ars PARADOXICA

ars PARADOXICA is a story about people searching for meaning in a universe that aggressively lacks one, and who occasionally find the next best thing in those around them.

It's also about the way power corrupts. When you've got a time machine and the backing of the most powerful nation on Earth, you start to get the idea that you can always tilt the scales in your favor, but there is cost and consequence for every action.

Above all, it's about science, America, and the deeply human desire to fix our mistakes.

ars PARADOXICA began as a college prank between two friends, and grew into a podcast with a writing staff of 6, a cast of over 20 regular characters, and 3 seasons (18+ hours) worth of the best time travel story ever told. It originally aired from June 2015 – June 2018, and is still downloaded by thousands of listeners every day.

Dr. Sally Grissom

A brilliant, charismatic scientist from the future. After an accident with her Higgs Inhibitor Array in the year 20█, Sally finds herself in a world that is not her own: America, 1943. Highly opinionated and always ready to make a pop culture reference none of her pre-millennial friends would understand, Sally sticks out like a sore thumb in any group she’s in. Determined to solve time travel and save the world, Sally is the physicist trapped in the past that any of us would want to be. 

Anthony Partridge

Dedicated to his wife Helen, but blind to the way his career stresses their marriage, Anthony Partridge runs the Predictive Mechanics division of ODAR. A man who prides himself on being the smartest guy in the room–because he invariably is–Anthony was only a high school math teacher before discovering how to predict the future with math. Used to being hailed as one of the greatest scientific minds of this century or the last, he bristles at the thought that Sally Grissom and her Timepiece are pushing him out of the spotlight.

Esther Roberts

Esther is an enigma. She’s an ambitious young woman with an icy stare fixed on her goal as much as she is your delightful best friend. Esther doesn’t like to acknowledge this contradiction with herself, but that isn’t a strike against her–it’s symbolic of the amount of effort she puts into maintaining both of those identities simultaneously. But as Jack, her closest friend, begins to pull away, she’s going to have to make a choice.

Chet Whickman

Chet is a boy scout’s boy scout. Dilligent and loyal, he quickly rose through the ranks to become Bill Donovan’s right hand man after the Project Rainbow incident. He doesn’t understand how any of this sci-fi nonsense works, but he’ll be damned before he lets any of it get into the wrong hands.

Lou Gaines

Veteran. Journalist. Professor. Investigator. Lou never expected to get tangled up in secret time travel conspiracies, but when his friend David Marian goes off for training and disappears without a trace, Lou's just the guy to get to the bottom of it, even if that means digging up all the dirt on top first.

Bridget Chambers

Analyst. Archivist. Estranged lover. Bridget thought she'd escaped the orbit of Esther Roberts for good, but Esther's never been one to leave a brilliant analytical and ethical mind on the bench for long. Now thoroughly entrenched in the activities of a  shadowy government organization, Bridget's the one who thought to bring a flashlight.

Petra (Plasticity Subject #29)

One of only two surviving test subjects in an experiment to create an army of Butterfly-Syndrome-immune soldiers, Petra walks the world to the beat of a drummer like none other. She's adrift, living through history but never feeling like a part of it. But in a position like hers, it's only a matter of time.