Storymania - On The Singularity Cusp by Matt Tracy

On The Singularity Cusp
Matt Tracy

The discovery of “Singularity Living” was not as shocking as we all thought it would be. Once we realized that we could in fact pull ourselves off the event horizon of a black hole, we set about trying to apply the knowledge to something as useful as possible time travel or harnessing the powerful singularity radiation that was discovered the further one travels into a black hole. As it has all shaken out, we have come no further then humans trying for immortality.

In the late twentieth century, humans experimented with cryonics as a form of immortality; a way to go on living long after nature had decided otherwise. No one knew at the time of the devastating effects that the freezing process had on the so-called “life spark” of the living tissue. Millions of people were lost when it was discovered that their bodies could in no way be reanimated as was thought. It seemed that the faith placed in the future of science was a little too strong.

Then, in the twenty-second century, we discovered suspended animation. It had taken only a couple hundred years for science to drag this theory out of science-fiction obscurity and make it all possible. The best part about suspended animation was the fact that it was discovered entirely by accident. Who would have thought that by leaving the solar system we would discover the secrets to controlling electromagnetic frequencies? If it hadn’t been for the disaster in the experimental spacecraft Luminar 1, we would have gone on living no longer than modern biology was letting us.

When the engines for Luminar 1 were fired, the half of the crew that was not in nano-mercury protection was killed instantly, their bodies seemingly returned to Maxwell’s “ether.” What had been discovered though was that the bodies in nano-mercury protection were completely unharmed, save for the fact that they appeared to be reduced to a completely inanimate state. One other unfortunate circumstance of the Luminar 1 project was that the ship was lost in space for 76 years, only to be found again by a science vessel in the edge of our solar system.

The further hilarity that ensued was that when these frozen passengers were discovered, they were made guinea pigs as far as their rescue was concerned. It was not until a mere spark from a technicians careless hand reanimated one of the “survivors” that mankind discovered that they had a new way to go after immortality. Now, with people covered in protective nano-suits and bathed in mercury, the Luminar engines could be fired, and a state of permanent suspended animation could be achieved. The rest could be computer controlled; people were awakened when the time or destination was right.

We used suspended animation to travel to great lengths in our galaxy. We immediately sent space colonies out to the furthest possible recesses of known space. There are still colonies of humans traveling to this day. They represent mankind's will to expand to limits that consequence has no bearing on. Humans were able to colonize over 1200 different solar systems; most were in the form of low-orbit space stations, but some were even able to colonize actual planets.

The sad thing is that this has had a splintering effect on the human species. With so many different colonies at so many different points of exploration in the galaxy, there is no temporal harmony at any point in the galaxy. Most colonies have no idea what is going on back on earth, and few have any contact with more than a few relatively close colonies. Even that contact is limited by man’s inability to disseminate knowledge and information with any sort of efficiency or speed over the vastness of space. Even earth’s system-wide communications take upwards of five months to transmit anything good.

Mankind has basically broken down into interstellar factions that have limited contact with anyone outside of their realm of influence. But certain technologies and information have become universal.

Singularity Living, for all the baseless unimportance that it represents, has become universal in the galaxy. Every colony that now sets out is destined for a black hole. There are still vast amounts of exploration and discovery to be held, but it seems mankind is more interested in immortality than anything else. To be fair, this may be the closest we ever come to time travel, but the idealism of old has given way to mere cosmetic preservation. Mankind simply seeks now to outlive the stars, content with being parasites on what is basically a dead entity .

Singularity Living breaks down like this. We have come up with a way to go to the cusp of infinity, hang out there for a little while, and then pull ourselves back to see what the future holds. There are only a few brave souls who have ever come off the event horizon, and they have all elected to go right back, certain that the next time they come back, the future will be even better. The powers that we have discovered enable us to cheat death by sidestepping what were previously held truths in the realm of unified theories.

It started when we developed the Electromagnetic-String-Bolt, or ESB. It was thought, at the time, that we could use a string of powerful electromagnetic pulses to pull ourselves across space at higher efficiency. As it turned out, it was no stronger than the Luminar engine; in fact it was actually slower. But the ESB had one advantage over the Luminar engine; it was more powerful and/or seemingly impervious to the incredible gravity of a black hole.

As with all great human advancement, it was all by accident that this was discovered. A space colony, using an ESB, was sent out into a region of space that was thought to be clear. As it turned out, their flight path was to take them to the edge of a black hole. It was thought, after the atrocity was discovered, that the colony would be pulled in and lost; in all effects, it should have been. But when an initialization signal was retrieved from the colony, it was learned that there had been no problem. At first, many thought that the calculations were wrong, that the colony had never actually come close to the black hole. But when the colony checked their flight recorders, they saw that they had indeed crossed the critical pull zenith of a black hole; they should have been sucked in. It was discovered that the ESB had been strong enough to pull them back from doom.

After that, experiments were done with ESB’s to find out exactly how strong their force could be. Once the story spread, the greatest minds in the galaxy figured out, through mathematical formula only, that an ESB might be able to pull anything off of a black hole, as long as it never crossed the event horizon. It was discovered that an ESB could pull with exactly the same force that it was fighting against. Alas, ESB’s were still bound by unified field theories; they could not pull something faster than the speed of light, hence their limitations once crossing the event horizon. Once something crosses the event horizon, it cannot escape; this includes light, and, to a certain extent, time.

But that was good enough for the human race. They set about immediately sending craft after craft to edge of a black hole’s event horizon and pulling it back. It was quite simple; as the craft approaches the event horizon, it fires its ESB, giving it the ability to pull itself out of the black hole. Super computers then do simple calculations and determine exactly when is the last moment before it is too late to pull the craft out of danger. These experiments took hundreds of years though, all thanks to the temporal characteristics of a black hole.

As was surmised in the twentieth century, if one was to come close to and then cross the event horizon of a black hole, the relativity of time has some amazing consequences. As one approaches the event horizon, time seemingly goes on as it had, but outside the black hole, it is very different. In the black hole, as one nears the event horizon, what is no more than one billionth of a second to the traveler, can be a thousand years outside the black hole. This is how man planned to chase immortality.

Human subjects were sent to the brink of annihilation and brought back with nothing more than a sense of wonder at the world that had transpired while they had been gone. The first was Captain Matthew Queen. When Capt. Queen was sent into the black hole, it was calculated that his 15-second surf of the black hole would bring him 27 years into the future, based in the relativity of his travel to those who sent him.

When Capt. Queen returned, it had seemed to him that he had only been gone for minutes, but in fact it had been 37 years since he left the space colony that launched him. Sadly, the courageous Capt. Queen had shut his eyes during the trip, so there was no data available from him; 37 years of research bore little fruit; save for the fact that it was now possible to send a man forward into time with seemingly no consequences. Man had raced the stars and won.

But for all the hundreds of years of research, there have been few advances gained from this powerful knowledge; all we have to show for it is Singularity Living. It started out as an eccentric fad, something that insane space colonizers had dreamt up and were under no restriction to not do. It was seen as immortality at the hands of the most destructive force in the universe.

Most of the early launches were carried out by a few individuals and their computers. Once actual research proved too time consuming, literally, it was abandoned for more space exploration. It was up to the vain of the universe to move forward in time. There have only been a few who have returned from the cusp of the event horizon, and they have little to do once they return. They elect to return to the cusp for another few minutes and see where the next million years takes the human race.

The real irony of Singularity Living is that while you can technically cheat death, there is not much of a reward. Once back, those explorers of time have little to say and understand even less of what is going on. There are stories of early explorers setting out for 20 minute surfs and returning to dead colonies; colonies who either gave up the spirit of exploration, or were hit with catastrophe. Computers were able to take them as close as one millionth of a second to total destruction, a wild ride for sure; but brought these people back to a future that they didn’t care about or even understand.

As it stands now, there are basically two types of humans: those who live on the singularity and those who live a life that is microscopic by comparison. The thing is, neither group cares much about the other. Singularity Livers never have to see anyone again, while the Singularity Surf is so abstract to those who do not go, that they soon forget those who do it. So why travel to the edge of total destruction and return to a future that one doesn’t care about? Some say it is as simple as immortality.

The irony is that Singularity Livers are elongating their lives to such an extent, they may one day come back after a short surf to find that the universe has passed them by. It has been surmised that there will be millions of surfers lost should the universe start its inevitable collapse. There are only a few theories as to what will happen to those left on black holes when they are compacted to the “Big Crunch.” It is widely accepted that the universe will continually “bang” and “crunch” for eternity. The concept of time is so skewed in the singularity cusp, that many humans, should the black hole survive the crunch, will in fact be transported to a time on the other side of the crunch, after another bang, and will return to a time that, conceptually speaking, will be earlier in a universe then the time they left.

There are even a few who think that there are already a few surfers that have returned at earlier times in mankind's history, but were written off as “extra terrestrials.” They think that early contact with supposed aliens were actually Singularity Livers who crossed over the crunch and came out on the other side. Of course, this is only believed by those who think that every time the universe expands and contracts, crunches and bangs, that history repeats itself exactly.

There are those who hope that the eventual mapping and timing of the bang and crunch phenomena will allow them to plan a surf that can bring them out on the other side of a cycle that they left, to a point that would be in the past. If the theory holds true, they will be able to travel to a place in time that will only be different in theory; everything will in fact be history, just in a different concept of it.

While one thinks on this, there are literally millions of humans hurtling themselves forward in time. And the whole trip will take them less than 30 minutes.