Saturday, March 04, 2006

Chapter 6: Hyperspace Travel and Premature Aging

Interdimensional traversing naturally brings about the possibility of Hyperspace travel. The concept of hyperspace travel is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. Science Fiction has been doing this for some time without truly understanding it. Hyperspace travel as it stands currently is exiting out of normal space (i.e. the first three dimensions including time) and using that lack of parameters to travel in the most direct method possible to whatever your destination happens to be. That way when you re-enter normal space from “hyperspace” you would do so at the exact same moment that you left it, thus traveling great distances in literally no time at all. The issue with this form of transportation lies at a deeper level than merely getting to work on time. When you are in hyperspace you exist outside of time. Your body however is not aware of this. You still experience events sequentially merely because you don’t know any better than to do so. Because of this phenomenon, known as Lutzenfeld’s Third law of intergalactic relations (or Lutz III for short), you still experience aging while in hyperspace. To put it simply, you emerge from a hyperspace jump slightly older than you entered it even though you start and finish the journey at the same time. This accounts for many of the extremely old looking scientists hanging around the science bars in most major cities. They are usually only in their 30’s but have completed an inordinately large number of hyperspace journeys. You will often find that chain smokers will attempt to use this excuse as well but it is rarely true.

To counter this premature aging process most commercial travel companies (as well as a lot of private sectors) use cryogenic suspended animation. This is a delicate process that involves killing you and freezing your remains so that you will not age during an extended hyperspace jump. This method has several drawbacks however. First is the complex process of re-animating your dead carcass (usually involving 3 surgeons, a French poodle, and a large vat of mayonnaise) so that you can hopefully rejoin normal life with no long-term issues. Secondly, there is the fact that the cryogenic process (often labeled with the misnomer of Cryo-“Sleep”, you’re dead not sleeping) takes some “time” yet once the hyperspace journey has begun and before it ends causing you to still age slightly. Lastly there is the generally uncomfortable issue of “latent extreme chilling and condensation build-up” or LECCB more commonly known as freezer burn.

An alternative to this personnel intensive process has begun to be developed in the tandem research labs of the Crutchuizen twins. These labs are known because the Crutchuizen twins had trouble with the fact that they wanted to be independent in their research even though they are conjoined. Later they realized the old axiom is true that two heads divided against themselves are worth one in the hand and decided to combine their research. They have corporately come up with the precursor technology to allow the development of an anti-aging field. Thus far the early tendrils of this field have proven this device to only function outside the realm of normal time (or only in hyperspace). Eventually you will find most commercial transports to be sporting these field generators (at least for first class). Far into the future it can be foreseen that the exorbitantly wealthy will employ these generators in their hyperspace enabled sleeping quarters accomplishing the ability to work 24 hours a day and continue to gain incalculable wealth much faster than the common working class the whole while not aging any faster than normal. This will effectively extend their life by 30% since sleep will not count toward time spent living. The rest of us however will be doomed to short lived poverty.

Hyperspace travel, of course, differs from teleportation in that there is literally no traveling between point A and point B during a teleport. You merely disappear from A and reappear at B. There is no traveling simultaneously through all the points in the universe until you merely re-emerge at B. There is no way that you need to detour through C to get to B when you are coming from A. That is an unnecessary way around things. You should never get near C unless you have decided upon visiting B that what you were looking for is not there and you must venture on to C. Teleportation allows you to do this. There are a few problems however. First is the fact that Teleportation is a learned skill and not merely a technology. It takes more than a trained monkey to accomplish it (though iguanas have successfully done so). And secondly one can only travel via teleportation with their own person. There is no taking someone along for the ride. For that matter there is no taking anything along for the ride. Because of this you teleporting should only be done either to pre-determined locations and times where you have a spare set of clothing waiting in a secluded are for you, or during times of great emergency where it will not be a large issue for you to have to show up somewhere completely naked. Some people use this method purely for entry and exit from the bathtub. When that is done it creates a fantastic splash as all the water that you would generally displace at a normal pace is instantaneously forced away from your new position. This can be great fun for those who have never gotten past their inability to make a good cannonball splash at the local pool as a youth.

2 comments:

Jonny10 said...

This element of teleportation brings to mind a superhero whose name I decide to forget. The tale itself came from a very dubious but captivating source. I really can't go into the details but let us say that a certain cousin of Mr. McBlam did show up in the path of a walk I was taking. I should mention that his arrival was most rude as he brought with him twice the amount of air and tree pressure as is considered polite in this plane of existence, so far as I understand it anyway.

I will speak no more of this person in this comment. He and I are at a bit of a disagreement at the present and I cannot convince him to go about whatever mission brought him here and leave my couch relinquishing his control of my potato chips and the remote control of my television. I would assume such relatives of His Great Cosmic Personage would find higher entertainments than Dawson's Creek can provide.

However before our relationship became strained he recounted to me the story of a young man who found himself teleporting involuntarily to nearby scenes of violent crime. At first the results were traumatic, as he, confused and nude, was hardly able to help the victims, but as he grew accustomed to the phenomena he took up self defense lessons and became quite the hero. Newspapers ran stories of the nude rescuer and it became vogue for people who expected a vulnerable moment to carry with them a spare pair of sweatpants out of consideration.

Dave Wise said...

We need to conscript you my friend.