detonation.
The principles behind the function of the warp grenade Darkness to the development of the warp disc, which rendered Prof. Mensinger's chronoplate obsolete. It had led him to the development of the disruptor, or the "warp gun” as it was sometimes called by those few who knew of existence. It was the first true disintegrator ray. Yet frightening a weapon as the disruptor was, the warp grenade made it seem tame by comparison. It could be set to destroy a city, or a city block, or one house within that block, or a room within that house, or a space within that room no larger than a breadbox. The surplus energy of the explosion, whatever not required to accomplish the designated task, was t clocked instantaneously through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge explode harmlessly in the Orion Nebula—or so it was believed.
The problem was that so much devastating energy clocked through Einstein-Rosen Bridges eventually shifted the chrono-physical alignment of the universe. The result was that every time a warp grenade was detonated, instead of the surplus energy being teleported to the Orion Nebula, a parallel universe was nuked. Millions of lives were lost and though Darkness had never detonated a single warp grenade, he had to live with the knowledge of what his work had led to. That alone, thought Lucas, could easily destroy a man.
Shortly after the Temporal Army had conducted its first detonation of a warp grenade, Dr. Darkness disappeared. No one knew where he had gone. He had wanted to get as far away from people as it was possible to get, so he took off for some remote pa rt of th e ga laxy , to c arr y on hi s work in an environment where he could keep complete control of it. From time to time, he would release some new discovery through one of several Earth-based conglomerates he controlled, thereby financing his further experiments in tachyon translation, a process no one else alive could even begin to understand. And, as it turned out, even Dr. Darkness hadn't fully understood it.
He had been obsessed with the idea of perfecting a process whereby the human body could be translated into tachyons, which would then depart at six hundred times the speed of light along the direction of a tachyon beam through an Einstein- Rosen Bridge.
On paper, he believed that he had solved the problems, but what was mathematically real and what was
really
real were often two very different things. His main concerns had to do with the reassembly process, ensuring that the organs and the tissues were reassembled in the appropriate order at theappropriate time and place. Because there would be no "receiver."
Darkness had incorporated a timing mechanism into the tachyon conversion, so that the tachyonized body could be reassembled at the instant of arrival based on the time/space coordinates of the transition. And when he was certain that he had the process finally perfected, he became his own first human test subject. His ego would never have allowed anyone else to be the first to experience direct translation into tachyons.
Unfortunately, Dr. Darkness had neglected one small element of the equation. His "taching" process was ultimately restrained by a little known principle of physics called the law of baryon conservation. Lucas was never quite able to follow the scientific explanation, but it had something to do with the idea that objects with mass could not be translated into particles with "zero rest mass." Or, as Darkness had sarcastically put it, "you can’t rollerskate in a buffalo herd. When Lucas questioned that enigmatic analogy, Darkness lost his patience and told him to look up the works of a 20th century philosopher named Roger Miller.
In nonabstract terms, what the principle meant to Darkness in the real world was a glitch in the translation process that resulted in his body being permanently tachyonized. He became “the man who was faster than light." He could travel from his secret laboratory headquarters somewhere in
The principles behind the function of the warp grenade Darkness to the development of the warp disc, which rendered Prof. Mensinger's chronoplate obsolete. It had led him to the development of the disruptor, or the "warp gun” as it was sometimes called by those few who knew of existence. It was the first true disintegrator ray. Yet frightening a weapon as the disruptor was, the warp grenade made it seem tame by comparison. It could be set to destroy a city, or a city block, or one house within that block, or a room within that house, or a space within that room no larger than a breadbox. The surplus energy of the explosion, whatever not required to accomplish the designated task, was t clocked instantaneously through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge explode harmlessly in the Orion Nebula—or so it was believed.
The problem was that so much devastating energy clocked through Einstein-Rosen Bridges eventually shifted the chrono-physical alignment of the universe. The result was that every time a warp grenade was detonated, instead of the surplus energy being teleported to the Orion Nebula, a parallel universe was nuked. Millions of lives were lost and though Darkness had never detonated a single warp grenade, he had to live with the knowledge of what his work had led to. That alone, thought Lucas, could easily destroy a man.
Shortly after the Temporal Army had conducted its first detonation of a warp grenade, Dr. Darkness disappeared. No one knew where he had gone. He had wanted to get as far away from people as it was possible to get, so he took off for some remote pa rt of th e ga laxy , to c arr y on hi s work in an environment where he could keep complete control of it. From time to time, he would release some new discovery through one of several Earth-based conglomerates he controlled, thereby financing his further experiments in tachyon translation, a process no one else alive could even begin to understand. And, as it turned out, even Dr. Darkness hadn't fully understood it.
He had been obsessed with the idea of perfecting a process whereby the human body could be translated into tachyons, which would then depart at six hundred times the speed of light along the direction of a tachyon beam through an Einstein- Rosen Bridge.
On paper, he believed that he had solved the problems, but what was mathematically real and what was
really
real were often two very different things. His main concerns had to do with the reassembly process, ensuring that the organs and the tissues were reassembled in the appropriate order at theappropriate time and place. Because there would be no "receiver."
Darkness had incorporated a timing mechanism into the tachyon conversion, so that the tachyonized body could be reassembled at the instant of arrival based on the time/space coordinates of the transition. And when he was certain that he had the process finally perfected, he became his own first human test subject. His ego would never have allowed anyone else to be the first to experience direct translation into tachyons.
Unfortunately, Dr. Darkness had neglected one small element of the equation. His "taching" process was ultimately restrained by a little known principle of physics called the law of baryon conservation. Lucas was never quite able to follow the scientific explanation, but it had something to do with the idea that objects with mass could not be translated into particles with "zero rest mass." Or, as Darkness had sarcastically put it, "you can’t rollerskate in a buffalo herd. When Lucas questioned that enigmatic analogy, Darkness lost his patience and told him to look up the works of a 20th century philosopher named Roger Miller.
In nonabstract terms, what the principle meant to Darkness in the real world was a glitch in the translation process that resulted in his body being permanently tachyonized. He became “the man who was faster than light." He could travel from his secret laboratory headquarters somewhere in
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