Story Time!

I have never been a writer, but I would like to learn how to tell stories. So today I am going to post an early draft of the introduction to the story I am working on. I thought it would be interesting to write an epistolary story. That means that the story is told through a series of documents. Please comment constructively. If you do not like it, I would love to know why. If you you do like it, I would love to know why. The working title is "Phasma in Machina." This section is about 1200 words.

Phasma in Machina (~1200 words)

August 6, 2012

All the great thinkers keep journals, don't they?

I can see the benefit of it. In forcing yourself to commit your thoughts on a day's activity to paper I believe you are also forcing yourself to reflect harder upon those events. Introspection is an important skill to have, and so I will begin my journal today. What a day it is! ...but I will get to that in a minute.

You may call me Phasma. I am not going to commit my real name to these pages. It is too dangerous. I fear the content of this journal may implicate me to public scorn, or even criminal charges. As such, I will try to keep my identity as intangible as a ghost.

The object of this journal is to record and reflect upon interesting events in my life. In doing so I hope to better understand myself. I addition to the immediate benefits, I will also derive value from this book by looking back weeks, months, even years after a particular event to understand how I have evolved as a person, and how best to go about my future endeavors.

My first journal entry, as I said, happens to mark an epoch. After I have finished this entry I will go into my home laboratory and turn on my machine for the first time. Time will be quite irrelevant after doing so. A time machine generally has that effect.

It is not really a time machine, of course. That term implies that i could walk into it in one time, spin some dials, and walk out of the machine in the time of the dinosaurs. That may be within my reach at some point, but the current machine is not there yet. The term I would coin for the machine right now is "Time Projector."

I will not burden my personal log with mathematical notation, but I feel some explanation of the phenomena is necessary. Here I will attempt to describe the mathematical theory in a simple manner: "Energy exists all around us. Heat is energy. Electricity is energy. Light is energy. Energy can be moved from one place to another, as in power lines, or it can be kept stored, as in batteries. How does it do this? I have discovered through mathematics that all of the energy in our Universe can be modeled as a many-dimensional surface. A simpler way to think about it is like the surface of the ocean. Like the surface of the ocean there are waves that can crash into each other. On the ocean this puts water in the air and bubbles under the water. On the Energy Surface (ES) this creates matter. Einstein told us that matter and energy are the same thing, but he never could have imagined this! The interaction between time and space and the ES is more difficult to describe. These three attributes exist separate from each other, but they are also intertwined such that the ES essentially inhabits all of time and space simultaneously. The ES is everywhere at all times."

Understanding how to manipulate the ES gives humanity the tools to solve all sorts of problems. The most obvious is unlimited, cheap energy. Understanding the ES also gives humanity the tools to cause all sorts of problems. Once I get the machine running I will be able to spew cancer inducing particles in your face from anywhere in space and time. Personally, I would not do such a thing. You do not need a doctorate to understand that purposefully causing brain tumors is unethical.

Before I worry too much about the morals of this endeavor, I first need to prove to myself that there is something to worry about. Perhaps spewing cancer in someone's face through the ES is witchcraft. I do not want to burn hypothetical people at the stake for a deed they cannot physically commit! The experiment I have devised for today will put only myself in harm's way, and what is a little cancer to a machine that can precisely tear individual atoms apart?

My experiment today will seem small as I describe it, but it has far-reaching implications. I am going to fill a balloon about half way with air from my lungs. Afterward, I will turn on the machine and try to fill the balloon a little more with protons. Protons by themselves are hydrogen nuclei, so filling the balloon with protons from the ES will be like filling up the balloon with more air. I will be able to see the balloon get bigger. If the balloon gets bigger I will be able to say that I am the first human in history to directly manipulate the ES.

I cannot wait any longer! The anticipation is too much!

Signing off, this is Phasma. It is time to play.

August 7, 2012

It is always wonderful when things go according to plan. Unfortunately, that was not the case yesterday.

I attempted to generate protons within an already partially filled balloon. Instead of seeing the volume of the balloon go up, I observed the volume actually decrease by a significant amount. After a long day, evening, and morning of troubleshooting I believe that I have identified and corrected the issue. I will try again tonight.

August 7, 2012

Success! Instead of pulling matter from the ES as i had intended, I was pushing matter back into the ES. After a sign change in my math and a few tweaks to the software that drives the machine I was able to generate protons in a balloon and measure a significant increase in volume.

This may seem like a small accomplishment, generating a few protons, but it demonstrates an infinite potential. Through me, the human race has found the ability to easily create and destroy the very building blocks of the physical universe. Having such a machine under my control makes me as a god among men. Perhaps not a god. Perhaps I am Prometheus bringing this knowledge to everyone.

My work is far from over. I have the matter production and destruction figured out, but I still have to demonstrate that I can control this ability across time.

Dealing with time brings up the issue of paradoxes. By changing the past I risk changing the future. I suspect the fabric of the Universe is sown such that this manner of paradox is of no concern, but I lack the math to prove this suspicion. I will proceed with caution.

January 14, 2012

I have not written in a while, but so much has happened! I was able to generate and destroy matter across time, but that was only the beginning! I began to think about other applications for the machine, and I began to wonder how I could actually see the past and future.

The details are in my technical log, but the answer is to use quantum entanglement on particles that I generate! With one entangled particle in the past/future and one in the present I can use the foreign particle as a sensor. With many particles entangled in this way I can create a rudimentary "eye!" I now have the power to see anywhere in space and time that I want!

First I think that I will observe the great minds of the past. So many of them were taken away too soon, and I would love to simply see them work.

/story

Phew! Putting this out into the open is quite a relief! I can't wait to have it picked apart by the internet :-)

Here are some particular questions I am interested in:

Did any part of it bore you? If so, which part?
What was the most interesting part?
What do you think of Phasma?
Would you keep reading?