The Longing

Link to article: The Longing.

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[[/module]]

I am the first ontokinetic to ever travel faster than light.

I remember, ages ago, back in Foundation Basic Training, they talked about the dangers of cross-testing anomalies. Even if you think you understand it really well, there is always a risk of an entirely unexpected interaction occurring. No anomaly is ever truly safe.

These [[[dr-cimmerian-s-proposal | self-generated ways]]] are produced by directing a burst of ionized helium over a Ecgwynn-Hirano coil in negative gravity. By sending the ions around the coil repeatedly, each time they progress slightly further along, and after a few billion iterations, they reach back where they started. When this is complete, a X7-L100 type anomalous spacetime wave ripples out, which is controlled through the Hirano-Bell Gate to form a temporary way entrance.

Right now the helium is about 0.28704% of the way there. (I have a very refined method of measuring it.)

By the way, the whole coil burst only takes about 20 milliseconds. In this case it's a little shorter, closer to 17.8 milliseconds, but I can't really tell any more precisely. If you want a reason, it's because we're only going 6.31 light years, so less energy is needed.

I'd like to say I don't blame them. That I don't blame them for not trying with a 3-delta sensor, a sample of Lazarus-991F ore, or an ontokinetic mouse, or any of the other 41 methods that I have determined would have caught this problem. That I'm better than that, that I'm willing to turn the other cheek.

After all, who would've thought of this! It completely defies everything we know about Flux Wedge Theory, the foundation of our understanding of interstellar transportation. I'm sure that even Hirano herself would have a hard time comprehending this, and none of them had a sharper mind than her.

But that's a lie. I totally blame them.

It's fucking unbearable.

I can't even say how long it's been.

Well, that's not true. I can tell you the wall clock time: it has been 51,103 nanoseconds since way generation began.

What I can't tell you is the //subjective// time. Decades? Surely. Centuries? Probably. A part of me wants to say it's been millennia, but I have no way of telling.

Every time the clock ticks another nanosecond, I celebrate. I spend at least a subjective month or two full of renewed hope, thinking about the remaining nanoseconds, coming up with fun number facts about the current time, and all the rest. You'd think I'd get sick of it by now, but then again I always loved celebrating my birthday. Maybe that's why.

Really, there are a lot of strange things about this state. My brain is incredibly lucid, for one. I am pretty irritable all the time, but I don't seem to be losing my sanity. I can imagine entire other universes, built with arbitrary laws of my own creation. I can watch them as they progress, see their development. It's beautiful, really.

I think my favorite was world Gamma-80916: the lifeforms that evolved there had really cool buildings. Unfortunately, we wouldn't be able to make anything like that in the real universe, since gravity is totally the wrong strength and we have no equivalent of the "plucky" force. (At least that's what I've been calling it.)

Ugh, "real universe". Ticking along slowly.

It is strange though. The world is barely even moving at this speed, and any computer input/output would surely be impossible. Yet somehow, I'm able to "see" all of it. And remember it, like I have some assistant walking around taking notes for me. I've read every single byte in the ship's data banks and I can recall it as easily as my name.

And then, naturally, I began to figure out everything else. I discovered a new method of measuring neutron flux, solved the Hartle-Bellweather Conjecture, produced another sixteen proofs for Fermat's Last Theorem, and, my crowning achievement, rewrote all of Flux Wedge Theory to explain my current situation.

I can't sleep, obviously. It's not so bad though. When my mind feels fuzzy, I just simulate a few thousand universes start to end, watching them play out.

And when I have energy? Good lord, it's beautiful. I get //so// much work done. Calculating possibilities, running thought experiments, pondering over my new data points. It barely feels like any effort at all.

I love it.

Mathematics is my all-time favorite, with its thorny problems, proofs, and beautiful results. I'm also a fan of the various disciplines within physics, though mostly it's just the ones concerning my current conundrum. It's less satisfying but still worthwhile to be able to measure the remaining time to another decimal point of accuracy. Taking a break from worlds of simulated, fictional fun to see how the real world outside doing.

"Real" world... God damn it.

You know what scares me? What really chills my bones?

That everything is fake.

When I spend time in my toy universes, I know they're not real. At least, not in the normal sense. I can create their parameters and watch them run, explore every tiny detail inside. I've seen civilizations rise and fall, astral phenomenon impossible anywhere else, and even invented entirely new kinds of emotions.

But it's fictional. It's not "my" reality, it's some other shit.

When I make a new universe, it's fun. There's no stakes. Everyone lives happily, everyone suffers, or nothing lives at all; it doesn't really mean anything. It's just another world. Gamma-41830 or Zeta-6836023281 or any of the others.

Except, what if the "real universe" is no different?

I had a life, friends, a fulfilling job. This was meant to be another routine expedition, even if it was my first one outside the solar system. It all mattered to me. It was //real//.

When I first found myself like this, I thrashed. For eons. I couldn't understand what was happening, and it took a ton of panicking before I calmed enough to think. Then I started learning, and studying, and observing.

Do you want to hear a dirty secret?

I solved Ontokinetic Field Theory too. I know how it works, why people like me can "rewrite the rules of reality", and how that happens at a physics level.

I could -- at least I think I could -- force the Ecgwynn-Hirano coil to finish immediately. That I could free from myself from this dream and/or nightmare.

But ever since I learned how to control my reality-bending, and again when I accepted my position at the Foundation, I promised myself that I would be a resident of this universe, not a god. //That's// what makes all this "real". Because I don't change the rules, I play by them. Once you change one thing, you change another, and another. Nothing matters anymore.

If I break that, then the only universe I've ever called home will become just another toy to me. Right?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe my brain's psychology won't go for that.

Or maybe it will.

I'm going to play it safe and wait a little bit longer.