In 1988, in Vilnius, Lithuania, Soviet scientist Dmitri Kuznetsov invented the Kuznetsov device, a machine for travel through time and space.
As he utilises the machine's capability, however, it becomes increasingly clear that the history of the world he lived in and understood has become increasingly unrecognisable, and the travellers he picked up along the way are similarly displaced.
After his sudden and premature death, the remaining time travellers band together to form the Laikoseimas, or LS, an organisation dedicated to fixing the mistakes of the past (and present, and future) and to prevent the device from ever being used again. But just as their aims are complete, a defector in their ranks takes to naming himself Ensi, hides himself in the upper time dimensions, and attempts to sell opportunities for various, previously ignorant individuals to take advantage of the technology, for good or ill.
At the nadir of the situation, the LS makes one last attempt at destroying time travel before its invention - the one supposedly impossible temporal paradox. As the mission once again fails, one more traveller is dragged into the mire - and this time, events become even more complex.
This work provides examples of:
- Another Dimension: the LS operate in the fourth dimension. Their opponents operate even higher still.
- Applied Phlebotinum: robots, nanotechnology, cyborg partitions, programmable swords. Justified somewhat in that the LS has all of time and space from which to claim it.
- Bad Present: the version of the Cold War Tony Richards came from. Both sides are on the verge of collapse.
- The Constant: a low-key one, actually: the invention of time travel.
- Godwin's Law of Time Travel: subverted. It’s possible to kill the Nazi high command, but the consequences aren’t necessarily better than WW2, and the LS shuts things down anyway.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: the ‘’Subjugator of Nations’’, ‘’Localised Armageddon’’, ‘’Holocaust Provision’’ and ‘’Doomsday’’. These aren’t even the bad guy’s vehicles. Also Ragnarok, Tempurian the Hammer, and Asha the Pyro.
- No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: the LS’ multiracial membership mostly travels to the future. That doesn’t mean that tolerance is guaranteed, however.
- No-Sell: ROMAN is durable enough to jump from a window several storeys up, but she can’t budge Ragnarok more than a few inches when hitting him.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: justified, as the travellers are often outside of the timeline when the "ripple" occurs.
- Springtime for Hitler: a mild case when the LS manages to get $150 million out of a business deal. They didn’t really need the money.
- Stable Time Loop: occurs early on; it's stable and it isn't, depending on the position in time from which it is viewed.
- Terminator Twosome: although the LS doesn't always send just one operative.
- The '80s: Tony’s 1980s isn’t quite ours, but it still has Tron, Tetris and the Cold War.
- Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Ensi’s goal. It really doesn’t work out that way.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: time travel is a complex, difficult science, made more so by the fact that very few people study it.
- You Can't Fight Fate: actually, you sorta can. What you can't do is stop time travel, or "dodge the one that kills you", because your future self isn't there to stop it, and your past self only has so many tries.
