"That sort of effect requires a lot of power. To reduce the power requirements, the ring was specifically of pointless procrastination."

"'Pointlessness' is a pretty high-level concept. Who's evaluating it?"

"'Pointless' is a summary. Specifically, the ring only allows you to take minor actions you could have done earlier. I was told it could be useful to compensate for memory issues or literal procrastination."

"And, to be clear, your model here is that this is a natural property of reality that the ring happens to interact with, not an intelligence arbitrating things."

"Yes? Time is neither fully necessary nor fully sufficient for doing things, though under normal circumstances time is in fact the constraining resource. Shyka the Many had all the time in Old Aiquzall, though, they were looping, and they didn't win that way."