7 Billion Years BCE

The universe is young and rapidly expanding. Fewer galaxies and a relative handful of bright new stars. Orbiting these closely neighboring stars are a few thousand planets cradling intelligent life.

Solar systems are closer together, and the fabric of the galaxies are lousy with tears– wormholes. Given the speed with which travel is possible between planets and systems, the sentient species sail on solar winds and the tides of space/time.

Question is, do I keep humans as one of these sentient cultures– keeping in the trope of human as touchstone and anchor for the audience– or do I do away entirely with us? Focus on what could be called, from our standpoint, older races?

Want to move away from visual stereotypes of space opera. Definitely a Froudian aesthetic. Imagine The Dark Crystal as a space opera, at least visually. Very organic technology, living ships. Space whales. But not Farscape.  More an age of established empires.  Empires of what we call the Old Gods, now simply the Gods.  The Untenables.  The great, unknowable beings of the Cthulhu Mythos.  Likewise probably Dunsany’s Gods of Pegana, and Carcosa ain’t so lost, and the King in Yellow sits enthroned.  Maybe not directly, but certainly inspired.  If Gaiman can get away with a Lovecraft reference in everything he writes, then so can I, doggammit.

Thomas Fugit

First off, a disclaimer.  A Google search shows several time-traveling adventurers named “Thomas Fugit”. This Tom is in no way associated or inspired by any of these others, the pun is just too good to pass up.  The combination of electricity-based power (Thomas Edison) and time travel, or fleeing through time, a spin on the phrase Tempus Fugit.  It really works well for this concept.

Thomas Fugit is an electrokinetic.  That is, he controls the eletrical by thought alone.  He doesn’t actually create electricity whole cloth per se, but rather controls the eletricity around him.  This source can be static electricity, 60Hz mains currents, or even the eletrical fields generated by living organisms.

But that’s not even the cool part.

Fugit is also a time traveller.  His ability to skip through time is enabled through a device he recieved from Nikola Tesla– the Temporal Capacitor.  The TC is composed of two pieces– a pocket-watch item of incredible complexity that detects weak points in space/time known as rifts, and an iron-core copper rod nicknamed the Lighting Rod that amplifies Fugit’s power and focuses it into a rift in order to blast it open.  This process is not subtle.  Tesla was unable to make the Capacitor practical, as it requires a ridiculous amount of electrical power to operate.  Being a human dynamo, Thomas Fugit is capable of using the Temporal Capacitor.

Fugit is an adventurer, meaning essentially that he is equal parts thief, crime-fighter, conman, and explorer.  He dresses as one might expect a time traveler to dress– an amalgum of clothes from different eras.  He’s currently quite fond of slim, custom, two-button suits in gray or blue, embroidered waistcoats, Doc Martins, and a snap-brim fedora.