Chapter Text
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. The Three Requirements for Determination
3. The Mechanism of Determination
4. Determination and Time Travel
5. Personality Traits
6. Looping Fatigue
7. Pheidippides Syndrome
Introduction:
The technology needed to travel through time is known only to a few species, and takes millennia to master. But some individuals don’t need to bother with the technology. Instead, they are able to manipulate time paradox-free and completely unaided by a purely mental form of time travel. Most of the individuals with this ability describe it as sending their mind back in time (Loading), to a point they have set earlier in their time stream (Saving). Despite the short temporal range of this ability, and the lack of a linked spatial transport, this form of time travel has a key advantage.
The normal limit for the number of times a time traveler can be in the same time and place is one, or two if the time traveler is either exceedingly careful or incredibly careless. But for these individuals, they could theoretically be in the same place an unlimited number of times (though in practice repeated jumps have a deleterious effect, this will be covered in a later section).
The effect on the Time Vortex is similar to a black hole, as it bends and changes course to accommodate these individuals. Before it was known that these disturbances were caused by individuals, they were known as “temporal riptides”, because crossing the effect within the Time Vortex will cause you to be dragged to the end of their time loops. Now that we know specific people are responsible, they are sometimes referred to by the name of the phenomenon they cause. The ability remains unnamed. Unfortunately, the name “Vortex Manipulator” has been taken by an inferior form of time travel. After studying these people throughout time I have an alternative name for the ability: Determination. Throughout history and the multiverse, these people have many names for their ability, but this comes closest to capturing the core of it.
For some reason humans make up the vast majority of cases in the multiverse, though even among them the odds of even one person with determination existing is small until they establish populations on multiple planets. However, as the human population grows, so do the odds of someone manifesting Determination at any one time. Even more worrisome is the probability of multiple people with Determination existing at once. Therefore, the study of Determination is crucial.
Throughout this paper, people who have the ability to Save and Load are referred to as people with Determination. Unless otherwise noted, people with Determination refers to those who have manifested their ability. When referring to the power, I will capitalise it (Determination, Save, and Load) for clarity.