From the Jongleur Handbook
Chapter 1:
Gravity is a force. It is governed by the most basic equation in physics: force equals mass times acceleration [F=ma]. Thus, gravity is routinely measured as an acceleration. However, the acceleration of gravity is actually independent of any distance traveled, or space. By freezing the spatial variables, manipulation of the gravity equation yields one free variable: time. …
Chapter 2:
… Time is not a river. Your life takes place, not in a stream, but on the surface of a membrane that stretches endlessly in three dimensions, like the surface of a bubble. The membrane itself is not static but expands outward, second by second, through a fourth dimension: time itself. Each person living on the surface of this membrane moves steadily outward along the radius of the expanding bubble.
Each person also generates circles of communication, personal action, and interpersonal action that spread, second by second, across the surface of the bubble, like ripples in water from the fall of a leaf. The spread of each circle is limited, theoretically, by the speed of information transfer in normal space—that is, the speed of light, or 300,000 kilometers per second. In practice, however, a circle of action may move much more slowly—perhaps at the speed of a horseman riding out of town.
The intersection of the expanding surface of the bubble and each spreading circle of action defines a cone. The cone always points backward toward the origin of the action along the axis of the bubble’s radius. The cone of time sets the limits of possibility, the span of cause and effect, for any being that inhabits the surface of the bubble.
For beings that live outside the bubble, however …
Chapter 3:
Subjectively, each self-aware being and the commune of interacting beings inhabit the surface of a single time bubble. For these inhabitants, the surface is unbroken, the axial cones of action all point in one direction, and the flow of time is continuous. Objectively, however, to any awareness that exists outside the bubble, the surface is vastly, almost fractally, uneven and carries pits and scars from the actions of those beings living inside the bubble.
Dents and craters appear at the points where individuals, interacting communes, even entire civilizations have ceased functioning and disappeared. Their time cones may continue to echo through chains of collateral cause and effect, but the cone’s original focus becomes a void.
Buds of new bubbles and eventually entire new worlds appear at each Wahrschein Punkt where the potential for action is equal or reciprocal. For the subjective inhabitants of the original bubble, these buds are invisible, as they constitute the Schein fraction of the original potential.
… The universe visible to any self-aware mind concatenates thousands, millions, perhaps infinities of invisible universes, all proceeding outward from successive points of origin. Most of these unfelt universes are mutually indistinguishable, comprised of minor differences in choice and action that gradually diverge through cause and effect. However, this benign relationship is not universally true of all budded worlds. Some worlds bud in the chaos of war, environmental stress, and societal collapse, engendering dark spheres of aversion and rage against the original order.
… The universe is more bizarre than any single mind can imagine.
Chapter 4:
Travel through time always implies travel through space. For a Jongleur to travel forward or backward along the time axis and expect to arrive at the same point in space would be impossible.
Consider that any point on the Earth’s equator is rushing eastward with the planet’s rotation at approximately 1,609 kilometers per hour. The planet itself is moving along its orbit around the sun at 107,277 kilometers per hour. The sun is moving around the galaxy at 792,000 kilometers per hour. The sum of these proper motions means that a one-year trip backward through time arrives at a point in interstellar space trailing the solar system by approximately six and a half light hours.
… Of course, when crossing between two bubble worlds that happen to coincide, no spatial dimension applies. However, for the reasons stated elsewhere, this mode of travel is not recommended.