Figure 1, Time interval jumped vs. energy required
In 1968 the first working time machine was built and tested. It was based, as is all time travel, on the concept of the wormhole. According to theory, wormholes are created inside black holes, where the force of gravity distorts space-time so severely that it becomes wrapped tightly around itself, creating a hole, or tunnel, leading to another location and another time. Unfortunately, anything going through such a tunnel would be disintegrated into its component sub-atomic particles, first by the gravitational forces of the black hole, and then by the stresses of the wormhole itself.
In 1965 Drs. Douglas Phillips, Anthony Newman, and Anne McGregor theorized that an artificial wormhole might be possible, one that would contain a core of normal space and be capable of transporting objects and even humans without destroying them. The US military funded a project to build a working model. It was successful, up to a point; Dr. Newman tested it on himself and was transported to the year 1912, unfortunately landing on board the Titanic shortly before it sank. When he could not be retrieved, Dr. Philips followed in order to rescue him from a dangerous situation. Despite repeated attempts, neither man was ever successfully recovered, and the project was shut down. (See Time Tunnel Project, 1968-69, see also report by Commander Alex Drake on the later, successful rescue of Phillips and Newman by Time Force.)
With this form of time travel having been proved to be unreliable and dangerous, no further experimentation was done until the year 2106, when Dr. Paul Quinn (a descendant of Dr. Anne McGregor) and his collaborator, Dr. Cecilia Zaskin (a descendant of Dr. Michael Zaskin, a prominent twenty-first century scientist - see Bio-Lab), developed the quantum theory of time transference, and a practical method of applying it to the older time tunnel model, which eventually resulted in the modern timehole generator.
According to this theory, stable and controllable transfers through time occur in quantum jumps, ranging from - hypothetically - zero (‘freezing’ the object in time) to as much time as the universe has existed. Perhaps counter-intuitively, time transfers involving shorter time periods require more energy than those for longer time intervals. For example, a zero-time transfer would take all the energy available in the universe, while a jump back to the ‘big bang’ would take a relatively trivial amount. Since energy requirements vs. time interval follow an exponential path (see below) which levels off at a jump of about 150 years, to all practical intents and purposes all time travel one would be likely to perform takes the same amount of energy.
There is an addition restriction to jump intervals. Being a process with a strong quantum character, time travel occurs in fixed quantities (quanta), meaning that one may jump approximately two hundred years or four hundred years, for example, but not an interval in between. (The exact time jump table of intervals may be found in Appendix C.) In practical terms, therefore, one may travel back in time exactly 199 years, two months, and 5 days, and forward in time the same amount, but one may not travel back 199 years and three months. The result of this restriction is that in each time period we are able to visit, there is a ‘corresponding’ time, with which we may interact. We are as powerless to reach or affect the immediate past and future of that exact time as the inhabitants of the past themselves. (There are exceptions to this rule, but only under unusual and severe circumstances.)
One fascinating possible explanation for this phenomenon is the ‘Quantum Destiny’ theory. It holds that the timeline tends to correct itself, that if a change is made to history, subsequent events will counteract that change, resulting in the same major events occurring but perhaps in a slightly different way. The example most often given is this: A time traveler kills the infant Hitler in an attempt to prevent the terrible events he caused as an adult. In twenty years, another person emerges in Hitler’s place, and steps into his role in history. Nothing has substantially changed. It is theorized that almost two hundred years, the minimum jump possible under most conditions, is the time required for disruptive events caused by temporal interference to be cancelled out.
Note, however, that some changes may be too great to be corrected by this natural process, resulting in a sudden, catastrophic alteration, a change which travels through time like a wave. This phenomenon is undeniably real, it has happened on at least one occasion, and our instruments have detected other shifts to alternate realities which Time Force fortunately was able to reverse.
While travel to our future is possible using current technology, early experiments in that area resulted in such strange events that planetary law now forbids forwards travel, and Time Force is actively engaged in enforcing that rule. There is the additional danger of someone from our time discovering too much about future events, and affecting the timeline. Fortunately, perhaps due to the personal risks involved, temporal offenders have shown little inclination to attempt it.
As many readers of this paper may know, I have personal experience of both the fascinating opportunities and the dangers of visiting our past. Let me add, then, the personal note that we should all be very grateful for the efforts of Time Force to control the technology of time travel, a technology with almost unlimited potential both for enlightenment and for destruction.