Sci/Spec Fi. ideal

Setting opens up in a grand roman hall. A great decree is about to be proclaimed. Suddenly men appear from nowhere and begin blasting away with phasers, causing a great amount of casualties and even greater confusion. They snag a famous historian, Livy? and are gone just as quickly.

A double story line is created here.

Livy is in some far and distant future aboard a space ship. It is explained that he was taken into the future because they need him. There is a war going on among another group of people across time. The killing your grandfather paradox is solved by these people saying that when they go back into time and alter things, they don't alter their own time, but generate an alternate dimension in space and in time through their intervention. The people who they are battling are capable of the same technology, and so their fight spans multiple dimensions and times. They need Livy because he was a great historian and they need absolutely accurate data from his time in order to plan their attacks. Much of the information written by him did not survive to their time. And they need it to make exactly accurate military plans. They need all information from all times, a veritable map of all existence, or human action anyways, in order to coordinate their plans against their enemies. Another paradox occurs here. If they have time travel, couldn't they travel into the future when they already have Livy and recover him there, or couldn't the future send Livy to their current present and deliver the information necessary then, or when did they grab Livy, since logical ordering of time no longer is a factor, and wouldn't they be vulnerable since their enemies could anticipate their snatching and be there waiting for them in the roman hall in ambush. To this there are multiple answers. Yes, in some dimensions their enemies are waiting for them in ambush, but not in all, since it is impossible to dominate all dimensions. Another, it is necessary to create temporal artifacts--events, otherwise nothing could happen--which are exciting and dangerous, because they are the stuff of living, but also take on the airs of formalities for the people doing them, since you know that in another parallel dimension or in the future that event has already taken place and all of its consequences have been played out. The effect on Livy is thus: He is dismayed at being kidnapped and at the brutal manner in which it was done, but he is simultaneously fascinated with this place that he is now. Then they ask him to work for them. Not only do they need all of the information from his time, but they need him to track changes and record events across many dimensions. He was chosen for this in addition to his knowledge of the time because of his excellent record and detail noticing ability. This information is their military intelligence, and their battleground information. The time that they will need him to keep track of is relatively short, four months or so. He asks why this period was so crucial and they reply that it wasn't, but that they have another Livy on another ship (possibly in another dimension) tracking the next four months, and another Livy elsewhere tracking the previous, and so forth. He asks why that number, why that length of time when they could get an infinite number of Livys since with the parallel dimension crossover ability and time travel ability resource exhaustion is no longer a factor and neither is labor, and get each Livy to study a single day. To this they reply that there is a computer algorithm or anomaly that beyond their current operating number of Livys the data store becomes too huge and unwieldy and effectively useless. Livy agrees and stays in the time and ship, and then his work concerns the effort on his part and learning the technology associated, as well as considering his position--uncertain about aiding these people in a war that he has no reason for and and justifiably irritated about being abducted, but also in a very helpless position and in addition fascinated by the technology and culture and what these people are doing.

Battle tactics are very much more complex, since arriving at an enemy ship and destroying it has no real effect on an enemy that exists in duplicates across multiple universes, and you have to plan your attack to have significant effects across those other universes in order to inflict any real damage. It is, in no sense, traditional warfare. But very much like a complicated chess game.

The second story line considers these battle tactics. Back in rome, shortly after the first group beams away a second group arrives. These people assure the romans that they intend no harm, but wish to offer them a means to revenge. They provide the romans with the technology and information for future jumping, thus enabling them to do the battling for them, or teaching a new group to fight their enemy. This battle strategy is one of arming the past and making it fight the future. This way the future enemy has more enemies on its hands. It is also a way to imagine the romans in spaceships.

A possible ending, or deepening of the intrigue could involve the motives behind the war. First, there is no enemy. The war began as an internal decision to attack themselves out of 1. boredom 2. motivation to a)travel to other dimensions, b)advance technology, and c)create a thorough rendering of all times across multiple dimensions. (since a race that has overcome inter-species competition stagnates) This war, or internal motivation strategy has gotten out of control and can not be stopped because it has gotten too complicated and the original agents can not be contacted and ordered to desist. Even by going to the original meeting where this plan was decided and saying no don't do that because a future dimension already exists where the agents have gone on, and furthermore may pop out there and shoot everybody as a means of furthering the motivation. Also since the present people are hunting the original agents and the original agents are starting a war against themselves and enlisting people from all times and dimensions to do it, it is difficult to figure out which agents and who to influence and at what point in time to strike or influence to have the desired outcome. Now this group's motive may be in orchestrating an end to the original motivation, or returning everything to a neutral position. This war is fatiguing. But they are also facing the complex machinery of their own eschatology or survival as a species here.