I have had this idea for a form of origins for time-travelers bouncing around in my head for a few days now. Because why have the mystics of opening space bridges across time and space be a form of genetic mutation when it can be needlessly complicated?
They are not "born" like a person, they are made. By what? The enigma force of course! People, places, whole civilizations rise and fall and inevitably fade from living memory. Lost to the mists of time, but you know who/what doesn't forget you were here? Time itself. Time plucks a version of you in a time and place and that version of you at that age emerges from the sea of time... as a time-traveler. Not a ghost. Not a clone. Not a resurrection. A person made from time’s memory of who you were. Time-travelers are living echoes of history, bound to space-time because they are made from it. Because they originate from time’s memory, time-travelers experience past, present, and future differently from ordinary beings.
The thing is, you couldn't even be born yet and your cosmic copy is already walking around. The enigma force doesn't see future and past, it's always present. That means the enigma force doesn’t wait for you to live, die, become legendary, or be forgotten. It sees the entire existence of a person, civilization, or event as one complete shape. To it, “not born yet” and “long dead” are just human/microsian ways of describing positions on a line. A person’s entire existence forms a complete temporal imprint. When such an imprint becomes significant, unstable, or necessary, the enigma force may draw a specific remembered version of that person from the sea of time and give it physical form. Because the enigma force does not distinguish between past and future, a time-traveler may emerge before their original self has even been born. They are not future selves. They are living temporal echoes, real beings created from time’s memory, capable of making their own choices once they enter the world. This is why the time-travelers codes forbids interference with the natural flow of time. Their very existence proves that time is alive, layered, and fragile. To alter it carelessly is not merely to change history- it is to damage the very force that gave them life.
Time-travelers have no memories of the person they were copied from. They are their own person from the moment they emerge. And the universe treats them like they were always there. When a time-traveler appears, reality itself quietly adjusts. It does not matter if they did not exist yesterday. Once they emerge, history says- They have always existed. Records appear. People remember meeting them. Their guild has a place for them. Their name was always spoken. Not because anyone is lying. Because time itself has edited them in. Time-travelers do not die from old age, but they can be killed... When killed, they are erased entirely from the timeline. No one remembers them, even other time-travelers. All records, evidence, and traces of their presence vanish.
Where this gets spooky, what happens to events they changed? If a time-traveler influenced history, time has to compensate. It backfills. Events rearrange themselves around the absence. Another cause replaces them. Another person gives the warning. Another accident opens the door. Or, if no replacement can hold the shape, the event changes entirely. The timeline does not remember the time-traveler. It only remembers the result- if the result can survive without them. That means a time-traveler’s death can quietly rewrite huge pieces of reality without anyone knowing anything changed.
To summarize. Every time-traveler is both - One, a person
and two, a stitched-in piece of reality. If they interfere too much, then die, the consequences could be catastrophic. Entire chains of cause and effect might collapse or rebuild wrong... and everyone won't even remember it.
Slowly evolving out of the characters floating in the white void. I thought backgrounds would be harder... they are if you do the line art of them! I'll get there eventually.
King Atlas the first king of Microsia and his heir, Prince Argon.
The beginning of unified civilization. The Golden Age. The era before the Elder councils fractured authority into politics and bureaucracy and endless stagnation.
Aldrich Pellum and his unit of very efficient, elite, military combatants who totally do not drive him up a wall- *ahem*
Consisting of the Space-glider, Gus-tauv! A man who communicates in almost nothing but ballads, some would say he was made for the stage but instead he's constantly testing the limits of Aldrich's patience. Witty and extravagant, he serves as the scout. Good with his epee and competent at hand to hand, in Minerva's opinion, he's much more competent at getting on her frayed nerves.
Minerva, the Time-traveler~ For all the prestige and mystery of her guild she is very much a nervous wreak over it. You'd have anxiety to if you saw half the horrible timelines she has! Have they actually come to pass? no... not really. But they could have! When she isn't getting caught up in her own thoughts and existential dread, she comes through when it comes to combat, that time-travelers staff isn't just for show!
Ottler, the Science-officer. Somehow half his entire teams height but makes up for it with double the personality and the volume to back it up. Fast on his feet surprisingly and sharp in mind, he's saved his unit out of many a scrape and scuffle with his quick thinking and improvised tech. His skins are full of water, sadly. (Aldrich dose not tolerate inebriated teammates) But his beard is large enough that it can hide things... certain things only him and Theresa know about or else she'll tell on him if he doesn't share.
We've already met Theresa and her grouchy husband...
Karza represents himself as the sponsor for Torrens naming ceremony, kneeling as the child's name is entered into the historical centers codex to be recorded for time immemorial.
Instead of a birth certificate, your name gets added to the archives. It's a private event where the family and those invited witness the child's name invoked as a part of Microsian history. And it's usually the parents pick of a trusted person outside the immediate family that is entrusted with watching over that child's growth if need be.
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