Based off of this post: https://steemit.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02375-f185-call-it-a-win
He remembered the portal made out of antimatter and tachyon particles, he tried replicating it multiples times but all ended in failures. Many times and many explosive experiences later he came across a strange matter literally called strange matter from a neutron star. Not only it was still stable but also within the same fabric of spacetime. Years later a woman inserted her hand into a three pronged device while a robotic voice exclaimed “very good, you are now in possession of the Aperture Science handheld portal device” -- Anon Guest
[AN: Much though I'd love to ruin my prospects of actually selling an instants anthology for income, I have to decline.]
There had been very much ado about the portal. Five dollars was, indeed, five dollars... and Science was tempted to bet Steve that he couldn't do it again. They also rather feared that he could do it again. Unfortunately, though Humans will do literally anything to win a five dollar bet, they're less able to do it for a mind-bogglingly uncountable stipend.
In brief, though he may have been able to build the portal to win a five-buck bet, there was no way Steve could build it for a billion-dollar business investment. All sorts of theories emerged, mostly considering the vast distances between linked portals and what data could be obtained with teams, supplies, and enough stable time loops to theoretically accelerate technological evolution by ten to twenty thousand years.
The structure already there was 'impossibly old', data gathered from what cameras viewed through the portal. Living, organic eyes never saw the same thing twice, and didn't like what they saw looking back at them. That was really how the experiments began.
Data could travel back the way it came. Physical things could not. They called the attempts a 'paradox crash' as the thing sent through the portal would fatally collide with itself on the way back. Therefore, they sent robots. One to set up a communications hub and others to go explore the ruins. The instruments said that the air was breathable, the plants were compatible with Human life. In fact, it looked like people had been there before.
They told a peculiar story. Documented in granite, so that it would take longer to erode. The portal apparently sent objects back ten to twenty thousand years. It sent people back a lot further. They were prepared by the monuments' documentation and took seeds with them in their pockets. Seeds in their pockets, tools in their hands or in their backpacks. Things carried by organic life went with the organic life. Things sent on their own in care parcels were found by the robots in later millennia. Spoiled, broken, and decrepit. Useless for both past and future.
Humanity had, according to the monuments, sent the best and the brightest down in deep time to accelerate learning and then... one day... the missions stopped. They could no longer fund the building of a new society in deep time. Especially since that new society was starting to look like the exact opposite of the politics at the time.
The colonists therefore started to plan. Not only would they document their results, but they would also advance themselves during the intervening time. Interstellar travel couldn't be that hard. Someone had bet someone else five dollars that they couldn't do it. Success was nigh.
Their new mission? To travel to Earth and teach it the proper ways to be civilised. Educate the early Humans in how to properly manage a world and not allow commerce to overtake the best interests of Humanity as a whole. They left the documents behind in carved granite, inside structures designed to withstand the slings and arrows of deep time. Then they packed up all their learning, science, and supplies, and set off.
They predicted they'd arrive in the Sol system sometime close to the beginnings of the metallurgy ages, right at the end of the stone age.
"Oh shit," said Steve, still working with the Earth-side of the portal team. "We're our own ancient aliens! I owe that motherfucker Von Daniken five bucks!"
Of course, the people funding all this believed that they would do things differently this time around and started sending the best and brightest down deep time to start a cycle that would never end...
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / spaxiax]
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