The Night Faculty: Cassandra, a Hawking Siren

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Dear Readers,


   Here is the next part of my series on the University's Night Faculty.

   If you thought Professor Raven was unusual, I'm happy to introduce you to Dr. Cassandra Hawking, a name which we gave  to her and she graciously accepted.  "Cassandra" comes from her vast and uncanny knowledge, which I will explain in a moment.  "Hawking" comes from her nature.

 
    Cassandra is what her time stream calls a "Hawking Siren," a being that dwells in space and can warp light around itself.  At her core, cleverly concealed within her biology, lies a small singularity, event horizon and all.  Hawking Radiation from its gradual evaporation powers her entire metabolism as well as her consciousness.  Surrounding it is a complex network of matter and light.


   The singularity itself is maintained within a vacuum, to protect her outer body from its pull.  In her native time stream, Cassandra existed in a constant state of collapse.  The tiny singularity within her consistently approached the final point of its evaporation, at which point it would release a tremendous amount of "information" into the surrounding space.  In her time stream, that happened to be the solution to the black hole information paradox.  This process would destroy her outer body as well as her mind, effectively killing her.

   So, like all members of her race, Cassandra needed a steady stream of matter in order to maintain herself.  Her energy-matter matrix allowed her to transit around the universe collecting such matter, but, as with every species, there were pitfalls in her existence.  Certain civilizations loved the idea of a race of singularities to conquer, beings that they could enslave and use for a source of energy for all time.



   Over time her species developed--you will understand in a moment why I do not say "evolved"--the ability to shift their matter/energy matrix to mimic the appearance of other objects.  Using their matrix along with their internal singularity, they could use a combination of gravitational lensing, position, and shape to look like anything.


  
  For certain members of her race, this allowed a new strategy for matter acquisition.  The hunters became the hunted, and many careless ships drew themselves into the heart of a Hawking Siren when it appeared to be a grand bonanza of salvage or a pleasure ship in distress.  Once it had trapped its prey, the Hawking Siren would absorb its mass and feed off the energy released as Hawking Radiation.  Thus, they would go on to live further.  Other Sirens chose to stay hidden and consume only inanimate matter, but in the end most of them settled on an omnivorous life.

   This might make Cassandra seem entirely too dangerous to work with here at the University, but we have found a way to keep her sustained without needing to fear she will begin to devour her coworkers.  The process by which she is kept fed also results in excess energy that can be used to sustain University operations, so it is a beneficial scenario for all.  It does keep her occupied during the day, however, which means she must be a part of the Night Faculty.  However, we did not anticipate that benefit when we began to work on bringing her here.

   You see, in their final moments in her time stream, small singularities contain arbitrary amounts of information, a necessary consequence of the immediacy of their evaporation.  Literally, whenever she gets hungry, Cassandra's knowledge of time and all times expands to immeasurable amounts.  Any information she chooses to share with us is cherished.  In theory, she could tell us everything about everything.  Yet she often holds back, and it is beyond me to wonder why.  Perhaps she fears to live up to her name.

   At times, in the night, a graduate student will disappear, and then be resurrected with no knowledge of some previous stretch of time.  I wonder if, perhaps, Cassandra roams the halls and prunes those avenues of investigation which might lead to our ruin.  I am not certain how to feel about this possibility, but the thought does not help me sleep.

   Always,

   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman
   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople

Related articles

• Physicists may have observed Hawking radiation for the first time (physorg.com)

The Night Faculty: Raven

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Dear Readers,
   I promised in my last post to offer you more information about the University's Night Faculty, and I've decided to make good on that this week.

   Today I want to talk to you about Raven, who is a member of a somewhat unusual class of our faculty even outside of his "Night"status.  Each of us here is drawn from some body of records, from a personality derived via Augury, the discipline upon which the University is founded.  Usually this requires some sort of fame, and often an unusual means of demise.  There is a trick to Augury, and getting a whole personality is often the trickiest.

   This means, sometimes, that we can get personalities that existed mostly in minds and stories rather than in physical reality.  Most, if not all, stories and characters really happened in some time stream or another, by some unlikely consequence. Still, there are personalities here who are built more from myth and legend than "reality."  Whatever that means.

  Many of these personalities come from cultures with strong mythic traditions, or are amalgams of a few such cultures.  Most, like White Buffalo Calf Woman (PtesanWi), have a coherent identity formed from at least one "real" life and many stories from just one culture.  Miss PtesanWi is almost entirely well adjusted here at the University, and should be getting her PhD a few years ago.  She'll be a full professor quite soon, I'm told.  And she's quite coherent about her origins; fights with the Virgin Mary over who gave birth to Jesus are rather infrequent these days.

  Then there are the truly fragmented, almost insane personalities.  Professor Raven is one of those.  We might have gone back to the drawing board with him and tried for something more coherent, except that his fragmentation is entirely fitting to his character.  Raven believes he created the world, stole the moon, and created death itself.  He may have stolen the moon, actually, but it's unclear if that was a later eponymous character inspired by Raven myths, or if it was in fact the Raven of myth.
  As for the creation of death thing, I believe our good Professor is still having a bit of trouble with that one now that he lives somewhere that death is irrelevant.

   At any rate, Raven is an amalgamation of things you know as Native American Indian and also Siberian, of cultures I wish you could know and cultures I hope that you never encounter.  And he loves American Football.

   Professor Raven is a trickster, a prankster, and a creature who swoops through the night and beyond the moon here at the University.  He's also written an excellent book about English punk cultures in the intensely divergent 1980s.  I couldn't have picked a better faculty member for the job.

   Furthermore, he's quite formidable in battle.  Raven can form himself from shadows and swoop down onto our enemies.  The ones he hates the worst often leave here alive, but blinded.  His misdirection has foiled many a raid and preserved the University through much strife.  He is our prime nightwatchman, and during the times when I am not frightened of him, I am glad he is on our side.

   Always,
   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople

The Night Faculty

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Dear Readers,


   Since I've been kind of dry and informational of late, I want to move away from that a little and give you a bit more information about how things work here at the University of Constantinople.

   The University is at such a strange level of temporal dynamics and technology as to be a near-mystical place.  It's often to tell where the technology ends and the spookiness begins.  More on this spookiness next week, you can be sure.

 
    Your spooky quotient for today will be filled by the concept of the Night Faculty.  No doubt, the idea has crossed a few of your minds that there might be an entire other society in the places that you live, societies that operate when you are sleeping, full of people who are on a different shift and with whom you never interact.  Perhaps, even, they have their own businesses, storefronts which shutter just as your eyes flutter to begin the next day.

 
   Here at the University, I know there is just such a set of people.  The Night Faculty are a group of people whose cultures or biology leave them unable to operate during the day, as most of us do.  Either they are from time streams where evolution has produced something like vampires, or they learned to exist in a nocturnal culture, or any of many other reasons.


   That might seem "freaky" or "creepy" to any of you, that in thenight there might be people who you never see that wander the halls of your workplace.  For me it is a matter of great comfort.  There is always worry that we will be attacked by some other ex-temporal force, especially the Puppeteers.  To know that at all times, our halls are stalked by creatures of daydream and nightmare is to know that we are at all times safe.


   More on the Night Faculty next week.


   Always,

   Dr. John Skylar

   Chairman
   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople

The Pinkness of the Unicorn, and Other Stories

The Invisible Pink Unicorn; Image via Wikipedia
Dear Readers,


   There's been quite a lot on my mind with regards to Science, experimentation, and philosophy of thought.  You can blame a couple of people I've run into around your time stream lately, who have gotten me into discussions of hypothesis testing and what makes knowledge "knowable."
   
   This post is mostly provoked by discussions of theism vs. atheism, but that question is one that I'm unwilling to settle for you.  Suffice it to say that in the time streams where there are gods or godlike beings who directly interfere with the affairs of the less powerful, I find this to be somewhat unprofessional behavior on their part.
  
   At any rate, the notion of a deity is fascinating from a Philosophy of Science perspective.  Science relies on the ability to formulate, and then test, certain hypotheses, which then allow the formulation of further hypotheses and more experiments.  By this method we have learned to push the boundaries of sentient knowledge of the universe.

Sexual Selection: Bells, Whistles, and Running Away

Image via WikipediaDear Readers,



I found this in some old notes from a past, time-normal me.  Thought you might enjoy it, if you're looking for something to read on a slow Sunday.  I was less reserved in my wording back then.

It concerns the difference between Sexual Selection (where evolution is driven by arbitrary things that males or females happen to find attractive) vs. Natural Selection (where the selected traits are determined by their ability to help you survive the environment around you).


A classic example of Sexual Selection would be birdsong.  Females are attracted to the songs of male birds, but to sing is actually quite risky for the male as it alerts predators to their location.  Your scientists think it to have evolved because it helps the males get noticed, which has a slight net benefit over how much it helps them get eaten.


Text below the cut.

   Always,

   Dr. John Skylar
   Chairman   Department of Anachronism
   University of Constantinople