[Really, seriously Infinities] Fenspace Infinite: The Multiverse Is Calling

[M Fnord]

No, I haven't forgotten or abandoned this, just a little low on the creative fire is all. Expanding on some things said previously...

Most people think that the Convention is where sidestepping started. They're not wholly right about that, if I am totally honest. Yes, Professor Griest's equations and devices are at the heart of modern sidestep tech yadda yadda. But here's the thing; handwavium crystals - those wonderful chunks of paranormal material on which the modern world is based - they were everywhere in the three or four years before Deidre rigged up a TV to talk to herself.

No, seriously. This is one of the things that gets glossed over in the big books about The History of Sidestepping, because when it went public Griest's crew were the ones to do it. Even then it stood to reason that if one person could figure out how to talk to the handwavium and get the necessary equations, then others could do it too. But nobody else came forward to claim prior discovery. Oh there were a bunch of people who confirmed Deidre's claims after the fact, but there were no researchers from governments, corporations or even other tinkerers who said they got there first.

I suppose that Deidre might've been the first - somebody has to be after all - but even she doesn't think that. Handwavium had been circulating in the wild since 2005, almost two years before she got her hands on it, and it only took her six months of work to get from zero to interdimensional television. The statistics don't quite add up. There should've been others, lots of others, who made at least partial breakthroughs before 2007.

So where are they?

The big brains in the planning departments figure that at least a hundred Homeliners figured out the Griest Equations and vanished between 2005 and 2007. That estimate is honestly probably a lowball one too, since most mad tinkerers recruit a crew once they get past the chalkboard stage. So when we hit a new timeline, we go looking. Not that we have a lot of luck, admittedly. At this point if somebody wants not to be found we aren't going to find them. But we look regardless, just in case there's a castaway who needs help.

Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

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