Time Machine

For many years, a time machine was a hypothetical device which would allow a person or object to travel through time. With the discovery of the Bradenburg Artifact by NATO forces in 2016, time machines became a reality.

Two time machines are known to have been created―the Alpha Device in 2023 and the Beta Device in 2025. The machines were engineered using readings from the resonance cascade present at the original Bradenburg Artifact event, and used these cascades to operate. A 'Resonance Cascade' is a cataclysmic quantum event created when an Anti-Mass Spectrometer is used to galvanize the natural resonance present in all matter. The Anti-Mass Spectrometer scans samples with oscillating electromagnetic fields and beams of high-energy plasma to excite the resonances, tearing nominally unpredictable holes in quantum spacetime. Time devices could both produce and moderate the tears to allow human travel.

Both the Alpha and Beta device were developed in secret by the orders of the Cuomo regime at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA. As of 2100, both devices have been destroyed and the building of further devices banned by the Treaty of Berlin.

Alpha Device
The Alpha Device was developed at Los Alamos over the course of 2023. Prior to the Bradenburg incident, scientists had theorized that significant distortion of natural resonances could result in quantum fluctuation. However, it was only after obtaining precise readings from the artifact that American technicians could put the theory into practice. As Cuomo and the Viniks were preparing the device to influence past events in their favor, Tom Cruise managed to steal the device from the Los Alamos site and reconnoiter with Resistance forces at the Black Mesa stronghold. The only recorded usage of a device was carried out by John 'Lane' Devoy and Ryan McCarthy, who brought mid-20th century musician Mitch Miller to the year 1919 and replaced Vladimir Lenin with the later doppelgänger. The fate of the real Lenin is unknown.

Beta Device
Resistance forces debated destroying the Alpha device over the next two years, by which time Los Alamos scientists had created a working copy from their old schematics. Using the quantum-portaling capabilities of the Beta device, Cuomo intelligence forces spied on Black Mesa, prompting the Resistance to overload the Alpha Device's resonance capacitors, destroying both extant devices in the process.

Resonance Cascades
There have been three primary recorded resonance cascades. The first occurred when NATO coalition forces under Braden Tierney activated the Bradenburg artifact, sending them to a parallel reality where time was out of synch with Earth. Though returning due to a random aftershock after mere minutes, over 30 years had passed for Braden and his troops.

A second resonance cascade occurred when Resistance operatives overloaded the Alpha and Beta devices, causing a massive pocket of quantum fluctuation to engulf the Noble and Greenough School campus and send the occupants 12 years into the past physically. While the rest of the world remained unchanged, all recent Nobles graduates had returned to their prior state, while only select Resistance Command appeared to retain memories of what had happened in the last dozen years.

The third and final resonance cascade occurred less than a year later, when Ryan McCarthy triggered an impromptu cascade via a small-scale Anti-Mass Spectrometer. This was used to evacuate the Knights Tomplar, then pursued by the US military, from White River Junction Vermont to the safety of the Nobles satellite outpost on the shores of Lake Michigan, Michigan.