The Fifth Dimension Project: Synopsis and poll

What follows is a two-page synopsis for my 87,500 word--roughly 300-page--political science fiction novel. At the end of the synopsis, I ask readers to please respond to the poll questions. Please share this

link. The more responses I get the better.

Synopsis

Sam is a political consultant and speechwriter who excels at coalition building. He is instrumental in getting President Nichols elected by presenting him as a centrist problem-solving candidate. Upon getting elected the president takes a hard right turn in his governance. Sam publicly leaves the administration and heads to Bozeman, Montana to hide out and reassess his life.

Central to String Theory is the hypothesis that we live in a 10-dimensional universe, six of which are folded. For his PhD thesis, Marhan, a physics graduate student, seeks to unfold these six dimensions. In collaboration with Nora, a graduate student in quantum computer science, they develop the technology to unfold these dimensions in human brains: the most likely place to find something if the dimensions exist.

The technology includes a helmet crammed with specialized computer chips that send billions of electron pulses into a study subject’s brain. The pulses cohere among the neurons forcing open the folded dimensions; what’s inside is visualized on their computer screens.

Nora and Marhan begin by testing the technology on themselves and learn that it reveals poignant scenes from their pasts.’ In some early tests, the current self acts on the younger self to attempt to change their past. This induces them to run an elaborate experiment on mice to determine if the past is in fact malleable. It is. Exorcising a ghost from the past of the University Ethics officer shows that human pasts can also be altered.

There are comedic moments throughout the story. Once they have successfully eliminated the ghost from the ethics officer’s past, she didn’t need to be treated by their technology, and she doesn’t know that she was. When the session is over, the ethics officer has vanished. Marhan freaks out. “We lost the ethics officer! This is surely an ethics violation!” A frantic search ensures.

Nora adds sound capabilities in an awkward scene that exposes an affair the local District Attorney is having; this haunts them throughout the remainder of the story.

They keep the history-changing capability of their technology under wraps but explore the use of the technology in solving criminal cases: they show that the suspect in a murder that happened two years earlier is innocent, and the technology reveals the killer; they find bodies buried by a serial killer.

Nora finds Sam passed out next to a pile of alcohol infused vomit while out trail running. They become friends while she and Marhan are developing the technology and the country gets enveloped in crises brought on by the Nichols administration.

Word that two graduate students can look into a test subject’s past slowly gets out. They conduct a seminar with news cameras rolling to show the world what they have accomplished but do not reveal the history changing capability of the technology. Nora does a demonstration for this seminar that shows her out trail running and accidentally outs Sam.

Battles have started occurring around the country. Sam speaks at the university to try and slow the march toward civil war. Marhan, Nora and their group of friends take part in a protest that ends in violence when counter protestors attack.

Marhan falls for Nora immediately when they start working together, but Nora doesn’t respond to his desires: he is nervous, they are research partners. She does feel an emotional connection to Sam, but he is still in love with his ex. She slowly develops feelings for Marhan as she begins to see different sides of him.

Nora tells Sam about their experiments and about their ability to change history. He asks her to change his past. Marhan, Nora and their professors stress over whether to attempt this. It’s a coup that will produce unforeseen changes as more than two years of history get rewritten. They decide in favor of sending Sam back once it’s clear that civil war is upon them.

Sam is instructed to focus on points in his past where it will be possible to convince his younger self to stop working to get Nichols elected. He shows up to the session with a few drinks in him; they have no choice but to proceed. Sam and his younger self battle in quantum entanglements: one of his selves and then the other inhabit his younger body, each pushing the other out. Sam works through numerous scenes with visual distortions, then gets mired in quantum foam. The process becomes unstable and Sam is lost between worlds. They shock him to bring him back, then reengage him as he is in his office struggling to write the speech that helps Nichols sweep Super Tuesday and lock up the nomination while the two Sam’s battle for his soul.

Nora insists they send her back to talk to him. Since she is not physically in Sam’s office, she takes a ghostly form and tells him what happens in the future. Younger Sam listens. The quantum entanglement resolves: Sam changes the speech to make it ‘all Nichols.’

The local police have been searching for Sam the whole time he's been working his way through his past. They force their way into the lab as Nora returns. Sam is again stuck between worlds. Nora realizes that she has to pay for his passage back to their world.

It works. Nichols loses on Super Tuesday. Marhan and Nora find themselves alone in the lab. The police are gone, Sam is gone, their memories of the past two years have been rearranged, and they find themselves asking: What did we do? The epilogue gives hints as to what has happened and where the story is headed.

Based on what you know about the story from having read the synopsis please answer the following questions. Note, I can only see the poll results not who voted for what.

Do you read science fiction?

• Never
• Sometimes
• Frequently

If you answered Never above, would you pick up this novel?

• Yes
• No

If you answered Sometimes or Frequently above, would you pick up this novel?

• Yes
• No

If you are interested in contacting me after reading this and taking the poll, you can either go through the website or write me at RagingWhileAging@gmail.com

For those interested in where this story idea blossomed from: I read Brian Greene’s, The Elegant Universe, about 15 years ago. The idea of folded dimensions everywhere around us, even in the air we breathe, fascinated me. I had to unfold these dimensions and see where they took me.

Thanks for contributing to this effort!

Chuck