The science of mankind reached its apex during the eleventh age of discovery. It was a time of renewed development which arrived upon the heels of a period of strict controls. The popular beliefs of the tenth age suggested that focus and reticence would propel mankind to levels which free thinking and opportunistic development, the heights of which we had been unable to achieve. Interestingly, considering the restrictive and in some ways stifling laws of the period, people began to return to religion in ways which had not been observed for many thousands of years. Publicly, people across the realms located across the inner galaxies, pretended to shun such foolishness as belief in any deity. Those living out in the bounds of the developing worlds really never took a position for or against belief in one form of religion or another, citing that the rigors of developing a frontier rarely provided for such things as philosophy or metaphysics. Of course those persons dwelling upon a world developed in the second or third age were completely at the mercy of their House Lord’s beliefs.
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All things considered, only a fool would pursue a life of religious conviction. Those persons identified as following anything save an esoteric belief in some idol or comstruct were immediately marked as travel risks and limited in options involving employ and movement among worlds. In the case of persons devoted to that cult known as The New Testament Brotherhood even their families were placed upon a watch list. The treatment and aversion to “NTBs”, as they were called, was obviously unwarranted. No NTBS had ever been involved in any form of criminal activity. In fact many NTBs were former violators of one law or another, yet once they had been involved in this odd cult they became docile by former standards. It was the drastic change in the behavior of some of the most unsavory of citizens, both present and former, that concerned the authorities and power brokers the most. Perhaps, it seemed, a mystery lie in the divining what motivated an NTB. To the House Lords Mystery equated to uncertainty, a weakened position and fear.
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So during the eleventh age of mankind, when science and knowledge were enjoying their most impressive growth, and religion was making its comeback, despite loathing and fear, the FourGen gate, last of its kind made its debut. FourGens, so named because of their series and due to their being ComStructs, we’re deployed in the inner sphere in female form while their male counterparts were introduced to all existing gates in the periphery, short realms and independence worlds along the galactic spine. FourGen males introduced their code to existing gates, initiating a gate shutdown, cocooning and transformation into a fully functional FourGen. The transformation of a ComStruct was not a new thing at all as such had been going on for millennia, yet never had it been successful on such a complex life form as a gate, or TransCom. TransCom science was the top of the scientific food chain, of all creatures created for purpose none provided greater positive impact on humanity and it’s far flung empire nor did any other ComStruct have the capability to do more damage. TransComs used a form of time alteration to ensure that they maintained synchronization across the entire universe. The gate initiating transferral contacted the receiver in order to begin the necessary communication for delivery of its occupants. Once the communication was established the receiver would determine the amount of dilation necessary to ensure that the traveller arrived correctly synchronized to the “time basis” of the surroundings.
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If a traveler were not properly synchronized they would appear at the destination gate ahead of their time phase, a ghost in the target world. Such ghosts had the capacity to experience their surroundings, although in a jerky and often muffled sense, but could not affect any change to their surroundings. They would not age rather they began to age in reverse until they became synchronized to their surroundings once again. So a trip through an asynchronous gate could take a few years off and provide the traveller with a glimpse into the future. It was this glimpse which made the traveller the most dangerous for with information on future events many found it too great of a temptation to not alter what would be. A well placed bet here, a harmless change there. Who would be harmed, who would be injured? Sadly, for the traveller and all which were in one way or another moved outside of their destiny there were horrible consequences. So, in order to counter such behavior the Feds put together a police force that operated within the periphery of physical time. The realms which have only a tenuous link to the march of time, known as the Aether. It was from in the border of this strange place that this unforgiving police force operated, the Border Aether. Residing in the timeless and frozen plane of the Border Aether the men and women of the Federated Worlds Chrono-Police found their minds floating in a spin. Special training seemed never enough to anchor the mind to a point in that vast space of infinite images and overlapping events. In the Border every event that takes place takes place simultaneously and continually to our time fixed minds. So the Chrono-Police are taken at birth and spend most of their time training within the BA, as they call it, as to teach their minds to avoid focusing on the ordered march of time.