This time travel adventure surrounds itself with strong genre inside-jokes, a semi-plausible easing into the idea of chronological omnipotence, a protagonist who is keen on science, the works of Russian militaristic science fiction Ludmila Ulitskaya might have penned after enjoying some time travel adventures herself, and life in the late Soviet Union. With a strong focus on humor but a deep basement of mechanisms and implications, it wants to have the stoner and the physicist appreciate it alike.

The year is 2045. Sasha makes a dangerous discovery in her time-travel research that blacklists her from every university in the world. But after the final time meant to silence her, Sasha receives a mysterious dire warning from her future self. Convinced there is more to life that being forced to work as the world’s most preeminent water sanitation engineer to feed her elderly father and her daughter outside Moscow, she sets to escape her constraints while searching for the truth. As she delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, she receives the gift of a time machine with a peculiar limitation though –she is limited towards traveling to the Soviet Union before its dissolution. After inadvertently acquiring the apparently unsatisfactory services of a wartime military intelligence analyst, Sasha manages to follow the warning; only to be betrayed by the only friend she has. With the FSB after her, she must brave despair and worse to fight her way to a truth she can barely belief herself.

1.1. Background and Significance

Humanity is totally and utterly undervalued in the modern world. Humanity can only add a minuscule quantity to global real wealth. Yet all time periods that feature either posthumans or powerful artificial intelligence are utopias, despite the fact that nobody has any idea as to how the economy of such periods will be organized. This massive difference in the perceived importance of values and economic competence is a driving force behind the history of this book. Except for theoretical physicists, almost no humans of the future have any interest in trying to find out what is really happening at the frontiers of physics. They are only interested in following where a magic black box tells them that the frontiers might lead. In this black box are commands that are mythical parts of what a posthuman society should look like. How these parts are supposed to fit into the actual society is something not even theoreticians have spent any time figuring out. Only an army of researchers can create such a black box; they have long since been on cheap Droids.

This book describes a time travel adventure that starts fifty years from now in a very wealthy and highly technologically advanced society in which political and military restrictions are so minimal that it is essentially libertarian. On a dare from fellow members of a secretive, invitation-only organization called Singularity, a group of adolescents go on a bootleg time travel tour to Stalinist Russia, where they, of course, get into serious trouble. The children in this story go to extraordinary lengths to hide the technology and the nearby libertarian society from inhabitants of the other societies into which they travel, and in the end, they are somewhat successful. The world described in this book is a libertarian response to and a refutation of both the left and right-wing visions of the society of the future. Although both contemporary Russia and the post-Singularity society are politically different from current America, many elements of the societies are identical or very similar, while others are quite exotic.

2. Theoretical Framework

Time travel is a popular theme of science fiction, which has been interpreted very differently by various writers. Throughout the history of the genre, time travel has been considered as the possibility for a person to move forward or backward along the flow of time or to travel to a different temporality, that is, to become psychic with the acquisition of experience of a previous existence. Stories of time travel have been created with the epic, comic, and didactic narrative purposes. Real or fictional characters have become heroic pioneers or rejected by the majority of their own contemporaries in the discovery of the secret of time. Theoretical models have most often substantiated the conjecture of time travel as an imaginary phenomenon. The possibility of traveling to the past or to the future using advanced technology is mostly perceived as well protected by the general regularity of the world. Violation of the energy-momentum, causality paradoxes, especially the art of moving a body faster than the known speed of light (c), is for the most part the fundamental principles which describes the universe and the likely consequences of the embodiment of a time travel machine. Any so-called physical connection between the past and the future can be expressed using curved space-time lines.

2.1. Concepts of Time Travel

We can classify the vast group of «time travel plots» in SF in more detail, e.g., if time travel is merely a device to present us with a different setting or allows us to meet ghosts from one’s own family, which are often a mere emotional subplot, or if time travel itself is at the core of the story, leading to questions what would happen if one met oneself in a different time, if changing one’s past is possible and what this would mean. A number of surprising paradoxes arise when one considers the implications of our actions in a time travel scenario. The grandfather paradox, named for an old example in which a man kills his own grandfather and thereby prevents his own birth, is generally regarded as the most serious paradox of time travel. The original example involves a man traveling back in time and killing his grandfather, preventing the man’s own birth. If the grandfather were never born, then the man is never born. But then, his grandfather was able to marry and eventually sire his parent.

Time travel has been a popular theme in science fiction for over 100 years now. The idea has a colorful history even longer than that. The scientific interest in time travel came after, and because of, general relativity. Einstein created a way of looking at spacetime that has been crucial for physicists through to quantum field theory. Like any good scientific idea, it invites misinterpretation by pretenders and it allows the originator to ponder wild inconsistencies and surprises. Philosophers have had field days over the issues exposed by addressing ultimate clocks and the possibilities of closed time paths. A lot of people would love to travel in time. It’s not just physicists who enjoy considering the possibilities.

3. Historical Context

Ukraine was delivered a decade ago—but nobody delivered Russia yet. Russia is not a new form of the Russian state, it is an empire, with a grain-and-oil-based economy just like the British Empire of the 19th century, and therefore the same danger for itself and its neighbors in most historical cases—alas, someone left hardly anyone from economic history during the USSR time, and therefore the technical noise hides the necessary mathematical signals.

Singularity takes place in a fascinating and tumultuous time in history beyond «Russia». There was never one Russia, and all attempts by former Soviet countries in the 1990s to pretend they were Russia now prove a painful disaster. After 1772, three parts of Poland were taken; after Napoleon’s adventure in Europe, Russia ate everything up to France; after Austria-Hungary disappeared, Russia according to Lenin took western Ukraine; after the Nazis, the Russian empire swallowed the last part of Ukraine, as well as Belarus, Lithuania, and eastern Poland.

3.1. Key Events in Russian History

We are concerned in this chapter with certain matters Russia’s former powermongers buzzing about their ancient and more recent history. Some reminders of their past connected with our story allow us to follow their progress. The tale of Catherine II and her philosopher.. And of Yuri and Peter I, and then later Catherine II. Of Pushkin and Lenin, and much, much more. Luckily for us, the history of Russia has been collated and faithfully recorded even in communist times. And update and colorfully presented in the professionally-accredited text «Next Time, We Will Visit Ancient Russia.» Although we must be prepared to accept some philosophical bias, inspiration for our text has been drawn from Next Time columns. Knowing something of ancient Russia or having an interest in – even a passing acquaintance with – Russia’s historical kings and social rulers, I feel, can add much to the enjoyment of our tale. A little past knowledge of people whose actions and reactions give form to myths of rule and power might help us better understand ourselves, or more interestingly give meaning when reading the events leading to a new present.

The old names and faces are gone, replaced by new ones that mean little or nothing to most Americans living today. This chapter sets out in brief outline and then in more detail, a select list of some key dates and events in Russian history. These events prominently feature individuals who helped shape their country’s destiny at the time their greatness was tested – and sometimes achieved. The collateral effect of their acts and omissions has been felt ever since. Few escaped the consequences. The lovable then-Prince Peter inflicted New Year’s Day fines. Not to pay the government a visit each January 1st while in his sober senses meant a chest load of drubbing from his armored arms. The famous Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky edited and dispatched strictures to the press for the Soviet government, thereby helping to run Communist Russia. Costs of such editorial comment are not known today.

4. The Singularity Device

Leonid honored Try with the chair beside the device itself, still bearing in his voice the echo of the electrons which had vanished in a catering accident. A whole universe away, somebody’s electrons are suddenly beaconless, missing, and, at just that moment, our questing electron is in no location yet. This is the essence of death – when the electron dies, it loses its birthdate. The life-giving information about its origin has vanished. Squash these little ghosts, and an insurmountable barrier remains. All we can see and touch and speckle around with has lost many dimensions. It appears to be free. It appears to be fast, in its time dimension. But notice what happens when it returns to the vicinity of those shrieking electrons. Stepping softly, tiptoe by tiptoe, the electron form inches fore, back, here and here, until it stands invisible and inviolate in the company of its own. Ramping down the motion, reseparating this time, we now find that we have accomplished a yet more subtle task. A sheet of rebellion appears on our path. We are stopped dead, with rustling mountains above, below us, and hillscape walls fore and aft. A second boundary marked the path of our stealthy march back. Not only have we left the sheet, which blocks our advance, standing within the gamut of our hands, but instantaneously addressing all of its more distant parts Clete ŵ. The other three seemed least interested by their interpreter. Clete ŵ can only hold this stance with the sheet in his world-tunneling presence. Shun him, ignore him, damage him, cower out of his electrosexual approach, otherwise pinch, prod, or even think of him, then call ŵ climb very swiftly to your stratosphere of existence. The basilisk is only stilled for a moment; the Electroneur will stand resolute. Separating and retreating, we find ourselves carrying psychic gold – the message of the electron’s life is impressed upon the sheet of revolt, which announces our approach. Maid And Hendo, with minimal impact on each other, know which one to whisk from base in smug and sovereign pursuit of the faint but astute electrical call.

The golden tint of the dacha’s rosewood trim framed the white walls, the latticed balcony, and the green dome of a distant Russian Orthodox church. But Try had lived in the dacha only a few days, after being recruited unexpectedly from his world tour. He took a shortcut through the basement, passing hazardous materials signs and several liters of RU-235, enough for a little city vaporization. The device itself rested under a fluorescent glare, bristling with wire. Though tempted to photograph its secrets for a magazine article, Try found perfect reason to call the mafia, a quartet of enormously powerful physicists, into existence.

4.1. Development and Functionality

To generate a laser system, the laser beams of interrogation and manipulation had the Sagnac optical ring with the travel length being equal to l=w×n, where w is the number of safety wavelengths, and n is the number of crossings of the interferometer’s area. The enhancement of our detection system up to w = 8 wavelengths was possible due to the modulation and demodulation method. The different twist configurations (including modified VCSELs) were used due to availability pressure for elements. The four phase-matched frequencies of one interrogation beam allowed us to reach SJJ’s suppression at a factor of 0.7, i.e. a 1-10% atom visibility. The necessary background shifting of the Bloch phase, the technique of adiabatic optical potential, was proposed.

The main atom interferometer of the center was protected against low-frequency vibrational noise by a passive anti-vibration shield. The shield housed (1) the experiment chamber with magnetic shields, (2) the vacuum system, (3) the interferometer’s laser sources and optical system, and (4) electronic and computer systems for data collection and processing. Then, the vacuum environment (10^-7 Torr) in the experiment chamber of the atom interferometer was provided by primary and secondary vacuum pumps that differed in their volume suction rate characteristics and controllability.

5. Journey Through Time

5.1. First Encounter: The Tsarist Era

6. Challenges and Dilemmas

Another challenge was the complexity of the plot. Singularity contains three intertwined stories. The main story line of the first episode needed to be somewhat independent of the other stories. The game needed to provide a satisfying conclusion while also inviting for further development in future episodes. To avoid the player getting lost in the tangle of events, I wrote a journal into the game, where current tasks and findings are reported. Sometimes, I had to make hard decisions when parts of text, quests, or even locations were nice in themselves but did not fit into the main progression of the game. The last, non-technical challenge was to represent Soviet Russia as authentically as possible. Language differences, commonly used expressions, and the feeling of daily life had to be made understandable to a non-Russian audience without slipping into stereotypes and clichés.

The biggest hurdle to overcome for Singularity – A Time Travel Adventure with The Russians was the open world of the Soviet Union. Because I wanted freedom for the player to go wherever he wants, Soviet Russia is represented by 3D objects all the way to the horizon. There are no invisible walls. In other games, it can feel as if the world suddenly ends at the borders of the map, and I wanted to avoid that. All the landscape needed to be modeled down to a plausible horizon. On the other hand, the game had to be released in a reasonable time frame, which meant finding a trade-off in balancing the game world’s size, quality, and integration with the game’s specific functions.

6.1. Ethical Considerations

For an international community that has contributed to the disappearance of dissidents or political opponents, going back in time to undo operations such as external attacks on other nations, past purges, or imaginary flaws could prevent crises. However, doing so would come at the cost of losing the capacity to interfere and preserve the fragile present. Our main concern is that time travel has the potential for delineated progress control, which is unlikely to be effective. Some of the discoveries, like many of the most substantial discoveries in physics, seem likely to emerge only from the deeper and curious minds or may be published by rival groups. The probability of these dangers should not be underestimated.

Since time travel significantly extends the limits of space exploration and military engineering, it seems compatible with the most persistent ethical concerns. However, there are dangers that are specific to the nature and influence of time travel. The act of crossing the time code would surely bring about extraordinary developments in several fields. Countries facing collapse due to natural, economic, or social factors might be strongly inclined to pursue time travel. They would seek technical help and knowledge not just to build a time tunnel, but also to overcome their challenges.

Ethical considerations are an important factor in the success of any technology, and time travel is no exception. Technologies often bring about unintended uses and side effects. History is filled with examples of technological priorities being debated, from nuclear energy for both peaceful and military purposes to information technologies to protect the privacy of persons and data. The same approach is taken by the military on new arms and infection control measures, and by organizations that deal with biological research.

7. Impact on the Present

Igor’s task is neither much smaller nor much more important than that of Pinocchio (a wooden toy with the soul sense of whom comes from the sunlight and air). Igor’s soul sense knowledge modeled here comprises (1) r – Conscious knowledge of the requirements of the future of his planet; (2) u_0 – Skill to understand these requirements; (3) u_n – Skill to satisfy them.

IV. Igor’s internal conflict and predicament of the contact.

The prepared ground could be ruined, let’s imagine, by Igor not appearing, by firing the gun at his back, or then wounding him in a battleground, or by the gases put in a car, or by shelling his Moon exploration program on some pretext or by the direct intervention of well-wishing foreign forces, etc. A successful contact could be ruined by Igor’s disappearance on his return to the future for various reasons: He avoids the flight; He is killed after the flight; His memory or personality is spoiled to such an extent that he can’t get the mass media to unfold the information compiled in this book; He gets into a mental hospital, asylum, prison, museum, circus, or zoo, fingerprints office; He is kidnapped on his return, and his body has never been discovered since; He drowns on his return flight by falling into the water; He is arrested on any pretext; He tries to repeat the flight and is killed; His time machine damages some way or other, explodes on the return flight; He is killed simultaneously with the Baby Showered by a mother who didn’t know! by criminals who don’t even suspect what they are doing.

III. Disappearance of Igor and the effect of the contact.

This reactor has the potential ability not only to produce a rapidly developed civilization but to produce it in such a way as if modern civilization didn’t exist! Ah, the awful thought! But that is the beauty of it – a return to the origins. Not so beautiful though if the origins include the Afanassy Nikitin’s epoch at the end of the 14th – beginning of the 15th century.

II. Blasting effect.

What would have happened if Igor had not optimized the evolution of the brain? Igor had foreseen it: Judgment Day = Singularity Day, a cybernetic creation capable of surviving in the cosmos would have arrived. Russia and the whole world, where either drones or couldn’t follow. Most of the previously bioengineered Singularities would have been scattered in space, but the prototypes would have stayed here. Was it so bad? But who could survive them? As the prototypes have been created mostly following human social and political patterns – the answer is clear. Here, the fate of humanity proclaimed to be judged.

I. Alternative courses of action to that of the Genesis event.

7.1. Temporal Paradoxes and Consequences

The main question of time, the center of the paradox, is not to be – but it became. There are a lot of real-life paradoxes discovered by people who are drawn to their own fancies in novels and dramatic works. I’ve already mentioned that the stories of these paradoxes have survived, inspiring many writers of the greatest masterpieces. The paradoxes raise many questions directly concerning issues solved in physics and are also a framework for many philosophical and religious discussions. I will try to give some comments on the paradoxes and possible consequences. Since the paradox is so far included, the situation is such that people can make future events. And I have responsibility because the solution in the group of work-related «caution».

Events and situations that constitute a temporal paradox probably will attract many mathematically and philosophically thinking readers. Time travel can be considered a paradox resolution. This is mostly done in the original workshop of time in sci-fi novels. My approach is different. You can choose any variant paradoxogramma. I only depict the current situation where the events come suddenly. The paradox, in the literal sense of the word, is a fact. A paradox is a situation where the conditions are such that it is impossible; however, a situation arises where it is necessary to trust. Temporal paradoxes and the paradoxes are sufficiently detailed to be surrounded by a vast number of myths, legends, and other mystical generally confusing.

8. Conclusion

Surprisingly, he achieved preserving his dignity in the ordinary time without any urgent need to stage theatrical protests. At last, Andrey came back to his usual type of job – breaking silence advice by mixing reanimations with ridiculous messages of the future’s arbitrariness. Now his recipients, the fewest bunch of supposedly carefully chosen trustworthy creatures, were asked not to jump at conclusions ahead the end of the era. Plausible opportunities to enhance past supercontinuum by comparing several stable reality tracks were offered instead. Now one of his real names was installed inside a somehow meaningful legal outcry justified-message up to the mark-oriented ones out of their personal self-importance guard’s reach.

Andrey is a successful time-traveler and he’s the only one who’s worked thousands of times without getting caught in a catastrophic event. He helped himself to very long and staggering sleep inside the far lane of the time machine stationery return-tunnel. Then, performing his back-jump into the longest past, he, as always, rectified time-lines in turn-transit points, making small profits in this and that. «That» could be possible just because of extreme cerberism of local authorities that wouldn’t restrain from atrocities against innocent and highly qualified specialists-for-hire. Andrey had saved many of his old and new duplicates from being exposed this way, leaving them less cruel but highly efficient instructions about how to survive unsaved.

8.1. Reflections and Future Implications

More ambitious solutions are to use time-traveling technologies to explore and analyze the consequences of our own actions, or even change these actions in the past or future. In a world where guidance about the future could be obtained from incredible technical achievements and brilliant minds (such as Einstein, Newton, Mendeleev, and many others), time-traveling technologies would easily transform each interested person into an omnipotent political and national leader. All these last points require broad interdisciplinary research and interactions between scientists and society at large. This is in general line with the methodological viewpoint of developing robust principles and the Free Communicative Act Protocol, which should guarantee secure interactions between humans, societies governed by a statistical elite or human-generated programs, and AI societies, which have been confronted with various versions of Mind Children’s Safe Interactions Protocols.

Reflecting on the above-stated arguments and future directions, there appear to be four promising implications of our work for investigating the ontological changes stemming from arising AI societies. Firstly, our study emphasizes the need for looking at AI developments as socially co-constitutive of such developments and being given more space in reflections about the «near» future. Even though the number of internet citations for these «Signs of Technological Singularity» exceeds one million today on the very Yahoo, MSN, and Google search websites, people focus more on banalities rather than the systemic consequences and influences of the Singularity. Future studies should incorporate AI and time-traveling technologies into conjecturing various scenarios and puzzles that would face humanity in the perspective of several generations living within the Singularity.