Temporal Crystallization is the material law of time travel: objects that do not belong to the era receiving them crystallize, becoming unusable or degrading beyond remedy.
| Type | Law of time travel |
| Observed at | Uchronic Constantinople (1050–1055) |
| Spanish entry | Cristalización Temporal |
Description
There is no exception for value or affection: the clothes and equipment of a whole century can die on the body of the one wearing them. The travelers who fell into the Bosphorus before eleventh-century Constantinople suffered it as they set foot on the shore. As a consequence no one can hoard one era’s technology to spend it in another; time travel becomes logistical survival.
Remedies
- Ways to avoid it are mentioned only in half-voice: “passing through doors” and certain special “oils”.
- A principle of minimal baggage: in the shipwreck emergency, Aby Warburgo took only the charge of the flares (Sucronic Flare).
- Certain artifacts tied to the Simultaneous Circle are thought to protect against it; the Prefects of Time and the Cronoboys are thought to know the methods without divulging them.