The General Plot

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but the plot of Tempus is based around the concept of time travel - hence the name.

Soon after humans built their base on Tempus, a large machine was placed on the highest point on the planet (which was quite a distance away from the base) that controls the flow of time on the planet. The machine basically retracts time back to a point a certain time interval (say, two months) in the past - which means that time on the planet is reset every two months. For example, if the machine was activated on May 1st, then on July 1st time would be rolled back two months, erasing everything that had happened within that two-month interval.

What did it mean for people on the planet? Say if someone was on the planet before May 1st, and they came down with some terrible disease sometime afterward, then it wouldn't really matter because after two months they would be reverted to their original state. But if someone landed on the planet after May 1st, then they'd have to leave the planet before July 1st or their existence would be erased. Keep in mind that the scope of the time beacon's power is only the planet itself, so Earth is unaffected.

You might ask why people would bother with this seemingly utterly useless if not dangerous technology. Well, it gives one practically an infinite amount of time to do research on the planet. One can begin on May 1st, take notes on a newly discovered plant, and have the data transferred back to Earth all before July 1st - that way once time is rolled back, they can use the same two months' worth of time to research something else. It's complicated, I know. Also, maybe the entire research colony might come down with a really bad uncurable disease. As long as the time beacon doesn't break, it wouldn't matter because again, as in the example in the previous paragraph, they would be reverted to their previous, healthy state.

It's not realistic, of course, and this was kind of a struggle for me - I wanted to keep the novel somewhat realistic, but the time beacon is just so central to the plot (along with the existence of the planet itself).

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that I have the general plot written down by now. I just felt like this time stuff needed to be understood before I actually revealed the plot. As for the plot itself, I haven't actually gotten around to naming all of the characters yet, but when I do, I'll post it.