#doc now though at least knowing that by 23XX there are other distant planets supposedly housing sentient life and starships and being like

[doctorbrown]

Emmett smiles as if she's just told a joke only he's in on and completes the last of his pre-departure checks, deeming everything satisfactory for their next experiment. ❝The very idea is unorthodox, but there's little value in designing a time machine constrained to a single point in time. H.G. Wells was indeed onto something with his vision of a time machine, but it also just happens that designing it into the car was the most efficient method.❞

He steps away from the car, his expression shifting ever so slightly as he runs through a few final things in his head.

❝To your time, yes, hopefully, but unfortunately as it stands, I have no way of returning you to the exact place from which you left, not without somehow being able to recreate the anomaly that connected our two temporal events.❞ No, not without extensive modifications he can only dream at and the liberal use of far-future technology to integrate into the vehicle.

A starship! Planet Vulcan! The very knowledge that in a few short centuries, humans will be scattered about the stars the way they've scattered across the planet is dizzying; perhaps even more than he ever bargained for.

Fourteen short years ago, humanity achieved a feat once only believed possible in works of science fiction; the barrier of space had been breached, traversed, and a human being set foot on the moon. Not by a shot fired directly at the moon at her zenith with a projectile, but with rockets employing similar methods, bearing strong resemblance to the Columbiad.

And that had filled him with the same hope and wonder that devouring one of Jules Verne's works had, gluing him to his radio like so much of America for the monumental moment.

Now, in what will only be a few short centuries, spacecraft will become as commonplace as the automobile, and humanity will finally have the solution to the long-debated Fermi Paradox.

—He knows too much already.

❝So we may have to approach that from another angle.❞ But that is a problem to be tackled later. ❝We're ready to start.❞ He gestures to the passenger door, inviting her inside.

As he climbs into the driver's side himself, a thought strikes. ❝Enter a date on the keypad.❞

are you sure you’re up for this ? (who knows what nonsense doc and deanna have gotten up to now fjla;sjkdf)

"----i admit the method is a bit . . . unorthodox compared to what i'm used to seeing." deanna may be a science officer, but a lot of what the doctor works on is beyond her knowledge, including whatever this device is. it's related to time travel the way most of his machines tend to be, but - well, she worries. she's been trying her very best not to contaminate the timeline; earth isn't meant to discover warp speed for years, for instance. time travel still isn't exactly possible in her own era, except those done in accident - namely through wormholes and anomalies like the one that had displaced her.

it seems strange to consider that a machine could be the cause of time travel, but from what she's seen of the doctor's equations, they seem mathematically sound and his logic is reasonable.

"but i am ready for anything. i'm treating this as one great adventure and if your machine works, then it will be interesting to see where we end up." deanna hums thoughtfully. "maybe it will be a step forward in trying to return myself to my own time."