Time Travel Successful

A note to future and past readers: I know I have been remiss in adding entries to my research log book; and much has happened in the last month, indeed! The reader will be disoriented, I can wager, by the out-of-order entries as they will be occurring. However, this may well impress the nature of my experience during this amazing time, for I have been traveling through time myself! The physical effects of time travel using my method seem to be minimal: indeed, it is rather the mental effects that seem to be more severe than I had anticipated. The mind seems to have difficulty tracking and ordering memories and perceptions once it has undergone time travel. So, now the reader can join me in my sense of time disorder. I will attempt to supply local temporal time and date mentions in my entries; it will be up to you to place them in an order that more resembles the normal time flow.

IT SEEMS THE UNIVERSE is in control of my destiny and details, and it seems to be conspiring for my success. The controls for the Time Bending Unit still need much calibration and adjustment: I set them to jump 10 years into the future and instead ended up 500 years in the future, in the 24th century. As near as I can asertain, I have landed in the year 2350. Also, either Caledon is the site for a large modern campus in that year, or else the TBU (Time Bending Unit) is also displacing space as well as time. From my crude attempts at geolocation by stars, I seem to be several hundred miles northwest of Caledon. Or mayeb the stars have moved beyond my understanding in these 500 years.

I have found what seems to be a 24th century college campus or science center called “Star Fleet Academy.” Wonderous technologies are in use here as common, everyday items. No one is amazed at the precision and durable construction materials, teleportation, talking machines of wonderous and endless information, and weapons of light. They all take it for granted. I have obtained clothes of the style and type commonly worn here, and I have attempted to blend in. Still, I suspect my wide-eyed wonder at nearly everything I see will give away the fact that I am not of their time.

After becoming almost uncontainably excited at the prospect of not only a successful time travel experiment, but the limitless knowledge that abounds here, I decided to actually enroll in the academy and learn all I can of the technology to take back to 1895 Caledon with me. I will learn all I can as quickly as I can. Mr. Drinkwater and Mr. Kukulcan will have a hard time believing what is here – I shall endeavor to arrange them a trip here as well! And the stories I can now tell at The alling Anvil will have a decidedly different slant than my 1880’s seafaring tales! Or perhaps I will not be able to tell them at all for I may be considered a madman. For now, this log book is my only avenue of record and telling of my adventures.

The academy seems to have some kind of military significance, as the ranks are all of military history. I have enrolled successfully as a cadet, and explored much of the facility. I will log here what I find.

A Bit of Lab Comfort

Thanks to the generous Mr. Kukulcan, I’ve managed to bring a bit of comfort to the lab. His bookcases work well, and with the rug I brought back with me from my last voyage, they bring me to a place of comfortable memories and a sense of accomplished travels. Yet, there is much to learn and even more to be done! As it is quite cold in Caledon these days, being December with snow in the ground, I find myself needing to wear a heavy coat while working in the all-metal tower and lab.

I sit for a moment and take stock of my plan to build the time-bender referenced in the tattered notes found in a trunk in South Carolina. These must be Tesla’s own notes, or those of a student or rival, for they use Tesla’s exact specifications for a three-stage Tesla transformer, creating literally millions of volts with a variable and controllable influx of amperage.

I can unravel how the device works from the notes: once the local area is saturated with both electrical charge at a specific frequency and a magnetic field, then increasing the amperage intensifies the magnetic field to the point of bending time and space around it. I’m not sure what the final effect will be, or even if the human body can withstand such a bend in the space-time fabric, but I know I will try. I will leave detailed notes, so that if I fail, at least the next researcher-explorer can know the configuration to avoid.

Now to build it.

Arrival Day

I had explored the mainland and several islands, following signs and adverts. I talked to people as well, some were fair enough, some were rude or ignorant. I found many buildings and some spectacles, but not clean, elegant artistry of construction.

I came to Port Caledon fully expecting to leave again that day. Look around, explore a bit, log it, and then move on.

Three weeks later and still in Caledon, I knew I had found my new home. It was immediately obvious to me that this was a great place to retire from my seafaring days, but it took a while for me to talk myself into ending my explorations for a while and finding work and a place to live in Caledon.

I was immediately impressed with the high manners of the Caledon citizens. Here was I, a sailor and steamship worker in work clothes, and yet they were all kind, polite, welcoming and accommodating. As I wondered, I saw how all the paths, buildings, land, water, bridges, even the steam train and steam trolley were all in a comfortable 19th century style. The clothes of the residents showed care and artistry, as did their homes and buildings. Caledon presented itself as a land of artisans and elegant folks that cared deeply about the appearance and functionality of their society.

Despite twenty years at sea and many nights of cards, drinking, trading, and swearing on ship and on the docks, I quickly reformed my manners to present my best. I took to this place easily, automatically, as if it called to some far away lost part of me.

I was home in a place I had never been, and it was clear that the next chapter of my life – perhaps the final chapter – would be spent in Caledon, among the scholars, builders, researchers, storytellers, and socially refined merchants.

It was time to meet the owner and lord of Caledon, Mr. Desmond Shang, to find out what it took to be able to live in Caledon. I had some money saved, and was willing to work hard to earn my keep and contribute to the beauty and elegance that was Caledon in any way I could. I had no idea of the requirements, nor of how truly generous Mr. Shang is. I was about to find out.