Ars Paradoxica (stylized as ars PARADOXICA) is a science fiction podcast created by Mischa Stanton and Daniel Manning.[2] In-universe audio recordings tell the story of Dr. Sally Grissom, a scientist from the present day that accidentally invents time travel and is sent back to the USS Eldridge in 1943.[3] The series was originally aired from June 2015 to June 2018.[4]
Ars Paradoxica's production was funded in part by their Patreon, which garnered them around $800 a month as of 2017. The show has also received several awards, including best writing, best engineering, best new show, and best show overall from Audio Verse.[5]
Summary
Synopsis
Modern-day scientist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally sends herself back to 1943, finding herself aboard the USS Eldridge during the Philadelphia Experiment. She is recruited by the United States government to continue developing this new time travel technology under a secret branch of the government called the Office of Developed Anomalous Resources (ODAR), with the goal of using this technology to help the United States win World War II and the Cold War.[2][3] Grissom and her colleagues find themselves entrenched in politics and interpersonal struggles as they work to repair and improve their time travel device, the Timepiece, and avoid changing too much of the past.[6][7]
After the end of World War II, the government continues to fund their work as new obstacles arise. They discover that time travel causes an illness called Butterfly Syndrome, which causes brain damage that makes individuals constantly switch tenses while speaking. A cure is eventually discovered—raising children backwards through time makes them immune to Butterfly Syndrome—but the cost is steep.[8]
Cast and characters
Kristen DiMercurio as Dr. Sally Grissom, a theoretical physicist and the fictional granddaughter of astronaut Gus Grissom. She is aromantic and asexual.[9]
Reyn Beeler as Chet Whickman, the first person Grissom met upon arriving in 1943 and an officer in the U.S. Navy.
Katie Speed as Esther Roberts, an ambitious woman that started out as a calculator.
Zach Ehrlich as Jack Wyatt, Esther Roberts' lab partner.
Robin Gabrielli as Anthony Partridge, a former high school math teacher that now runs ODAR's Predictive Mechanics division after discovering how to reliably predict the future.
Susanna Kavee as Helen Partridge, a singer and wife of Anthony Partridge.
