Microstory 1242: Stargazer

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Some people have questioned why it is that temporal manipulators have only appeared somewhat recently in human history. Most of them were born within a hundred years of the turn of the 21st century, and only a handful were born before the common era. Why would that be? Did we somehow evolve time traveling capabilities? That doesn’t explain outliers, so that’s probably not it. Well, the truth is that it has more to do with human intelligence than anything. That’s not to say that there aren’t any dumb people with powers, or that all smart people do. It’s far more complex and nuanced than that, and has more to do with the intelligence of the species as a whole than any one individual’s. The fact is that time manipulation is just like any other witch ability. It requires hacking into the underlying structure of the universe, and exploiting some kind of vulnerability. That’s all done within the consciousness, rather than the body, which is why you don’t see a bunch of apes jumping through time. Afterall, at no point did an ape suddenly birth a human baby. Evolution describes changes over time; thousands of years, and even millions and billions. It’s not simply that other primates are not smart enough, but they certainly can’t grasp what it means to travel through time, and if the mind has no hope of understanding it, then it necessarily has no hope of performing it. Or rather, it won’t be born with such capabilities. It’s unclear when humans began to contemplate traveling through time, but as far as evolutionary time goes, it was just a few seconds ago. Stargazer is the absolute oldest linear human in histories, having been born hundreds of thousands of years before the Anthropocene epoch. He was given this name as it translates from Ancient Egyptian when he took a job at the Great Pyramid of Giza. He was not given a name at birth, nor was anyone else around him. Complex language was something he had to learn after interacting with the advanced peoples who came up with it, for it was not in use yet as he was first growing up. No one fully understands why it is that Stargazer is such an old immortal, or more importantly, why he appears to be the only one from anywhere near his time period. He has never traveled backwards in time, and neither has anyone gone to his early days. Disturbing his personal development is pretty taboo in the world of salmon and choosers, and as bad as some of them are, none of them has had the inclination to break this unwritten rule. Stargazer is completely off limits, almost like he’s more of a historical artifact than a person, and everyone accepts this. He has always lived in the pyramid, and he only has one job. Travel to exoplanets is difficult if you can’t do it naturally, like say, Maqsud Al-Amin, or Aristotle Al-Amin. The pyramid was designed to focus travel for other people, and serves as one of the largest temporal objects in the world. It is Stargazer’s responsibility to keep watch over this activity, and to make sure travelers safely go where they’re meant to be. He is but a facilitator. He cannot travel the stars himself, or he would be abandoning his post, and that is not an option. It is a boring job, but he feels it is necessary, and he is happy to just be doing something with his immortality.