5697/Titans: The Other Portal

Titans: The Other Portal
Date of Scene:	02 November 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Portal Voice reappears. Vorpal is given a reminder, Brick is given a moral quandry, Stardust is given a poem.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Brick, 87

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Stardust has posed:
It's becoming almost familiar by now. <<ALERT. ALERT. SECURITY BREACH ON THE ROOF. SWIRLY WOBBLY THING ALERT>> At some point someone may think to upgrade the specific alert notice to something less Colette, but so far that hasn't happened.

    Up on the roof, the aurora style glowing vortex cloud that seems to be the new latest fashion for portals has made a reappearance. Within the center of the swirling cloud, a humanoid figure takes shape, the form too obscured by churning clouds of glowing energy to be clear. There the figure waits for the inevitable investigation.

Brick has posed:
There's a WHUFF rather than a BOOM as the improved spatial tunnel with only local (to the planet) range deposits him on the roof 13 milliseconds after the detection is made. Brick is not wearing the headgear of his outfit, his upper-body cover is unsealed, he's sipping a cup of some sort of liquid that smells almost entirely unlike coffee, and he is grabbing a scanning probe from his belt to slot into his left tech gauntlet.

"Swirly wobbly timey-wimey detector GO!" he mutters, as it engages.

***PING***

Vorpal (87) has posed:
*DING*

That's the elevator into the rooftop, which opens up to reveal Vorpal. He's pretty thoroughly wet, and wearing a bathrobe- which normally would not need any further mentions, except that it is not a bathrobe one simply mentions. It is Zebra-striped. More exactly, it is *rainbow* Zebra-striped, in colors that could have easily leaked out of the eighties. He probably never needs to turn on the light in the bathroom, with that thing on.

"Never friggin' fails!" he exclaims as he stomps onto the rooftop, fastening the belt, "Step into the shower and all hell breaks loose..."

He stops and gives Brick a quick wave, before glaring upwards at the glowing figure. "Do you -mind-? Can't a guy take a shower in peace anymore?"

Stardust has posed:
There are two things that Brick can determine about the portal almost immediately. First is that it is very, very odd. Second is that it appears to be at least partially based on Forth World tech. This latter point is brought into sharp focus with a sudden...

***PING!***



...from the portal.*

    "Hello Bale." The Voice is rich, deep, sounds a little like Damian might in a few years time, and under close analysis shows a waveform duplication that implies it's synthesised. "I must ask you to stop probing the portal too closely. As you may have guessed, your own research has been fundamental to the design of this technology, but it has advanced significantly. If you learn anything from probing the portal that you have not yet figured out yourself, it would engender an information paradox. I am sure you can appreciate how important it is we avoid that. And Tommy, I do apologize. Perhaps if you pass on your shower schedule to me, we can work something out. Did you have time to think on my words?"

    Colette makes her appearance, dropping out of the clouds. "Oh look, it's mister swirly again. Got some more puzzles for us this time? 'Cos we're kind of bored of enigmatic."

    *(translated from the Mother Box:) My greeting to you, sister! As I am currently explaining to Bale, it is vitally important that you do not scan this portal too closely. I am passing on to you all the details of this technology I can that will not create a temporal information paradox... *(profoundly complicated technical data). However you will need to know this much, as it seems we have already created a dangerous paradox simply by opening this portal. You will need this information to help resolve the issue. I will explain in English so the others can follow...)

Brick has posed:
"Hm. Preliminary reading says there is a possibility of crosstime signalling and inter-contamination. You're suggesting a loop. I will encrypt my record for later unlock should you prove to be prevaricating."

Brick finds himself drawing harder on the Zero Energy field as Maire Boit does something she doesn't share with him, but which requires more of her source-connection than she can carry under her own strength with her specialized and still slightly damaged circuitry.

"Vorpal, that's a glorious bathrobe. You should wear it into combat more often," Brick notes, considering a Rainbow option for his own suit for his next video. It's probably time to post another one, after all.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"Ha ha. It was either this or appearing au natural, and nobody wants that," Vorpal smirks, and narrows his eyes as he looks up at the glowing figure. "My shower schedule? Who the hell schedules showers ahead of time?" Then he shakes his head, "Forget I asked, and what I have thought about is none of your business! I have an innate mistrust of anyone appearing in a flash of something and engaging in the cryptic utterance past-time."

He can't help it, though, thinking about what was said last time. It's like being told not to think about a pink elephant--THERE! You just thought of one. See? Impossible.

An eyebrow twitches, and he mutters something.

Stardust has posed:
The Portal Voice ignores Colette's complaints about being enigmatic. "Sometimes only a cat may look at a king, Tommy. It *is* rather important that you think this through. You've forgotten something that you very much need to remember. This is not an issue that should be avoided. There is another issue too..."

    The voice turns its attention back to Brick. "Consider the work you have done on modifying the technology of Boom Tubes. Without revealing too much, I am sure you can appreciate that the fine-tuning of a cascade sequence is vital to the success of opening a portal such as this. We have been having considerable trouble making it stable, and we have just figured out why. At the point of arrival, the point of departure is represented by an unreified future. Of course, an unreified future is not exclusive. Another attempt has been made to open an identical portal from another unreified future, as a result of our attempts to open this portal. It's rather... a headache. In short, by opening this portal, we have induced a new possible timeline in which a failed attempt was made to do what we are doing, and as the cascade sequence is anchored in a timeline that is, to your perspective, unreified, the two sequences are interfering. It's essential that you disable the other portal, by closing the looped timeline. Am I being sufficiently clear?"

    "I'm gonna say no," Stardust proposes. "I mean when the chaos cat tells us it was the bathrobe or nothing, that makes sense. When Brick talks about encrypting his record, I kinda even got that, that makes sense. But you're a voice in a swirly thing who has given us big fat zero reason to even be listening to you, so maybe you should start with that before the tech gibberish? Who the hell are you, Mister Swirly?"

    "Je suis le ténébreux. Does that answer your question, Stardust?"

    Colette's eyes widen at the response. She takes a step back, her brow creasing with a frown, and shakes her head. She takes a moment of silent thought before replying "Huh. Actually maybe it does..."

Brick has posed:
"You're fishing," Brick says blandly, "And someone's trying to hook your fish. I will avoid stunning my compatriots with a discussion of infinite Planc-length sheaves and the probabilistic distribution of endpoints, but you know what I'm talking about here. The situation you describe is statistically possible, but in the same way that it's statistically possible for this tower to randomly reposition itself upwards by 400 meters via quantum-stepping. In other words, not likely without deliberate and intentional action. Relativity still applies, the waveform is collapsed from your perspective. So. Who is trying to go to the same point?"

That's the real question -- what is allowing both futures to attempt to exist when they would normally be forced apart to different ends of the spatiotemperal hyperfractal?

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"Okay, Brick, at some point you're going to have to tell me what the heck is a cascade sequence, because right now I don't know what it is and I feel like I'm chasing waterfalls..."

The cat trails off, his quipping now a secondary concern as his brow furrows.

He grows very, very quiet as something begins to boil inside him, figuratively speaking (because otherwise, gross).

"Kings... there's... hm." He takes a few steps back and leans on the handrail.

The French makes him perk up and he looks puzzled, but relieved at finding something to distract him from disturbing thoughts. "... Did he just tell you that he has his aunt's pen or something?" Vorpal's french may be a little bit dusty. Just a bit.

Stardust has posed:
"It's collapsed from our perspective, yes," the voice agrees. "But it has not yet collapsed from yours. That's exactly the problem, Bale. The interference does not exist for us. It only exists for you. For us, the portal technology works, yet it isn't stabilizing. We have been able to infer the existence of the interference pattern from the failure modes. The question of statistical improbability assumes reification. Remember that from your persective, the source of neither gate is reified, but they are in a state of probabilistic entanglement that can exist so long as state collapse has not yet occurred. We believe the failed gate device exists in a daughtered timeline that has been moved closer to reification by our experiments with creating our portal. Raven sensed things through this portal that may have disturbed her greatly. She may have made a terrible mistake. "

    "It's hard to translate, kitty cat," Colette answers Vorpal. "It means... uh.'I am the... shadow... shrouded...' I guess? It's from my favorite poem. 'Je suis le ténébreux, le veuf, l'inconsolé, Le prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie...' I think he's telling us that he's... wait, what about Raven?"

    "Gérard de Nerval," the Portal Voice confirms. "I'm sure Stardust can translate for you later, probably at great length and with numerous diversions on the way. Have any of you spoken to Raven today? Is she even there? She may be trying to avoid certain events in our past and your future, but she needs to be with you, or disaster will not be avoided."

    "Bale, please consult with your sister over the data I have sent her. You should be able to determine more about the other portal from your end. My suspicion is that it represents a future you would do well to ensure does not take place. Tommy, don't let it go. What happened to you in Scotland is something you don't want to remember, but you'll suffer from not remembering it. I have fifty-seven more seconds. If you have questions, ask fast."

Brick has posed:
Reification: when a probabilistic waveform collapses and an event can be said to have occurred, or become 'real' and 'a thing.'
The issue with time travel is that temporal directionality in STL particles underlies the perception of time as modeled in the physics, and is an artifact of a vector-linear temporal mechanism. Time travel ... the theories don't work right. Time can't exist that way. So if it's two self-aware timelines trying to do the same thing with time travel, then the very concept reification becomes much more horrible, because one of them is extinguished while the other is not.

While he thinks about this, Brick has a portion of his awareness pinging him with consequential objections: 1) there's no way to identify which of these allegedly only two competing timelines is actually the one he WANTS to get to happen, 1a) there's no way to identify that there's only one, and 2) this guy is apparently trying to get him to extinguish a competing timeline by rendering it improbable enough that it will either dissipate or merge. Merge, fine, dissipate? Horrible.

***PING***

"Hm? Oh, Certainly, Maire Boit."

Oh, and 3) why is this guy calling him Bale, he's gone by Bale Richard or Brick only since he was three years old because the names come from his fathers. That means his names are different or the timeline diverged that far back... or they don't actually know him, or the 'him' they know is different enough from him that they should have their own intrinsic stability... except that they compromised it themselves. OK, that sucks...

***PINGPINGPING!!***

"Uh, sorry, yeah, no questions at this time."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Scotland. He doesn't like thinking about Scotland. The underground, strange places, the dark and chill.

The king.

Vorpal takes a step, and then shakes his head, closing his eyes.

The King under the hill. But not -that- king. He points, he says something. He wants him to remember.

Questions? He has a ton, but none he can ask right now, with his mind all awhirl. Something wants to push forth, and he's trying to hold it back. He's not being very successful.

"D-damnit!" He actually swoons, but he manages to catch himself onthe handrail before he topples over and potentially get accused for indecent exposure, bathrobe and all that.

Stardust has posed:
    Colette turns to look at Vorpal, stepping quickly over when he stumbles. "Hey, you okay there kitty cat? Looked like you..." she turns to the vortex, while offering an arm to Vorpal. "Yeah, I got a question. Apart from poetry references, who are you? Gonna give us a name?"

    "Do I get punched in the face if I don't tell you, Stardust?" The voice says with an amused air. "You will know me as Sentient Theta."

    "Yeah? And what have you done with Sentients Alpha through Eta, hmm?" The question is unanswered as the portal fades into whisps of purple and green.

    Colette watches the portal vanish, then turns back to Vorpal, looking concerned. "You need to go sit down? This Scotland thing really bothers you, huh? And uh... Brick? What you were saying the other day about overlapping resonances, is this... portal thing... something to do with that? Two things interwoven?"

Brick has posed:
"Yes, it is. ... OH, Vorpal, they gave me a longer version of the message they gave you. Do you want to hear it?"
Deflect deflect. Brick is trying to think about this mess, but quickly determines that conscious, verbal thought isn't going to do it, so he *ping*s once, with his own voice, which is probably a bit of a surprise. Maire Boit glows differently for a moment, and the deep thread processing in his brain changes slightly so he can dedicate more of it to working on the complex of issues that the portal guys brought up, without losing his current portal work. This is going to leave him with a less broad set of dynamic surface operations for a while.

"Theta?? Is he making a Hubbardism reference there?" Brick mutters to himself as that part filters out of the association enegine.

PING

"Yeah, probably not seems good to me. Stardust, the guy was claiming that for reasons having to do with temporal physics that ... I don't necessarily buy as true ... them trying to open a cross-time portal has created a secondary timeline, which is also trying to open the same cross-time portal. They're interfering with each other. Boom Tubes don't have that problem because they're armored and they don't actually open until they're properly synchronized, but the swirly portal IS properly synced or we wouldn't be getting anything, which means it's not using boom tube theory correctly. I think they're trying to make one that's stable and anchored and moving along with time. That would fit the parameters I've seen so far. Also, he's saying that I shouldn't scan too hard because it'll create a temporal paradox based on me knowing something I haven't invented yet, but that's an informational breach, which doesn't necessarily short out the universe."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"No!" the Cheshire cat snaps in Brick's direction, rubbing his forehead. "No. Not now. Not right now." He gives Colette a glance, and adds "It's... it's trying to- no. I don't want to talk about-"

He pushes himself off the handrail and starts his way to the elevator, faster than he'd like to admit. "I'm going to finish my shower!"

The best thinking happens in the shower, right?

Stardust has posed:
Colette considers giving Brick the 'I don't speak science' reminder, but decides against on the basis that she probably asked for it. "So like... like you'd invent something that you could only invent because you did already invented it in the future? I mean you will have already invented... you will have had... is there a tense for that? This stuff is confusing."

    "I'm sure your shower won't run away," Colette comments as Vorpal moves with undue haste. "But if it does, give us a yell and we'll help you chase it." She watches the cat's departure with a raised eyebrow followed by a shrug. Do not question the affairs of chaos cats, for they are jumpy and quick to scram.

    Turning back to Brick, Colette says "The... interweaving thing, I was wondering because of the poem. It ends... hmm, hard to translate, but you speak French so, 'Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron, / Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée / Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la Fée'.* It just seemed kind of like it might be relevant. Especially with Vorp's... thing. Probably reading too much into it. Oh well." She rolls her shoulders, then tilts her head in the direction of the elevator. "Pizza?"

* And twice have I won the crossing of Acheron:
Modulating, turn by turn, on the lyre of Orpheus,
The sighs of the Saints and the cries of the Fae.