Smith mk1 Salut. I guess I'm supposed to tell you what happened to me. Smith: You: 0 @DUMMY@ 0 First of all, I know this will sound a bit nuts, but it really is true. 0 0 I arrived here just about a month ago from Holden ford. 0 0 Anyway, I was recruited during the 8th or 9th loop, and I don't know if I'll go back now. 0 0 Well, before the war started, I didn't really have a life that meant much. 0 0 So, Major Afrad kept telling me after the war I could go back and clean things up in my life. 0 0 Well, the war really turned around during the 11th loop, when Higgins solved the bootstrap problem. 0 0 So, now that the leaders knew how to manipulate some of the subtleties of the artifacts, the war changed. 0 0 That's how the real jumps forward in the loops began. It used to be entire platoons going through the gates at a time. The solution eliminated that need. 0 0 After having some very strange intersection experiences in the late teen loops, I began to realize what was happening. 0 0 Once I realized that, I came here. I don't want to explain any further. 0 0 So, now I'm here, I don't have anything further to say. 0 0 I don't have any more to say. 1 0; 0 gate 0 The gate was just another of our names for the artifacts. They let us move backward in time, into another loop 0 0; 0 solution 0 'The solution' was the solution to the bootstrap problem. It made loop jumping and loop intersections possible. 0 0; 0 intersect 0 After Higgin's solution, loops could intersect. Sometime around the 15th loop was when I first met myself. 0 1 I must tell you, meeting one's self is very strange. I had intersected from the 16th loop. 0 1 In the 24th loop, a whole group of me's were actually at Holden. That's why I (we) came here after that loop instead of going on to the 25th. 0 1 Ok, that's not quite right. Some of us had to close some of the intersections, but eventually we all became the me who is here. Time travel is very subtle. 0 0; 0 true 0 This is all true. Truly. 1 0; 0 change 0 It changed in strange ways. It became bigger, yet, smaller. There was more destruction, but less death. It was very confusing. 0 1 Each time death seemed to come, you would get whisked into the next loop. Very disconcerting. 0 0; 0 higgins bootstrap 0 Well, the first realization of the practical bootstrap problem occurred when the artifacts at N.Petersburg were found. Nobody knew how they got there, especially since they clearly weren't ancient. 0 1 Finally, folks realized that they had been put there during the collapse. 0 1 How they actually came into existence in the first place nobody knew until Higgins. 0 1 What Higgins actually figured out is still unclear, but after he gave a set of people the solution, he when somewhere else, and nobody knows where or when. 0 0; 0 ford 0 A ford is I guess like a fort, but a ford is a fort with one of the artifacts. 0 0; 0 time travel future in time 0 Yes, that's what the artifacts did. They enabled us to move forward and backward in time, with some substantial restrictions. 0 1 I can't say I understand the mechanics of it. The big breakthrough, of course, was the bootstrap problem. 0 1 That's how we got the Loop war. Every failure could be gone back to and fixed. Sort of. 0 1 In any case, it wasn't fun. 0 1; 0 war 0 The ShortFast War is the name they'd like to call it. The Loop war was what it was really called. 0 1 It was neither short, nor fast. Really, it only lasted four months, but still... 0 1 It was only four months because Haverson, chair of the 2nd new council, legislated it. 0 1 Legislating the length of the war was a really bad idea. Everyone realized this at the beginning of the second loop. 0 1 Us civvies at the time didn't realize how bad it was though until we were all in it. 0 0; 0 afrad 0 Afrad was a good guy. He used to be some aid on the council staff. I didn't really know him that well. 0 0; 0 council 0 The council was convened for the first time right before the collapse. 0 1 They were going to try to stop it, but of course they couldn't. 0 1 After the convening of the second council, decades after the collapse, they said they would be bringing us into the Third Age. 0 1 The dig at the N.Petersburg-dome changed the way they were going to do this of course. 0 1 The council was overall a good idea, but ill implemented 0 1; 0 petersburg 0 N.Petersburg was a dome out in Siberia where they found the first artifacts. 0 1 At first, it was one of the signs of the coming of the Third Age and all. In some ways they're probably right. 0 1; 0 collapse 0 The collapse is still a while off. Your children might see it, I don't really remember enough history. 0 1 It was scary. Because of all the good mass communication that exists now, it happened all at once. 0 1 One minute, the world was there, less than 4 weeks later, the collapse had happened and nobody knew what to do. 0 0; 0 third age 0 Well, according to these historians, you here are in the second age, ok? 0 1 The first age was a couple thousand years ago, before the 'Dark Age'. The collapse was the second dark age. 0 1 The second council thought they were getting the third age going with only a few decades of darkness. Heh. 0 0; 0 dome 0 A dome is one of these magnetic jobs that they put up to make people happier about any crap left over from the collapse. 0 1 To be honest, I don't think they worked at all, except to appease people's fear. 0 0; 0 artifact 0 After being dug up at N.Petersburg-dome, people said that the artifacts had been there for millenia 0 1 Of course, the artifacts hadn't been there for millenia, really. 0 1 If they had, the would have been found before the collapse, or so they say. Instead, they must have gotten there during the collapse. 0 1 Of course, that causes the bootstrap problem which no one wants to think about. 0 0; 0 loop 0 Loops are how we measured things. It got sort of confusing, with loop intersections and all, but it added a sense of continuity. 0 1 I really don't think I understand how loops worked, to be honest... 0 0 I'm told the war was over in the 28th or 29th loop, but that's by somone who was in a crossover in Loop 5. 0 0; 0 holden 0 Holden ford is a base a few miles out of New York center. 0 1 I was at Holden for about six months after the 24th loop. 0 1 Holden was certainly going to be gone by the 25th loop, so we evacuated. 0 1;