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|Form a Hypothesis|
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"For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses, and for every hypothesis an infinity of realities."

12th of Kiani Year 265 acoe

A shaggy aslaran man streched his grizzled fingers out, touching the scarred bark of a tall oak tree. A wide smile spread across the man's lips as he began to comprehend what he was seeing.

"Arvest, Prepare the machine. Now is the time." A short furrikin man dressed in sterile white robes and safety goggles nodded and began the trek down the hill to a series of machinery placed at the bottom of the hill. The aslaran turned away from the tree and reached into the pocket of his white researcher robes. Uncorking a small ruby vial, he rubbed the regeneration salve into his fingers, kneading it into his hands before disgustedly throwing the vial in the ground next to him.

"Hmph," he thought, "What good are the communes? Their infernal potions will not even ease the pain in these arthritic hands anymore. It is only through science that we can get what we want." This thought caused him to pause and look over his shoulder, as if to double check that a plain stone gravestone still stood next to the towering oak. "Hmm, it's moved, and it looks older. Much has changed already." He began his own trek down the hill, moving much more slowly than the furrikin.

He heard the whirring and felt a quick blast of wind blowing his hood from his head before he looked up to see that they were active. In the nearest machine he could see himself, for the first time in many years seeing his own reflection instead of a citrine yellow glowing lucidian looking back at him.

The image he had of himself was that of a young aslaran, cool blue eyes set into a tight face, with his blazing red mane flowing down his back. ("The mane of a king,” she had said, “the mane of a great man.”) “What would you think of what I must do now? Would you tell me that it isn't worth it?” The face looking back at him was old, older than he had ever imagined possible. The skin of his face hung loosely off his skull. The fur, where he still had fur, looked blanched and white. Even his eyes ("like flowing water” she'd said) had sunken into his face, the once-vibrant blue faded grey like a winter day. Would she have loved these eyes if they had been the ones she'd met? But...they were the eyes she had met. His mane hadn't been red and fierce when he had met her--it had already turned white as snow. She had said, "An aslaran that could hide in the snow, who knew?" It was becoming harder to know anymore. What had she said? When had they met? He shook his head in frustration as he took his place next to the small furrikin.

"Doctor, it's ready." the furrikin said, his voice a whisper under the whirr of the machines. .

"Had she known I would turn her teleportation apparatus into this, would she still have made it?" He inspected his creation.

The machine was shaped like a ziggurat beneath the hill. The base of it was thirty feet in diameter, with crystal spires of onyx, ruby, and sapphire lining its bottom steps. As the machine continued to power up, each spire shone. Electrical charges filled the spaces between the spire, setting the air ablaze. The man continued to walk up the steps of the machine, passing the amethyst, emerald, and turquoise spires now filling with power. The furrikin called up after him, "Doctor, are you sure this is what you want to do? How do you even know this won't kill you, or kill us all? How do you know any of this is going to work?"

Without looking back, the aslaran lifted one of the arms of his flowing white robes and pointed a twisted finger up to the tree at the top of the hill and shouted back, "I planted that tree three years ago over her grave--it should be no taller than my shoulder, but look at it now! Look at what it has become! That is how I know." Had it really only been three years? Or had it been forty, on the top of this hill in this empty field to make her glow...had it really been only three?

As the aslaran reached the top of the ziggurat, he stepped into the half circle that stood above the top level of the ziggurat. He slipped his hands into the cylinders cut into the half circle, grasping the handles within. As soon as his fingers touched the handles, the half circle rose out of the top of the ziggurat now a circle connected only by a thick pillar beneath it. His weak fingers slipped from the handles as the cylinders painfully closed around his arms, forcing them in place. He grimaced at the thought of the trap he had made for himself. "So I wouldn't back out...so I couldn't break out."

He shouted down to the furrikin, "Start the first drain protocol." Nodding emphatically, the furrikin pulled the first in a series of five levers.Below each spire, gaps in the ziggurat opened, revealing thousands of powerstones wired together and glowing with power.

"Only 5% power efficiency! The powerstones will not be enough, Doctor!" shouted the furrikin.

"Then start the second power drain protocol!" The aslaran looked into the sky at the floating spires nearby. He had hoped they would still be flying when he had finished. With the second flip of the switch, however, the crystal spires one by one began to lose their brilliance and crumbled against each other into brittle pieces that fell down the steps of the ziggurat and landed around the dull powerstones.

"We're up to 13% power efficiency! Perhaps that is enough, Doctor! Initial
studies show a 45% chance of--"

"No! It isn't enough, Arvest! We must initiate the third power drain protocol!"

"But--"

"Arvest. Look at the oak."

"Yes, Doctor, third power draining protocol initiated-"

A loud crash suddenly reverberated through the air. The aslaran looked up just as the floating beryl tower begin to waver and tip into the amethyst tower. At the same time, the sapphire tower bent ominously and suddenly snapped away from the walkways connecting it to the other towers. Within moments, the entire floating city had fallen. Soon nothing could be seen but the wave dust raising up around it.

The furrikin gaped at the wave of destruction he had unleashed with the pull of a single lever.

"Arvest, the power report."

"Huh--"

"ARVEST, THE POWER REPORT NOW!"

"Oh yes--yes of course, Doctor!" The furrikin shook his head slowly, trying to bring himself back to reality. "Power up to 53% efficiency."

"Well, Arvest. There is no going back now. Initiate the fourth and fifth power protocols, quickly before anyone finds out what we are doing and tries to stop us."

The furrikin frowned and quickly flipped the last two switches. Suddenly, seven beams of light shone across the entire sky of the basin, intersecting on the apex of Avechna's Peak. Waves of multicolored energy began to pour down each beam of light. The ground began to shudder, shaking the dirt off of seven identical pipes each now filling with a different shade of energy and draining directly into the machine. As soon as it was started, it was done.

"There shall be no need for an Ascendent this time. Soon none of this will have happened." The aslaran stared up at Avechna's Peak as red mist started to pour slowly across its surface, quickly becoming a deluge across the basin. The taint was now fully unleashed for the first time since Project Cosmic Hope The taint's red mist poured out faster and faster from the mountain, engulfing the mountains and spreading across the Basin. Now it was only a few leagues from the research site.

Then all of it disappeared and the aslaran fell.

==================
|Conduct an Experiment|
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"Science, in the very act of solving problems, creates more of them."

Scientific Log Entry #1
12th of Kiani, Year 217 acoe

I do not need to state the personal nature of this endeavor. However, personal attachment is no excuse for poor recordkeeping. In the future, I hope these logs will prove valuable to the Matrix Research Institute and the Collective. I have violated numerous peace articles and the direct order of the Temporal Primus and the Castellan of the Institute to even attempt this experiment so only through success may I pay that debt. I have successful arrived in the past. The mobile teleportation apparatus (MTA) has been attuned to temporal transfer instead of spatial to this date to permit me several attempts at my object. If personal accounts can be trusted at this point, I believe this will be the first time I meet her. My first goal will be to establish contact through small manipulations of events. My second goal will be to attempt to foster continued contact through small manipulations of events. I have brought with me supplies of five acorns, four salves of regeneration, three hundred thousand gold sovereigns, an amethyst temporal resonator, thirty five powerstones, two books documenting the endeavors of Kialkarkea Diodorus and Saaga Shevat to find and use the Hand of Tzaraziko, one manual regarding the construction of the temporal resonator and associated uses, and one manual regarding the construction of the MTA and associated uses.

Scientific Log Entry #2
12th of Kiani, Year 217 acoe

I thought it had worked! Three years I spent observing them and then they break up over which one of them was going to use the hand. I never would have thought she would act so childishly. Such an inconsequential matter: the act itself is what is important, not who does it! But never mind--I... I have not been keeping the logs as I have intended. The initial plan worked, and the targets were exposed to each other earlier than initial timeline analysis suggested possible. The targets proceeded as predicted, having their date on the hill, planting the acorn I sold to the male, and in the process discovering the manuals I had buried. They spent years reading them, confirming what could be confirmed. They found the Hand and were on the verge of changing history in more significant ways than could ever be fully comprehended... when each decided they must be the one to use the Hand. Ultimately, a group of New Celestians happened upon them and seized the hand for themselves, instead using it to free that wretched Gaudiguch first. This time, I intend to proceed as before. However, I will use the manuals for the Resonator and the MTA to unify them. They will see how the resonator can be used in combination with the MTA to move through time as well as space. Such a ground breaking discovery has united Arvest and I in the past--surely it will unite them in this past.

Scientific Log Entry #3
12th of Kiani, Year 217 acoe

I have never experienced such failure in my entire life....the fools. I thought...I thought that it was merely ego and not incompetence that made them turn on each other with the Hand. I thought after five years of working and perfecting their projects that they would be wise enough to understand. Scientific protocol dictates that you MUST test your inventions in controlled settings before a practical field test. They were so young, so arrogant, so confident that it would work perfectly. I couldn't use my aeonics to predict the outcome because it removed them entirely from the timestream.

I should have used my eyes, and my knowledge of what happened during initial MTA tests and predicted. I remember well the thousands of biological test subjects that appeared inside out, as a fine pink mist, or their hearts where their beaks should be. I relied too heavily on foresight.

I even attempted to go so far as to summon a paradox in the location to bring them back. Nothing worked. I do not believe they are alive, but their actions could have changed the past or future irreparably. It is likely I will truly never know the result of what they've done,.T The MTA and resonator are sitting in some time stream in this very field in some unknown time. Fortunately, I was able to recover the manuals so whoever might happen upon them will not be able to decipher their mechanics. The flaw in both of my previous attempts has been to give them a joint purpose, such as what she and I once had. However, they are significantly younger, and their priorities are different.

If I want to have a full life with her, I will have to cause them to meet, and allow their youthful gallivanting be their bond, though such idleness pains me to remember in my younger self. This one must work. I am depleting my resources. I never considered that since this MTA is from the future that only powerstones from that time would work. I forgot to account for the temporal distortions created when Gaudiguch and Hallifax were brought from stasis that changed all material on a quantum level.

Resources assessment: three acorns, four salves of restoration, ninety thousand gold sovereigns. an amethyst temporal resonator, fourteen powerstones, one manual regarding the construction of the temporal resonator and associated uses, and one manual regarding the construction of the MTA and associated uses.

Scientific Log Entry #4
12th of Kiani, year 217 acoe

Truly, I was a fool in my youth and I am a fool now. I have expended all my resources in this attempt and have failed. We simply are not compatible people in this timeline. I give them everything a couple could need, a purpose, a bond. None of it is enough, they always separate. This time...boredom. They were BORED. There are thousands of things they could be doing each second, I see them all and they are bored.

The only solace I can take from this is that I have not caused any irreparable damage in these twelve years of experimentation. If I simply remain here the rest of my years, then no damage will be done. I will meet her in thirty five years as intended. I will have several glorious years with her.

I am content in that knowledge now that I have seen the alternatives. I believe the common expression is the bright flame burns out, and the steady flame remains. I have learned that this applies to relationships as well. I was happy then, and I will be happy again. Though, will it really be me?

This will be my last entry. I will plant the last of the acorns as a comfort to me while I await my death on this hill. I will bury all other items I brought with me but my restoration salves. Should any future scientists find them, I urge you to consider the writings within: Try to find happiness in what you have instead of looking at what you could have had.

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|Draw Conclusions|
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"In all science, error precedes truth, and it is better it should go first than last."

12th of Kiani, year 223

A lucidian woman walks arm in arm with a tall aslaran man. The woman wears simple white robes and, where her crystalline skin visible, she shines with a happy pink glow. The aslaran man has a flowing red mane. His legs and arms are marked with the tribal tattoos marking him a champion of his people.

The day is a beautiful spring day, winter ended early this year and the flowers are already beginning to blossom. She feels a strong connection to this day, but cannot say why. She is sometimes strange, so he just passes it off as one of her quirks and is content just to enjoy the day with her. Neither of them will know the lives they have or could live. They do not know that he will not live to be a scientist after the refounding of Hallifax, or that this she will. They do not know that the man this woman is supposed to marry in another life is sitting on a hill just a mile ahead of them underneath a tree he planted to commemorate their love together. All they know is that they are blissfully happy together and that is such a lovely day for a walk.
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I don't know why I don't just heartstop. I've been here what must be seven years already. I should just end it, so I can be sure that I won't cause any more disturbances. But...as long as I have the foresight, there is always a chance that I will find a way to make this work, and the death and destruction I caused wouldn't be for nothing. I have to keep looking through all the futures and see if I can spot the convergence point. The point where she and I meet that leads to our love. I am worried I have already caused too much damage, as I haven't been able to find our original convergence point ever since the second attempt to bring us together earlier. Is it just that I am weaker and can't see that far ahead anymore? I am much older now than when I began. It must be 19 years now since the start of the experiment. However, only seven years have passed since I first stepped backwards through time. Wait...Is this a convergence point forming? Why is it only seconds from now. Pink mist? But... No! This can't be right. Why would they have set the MTA and resonator to come to this point? I have to stop this....what is she saying? NO! SHE SAID THAT TO ME, NOT HIM! But... better this future for her with him than no future at all...
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The couple stop at the base of a hill, wrapping their arms about the other and sharing a passionate kiss. The lucidian slides her fingers through the aslaran's mane and whispers "Truly you have the mane of a king," before tucking her chin against his chest. As if he had heard, an originally unseen man rises to his feet slowly on top of the hill. He is an old man, a shaggy-looking one. Several empty vials that were in his lap fall to the ground around him. Despite the slowness of his initial movements, he makes his way down the hill in seconds, just as a fine pink mist begins to fall over them. He places a hand on each of their chests and they disappear immediately, displaced from time briefly. The man slumps to the ground, having expended the last of his remaining power as the pink mist boils to a fiery mass and bursts into him, shattering his body and causing metallic shrapnel and shining gems to explode out from the site of impact .
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"What just happened? Why did that man attack me, and why can't I move?" she thinks. She feels the light before she sees it piercing through the blackness ,pulling her back towards the hill. She sees the man fall to the ground and the explosion that follows, and suddenly she is falling down into a small crater. She appears at the same time as the red-maned aslaran, and they fall against each other. They raise to their feet together staring at the body laying in front of them.

"He saved us," they say together. Drawn by the closeness of their own death, they hold each other once more. She breaks the kiss to look at the corpse once more. The man nods his head towards the tree at the top of the hill in wordless understanding and they lift the corpse between them and carry it to the top of the hill. He taps his foot against the ground. The earth churns and bubbles for a moment, and then a small grave appears. Gently they lower the corpse into the grave, tears now streaming down both of their eyes. As he is filling in the grave, she looks around for a large stone. Cutting it down into a grave stone, she rests it at the head of the disturbed ground.

As they begin to walk away, she stops him and says, "Wait--he deserves an epitaph." She walks to the tree and places her hand on it. Flames lick out from her fingers, carving the words: "Here lies the man that gave his life so that I might have mine."
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12th of Kiani Year 265 acoe
A shaggy aslaran man stretches his grizzled fingers out touching the scarred bark of a tall oak tree. A wide smile spreads across the man's lips as he begins to comprehend what he is seeing. "Arvest, Prepare the machine. Now is the time."