Anachron Displacement Engine

Widely regarded a key component in the rise of the Zarakkanian Empire, the Anachron Displacement Engine put a natural occurring phenomenon to terrible purpose during the war.

Functional Description
The unstudied would most like ascribe the name "time travel" to the effect produced by the Anachron Machine, but this is not completely accurate. The biggest difference between time travel and the Anachron Displacement Effect is that ADE is a temporary action, with the effected entity returning to its origin point after a short duration in its destination, linearly dependent upon the level of temporarly energy used in the reaction. Relatedly, the time spent during a displacement is equivalent to the duration from the origin point before the return. In simpler terms, the effect results in the existence of the effected object being transferred to another point in the timestream for the duration of the effect.

Early Development
The first observation and discovery of the Anachron effect is attributed to Harle Holtzmann during a quantum experiment investigating the fluctuating mass of unstable isotope Iridium78. Holtzmann soon discovered that particles of the isotope were rhythmically building up and releasing temporal energy, resulting in the particles jumping back and forth over the course of several seconds in time. Holtzmann came to call these particles "Anachrons" once he understood what it was he was observing.

After further study and examination, Holtzmann was able to reproduce this effect using more traditional fuel sources to artificially charge up the Anachrons, increasing the temporal distance the particles could jump. Adding in the ability to transfer the effect to designated objects, Holtzmann rolled out the first version of the Anachron Displacement Engine, built to harness the ADE to temporarily shift objects backwards and forwards through time.

Power Source
Producing the Anachron displacement effect requires a sizeable amount of energy to induce temporal shift. According to Holtzmann, who would later become the first Chronolator of the Zarakkanian Empire, the amount of energy needed to displace a gram of matter per unified stellar period can be approximated to 10 gigaquarns, or in his direct words "a whole fucking lot of bang".

Thus, for the early years of experimentation, only very small shifts of very small objects were possible, the largest on record being an eyelash pulled twenty minutes, described as "slightly crispy" upon completing the process.

This all changed with the advent of the Solar Revolution and the development of the Solar Core Modules, allowing the harnessing of several megaquarns worth of thermonulear fusion for consumption. More significant displacements were now possible, as the machine could feed upon the fusion reaction, though at the cost of speeding the lifecycle of star, sometimes even triggering a solar demise event. As a side-effect, frontier exploration rates increased greatly due the increased demand for new solar batteries (See Fifth Great Galaxy Rush). In a few more extreme cases, several gas giant class planets were artificially ignited into full-blown stars in order to harvest the fusion power of their post-transformation state.

Weaponization
Eventually, the fusion harvesting process had been improved in terms of efficiency and safety, to the point that a star could be farmed using a single neo-lunar-titanium module embedded into the core. These modules were mass-produced and scattered across the closer systems of the Hephaestus Galaxy to harvest fusion energy for later usage.

When the war broke out, it was not long before the solar batteries were turned towards using the ADE to terrible effect in battle. Whole platoons of Untroopers dropped into the middle of a light skirmish. The route of an assassination attempt on the Bejeweled Hermitage herself by temporarily relocating her long enough for cavalry to apprehend the would-be assassins. The Grundine Bombings. Zarakkanian brass had no shortage of clever and cruel uses for time displacement.

Remnants
Only a few of the ADEs still exist, though none are functional. Whatever secret to their operation that is missing has not yet been rediscovered. There was a bit of commotion at the lab revisiting the research, when a note, written in the hand of the lead engineer himself, suddenly manifested itself upon his desk, leading him to believe that he would soon find the final link. However, this was later proven to be the prank of an unhappy graduate student.

On a personal note, given how quickly these machines were used to commit horrible atrocities by the Zarrakanians, perhaps it is best that these machines lay dormant for the time being.