1815, England Ada Lovelace was the daughter of that notorious creative, Lord Byron, and a mathematically inclined heiress, Baroness Wentworth. Ada was a poetic math-mind.At 17, she met a man who put her on the path to math - Charles Babbage. He invited her to look at a machine he designed - 2 foot tall with 3,000 brass parts - the “Difference Engine”. It was the beginning of a long-running collaboration. Later, Babbage gave a talk about a new machine he wanted to create - an Analytical Engine...

1815, England Ada Lovelace was the daughter of that notorious creative, Lord Byron, and a mathematically inclined heiress, Baroness Wentworth. Ada was a poetic math-mind.At 17, she met a man who put her on the path to math - Charles Babbage. He invited her to look at a machine he designed - 2 foot tall with 3,000 brass parts - the “Difference Engine”. It was the beginning of a long-running collaboration. Later, Babbage gave a talk about a new machine he wanted to create - an Analytical Engine...

KENYON COLLEGE, 2005 "The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it." "You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t."David Foster WallaceDECEMBER 2921, EARTH AL and Jake Jr. were walking with the last of the gear into the Node chamber. They were about to port to the Array and re-task its massive power to open a massive "Fold". "That should do it Jakey. I'll connect everything. That should give us enough time to have a tal...

KENYON COLLEGE, 2005 "The only thing that’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it." "You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t."David Foster WallaceDECEMBER 2921, EARTH AL and Jake Jr. were walking with the last of the gear into the Node chamber. They were about to port to the Array and re-task its massive power to open a massive "Fold". "That should do it Jakey. I'll connect everything. That should give us enough time to have a tal...

1942, Chicago Hidden under the stands of a football field, at the University of Chicago, was a pile of bricks. A heap of graphite, uranium oxide and metal, which couldn't even power a light bulb, was proof that both tragedy and triumph was coming. The Atomic Age was born December 2, 1942. Its fathers included scientists who spoke English with a strange accent, had superhuman minds, from an exotic land. One of them joked this was proof of aliens - that the Hungarian scientists involved we...

1942, Chicago Hidden under the stands of a football field, at the University of Chicago, was a pile of bricks. A heap of graphite, uranium oxide and metal, which couldn't even power a light bulb, was proof that both tragedy and triumph was coming. The Atomic Age was born December 2, 1942. Its fathers included scientists who spoke English with a strange accent, had superhuman minds, from an exotic land. One of them joked this was proof of aliens - that the Hungarian scientists involved we...

After the Great War, fighter pilots returned home to a country that was just discovering the magic of flight. Barely 20 years had passed since Kitty Hawk, and for a few years there was an unregulated golden age of air daredevils. The pilots bought military surplus planes, which they trained with years ago, and became entertainers, mail carriers, and smugglers - sometimes all three. The barnstormers traveled from town to town, like travelling circuses - escapees from post-war prisons of day to...

After the Great War, fighter pilots returned home to a country that was just discovering the magic of flight. Barely 20 years had passed since Kitty Hawk, and for a few years there was an unregulated golden age of air daredevils. The pilots bought military surplus planes, which they trained with years ago, and became entertainers, mail carriers, and smugglers - sometimes all three. The barnstormers traveled from town to town, like travelling circuses - escapees from post-war prisons of day to...

2X21 - 2095, Outer Jupiter shipping lanes We don't look for love, it comes for us - we have to choose to accept it or not. Jacob Tagore, Sr. wasn't looking for love. He had it once and it cost him everything. But just like that, a veteran, turned scrap dealer and gentleman smuggler, had a new wife. Jake's first love died giving birth to "Jake Jr.", who was his father's son and gave his life to Mars. His new wife, Andreea, was from a family of dealers. He had a new son. The...

2X21 - 2095, Outer Jupiter shipping lanes We don't look for love, it comes for us - we have to choose to accept it or not. Jacob Tagore, Sr. wasn't looking for love. He had it once and it cost him everything. But just like that, a veteran, turned scrap dealer and gentleman smuggler, had a new wife. Jake's first love died giving birth to "Jake Jr.", who was his father's son and gave his life to Mars. His new wife, Andreea, was from a family of dealers. He had a new son. The...

1910, New York Bessie Faith Medlar made the first solo flight by a woman pilot in America. She built her plane with lighter materials, including bamboo. Where the Wright Brothers used canvas, she used silk. Instead of iron wire, she used piano wire. She went on to build more aircraft. 1916, New York City Ruth Bancroft Law broke a speed record after flying from Chicago to NYC. When WW I broke out, she wrote "Let Women Fly!" for women's right to serve as pilots. In 1922, her husband made a...

1910, New York Bessie Faith Medlar made the first solo flight by a woman pilot in America. She built her plane with lighter materials, including bamboo. Where the Wright Brothers used canvas, she used silk. Instead of iron wire, she used piano wire. She went on to build more aircraft. 1916, New York City Ruth Bancroft Law broke a speed record after flying from Chicago to NYC. When WW I broke out, she wrote "Let Women Fly!" for women's right to serve as pilots. In 1922, her husband made a...

1941, Hollywood There were not enough workers to help build the war machine the Allies needed for WW II. Women became shipbuilders - they worked close to the metal and assembled an armada. "We Can Do It." Everyone contributed, including a woman from an upper-middle class Austrian family, Hedwig Keisler. She had a brief film career that included an award winning film banned in the U.S. - ended with a disastrous marriage to an arms dealer. She ran away to Hollywood and became a star. In her spa...

1941, Hollywood There were not enough workers to help build the war machine the Allies needed for WW II. Women became shipbuilders - they worked close to the metal and assembled an armada. "We Can Do It." Everyone contributed, including a woman from an upper-middle class Austrian family, Hedwig Keisler. She had a brief film career that included an award winning film banned in the U.S. - ended with a disastrous marriage to an arms dealer. She ran away to Hollywood and became a star. In her spa...

1946 Saxony and Thuringia, Germany A crumpled list found in a university bathroom in Bonn made its way to MI6 - British Intelligence. Allies were about to become enemies, and enemies would be allies - a new secret war had begun before the Second World War was over. The list was the key to rocket technology - and world power. September 3, 1946, President Harry S Truman authorized a secret directive: "Operation Paperclip". The technology to launch drones and ballistic weapons against England wo...

1946 Saxony and Thuringia, Germany A crumpled list found in a university bathroom in Bonn made its way to MI6 - British Intelligence. Allies were about to become enemies, and enemies would be allies - a new secret war had begun before the Second World War was over. The list was the key to rocket technology - and world power. September 3, 1946, President Harry S Truman authorized a secret directive: "Operation Paperclip". The technology to launch drones and ballistic weapons against England wo...

2876, Mars, The Peace Summit The Great War took millions of lives. It upended vestiges of an older global order. The insurance against war promised by the royal houses was an illusion. A debtor nation of former colonists began its ascent as world leader. Victors pressed hard at the peace table for money, and laid the seeds for new horrors to come. Everyone wanted peace and quiet. The victors' people wanted fun. An empty peace began, a dead man's zone between the trenches of 1914 and...

2876, Mars, The Peace Summit The Great War took millions of lives. It upended vestiges of an older global order. The insurance against war promised by the royal houses was an illusion. A debtor nation of former colonists began its ascent as world leader. Victors pressed hard at the peace table for money, and laid the seeds for new horrors to come. Everyone wanted peace and quiet. The victors' people wanted fun. An empty peace began, a dead man's zone between the trenches of 1914 and...

1941, The World So many deaths and so much suffering. They put off fighting in WW I by two years but they didn't have to go to the war, it came to them - on the open seas of the Atlantic. Lusitania. When it ended, everyone wanted to get on with their lives. A post-war bust then a long boom. Parties despite prohibition. A Lost Generation finding its way. A Boom. A Crash. A Dustbowl. Depression. It was all too much and nobody wanted to risk more. Not even the League of Nations. They reache...

1941, The World So many deaths and so much suffering. They put off fighting in WW I by two years but they didn't have to go to the war, it came to them - on the open seas of the Atlantic. Lusitania. When it ended, everyone wanted to get on with their lives. A post-war bust then a long boom. Parties despite prohibition. A Lost Generation finding its way. A Boom. A Crash. A Dustbowl. Depression. It was all too much and nobody wanted to risk more. Not even the League of Nations. They reache...

1961, Soviet Union Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first human in space. The Vostok I, was the first successful manned spaceflight. It was his only mission. When the Vostok I made its landing in Kazhakstan, Gagarin was greeted by a 5 year old girl and her grandmother. The girl asked the “alien” where it came from. "I came on a ship" said humanity's first space explorer. Where did the ship come from, "there's no sea here." "I came from the sky." 2892 2X21 minus 29, ASTEROID BELT, S...

1961, Soviet Union Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was the first human in space. The Vostok I, was the first successful manned spaceflight. It was his only mission. When the Vostok I made its landing in Kazhakstan, Gagarin was greeted by a 5 year old girl and her grandmother. The girl asked the “alien” where it came from. "I came on a ship" said humanity's first space explorer. Where did the ship come from, "there's no sea here." "I came from the sky." 2892 2X21 minus 29, ASTEROID BELT, S...

Paris, 1895. Auguste and Louis Lumiere's father had a photographic plate factory on the verge of bankruptcy. The boys saved the factory in 1884 and went beyond plates. By February 1895, they built a 3-in-1 camera that recorded, developed and projected moving pictures. A year later they went on world tour with their first movies. Strangely, invented the first practical color film process and thought that was “it”. 2X21 minus 40, 2881 Everyone wanted peace after the Long War ended. Post-wa...

Paris, 1895. Auguste and Louis Lumiere's father had a photographic plate factory on the verge of bankruptcy. The boys saved the factory in 1884 and went beyond plates. By February 1895, they built a 3-in-1 camera that recorded, developed and projected moving pictures. A year later they went on world tour with their first movies. Strangely, invented the first practical color film process and thought that was “it”. 2X21 minus 40, 2881 Everyone wanted peace after the Long War ended. Post-wa...