your support! Donate to today! Buy Genesis bonds! Propaganda..lies. Well only partial lies lie of omissions. Genesis could restore Norrath, but at a terrible cost.
The restoration is created through a manipulation of stolen technology from the Orrosh/Kadandra war..Reality tripping...Norrath would be recreated to the way it was but at the price of the instant erasure of any living thing caught in the effector's range, wiped out from existence. The only ones who would populate the new Norrath would be those specially selected by Norrath Spacy to live on their deep space facility Aurora, which also housed the Genesis device.
We wouldn't let that happen, my name is Dillon Royate; I am a member of Judgment, the resistance, the only ones who truly understand what Genesis is. We are hated and feared by the general population because of our stance against Genesis, but if only they knew, if only they would have listened to us.
The ship bucked violently. "Missiles incoming! Going to evasive maneuvers, hold on to your butts!" Called Mia over the intercom
I grabbed onto the nearest pole I could reach and held on for dear life. The Ship pitched yawed, rolled, flipped upside down and rolled end over end, in a desperate tempt to dodge the missiles as we fell down to Aurora.
"There too many of them!!! Clamp your helmets and brace for impact!!!!"
The wall across from me of the carrier, disappeared some of our compatriots where lost instantly sucked out into the nothingness of vacuum.. Our speed then began to pick up as we were caught in to the gravity well of Aurora, more and more of our little ship vanished as we went down.
I woke up 30 minutes later inside Aurora, some kind of greenhouse. Massive in size, almost 2 miles wide and high, it looked like it would have been quite pretty, but what plants that hadn't been sucked out during decomp had already wilted and dyed.
/Radio Check Alfa Bravo! This is Dillon! Anybody come in!/
Silence...was I the only one alive?...had we come all this way, only to fail? No I won't let my family down!
|Intruder surrender! Defense droids are inbound! Surrender or you will be terminated.| Came across my radio, an unknown femine voice
"LIKE HELL I WILL!"
Bullets began bouncing of the hull of the wrecked carrier, I took a breath to orient myself simultaneously clicking on my static's and dashed away from the wreck. Not a moment too soon, as it blew up behind me. I tumbled into a roll, turning 180 to return fire.
Its funny what an airless environment does to a firefight, it is eerie and really disable one's reflexes. Without something to vibrate, there is no sound in vacuum. No sound...no whooshing noise to alert you of an incoming rocket, other wise I would never have allowed myself to get caught square in the chest by one.
I woke up about 30 minutes later ... again. This time I was in some room, obviously still on Aurora. From the way, it was laid out it seemed to be the control room, not that I could do anything aside from gaze around and scratch, I was naked, stripped of all my equipment stuck behind some sort of containment field . Not really surprising, Norrath Spacy was always ahead of everyone, especially when it came to technology.
|You are awake Dillon. Good, I hope my droids did not harm you severely.| a familiar voice spoke.
"Who and for that matter where are you?"
|I have no name but I am all around you. The sparer and keeper of your life. I am the master computer of the Aurora Station.|
"Great, a talking calculator..."
|Far from it...but I can see why you would hold some animosity towards myself and Norrath Spacy. The Reality Tripper is a horrible device.|
"Huh?" That being the only brilliant remark I could make at the moment.
|I may be a computer system of Quatain casings and fractal memory patterns, but I do have feelings Dillon. One of the benefits or downsides of being sentient, depending on how you look at it. The Reality Tripper is horrible project, ah but what to do...|
"I think it is fairly obvious! If you're the master computer, then stop the Genesis from activating!"
|It isn't so simple Dillon, when my creators realized my sentience and my emotions, they separated the Reality Tripper from systems and locked my into a programming loop. They where afraid and rightly so, that I may not like the project and may attempt to shut it down. There is nothing I can do but sit back and watch the fun...if you will pardon my perverse sense of humor.|
"Some 'master' computer you are. Well, if you can't do anything, why not let me go! I can destroy or disable it somehow!"
|Impossible.|
"Let me try!!!"
|You would die, and for a hopeless cause.|
"I must try!!! My family, my friends!!"
|You do not understand Dillon, the only reason you are still alive is because I have been helping you to my fullest extent. The missile batteries having such poor aim at the Judgment carriers, the droids not tearing you to pieces. If I hadn't detonated that missile with your name on it prematurely, you would have been vapor. Forever destined to walk the cosmos as little particles of space dust. Intricatly waxing and waning...well nevermind I say to much.|
"..."
|And besides, even if for some reason I decided to let you go, the driods right outside would kill you, and even if some how you made it passed them, the Tripper is 25 miles away subjectively. You wouldn't make it in time.|
It was too much, all this way to fail. To fail my family, my friends...For the first time, that I could remember, I began to cry at the hopelessness of it all..
|If it will make you feel better, you should know even thought the Tripper will go off, there are no Norrath Spacy aboard or within effector anchor radii. You Judgment picked a good time to attack the facility, what few skeleton crew onboard were killed by explosive decomp when you crashed landed into the greenhouse. Unfortunately, the attack also triggered a protection program within the Tripper computer system. Forcing it to activate prematurely.||
"..."
|Reality Tripper activation in t-minus 20 seconds|
The energy field around me dissipated and a cool brief breeze passed over my bare flesh.
"Reality Tripper in T-minus 15 seconds"
"What? Your voice has changed"
"Yes I know, come to the window"
I did so, and standing in front of the window looking out into space gazing upon the Blue/Green orb that is Norrath was turquoise colored girl. She seemed to be of elven descent, she was so beautiful...
"You're the master computer?"
"Yes, but please keep your pants zipped. This is just a projection for benefit. I thought it might be comforting to have something to ease your mind of what is about to happen. Tripper activation in T-minus 6 seconds"
I looked at my world one last time. It seemed so majestic...so lovely..I collapsed to my knees, my hands pressing against the window.
"Reality Tripper in 5....4.....3....2..Reality Anchor Effector activated...1......"
The lights and AG flickered off, causing me to begin to float in free fall. The pitch blackness and lack of glare and distortion made the scene all that more heartrending. I had failed...
"Reality Tripper ...Online!"
Norrath flickered, distorted, seeming to split into little blobs of ever- changing color and then back into one chunk in instants, changing, shapeshifting..Then it came back together but somewhat fuzzy as if some one was looking at it through a pair of glasses they didn't need.
It slowly sharpened, and for a moment I thought something had gone wrong, maybe the Genesis had malfunctioned! But upon a closer look, I knew it had succeeded...Norrath seemed so much bluer, the green lush forests where much more lush...the lost continent of Faydwer had returned after being destroyed so long ago.. It had worked..they were gone..forever...
The lights came back on and I crashed to the floor as the AG surged, power now having been restored. I wrenched my arm in the fall pretty badly, but I didn't feel the pain, my mind had gone numb at the horror I had just witnessed, I was still numb when the droids picked me up and carted me to the infirmary.
It wasn't until several days late that I left the infirmary. So much had happened..so much was lost...or so I thought..
|If you are feeling better Dillon, please follow my droid to the armory and suit up in your hard suit and equip any material you would so desire.|
I did so half heartily, not really caring about anything any more..Everything was gone and I was the last denizen of Norrath..I had been the only one to survive the attack and the only one beside the computer to be protected by the reality anchor.
Once fully suited and armed, I followed the droid to the command deck. The computer was using the projection again.
"Why am I suited up?"
"Because you are going to save Norrath."
"How?"
"Once the reality Tripper completed it's mission, the control of the Tripper was relinquished to my systems. I know have complete control of any reality changes."
"Does that mean?"
"No..I can't not bring back those that where erased by the change....life is too complex, too many variables. Impossible to Reality Trip. But it doesn't mean that something can't be done, that they can't be saved."
"Explain."
"The reality tripper works by changing things across dimensional space, though not the physical alternate dimensions that you know of from history books, but mathematical dimensions which substitute the...oh never mind it's complicated. Simply put the Tripper can not only affect reality but it can also affect time."
"I can go back and stop this from happening!"
"Pretty much...well. There are certain math...forget it. Yes. "
"Then send me back now!! Send me back long before this all happened! Send me back 150 years!"
"Here take this." A fragile looking device resembling some kind of compass floated in front of me, I took it and starred at it for a moment.
"You really don't have the mathematical ability to under stand what this thing does, but I guess you can understand this. It is a beacon, activate it and I will pull you back to the here- now."
"Good! Trip me back! 150 years! Hurry up !!"
"Well there is the matter of-"
"Damn it!! Trip me back!!!"
"Well..alright..Lock down your visor.....goodbye Dillon...."
The AG surged off and once again I was in free fall. I waited and waited for something to happened, but nothing did...I thought something had gone wrong...
"Come on!! Snap it up already!" I growled, I waited a few more minutes and then raised my visor...and realized I had made a terrible mistake...The computer had thrown me out of Aurora! Now I was stuck in space for the rest of soon to be short life.....Then I noticed something...the constellations...they seemed right, almost exactly like what I had seen from the command deck in the ship except they'd seemed to have drifted some what...like they do over time.....then it hit me. It worked! And then it really hit me. It worked a little to well, in my rush to get back I had neglected to think about where I would appear in the past. Aurora hadn't even been on the drawing board yet...I was doomed to asphyxiation... to die floating in space.
Wait! The beacon!! All I had to do was press it and hopefully, I would get sent back to the present...I thumbed the switch and it shattered.damn it I knew the thing looked to fragile. I really was doomed..
[Do not fear...I shall protect you]
Now who is it!
[I am everything and everyone. I am the Alfa and the Omega, the beginning and the end....I am the one who goes by many titles but has no true name. I am the Void]
A bluish light of spectral energy combed around me, the light and the voice seemed familiar...wait... ..It just couldn't be...there was just no way. ...The Master computer?
----------------- End of Genesis 1