Time Bubble (Moved from Medical Gear)

[Gelrir]

(Moved from the Medical Gear thread http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=3052)


The time bubble idea is neat, and the reason for the delay (due to being underground, essentially) is appropriate ...

... but no player character or NPC can ever know it. The only people who knew anything about the Time Bubble process were part of the Project, and they didn't know about the problem.

"Time bubble" makes the Project, once again, look like the Bad Guys who deliberately kept everyone asleep for 150 years.

"They said we'd wake up in 1992, but instead it was 2139."

A minor point: the time bubble presumably meant that teams couldn't be awakened (or kept asleep) to any arbitrary date by radio or other signal. If the bubble is supposed to collapse in 1992, you can't have it collapse earlier or later ... I presume?

--
Michael B.

[kato13]

The original idea came from Jeff Schwartz in is updated version of the game "Project Phoenix". He used to be around here but I have not seen him in a while.

I have a link to PDF rules on my gaming site.

http://games.juhlin.com/files/ProjectPhoenix.zip

His interpretation is a little different than mine, but as it is science fiction you have a lot of leeway in how you use it.

I have the bubbles run time inside at about 2000 times slower than the outside world.

The generation occurs from the inside of the bubble. The fixed radius is established via regulated power flow.

EM transmission on certain frequencies can pass through the field, but interpretation of such data would require specialized equipment to compress or expand the signal due to the time distortion.

Bolt Holes could receive communication, and even communicate out, but with a significant delay. The compression effect of the field barrier generally limited the communications to very simple letter combinations similar to the ELF system.

The field was to be brought down if
1) The System receives its "Wake Up" signal.
2) The System has run for 5 years external time and the crew turn it off (assuming a "Stay Asleep" message was not received)
3) The power generation system can no longer support generation.

The system as tested would shut down instantly, but the longest test was 2.5 years (external time) and above ground. Under those conditions the the problem of temporal inertia was barely noticed. Short runs underground also did not see the problem. However when the combined effect of larger fields, long run time, and additional mass were all combined the effect was disastrous.

After the expected wakeup, there could be sporadic communications, limited by the 3 letter code system. The radio reception/compression system could also fail after a decade or so leaving them without the ability to "hear" anything while they wait for the bubble to collapse.


I used to think that caches would not have time fields (rendering them nearly useless after 150 years) but the discussion of medicines and their expiration has let me to rethink that part of the equation.

[mikeo80]

I remember talking with Jeff a long time ago. His "bubble" idea was an interesting take on the "hand wave" problem of the suspended animation in the bolt hole.

The only thing I could never figure out. The "five year external" shutdown. IF that is the case, TMP is up and running at 5 years vs 3 as planned. No big deal. Still does NOT help with the long sleep of 150+. Why no wake up? Means that in the bolt hole there are two power supplies. One for the "bubble" and one for the idiot computer and commo device to talk to idiot computer INSIDE bubble. That means somehow, the external power lasts 150+ years.

Either way, Bubble vs Suspended animation, we get the "Hand wave" magic.

We do not have a problem with medicine and other items deteriorating with the bubble. IF you go with the 150 year long sleep, at 2000 - 1 ratio of inside bubble vs outside, about 27 - 28 days pass inside bubble. No issue with things like tetracycline or other items that will decay over time.

(Math goes like this. 150 years * 365 days/year = 57540 days external, divide by 2000 = 27.375 days internal. Wiggle room for leap years, etc.)

Time to get off soap box.

My $0.02

Mike

[Gelrir]

Hmm, with a 2000:1 ratio, the team in the bubble should only have had about 2 days pass. They presumably would have just been sitting around a table playing hearts.

And ... after three or four days at most, turning off the bubble. "I don't get it, Bob, we were supposed to wake up on (1995, 2020, whatever) ... our simple sensors say the War happened on schedule (nuclear detonations, sudden end of internet/morronet, lack of any radio traffic, etc.). Let's peek outside."

Why would they wait for 27 days?

One possible solution: no matter how long the calendar sleep, the "time in the bubble" turns out to be 2 days for some reason? Which would also probably totally mess with the radio reception, though.



--
Michael B.

[kato13]

They did not wait, they shut the power off and yet the bubble stayed (due to temporal inertia).

Perhaps 5 days in (when panic starts to set in), they get the following coded messages.


ADK = Major Malfunction
LON = Situation Temporary
JTN = Wait for Further Communication

This is perhaps the result of a single Bolthole which "woke up" after only 15 years due to an unexpected power generation issue. While their bubble did not "coast" as long as the rest of the teams, they did see bubble fail to collapse in a timely manner. If you make it a science team perhaps they figured out what happened as an explanation for why no other teams have woken.

The Prime/Bolthole communication system while limited would still be generally functional after a couple of decades. Prime while not fully understanding what happened, realized it was probably temporary.

The basic message listed above, was the last word most teams received.

The random nature of the "coast" allows the GM total flexibility on who wakes up when. One difficulty in storytelling is the canon element of the KFS murdering the sleeping teams in the boltholes they find. As I consider the fields to be impenetrable to matter, simply murdering them is problematic.

Perhaps they booby trap and monitor the exits. It removes the Morrow threat to the KFS, but reduces the amount of captured equipment.

Thoughts?

[mikeo80]

Well, ok, the system shuts down, but the bubble continues....Well that is one kind of a "hand wave". A temporal displacement if you will. Not just in elapsed time but also in future time....

I, for one, do like the idea of KFS finding and killing as many Morrow as they can. The set up to "Bullets and Bluegrass", if run correctly, is a great, scary world for our intrepid hero's to wake up in.

BTW, I HATE!!!! The Sk5. HATE HATE HATE!!!!!!

Whew glad I got that out.....

Maybe a compromise.....

Suspended animation for the team, time bubbles for the gear?? I think this can work. After all, if you are using radioactive waste to power the generators, (Source, American Outback) and the half life of some of that stuff is several hundred years.... There is you power source, and enough time to get to the 150 year problem. Maybe the drain of BOTH systems causes the radioactivity to not be enough for the really long term, but 150 could do....(Optimistic Hand Wave)

My $0.02

Mike

[kato13]

Yeah the loss of the KSP murders was something that was hard to give up.

I have thought about them using lasers tuned to a frequency which can pass through the fields. They could incinerate those inside as the heat would increase rapidly due to the 2000X time multiplier. However that would mean a loss of materials inside the bolthole.

[Gelrir]

Why would the KFS know anything about what was inside the boltholes? "Hmm, a big, shiny thing we dug up from a hill. Let's use it as part of the foundation for our new hydroelectric dam." Or for that matter, just flip it upside-down and wait for it to open on its own.

If you have this process (temporal inertia messes up the bolthole schedule), what about the various other groups (Rich Five, Frozen Chosen, Snake Eaters) who are also canonically "frozen"?

I haven't seen American Outback, but I do like the radioactive decay issue. For my current campaign, the equivalent to "Snake Eaters" only have cryogenic berths ... they don't have fusion reactors, lasers, or any other Morrow anachronistic tech stuff.

The government hoped these teams would only need to be frozen for a decade at most; in any case, the only "entirely self-contained" power supply that could operate the cryogenic capsules for a decade or more were radioisotope thermoelectric generators, with a half-life of about 80 years. The teams had to be placed where a possible nuclear war, meteor strike, or other massive-damage scenario wouldn't damage them.

After about two half-lives, power available is below 20% of the initial output, and the Snake Eater bolt holes start automatically awakening their occupants.

--
Michael B.

[robj3]

I am not fond of this idea because the Project should have been able to prevent WW3 by using the stasis field like the Peace Authority did in Vinge's "The Peace War" by bobbling the crap out of the nuclear command and control systems of the superpowers.

Altering the flow of time in large controlled volumes is far more violating of physics than the canonical magic tech.

The ability to deform space-time like this implies control of stellar levels of energy.

It is using a gamma-ray burster to crack the nut of the 'Project storage problem'.

[kato13]

Altering the flow of time in large controlled volumes is far more violating of physics than the canonical magic tech.

Agreed, but it is an equal violation to Bruce jaunting through history in multiple timelines/dimensions.

Variation on the time bubbles can solve how they knew something would happen, and how they power their vehicles as well. I don't use the singularity power system (I use fusion but not at the vehicle level), but they can tie together.

Here is the relevant text from the alternate version

Future Knowledge and Time displacement


On Thursday, November 18, 1989, a research group operating in the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico made a breakthrough. They were following a line of inquiry based on a unproved relationship between electromagnetism and gravity, in the hopes of producing antigravity technology. What they found destroyed the lab, but the records survived.

They managed to construct a "tame" micro-sized black hole that would collapse when they stopped providing power to it. Stephen Hawking was brought in to try to figure out exactly what they had. During the course of that research, they discovered that by inserting probes at just the right angle and velocity, the probe would pass close enough to the event horizon to be propelled out of the "light cone" - and as it completed its orbit, it would fall back into our own space.

Attaching radio receivers and recorders to the probes was easy, and the research crews found that they were getting radio news stories from between 1 and 100 years in the future. They monitored it for 3 years, making quite a bit of money in the stock market in the process, when suddenly, they stopped getting any stories more than 50 years out. As time progressed, it became 49 years, then 48...

Obviously something would happen in 47 years that would take every radio station in the world off the air. Maybe it was a technological breakthrough that made radio obsolete - or maybe it was something very, very bad. No one knew, and it was too big a risk to just ignore.

A small group of scientist put forth a proposal to their superiors, and it went through channels. FEMA became involved, as well as other government agencies. Project Phoenix was born.

During the intervening 5 years of research, still trying to develop anti-gravity, the scientists taught their tame black hole a new trick - they could distort the flow of time in a given area, by a factor of about 700 to 1. While about two years would pass outside the field, only a day would pass inside.


Power


If you take six small gravity generators, and arrange so that the fields intersect in just the right way, two things happen. First, the gravity fields
cancel each other out before leaving the outside of the box you've put them in, and thus, the box seems inert from the outside. Second, a small
"cold point" forms in the center of the configuration. This cold point is a place were all matter and energy have been removed by "dragging"
it toward a gravity generator, resulting in a small zone of absolute, perfect, energyless vacuum. The universe does not like this. 'Nature abhors
a vacuum', and this kind of perfect vacuum just drives it totally nuts. As a result, in order to balance the normal chaos of the universe, a 'little bang'
occurs in the center of the zone of space. A pulse of electrons spontaneously accumulate, then look for something to ground to. By careful
placement of an anode grid, those electrons are captured and routed to capacitors where high energy pulses are stored and slowly drained to
charge batteries, thus powering the device and providing a steady stream of power output.

The smallest Zero Point Reactor (ZPR or 'Zipper') is about the size of a GM V6 engine, with similar power output. This is used in Project vehicles.
The next step up is a Zipper 2mx4mx1m used to power bases. Neither are particularly portable. Both have warnings about "No User Serviceable Parts Inside"


I would never say it is better than canon, I just found it slightly more plausible than the canon history of Bruce.

Edit I should note that I read "Phoenix Project" first and that might be why I connect with it. I do feel that the Morrow universe is amazing and I can see how people who read it first would connect to the original story.

[mikeo80]

Edit I should note that I read "Phoenix Project" first and that might be why I connect with it. I do feel that the Morrow universe is amazing and I can see how people who read it first would connect to the original story.

I understand what you mean. TMP was the second RPG I learned. First, of course, was D&D. I have always enjoyed tinkering with TMP. I have had teams wake all over the time spectrum. Including one memorable one that woke DURING WWIII!!! That was a Cluster F***!!!!

One Idea I had a LONG time ago.

Bruce himself did NOT time travel....Just too many things wrong...But maybe he could reach into the future and retrieve small objects...or the plans for said objects..

SO, Steven Hawking was able to design the fusion packs from the notes Bruce was able to get. Dr. Michael DeBakey was able to decipher the "freeze tubes".

As far as the COT, I looked at it as the predecessor of modern day Preppers. They looked at the chaos that was the Cold War. Saw that there was just too many ways mankind could/ would kill themselves. So, to preserve the "American Way" TMP was conceived. The objects and more importantly the news that Bruce was able to retrieve was enough to convince the COT that Doomsday was coming.

I do like the idea that Doomsday is 2017 from V4!! The 15 years or so in V3 is just not enough time.

Yeah, I know it is a "hand wave" to try and explain how COT was formed and derived the idea for TMP.

My $0.02

Mike

[robj3]

Kato13 wrote:

Agreed, but it is an equal violation to Bruce jaunting through history in multiple timelines/dimensions.

I disagree.

Bruce's unique ability doesn't have the potential impact of a technology that could be mass produced - with enormous military and energy production implications.

As Mike pointed out, perhaps Bruce can only reach out and take things from elsewhere - limited by the strength of his arms.

There are problems with the Project Phoenix quote.

How did the "tame" black hole even get made?
You're talking enormous energy densities. Why couldn't the power generators or the black hole effect be weaponised?

How is the "tame" black hole stabilised?
Small black holes are hot and short lived - they emit phenomenal amounts of Hawking radiation and evaporate. Makes for a great weapon or power plant.

How are communication satellites being sent along timelike curves near a black hole of this size?

"Micro" in this context is about the size of an atom. The Schwarzchild radius for the Earth is 9mm.

We've got two ways of creating time dilation thanks to relativity:
- Special relativity - accelerate something close to the speed of light.
- General relativity - bring something close to a massive object.

So it's possible to estimate the energy levels required.

The problem is gamma: 1/sqrt(1 - [v^2/c^2])

You need to multiply rest mass and time by gamma.
You can't get one without the other.

Time dilation/mass increase ratio of 10 requires v = 0.995c
Time dilation/mass increase ratio of 100 requires v = 0.99995c
Time dilation/mass increase ratio of 1000 requires v = 0.9999995c

Every kilogram of rest mass gains close to its rest mass equivalent in kinetic energy: 9 x 10^16 J, or about 21 megatons TNT.

Clocks run more slowly deep in a gravitational field.
So if we put the object to be slowed near a massive object...
T = T0/sqrt(1 - [2gR/c^2])

T = time interval measured by a clock distant to the mass
T0 = time interval measured by a clock near the mass
g = acceleration due to gravity
R = can use the radius of the earth here (6.38 x 10^6 m)
c = speed of light (3 x 10^8 m/s)

Solving for g, you're talking about 720 million times the acceleration due
to gravity at the surface of the Earth - 9.8 m/s^2 - to get useful dilation
ratios.

That's akin to replacing the Earth with a neutron star or black hole.

Hence the earlier reference to cosmic levels of power.

[Gelrir]

So if we presume:


time in the bolt holes runs at 1/2000th of time outside
the time bubble is powered by a generator in the bolt hole (probably the MP vehicle power supply); when the power to the temporal machinery is turned off, the time bubble collapses
however, unknown to the Project, "temporal inertia" will force a bolt hole-sized time bubble to remain active for 150 years, instead of shutting down within a short time. A bigger bubble might well remain active for even longer -- so much for depot support. Or not -- maybe "being underground" just couples your time bubble more firmly to the Earth's mass, or something.
some electromagnetic radiation can pass through the time bubble, perhaps only a particular frequency or something (so that the bubble doesn't accumulate several years or decades worth of heat). Presumably signals going into the bubble are 2000x higher frequency than they were transmitted at. A 38 kHz signal -- good for long-distance comms -- becomes an 76 MHz signal for the internal receiver -- right at the top end for the usual PRC-70 radio. Outgoing, the 76 MHz signal drops down to 38 kHz, at very low power; probably too low for anyone to receive who wasn't already next to the bolt hole location.
Externally, the bubble looks like a lumpy mirrored object, certainly resistant to axes, guns, and chemical explosives. It may be vulnerable to lasers, or weird physics -- but if the future inhabitants of North America can produce big lasers or black holes, etc., "rebuilding America" is well underway.


... I think the game would go something like this:

28 Days Later (couldn't resist)

A team enters their bolt hole, and turns on the generator. Radio signals in and out are confirmed at the proper rate with the "installation team" outside, who then plant some ivy and drive off (so to speak). A team expecting to wait for 10 years external time settles down for a 43 hour wait; no cryosleep is needed, just some carbon monoxide scrubbers and maybe a couple of oxygen tanks. They play poker, re-arrange their gear to suit themselves, and sleep.

At some point, the Atomic War occurs -- say, after the team has waited about 24 hours. The team will probably notice the War (they can monitor some radio time signals, for example); and perhaps at some point they receive the wake-up signal from Prime Base (or whomever).

Alas! They turn off the time bubble machine ... but the bubble persists! Even though it's not getting any electrical power... Nothing can be done but waiting. A few more desperate signals are received from Prime Base, but there are no more of those after a few hours (e.g., a year after the Atomic War).

27 days pass ... the air in the bolt hole turns stale, the carbon dioxide scrubbers are saturated, the oxygen tanks are depleted (and air pressure in the bolt hole may have increased a bit). The team may have received a few radio signals during that time, but couldn't respond usefully. Just as the team expects to suffocate ... "boop" goes some machine, the time bubble has collapsed on its own! The team rushes to open the bolt hole doors -- fresh air!


Does this seem to match your concept, Kato13?

An interesting issue: if Prime Base was "up" and could communicate with the bolt holes, they might send some info to the teams post-Atomic War (with due regard for radio security, etc.). Prime Base eventually starts sending wake-up signals, and gets essentially zero response -- ack! Panic! Probably several teams of the most skilled-at-post-apocalyptic-survival dudes get sent out to survey some of the nearest bolt holes. They report: time bubbles still intact, and (if they can get comms back from the teams) teams intact but unable to bring the bubbles down. Quite the pickle! For all Prime Base knows, the bolt holes might not ever open; the Project shifts to "Prime Base and any other non-time-frozen bases" from that point on.

--
Michael B.

[kato13]

That is very close to what I imagined.

I think there would be CO2 scrubbers in case a team was near the center of some type of cobalt dirty bomb crater. Prime might want to keep them inside for 2 to 5 times longer than expected, but it was certainly never expected to be the norm and the air getting stale when it goes MUCH longer is a nice touch.

[Gelrir]

Very ballpark-ish, a person can survive about a day for each 10 cubic meters of bolthole space. Increased carbon dioxide levels is what'll kill them, well before lowered oxygen levels. So yes, scrubbers are needed; the usual ones use sodium hydroxide or lithium hydroxide. They produce water (though I wouldn't drink it) and heat; so the bolthole gets kinda humid.

I could dig up the various published MP diagrams for bolt holes, but for my campaign a typical Recon team bolt hole is about 300 cubic meters. With a five-person team: 300 / 5 = 60 cubic meters per person; 60 / 10 = 6 days. A few simple chemical scrubbers could probably extend that; but I think oxygen tanks would be needed for a 28 day stay.

--
Michael B.

[Gelrir]

Lithium hydroxide scrubbers:

https://www.google.com/search?q=lithium+hydroxide+scrubber&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=e3MSU4bjEI_yoATA4IKoAw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1487&bih=787

Hmm, commercial solutions:

http://www.microporeinc.com/index.php?id=minesafety

http://www.frogdiver.com/scrubber.html

--
Michael B.

[kato13]

Supplemental oxygen would be necessary. I suppose they could be standard equipment in the event that a team needed to dig themselves out of their boltholes. The expectation being that if they were not used (expected 99.9% of the time) it would end up being supplemental medical equipment.

[Gelrir]

As I've mentioned before, I think it's vital for the referee to avoid any hint or presumption of "the Project knew it would be 150 years, but lied to you, the team members". A stack of three dozen oxygen tanks, conveniently in the corner, too bulky to carry off in the MPV, looks a bit like evidence of foreknowledge.

Digging out won't take 4 weeks, if it can be done at all with the tools available to a Recon team.

Hmm, a person uses about 0.5 to 1 kg of oxygen per day. 5 x 28 = 140 kg of oxygen for a team of five, for four weeks. By volume, it's at least 550 liters per person per day; 550 x 5 x 28 = 77,000 liters. A typical scuba tank holds 2300 liters of air; yes, not oxygen, but for a first approximation we can use that. So: 33 scuba-type air tanks. Adding 77 cubic meters of oxygen into the bolt hole will raise the air pressure a bit (though it's being converted to carbon dioxide by respiration and then absorbed by the scrubbers, as long as they're working).

So: it can be done, but a stack of three dozen scuba tanks, and a small mine's worth of carbon dioxide scrubbers, are required. And if the "stack of tanks" exactly matches the amount needed for the 150 year wait -- another clue.

"You realize with dismay that what you were told -- your team would be awakened a few years after the Atomic War, or not more than 15 years in any case -- seems to have been wrong. The temporal stasis machine was turned off, but the time bubble remained in effect. There was nothing your team could do; fortunately, there was a month's worth of oxygen tanks and carbon dioxide scrubbers installed in the bolt hole. And in fact, after a month, the time bubble collapsed, just as the oxygen and scrubbers were depleted."

Maybe a higher "time multiplier" would be useful: say, 20,000:1. The "150 year mistake" would only take up 3 days, not requiring any oxygen tanks or carbon dioxide scrubbers? A team expecting a 10-years-to-wakeup will plan on a 4 hour wait, which turns into 3 days. That would make radio communications more difficult though ...

Anyway, I'm sure you can work something out for your campaign.

--
Michael B.

[kato13]

I'm now thinking that maybe the time dilation increases the longer the field is up.

[Gelrir]

That sounds like a good idea ... maybe something like:

Once your team and equipment were settled into the bolt hole, the installation team closed the outer doors and your team leader turned on the temporal shift package. The lights flickered a bit, but nothing else seemed to change. A short Morse code message arrived immediately -- within a second or so -- from the installation team, confirming all seemed well externally. You and your team mates settled down to ponder the rapidly-approaching end of human civilization.

After a day or so, you hung up the carbon dioxide-scrubbing curtains, as instructed, to keep the bolthole air reasonably fresh; they certainly kept it warm and moist, however.

43 hours -- the very rough estimate for your wake-up signal -- came and went. A few squeaks and static were all your radio was receiving. What had gone wrong? Had Prime Base been destroyed? Had the Atomic War occurred?

Fortunately, the Project had a plan for that. After 65 hours -- probably ten years after the expected date of the Atomic War -- your team leader shut down the temporal shift package.

Unfortunately: the time bubble didn't collapse! Peeking through the exit door, you could see the inner surface of the bubble, shining bright with upshifted radiation. What could be done? The utter impermeability of the bubble had been made clear to you during training.

As more hours passed, the bolt hole grew warmer and warmer; your own body heat, the electrical systems in the bolt hole, the glare from the inside of the time bubble, and the chemical reactions of the scrubber were all adding heat, which couldn't escape. Two days passed with the bubble persisting out of control; the scrubbers began to lose effectiveness, and the carbon dioxide levels began to rise.

The surface of the time bubble, when briefly examined, had begun to shimmer with strange rainbow effects, and flashed with garish sparkles a few times. That wasn't in the manual!

You were having trouble concentrating; lying on the floor, the team considered the real likelihood of dying in a few hours. A couple of your team mates with chemistry backgrounds slowly discussed methods of reducing the carbon dioxide, or of eventually generating oxygen.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a quick thud from the exit door. Cautiously, the team pushed the door ajar, and saw darkness beyond the smoking, melted wire mesh which had established the time bubble. A smell of warm earth and burnt wire came to your noses. The bubble was down!

You tore down the wire mesh in a mad scramble, and shoveled aside the dirt and gravel which had covered the bubble's exterior. Tired and out of breath, you forced a hole to the outside, heedless of any radiation or other contamination. Air! You took turns forcing your heads into the hole, breathing deeply of the sweet, cool air.

In a minute or so, you knocked down more of the gravel and dirt, making a hole big enough for a person to crawl through ...

And of course it's 150 years after the War.

--
Michael B.