How could you keep any of this secret?

With all this fascinating and exciting news, how could you keep it secret? The answer has to be security clearances, really tough non-disclosure contracts, and people only know a piece of the story. Information is compartmentalized and one person only knows a piece. They also know who knows what information. If any appears in the press, they know exactly who to give polygraph exams to and they will do bad things to whomever discloses information. There are some pieces of the story that are capital offenses to disclose.

Faster than light drive

About the same time as the Grid, a faster than light drive was invented. This used a slightly different aspect of the same phenomenon as the Grid. Faster than light drive is more difficult and uses even more energy than the Grid, as the drive involves an actual presence, while the Grid only involves a pseudo-presence, albeit at a location remote in time and space.

The drawback of the Grid

The main drawback of the Grid is that a nuclear power plant is needed to drive the equipment. That remote viewing over hundreds of years takes a great deal of electric power. The whole process is made possible by quirks in quantum mechanics there discovered part way into the 21st Century. When the government realized the potential of the system, the entire process was declared to be "Top Secret, Special Compartmented Information". Every effort was taken to squash any public knowledge of the technology. Gradually, however rumors surfaced in the scientific community about a great scientific breakthrough.

We really need to study the English navy in 1652 to 1654, as well

The Commonwealth, under Cromwell, was either very bad at record-keeping or the records were largely lost at the Restoration about the English navy during the First Anglo-Dutch War, or even more, the period from 1642 to 1660. After Oliver Cromwell's death, with Richard Cromwell ruling, civil order had begun to deteriorate. There were men setting themselves up, in England, as warlords. The situation had gotten so bad by 1660, that there was popular support for restoring the monarchy and enthroning Charles II as King. Under those circumstances, General Monck marched his army on London and overthrew the Commonwealth government, such as remained of it. Edward Montagu took a squadron of ships across the Channel with Charles and James and brought them to England. What ensued was an orgy of retribution against the remaining principals of the rebellion and Commonwealth. Bodies of important Commonwealth officials were removed from Westminster Cathedral and were dumped in a mass grave. Cromwell's remains are somewhat shrouded in mystery. His head may have been separated fromthe rest of his body, spirited off, and preserved.

We want to be able to recognize individual Dutch and English ships when we see them

One goal of our research with the Grid is to be able to recognize the individual Dutch and English warships when we see them. We want to watch the battles of the First Anglo-Dutch War, particularly, and watch the action unfold. To really tell what is happening in detail, we need to be able to identify the ships on each side. We will need to build up a recognition database, with 3D models of the ships. Fortunately, the Grid is able to capture the detailed shapes of objects that we are viewing. If needed, after we have built up our database of models, we can use model-matching techniques, where needed, to identify ships in the battles.

One of our longer term goals was to find document stores

We knew that we wanted to find the stores of documents in the offices of the five Dutch admiralties in 1652 and 1653 and the store held by Johan de Witt, the Stadt Holder. The Grid would allow us to see every page in a stack of papers. This is the sort of functionality that is invaluable to us future historians. We will have seen the actual documents and not have to be content with what has survived until the 21st Century. We want to also find Willem van de Velde the Elder's studio and his stash of ship drawings. We want to do that despite our ability to see the actual ships and image them completely.

We planned a grid mission to take pictures of Dutch ships in the summer of 1652

We were planning our grid mission to take pictures of Dutch warships in the summer of 1652. We were particularly looking for information in the archives about Admiral Tromp's flagship, the Brederode, to help us locate at a suitable date and to help us to recognize the ship. I suspected that since the Brederode was one of the largest ships in the Dutch fleet that we should be able to pick out the ship from the rest. We wanted a bow, stern, and both sides. We would also take pictures of other ships in the fleet and see if we could collect information to help us identify the ships.

"The Grid"

"The Grid" was an invention from the first century of the new millenium. The grid allows us to look back in time, without being physically present. The grid is positioned through space and time to a particular location. The grid has a feature that allows us to "scan" through space and time to better locate an event. There is a set of vernier controls that control the X, Y, and Z positions in space and the T position in time. The grid can also be "swung" vertically and horizontally. We have the ability to move to a cabin in a ship and to look through a stack of papers.

A nasty feature of the grid is that there is no privacy. Everything can be known. Just think about the ability to watch a crime taking place and to follow a criminal from the crime scene, so that he can be arrested.

If we can do that, just think about the implications about being able to go back in time and see Noah's ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the Resurrection, and other religious events. That results would be so explosive, that having anything to do with such snooping is punishable by death. If anyone does know, they had better not make any disclosures, as doing so would be catastrophic. Because of that, locks have been put in place in the equipment so that this sort of snooping is not possible.

I was scared

There is no worse feeling than being hunted. Worse yet, it was this alien being with a blaster. I was unprotected, except by my feeble wits. I kept ducking and dodging, and only survived by chance. I was scared and almost in a panic. I couldn't give in to panic, however, as then I would be dead (burnt to ashes). We are running and dodging among large stones in the ruined city. How did I survive this far? I didn't know, but was grateful. I was dressed in my black Florsheims and blue Dockers, with a bright blue dress shirt, not hard to miss. My hunter was the usual dull grey that covered these guys in an exo-skeleton. What could I do next and where could I go?