Hurricane Ghosts – Google Docs
Hurricane Ghosts
Strictly speaking, they’re not exactly ghosts. Well, they’re not supernatural ghosts. Turns out that the fluid dynamics equations needed to model hurricanes are sufficiently complex that they can break the boundary line between ‘very baroque mathematics’ and ‘straight up magic.’ It all depends on whether there’s an esoterically inclined idiot of sufficient power in close enough proximity to the storm.
Should that happen, sometimes the interface between the equations and the idiot will throw off a Hurricane Ghost, which is really just a future-echo of someone who will end up suffering a tragedy during the hurricane in question. The echo, typically being naturally unhappy about how things turned out, will then seize upon the apparent time-travel (although the use of the word ‘apparent’ may be incorrect, come to think of it) to prevent whatever the tragedy was in the first place. Note that a Hurricane Ghost is tangible, but also very difficult to damage. Also note that it is more or less made up of solidified obsessive determination, which means that there’s no real point in trying to dissuade one from its task.
Still, the problem here is not that the Hurricane Ghost might fail; if it doesn’t succeed the first time, it will simply jump back and try again until it does actually succeed. The problem is, instead, that the more often a Hurricane Ghost has to jump back, the worse the storm will get. Even more complicated: attempting to assist the Hurricane Ghost, and failing, counts as ‘suffering a tragedy’ — which means that failure will effectively send the Hurricane Ghost’s assistants back with it, in order to try again.
Nonetheless, the standard rule is to assist Hurricane Ghosts. And to get it right the first time. Because nobody’s really sure what happens to future-echoes generated this way, after the situation’s resolved.