The Time-Ladle was a technology developed by the Bookkeepers Plume Coteries (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Aristide Twain, Horrors of Arcbeatle (Auteur, Arcbeatle Press, 2023).) based on the Great Houses' ways to extract people from time, (PROSE: A Farewell to R.M.S. [+]Nate Bumber, The Book of the Peace Dossier (Faction Paradox, Obverse Books, 2019).) such as the Time Scoop (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Terrance Dicks, Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special (Public Broadcasting Service, 1983).) and the extraction chambers. (TV: Hell Bent [+]Steven Moffat, Doctor Who series 9 (BBC One, 2015).)
Having obtained the technology during the War in Heaven in exchange for facilitating the Houses' acquisition of the planet R.M.S., (PROSE: A Farewell to R.M.S. [+]Nate Bumber, The Book of the Peace Dossier (Faction Paradox, Obverse Books, 2019).) the Bookkeepers used the Time-Ladle as part of their grand design to verify and compile the "complete and sufficient list of all true history books". They would use the device to "locate key witnesses, trace their timelines all the way to their historically-recorded point of death, and ladle them right out of [the Universe]" to be interviewed. The Time-Ladled bodies were only kept long enough to take a biodata-print of the subects' brains, before being returned to their original point of death. The duplicated consciousness was then placed in a holo-cube from which it could project a hard-light avatar. (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Aristide Twain, Horrors of Arcbeatle (Auteur, Arcbeatle Press, 2023).)