[This goes against conventional wisdom on the Orion's Arm world building list. Why?]
Once upon a time there was a place called Origin, a ship called Relative, and a cute little wormhole with two terminii called Wormy. One day Origin on a whim asked Relative to take one terminus of Wormy on a trip around and around Origin at very high speed. Relative being very nice and having nothing better to do, agreed. The trip would take 1000 years for Origin, but Relative would be traveling *very* fast so it would seem like only 10 years to Relative. However, for Wormy all time had to be the same. Since only 10 years could pass for Relative, Wormy would also see the passing of only10 years. It would be like Origin had a bubble of Relative's time inside itself. This is called empire time. So Relative set off. All the while it watched what was happening on Origin. In effect, Relative would get to watch over 1000 years of Origin history in just 10 years. In the ninth year of the trip, Relative time, Relative saw a Terrible Disaster happen to Origin. Not to worry, Relative used its end of the wormhole to call home and tell Origin that in the future (for Origin) there would be a Terrible Disaster. Naturally, Origin prevented the Terrible Disaster. This changed the past for Relative which is a Bad Thing. Poof went Wormy. Poof went Empire Time. ----- Let's try that again. Relative agreed to go on the trip, but instead of Origin having a bubble of Relative's time, Relative had a bubble of Origin's time. That is, Wormy kept Origin time instead of Relative time for the duration of the trip. This turned out to be a Good Thing because now Relative could not tell Origin about her future. Too bad about the Terrible Disaster though. ----- Moral: If there is a wormhole and one extrinsic observer experiences 10 years of subjective time and another extrinsic observer experiences 1000 years of subjective time then the wormhole must experience no less than 1000 years of subjective time. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
