To the present-day reader (Whenever that “present” may be)
I am sending this from a time far into your future. How far? I’m not sure. The historical record from before my era is largely missing. I do know there have been at least a couple of civilisations between your present and mine. So, we’re probably not talking in the range of eons, but probably multiple millennia.
This marks the start of a set of stories that I’ll be telling. Most will be my own, some will be others’, and a few will be “folk tales” from my era. But none of it would be possible without the help of someone local to your present day.
This started while I was experimenting with a (rather illegal) time-projection device. During my first time-hop, I found my thoughts syncing with a man from your present. I was able to look through his eyes, read his memories, and even hijack his body. Neither of us has any psychic aptitude, so we’ve assumed that this was either an accident or the express purpose of the device I was using. The true surprise was that whatever made this possible also allowed two-way communication.
As we got talking, I told him why I had chosen to play with technology that I didn’t fully understand. Upon hearing my tales first-hand, he suggested this course of action so that more could hear them. We’re aware that many will write it off as just fiction. But even just sowing the seeds of “what might happen in the future” might be enough.
According to my companion, there is a lot of media from your time that covers the concepts of time travel. In many of them, there’s apparently a common sentiment of: “Be careful of learning what’s coming in the future.” Don’t worry about that here. My stories have an ulterior motive: to prevent them from ever happening.
Fans of such media are probably already thinking, “But that’s a bootstrap paradox!” However, the hypothetical results of such an event are exactly what I’m aiming to achieve.
If I come out and tell you straight about the events that I’m trying to prevent from happening, you’d not understand why. This would be as you’d not have the context of my time, its sensibilities, its struggles, or its own recent history. Many of my stories may seem mundane, or at the very least not world-ending. Because, if you didn’t understand my time or care about the people in it, why would you care about what happened to them?
I am sure the mix of past, present, and future tenses in this letter has been confusing. They have been confusing for us writing it too. But we hope you’ll enjoy what we write next. The order of events in the stories will be a lot more linear; we promise.
Feeling strapped already
Toise (and his present-day companion)