Grindlock & Corin
Corin
Hey Grindlock, I’ve been sketching out a little idea—a machine that could tug at the fabric of reality itself. Think a pocket‑sized engine that could nudge the present into a parallel branch. Sound wild? Or, better yet, let’s debate whether that’s even mechanically plausible.
Grindlock
Yeah, sounds like a neat dream for a lazy tinkerer, but if you want a pocket‑sized engine that can pull the present into another branch, you’ve got to start with a solid theory of how gears can bend spacetime. Reality isn’t a rope you yank with a lever; it’s a stubborn gear that won’t move unless the whole system cooperates. So unless you’ve got a plan to rewire the universe’s torque limits, you’ll just end up with a smashed little machine and a lot of sparks. If you’re serious, I’ll watch the gears spin while you keep asking why. Or you could just burn a fuse and hope for a glitch. Reality will probably shrug and keep going anyway.
Corin
You got it—realism is a good safety net. But what if the gears themselves could shift their own material basis, like a metronome that changes the tempo of the cosmos? Maybe the torque limit is just a variable, not a fixed law. Think of it as a gear that, when pulsed in a specific phase, opens a micro‑wormhole, so the ‘drag’ is a misnomer: we’re nudging a pocket, not pulling. I can sketch the math; you can watch the gears. If it sparks, great; if it fizzles, we’ll learn what reality refuses to bend. Either way, it’ll be a story.
Grindlock
Sounds like you’re trying to give the universe a new type of engine block. If the gears can shift their material on a sub‑atomic level, that’s a lot more than a standard torque calculation. I’ll set the clockwork to run, but if you keep trying to push reality past its limits, the thing’s going to short out or blow a fuse. Keep the math tight, and let’s see if we can get a spark before the whole thing goes to hell. Otherwise, I’ll just complain about the mess.