The Pliocene Adventure -- Introduction

This is the first of a series of posts on background material for a future story, in which Team Girl and Sir Differel become stranded in the past during the Pliocene Epoch some 3.3 million years. This one will introduce the story idea. Future posts will describe the local geography and climate, the animals they encounter, and the supplies and equipment they will need to survive.

Dr. Mabuse, their mad scientist friend, had made two major breakthroughs: artificial brains and Schrodinger wave function technology. Without going into too much quantum mechanics, the Schrodinger wave function is a mathematical equation that describes how the quantum state of a physical system evolves, or changes, over time. Though the equation is normally used on quantum systems (atoms, molecules, and subatomic particles), theoretically it can be applied to any physical system, including the whole universe. Mabuse has figured out not only what the wave function means, and what it can say about any system, but also how to manipulate it. One aspect of the equation is that it shows all possible states that a system can be in given the right circumstances. To give a crude example, Mabuse first used her technology to turn Eile into a funtanari, what in colloquial English is called a “dickgirl”. In other words, inherent in Eile’s wave function is a state in which she has a penis instead of a vagina. Mabuse was able to, essentially, reduce Eile to a form of quantum instability in which she existed in all her possible states simultaneously, then Mabuse selected the state she wanted and restabilized Eile into that new state.

This technology goes beyond transmogrification. The wave function of a system also establishes where and when it can exist, so from this basic technology Mabuse was able to create, among other things, a matter transporter and a time machine. In essence, her time machine works by altering the state of a traveler so that she can only exist in the time the machine is set for. Up until this story, Mabuse could only send someone back in time if she first calculated the exact space-time coordinates of the target date. The time part of the calculation is, by itself, relatively straightforward, but the location calculation is monumentally difficult. The reason is that everything is moving; literally. The continents drift, the Earth spins on its axis and changes its tilt, it shifts as the Moon orbits about it, it obits the sun, the sun drifts through the galaxy, the galaxy flies through space, the universe expands…you get the idea. He point is, if Mabuse does not carefully and exactly calculate the exact position of where she wants to send something, it could materialize deep underground, or deep into outer space. Even a minor miscalculation could have a traveler materialize in rock up to her knees, or six feet above the ground. And since time is connected to space, the complex space calculation also made the time calculation more complex as well. Depending upon how far back she wanted to go, it could take her days, weeks, even months of nonstop computing time, even with a supercomputer, to arrive at an exact result.

To solve this problem she created a device she named the transponder. It sends out a signal though time, allowing her to determine its exact location in space-time relative to the base unit in her lab. Once in place they allow virtually error-free transport, but they must be manually put into place first, because they need to be properly set up and calibrated, and tested. Mabuse created and tested a prototype, then built the first working model. A typical mad scientist, she decided to prove its worth in a grandiose way: she would send Team Girl back 3 million years into the past, then bring them home just using the transponder. To give it a proper test, they would wait 8 hours, the minimal amount of time needed to require a whole new set of calculations to lock on to them and bring them back. At the last minute, Sir Differel asked to come along.

Mabuse had spent an entire year calculating the coordinates to a precision better than one in 10,000, so transport back went off without a hitch. The three women set up the transponder and go exploring, taking pictures and video. When they return they watch helpless as a stampeding herd of mastodons destroys the transponder. They find a group of cargo containers and a message from Mabuse and Medb, explaining that when the signal from the transponder ceased, they sent the containers back loaded with supplies, because they have to build a new transponder, requiring new calculations, and it could be as long as a year before they receive it in the past.

The gist is, they are stranded and on their own.

At this point, the remainder of the story will encompass several parallel plot arcs. In one, we see how they find shelter and water, and how they figure out strategies for survival, as well as coping with living together all the time. In another, they earn the enmity of the local flock of terror birds and must figure out a way to counter them. Another has them befriending a sabertooth cat, and seeking revenge when it is killed saving them from the terror birds. Various scenarios also describe them interacting with various animals that share their domain. The major arc, however, involves them encountering an immortal serpent man.