One of Escape Pod’s latest stories was the short story “Radio Nowhere” by Douglas Smith. This short story is a story of a man’s struggles with his lost love, and his attempts at finding her. Liam is a science graduate student who is still living on campus. He currently works with a team of other students on maintaining and experimenting with a Particle accelerator. However, he is still grieving the death of an old flame from 15 years ago. He now relies on Drugs and alcohol to numb his pain alongside his female radio buddy Ziggy. however, a number of singularities make Liam consider if he can use technology to access the past, and save his long-lost love from her future death.
This is a great story, that connects with emotional pain and trauma that others have, as well as how they affect the people around them. The story is very adult in nature, with large portions of substance abuse, as well as strong language. I usually have issues with this kind of content, especially if it’s used for no particular reason But these elements bring that darker, imperfect nature to light for our heroes. It’s helpful in showing how this pain and choices has made them who they are.
And the most important choice made in this book is Liam’s unwillingness to release his old pains and woes.
By holding onto them, they became a defining trait of his character. He couldn’t imagine not struggling with them, even though he was in pain. His obsession may have seemed singular and solely his own choice, but as the story confirms, it affected far more than just him. Ziggy was caught up in it, and attempted to give Liam more drugs and alcohol to taint the pain, to very little effect.
Mix this unwillingness to give up the past with a particle accelerator, and you have a lot of trouble. Particle accelerators are used to speed up particles, and experiment with them. The devices are also meant to create singularities, or “black holes”, as we normally know them. But what do black holes have to do with time travel? Black holes have immense gravitational fields that are able to affect one’s ability to see, and process time. The gravitational field would also affect the body’s process of aging. So, a person can be in the field, and live eons longer than his brethren. Now, the idea of traveling into the past via a black hole is more far-fetched because the person within the gravitational field does not have the ability to rewind time.
The basis for this idea is in the nature of the black hole, which is still not fully known. Where does a black hole lead to? Does it lead into Another universe? Could it travel outside of our reality, and access it again at a different period in time. This kind of questions are great to ask, but are really difficult to test. So, almost all time-travel concepts that are based in black holes are simply “What-ifs”.
Back to our story, The story has two stages in it’s progression: Before Revelation, and After Revelation. The Revelation is the idea that Liam could theoretically go back in time and save his love, Jackie. We’ve already talked about how Liam was before the Revelation After the Revelation, Liam’s obsession is only focused on a singular element; the Particle Accelerator. It almost rips him away from Ziggy. But what holds him back?
It is a simple statement made by Ziggy herself. She mentions that “If (Liam) does this, (He) will lose the last 15 years of memories” as well as the implied friendship between Liam and Ziggy. In other words, Liam would lose a lot of his life in order to gain one thing (Jackie). Would the trade be worth it? One of the key things about time travel is that it changes one’s own timeline. If you go back and attempt to change something that causes you to desire to go back, then you could potentially cancel out what your goal was. In other words, your attempt would stop it, and thus cancel the attempt. Makes sense?
Most of us won’t be able to travel through time. But most of us do wish we could. We want a redo button that will change a moment in time that has come to define how we act. And this is understandable. But we also need to consider what are the costs of such choices? What do we lose? What would we have become if it weren’t for that singular event? These are simple questions to ask before one even considers going back in time, if they even can. But it’s also something to consider when asking about your past, and if you desire to change it.
In Doctor Who, one of the more recent popular characters is River Song. Originally introduced to us as a mysterious figure who has a time-travelling history with past and future versions of The Doctor, she has gone on to be a character with mysterious future/history and far more importance than we could have every expected, We really want to know more about Song and her history, especially since she has a special book that is a record of all of her crossings and engagements with the Doctor. We first meet her at the end of her life, and then in the middle of her life. This crossover causes her to be told about her future. Since she’s a traveler with The Doctor, she understands the importance of not revealing the future, and the linear nature of time progression. As she would say, “Spoilers,”.
The entire world received a flash forward towards a set point in time that revealed their future actions. Many of the flashes revealed actions that people are ashamed of(I.E. Alcohol Abuse, Sexual Affairs, etc), while others don’t receive flashes at all. What does this mean? Can this future be changed? In the end, the series does eventually put the characters into a position that they regret knowing about. But that is only one answer of the time. Time travel is a cornucopia of unique possibilities and probabilities. I’ve only been able to get a basic understanding of time travel complexes, theories, and ideas that surround this reality-changing idea. But I’m enjoying every bit of it. I just don’t want spoilers about my own life
Contemplating the Cosmos 