The FOUNDATION Project - Prologue

“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”

– George Santayana

It seems so unlikely that this quote from a 17^th century philosopher would be the basis of the FOUNDATION Project.   It started with curiosity.  Many of the mistakes of men were well-documented but Ken Easing, a 22^nd century scientist questioned our history.  He asked a simple question.  In a thought-provoking conference for the exceptionally brilliant, he asked this:

“We know that a great philosopher said that, ‘those who forget history are condemned to repeat it’, and I agree with him, but what if the history that we have is not the ‘pure’ history that was available at Santayana’s time?  We make mistakes; that is what makes us humans, and being human also comes with embarrassing events.  Many of us remember how we did many embarrassing things and covered it all up.  I remember how I tripped on my first day of university and fell into the lake.  I remember how I just decided to skip the entire day in the campus’ toilet just for my clothes to dry.  This was a huge embarrassment to me and I made sure no one ever found out – until now of course.  Embarrassing situations and mistakes are one of the same.  If we so readily prevent people from learning something as minute as ‘there’s a hose near the lake, be careful you might trip on it’ then what about bigger mistakes?”

Easing’s question sparked the contributors of the conference to start the FOUNDATION Project. First funded by historians and philosophers, the FOUNDATION Project soon received generous contributions from other scientists, businessmen, and other ‘private’ contributors.  The pressure for the FOUNDATION Project escalated when funds started coming in from politicians. The workers at the Project worked almost round the clock to create something that has never been created before.

After months of theorizing and constructing, the WARP was completed.  The WARP was a helmet like device that hooked up to a generator that folded the time streams.  If one wore the helmet, one could see through time, but WARP had a weakness, it could not travel back more than four months.  One scientist theorized that this was so because the time stream they bended was not the entire time stream but only a portion of our present.  WARP was redundant because anything progressive up until four months ago was the FOUNDATION Project.  But this was a start…

Soon physicists constructed a way for the WARP to take a larger portion of the present and therefore create a bigger fold.  WARP began to reach years, and after more tweaks to it, months, years, decades, centuries, and even up to a millennium, but a limit was reached and the capacity of the present could not venture further than that.  Even though a ceiling had been reached, it did not stop the WARP from being used. 

Historians learnt from history and taught it accurately, scientists learnt about ancient theories that could never have been run in the past and tested them, and the most surprising use of WARP was for the usage of entertainment.   Soon a WARP Projector set could be found in almost every home and people started flipping through the past like switching programs from a television set.  People loved the unpredictability of the past and the fact that it was real. 

But it became ironic that the machine that was meant to help people learn from their mistakes became the downfall, a mistake was repeated.  The greed of the people wanted more than just a view into the future; people wanted a portal instead.  The FOUNDATION Project split into two factions with one side endorsing developing the WARP to the next level and with the other side warning against abuse of power.

The power of change is a great responsibility and the two factions continued to debate while others continued to work. The faction that held against ‘back-walking’ became known as the TIMEKEEPERS for their unwillingness to change with the times while the group that were for it began calling themselves PORTAL for they aimed now to create a means to travel between the times.

Both sides knew that it was only a matter of time before ‘back-walking’ became more than just a debate so both sides started preparing for when such thing happens. 

Under the guide of Sam Long, the TIMEKEEPERS developed equipment that would remain unnoticed in the past yet able to take physical form.  The TIMEKEEPERS discovered the TIMEOUT ZONE in which time became nothing but a great loop.  They kept the TIMEOUT ZONE a secret among themselves fearing that PORTAL might discover a way of using it as a transporter.  Above preparing for the eminent, the TIMEKEEPERS continue to upgrade WARP as a means of keeping their contributors pleased.

Jon Aero became the president of PORTAL and he turned the entire focus on physical transport.  Unlike the TIMEKEEPERS, PORTAL did not need to maintain working on the WARP, because their research was enough to attract more and more sponsors. 

Soon, Aero took over the FOUNDATION Project as CEO and fired Long and his coworkers.  The internal conflict between the two departments ended.  Long was forced to leave and take his work underground.  Long’s last words to the press about the matter were short and simple.

“What is happening here could be the very end of us,” Long was recorded saying, “The FOUNDATION Project is nothing but a company now.  What started as a belief, changed into a conflict, and now the balance is lost.  We are the TIMEKEEPERS and we warn you all that we will not be forgotten.”

After that broadcast, Long and the people under him along with their families went underground.   For a few years, nothing happened, until the first back-walker…