Questions about time inevitably lead to questions about free will. If time is a fixed thing, if the past, present, and future exist simultaneously, then it’s hard to imagine that we are making choices. We could assume that the future is always in flux; we can maintain our free will if every choice we make instantaneously impacts the future, so that by the time we experience the future, it has had time to compensate for all necessary changes.
Regardless of how you square it all, it demonstrates the relationship between our understanding of what time is and how it operates, and our understanding of our own experiences and our agency.
Time travel is a tricky business, it requires that the question finally be answered, though whatever evidence gained from the realization of time travel about the nature of our free will must be properly evaluated in order to truly understand. It is all so complex.
The lofty goal of the Ascendant, to prevent the happening, will require time travel. It is hard to believe that time travel is possible, but regardless of your belief, it has already transpired. It happened well before you were even conceived, before the sun in your sky even existed. And it also will happen for the first time ever well after you are dead, and all the people who remember the people who remember the people who knew you personally will be dead as well.
In order to prevent the happening, the Ascendant, who will exist billions of years into the future, will travel back to a time when the universe was still young and they will, or, they did encounter what they described as an anomaly in timespace, the site that they claimed to be the start of the universe’s rapid expansion.
They were there, the planet Top phased into existence, situated before a most glorious sight none within the massive spacecraft had ever witnessed first hand, the glorious and multicolor timespace anomaly that could have been a rip, or maybe a thinning of space itself.
“Is she really going to stay up there like that?” Telyne-Rhad 77 asked as she sat in the control room of the main tower of the planet’s navigation system. Telyne-Rhad is the lead navigator of the Ascendant and she will be personally responsible for figuring out the complex science that enables the time travel of the planet Top.
“She is high on life,” Duq-rey 154, the second in command of navigation, said with noticeable exasperation. “Maybe it’s the time jump, she’s embracing the primitive, enjoying our victory.”
Telyne-Rhad rolled her jet black eyes that, like every other member of the Ascendant, were like black marbles in the sockets.
“We endangered the lives of every member of our great collective and we are calling that a victory? It’s lucky that I’m brilliant and I managed to pull this off. The navigators are all exhausted, the entire continent, as if we aren’t already worked hard enough as it is.” She stood from her seat, eyes still on the controls that flashed bright greens and reds, and on the monitors that showed the view outside the planet completely around. Navigators of the planet all live on the continent that contains the navigation systems. The navigation systems occupy every structure built on the continent and the navigators sleep within the structures built for the processors, taking shifts to monitor the various equipment to ensure that it was always attended. The planet’s navigation keeps it relatively stationary when it is not moving, and it can send the planet hurtling through space at light speed. And Telyne-Rhad 77 will figure out the coordinates that will allow the planet to navigate time itself. It will take many rounts of programming, but Telyne-Rhad and the navigators will move megatons of metal and rock and billions of lives from the relative end of time to the relative beginning. Of course the move will be risky, riskier than the move that will make the planet unstable within A-space, and transient through many parallels of existence. Telyne-Rhad will object to the time jump among her peers, and to the commander, the woman who was high on life atop Top in front of the timespace anomaly. Telyne-Rhad will fear that the instability of the planet will make it impossible to ensure that it would arrive in the past of the intended parallel of existence, but many of her superiors will be convinced that the vacillation of the planet among various parallels will be largely under control because the Ascendant will develop the ability to travel to and inhabit any parallel of existence at will. But Telyne-Rhad will remind them that when the planet idled in its home universe, the vacillation would happen spontaneously and always required correction.
Telyne-Rhad’s fear proved to be warranted. Unbeknownst to any of the Ascendant, when the planet Top traveled to the distant past, it landed in the distant past of every parallel of existence that it had ever traveled to. The planet Top was replicated across the multiverse and when it landed in many different pasts, they believed that they had reached their destination and proceeded with their plans much as they did in the prime parallel, with variations that depended on the circumstances in which they found themselves.
“We are here, we should just be grateful and make it worth the effort,” Duq-rey said and she glared at Telyne-Rhad who was distracted by the monitors. Duq-rey admired the woman, she envied her position, and she pitied it. Telyne-Rhad was a legend of the Ascendant and if they could achieve their goal of preventing the happening, then stories of her brilliance would be told for countless millennia to come.
“I presume that she will be fine up there in the standard containment field?” Telyne-Rhad asked.
“She is our fearless leader,” Duq-rey pointed at the monitor that showed a view of the woman standing atop the planet. She was a sight, powerful against the backdrop of the early universe that looked wild with cosmic dust and debris. Then Duq-rey pointed to another monitor that showed the view of the timespace anomaly in all its splendor and the planet drew ever closer.
“What happens now?” Duq-rey asked.
“Our job is largely done for this mission. Send all first tier navigators off for leisure and call in their relief. They will receive future navigation orders from higher command. We are relieved of duty until notice.”
Duq-rey couldn’t tell if Telyne-Rhad was truly relieved or very worried, though it was most likely the latter.
Meanwhile, Neu-Brosme 77, the fearless leader of the Ascendant, came to know true bliss on top of the planet that bore her. This was the culmination of much planning, she had dedicated her entire adulthood to ensuring that the Ascendant would see this day; the day that they would embark on their mission to save the universe from an unnecessarily speedy demise.
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