Everyone wonders what would happen if they could warn themselves about what’s coming. Stand back–I'm going to do science to find out.
This war wasn’t something you thought a lot about until someone used the energy of half a million megatons to lob a chunk of the moon at you and kill your whole species. Before that, you sort of thought it was a regrettable result of two vastly different cultures competing for resources and the inevitable short-sightedness of competitive starvation economy models.
I mean you thought about the war...you had to. Your funding came chiefly from designing new and interesting technologies that could help in the war effort, but usually the jarheads only thought of the military applications. You’d probably have found funding with or without a war, so it wasn’t like you needed the conflict for grants. But the idea was most of the technologies you worked on would have an amazing practical application once the military got through using it to build a better bomb.
Pity to see all that go to waste.
It’s not that you had no opinions either. The US leading Earth meant that all the jingoistic manipulation that the US used to establish the illusion of cultural superiority and it was quite apparent that the world at large did not approve of the terrible treatment of androids, to say nothing of the flagging political will that must be continually bolstered through fairly obvious propaganda and other social controls. You didn’t moralize much because you were about the science, and you’d seen many times the rabbit holes down which brilliant minds go when they try to rattle the chains of the more easily persuaded.
Look it's not like you call them simple or anything...
You’ve worked with android scientists. Their clarity of thought is spectacular. With your imaginative inspiration and their ability to account for X factors in controlled experimentation, you progressed in leaps and bounds. The exodus was a very unfortunate example of scapegoating. The debate about whether androids have souls is basically a deflection since humans do not have souls. But convincing humans that they’re not really anything more than complex biological machines with capable data processing clumps of neurons is...well, it's difficult.
Now you feel like maybe your neutrality may not have been in everybody’s best interest--seeing as you’re all about to die. That's a pretty good indication that you should have weighed in sooner.
However….all hope is not lost. If you can keep your head together. At least long enough.
With the moon coming down, you’ve basically spent the last week trying out heroin. I mean why not, right? You always wondered, and didn't try it because of the consequences. But now you're dead either way.
You had to sit through some meetings with mucky mucks telling you that it was your "duty" to come up with something but those numbskulls don’t realize that quantum means small, not “big ol chunk of moon going to land on our heads.” As the hour of impact approached you basically ODed, but with enough of your modified extended release tablets that you would fizzle out in mindless bliss right around the impact.
That’s when you had the vision--flying on heroin. Using only applications you’ve worked out and equipment you've already got in the lab, you think it might be possible to avert this disaster. The chief of staff was supposed to be here. You have to close the doors with only the same people who were in this room before, but the chief of staff was going to say a few words first. Where is he???
Oh god...here comes another wave of the good stuff……
Dr. Casey El Amin Extra Page of “Message in a bottle rules”
Feel free to ham this up with as much technobabble as you like. Also please remember that you will get more high as the first scene goes on.
You see, many androids don’t die if they die. They just upload back on the moon as long as there is a parallel body attuned to their quantum actuator. These actuators exist in the same quantum state. (Like an ansible in LeGuin novels.) Otherwise the information could be jammed, blocked, wouldn’t all get there, could be picked up by radio telescopes to find out what androids know, etc. It’s some of the most sophisticated quantum technology ever invented.
Working with Dr Nakamura, you have been able to “send” a message through an androids quantum actuator. Not much of a message since it’s largely intended to be an unconscious process. More like a short sentence--about 150 characters.
By using a neutrino pulse, you can punch a wormhole through to five years ago when all the people you’ve summoned were also in a room together. With humans, it’s hard to know what will get through and affect their past selves. A few thoughts, some random images, probably a feeling. But with the androids you are reasonably sure you can send a message back through time.
You can WARN yourselves what’s about to happen. This whole terrible disaster can be averted by changing what happens five years ago. The problem is getting the androids to cooperate. You’re going to have to impress upon everyone how important that will be. And that might not be easy since they've basically won the war.
Quick Run Down of Rules (you’re going to answer these questions a lot)
1- - Each synth can send their own message. So Avery, and the Mark 1 model you’ve brought can send a message. Also Kai, but you would have to expose him….might be worth it though.
2- The room must be as quantumly similar as possible. Same room, same people, as much as can be made identical. If, for some reason, someone were to DIE in this room it will change the quantum fluctuations. Even one life might be too much difference between the two moments. It might be enough that the whole thing wouldn’t work. You need this room and that room five years ago to be as close as possible.
3- You MUST send your message before atmospheric impact. The wormhole will use GOBS of energy, and the fireball is going to do the kind of damage that would take out power grids on a global level. So you have about 90 minutes to get the synths on board and figure out your message. That should be plenty of time, right?
4- Here’s where it gets weird. Your quantum perturbation will only last a couple of hours. You have to affect the time stream five years ago (you can't simply write yourself a letter or make a mental note not to do something bad). This isn’t a Bill and Ted movie. You will all have a consciousness in one timeline while any changes you make will happen in another. A DEATH COULD WREAK HAVOC ON THE TIMELINE. And if there is not some kind of established consensus five years ago and focus of will to alter the timeline (at least a majority) it won't work.
5- Doctor Nakamura is the robotics and cybernetics expert. They know how the information transfer will work, how to do it, and how much information will transfer before the quantum actuator will fail. They're basically saying 150 characters, but they will have to be part of the process. They just know more about androids than you do.
Casey Skills and Contacts
Role playing note!!!: While your situation can (and likely will) lead to some moments of levity, you are not intended as a “goofy” character. (How you choose to play is up to you, of course.) Please understand that being progressively more high on heroin is intensely frustrating for someone who values their clarity of thought and is trying to do some science. Who knew you were going to need to do anything but sit around and die of pleasure? These waves are an interruption. Also, don’t forget that you ultimately took a LETHAL DOSE. No matter how good it feels, no matter if you succeed or not, at the end, you die. That's not good news when you've figured out how to possibly avoid doomsday.
High level knowledge: You are very smart and educated. While you don’t know every bit of esoteric knowledge, you have a high level understanding of most science and math, expert understanding of quantum mechanics and physics, you speak English, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish, and you know a lot about almost everything. Theoretically you could learn a new skill in a reduced time, but this will not come into play in the scope of the game.
Smacked: During scene 1 you will get progressively more high as your extended release tablets begin to kick in. Have fun with the role play. But each time an ST comes to let you know that you are experiencing another wave of euphoria, you may also ask a single yes/no question about something in game that will come to you in some sort of drug addled vision. You don't get the answer AS a yes or no (more like a trippy vision). You can’t see the future though so questions like “Will this plan work” won’t be possible. But there are very few other limitations.
Logical/Less emotional: You have a very, very logical mind and lack the rash impulsiveness that defines many humans--even totally high on heroin. You may petition the ST’s to help you determine logical outcomes or whether something seems logical to your character. You cannot be affected by superfluous logic. However you are often overly dispassionate. You tend to not care about important things until it’s too late.
Contacts
Reverend Paris Antonia is a of a religious fanatic. You’ve somehow become friends with them over the past few years. The reverend has always been interested in you science to save humanity, not just building the better bomb. You know they built an “arc” and sent their family, flock, and quite a bit of scientific data, into space to hopefully find a new world to live on. It’s tragic, really because there's absolutely no chance that they've developed the technology needed to colonize another world--those people are dead.
Dr Tohru Nakamura is the opposite of the reverend. Tohru is a robotics master; they love everything about androids. Tohru and Paris could talk circles around each other like nobody’s business. Tohru is probably your best friend. You’ve gotten on so well for so long, this has got to work.
Reese Domino is the jack-ass who kept shutting down your funding through the office of the press secretary. You did your research and found that Reese was the one issuing all the budget and funding cuts for your projects and writing position papers against you in Dakota's name. If not for Reese, you probably would have come up with this solution a year ago--certainly before you OD'ed on heroin.
Kai is not someone you know closely. You’ve worked with them a few times in the past. Kai is a brilliant computer programer and A.I. expert--a rockstar in their field who uses only their first name. In the past few years they seem to have grown bitter and dispirited. Probably ran into similar blockades as yourself.
Defining Characteristics
Strength: Brilliant
Weakness: Intellectualizing
Dr. Casey El Amin-2120
You have physically enjoyed the peace conference (scientists do not often enjoy such posh surroundings), but you are fairly certain you are only here as part of a measured propaganda campaign to manipulate the American and World public into accepting the ostensible face of a government that is making every effort to secure peace--when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, it is the androids who seem desperate to avoid this cold war warming up and to reestablish trade. Which would be beneficial to everyone as the applications of the Helium 3 fission (even without the efficiency upgrade that is still two or three decades out) would usher Earth into a new era of prosperity.
You aren’t really sure you have much to contribute at an event like this. You’re mostly into the science. Some of your current experiments into quantum technology are incredibly exciting. Did you know that if you can reproduce the circumstances of a past event in the present--not exactly but with as little quantum deviation as possible--you could theoretically actually punch a neutrino thick wormhole between the two events. It’s not exactly time travel because there would be no way to communicate between the events, but still who knows what applications might eventually present themselves.
Fascinating.
Interesting that you would think of that just now. Actually, that thought seemed almost...unbidden. And man….you are feeling strange. Your head is swimming. It isn't a bad feeling, but it's clouding your mind.
Oh no. You’ve been dosed!
Roleplaying note- If anything this time around your situation is even more frustrating, confusing, and frightening because you don’t know how you managed to go into an altered state of consciousness. But you do get the benefit of the yes/no questions for this scene as well.
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