Aug 7 - Metal and Time
Title: Day 7 - Metal and Time
Author: acswatwst (acs)
Rating: FR-18
Crossover: BtVS / Dr Who
Word Count: 1030
Disclaimer: This is a derivative work. All BtVS characters and concepts belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, and others. The BBC owns all things Doctor Who. Furlings belong to whomever own Stargate.
Author's Note: I have never been to the Wright Brother's Museum in Dayton, Ohio. I'm not sure when the museum opened but its website says something about 1950. But I couldn't ind any info about the interior, so I'm just making it up as I go. The 1905 Wright Flyer mentioned below? That is really there, according to the museum.
Additional Note: I wrote myself into a corner in a previous installment. A "time lock" preventing travel outside of Ohio? Bad idea! Boring! Let's see if I can get our protagonists out of this mess so they go on to the fun stuff - adventures in time and space!
Summary: Joyce asks questions. Romana pontificates on fixed points and the nature of time, and makes a discovery.
"Why here?" Joyce asked, in the darkened museum, looking around. "What's so special about an old plane? It doesn't even look like a real one." She frowned at the odd contraption that Romana was examining with the metal stick she'd said was a 'sonic'.
"Hmm, this old thing?" Romana said, looking under one wing. "Interferences in time can happen in multiple ways, but the most common is to introduce technology earlier than it would happen naturally, and another is to change the life of a founder of a social movement."
"So, if I wanted to change the world I could go back in time and invent radar, put it on the Titanic so they could see where they were going and they wouldn't sink," Joyce said. "I'd be introducing radar before it was invented many years later."
"Correct," Romana said. "Introducing this radar might not be as straightforward as that, but that's the general concept. You'd also have to devise ways of building this radar and sharing it if you wanted permanent effects. You can't just drop it on this Titanic, a ship I believe, and expect great changes to follow."
"The Titanic is famous for hitting an iceberg and sinking," Joyce said. "It was called 'unsinkable'. There were a lot of famous people on board when it sank who died."
"That would be an additional factor to know when trying to change history," Romana said. "Save this ship, this Titanic, by changing its path, and you might save someone who changes some important event. Hard to predict."
"So, changing history by changing something that has already happened," Joyce said. "Does it always work?"
Romana paused for a moment, looking up from examining the engine on the Wright Flyer. "That is where fixed points come in," she said. "If the sinking of this Titanic is a fixed point, everything you do won't stop it from sinking. Everything you do to stop it, won't. A frustrating experience."
"So, you've tried to change time before?" Joyce asked.
"We are all tempted at some point," Romana said. "But you never really know what you are going to get as a result, so it is best avoided. My class at the Academy on time line change prediction seemed to be designed to impress on us how hard it is to change a timeline and get it to become permanent. The math alone was known to drive some mad."
"Well, pooh," Joyce said. "So, if I killed Hitler, that wouldn't stop World War II?"
"Unlikely. One person is rarely the sole cause of a war. The math to determine what to change for such an outcome is extremely complicated." Romana sighed and returned to looking at the Flyer's engine.
"You never answered," Joyce said. "What's so important about this thing?" She leaned over the rope guarding the exhibit and poked a cloth covered wing.
"This would be why," Romana said. She patted the engine. "If this is a faithful restoration of the original, it shouldn't exist."
"Everyone knows about the Wright Brothers and their first flight," Joyce said. "This is Dayton, Ohio. They invented it here."
"The metal used to make the engine is not native to this time, or their time more accurately," Romana said. "1905?" She stepped back and looked at the exhibit plaque. "Yes, 1905. Your people wouldn't have had the ability to use this metal. It has a melting point much higher than you are capable of, even now."
"So, someone gave the Wright Brothers some metal they shouldn't have," Joyce said. "Did that affect history?"
"It has somehow created a fixed point in time, centered around this machine," Romana said. "At this point I do not have enough information to say for sure. The change to the engine could have affected something important or nothing."
"What was the point?" Joyce asked.
"Unknown," Romana said. "But it seems to be a factor in the time lock affecting this area. The machine is drenched in artron energy."
"Oh," Joyce said. "Your time machine is stuck in Ohio, a fate worse than death, unless you figure this out. Who wants to spend the rest of their life exploring Ohio?"
"Yes, it is stuck," Romana said. "It may seem trivial, but someone wants me, or my TARDIS here, and tried to lay a subtle trap. To find out who it needs to be sprung."
"Does the metal matter to history?" Joyce said a few minutes later. "If no one can use it, why not just leave it there?"
"It would likely be more effort to prevent it being used," Romana said, nodding. "Most historical anomalies of this kind are ignored. But whomever gave them this metal? That is worth investigating. It may be part of a greater plan."
"Why do you care? Are you from here?" Joyce asked. "Except in the future?"
Romana raised an eyebrow. "Have I not said? No matter. As you know, I am a time traveler."
"Yes, the time ship, your TARDIS sort of gives that away," Joyce said, giggling. "But you haven't said anything about who you are?"
"Much as you are not a native of this planet, neither am I," Romana said.
"I was born in Dayton," Joyce said. "That makes me a native."
"Furling are not native to this planet," Romana said. "I couldn't say how your family came to be here, but it was from somewhere else."
"What are you then?" Joyce asked.
"Gallifreyan," Romana said. "We learned to manipulate and travel through time, and became its guardians and rulers. Time Lords they called us. Time and space were ours to command. My people disappeared long before yours. I am not certain why or when."
"A bit arrogant, it seems," Joyce said. "Probably made someone else mad and they stomped all over you."
"Arrogant? You'll get no argument from me," Romana said. 'But they were proud of it." Romana straightened her coat and hat, and stepped away from the plane. "Let's go."
"Go where? I still have a curfew," Joyce said. "Which I'm already breaking."
"We need to see a man about a bicycle," Romana said. "We'll get back in plenty of time for your curfew."