Cascandian Patriot
August 7th, 2008, 09:20 AM
Welcome Home, Galactica
An Alternate Reality Battlestar Galatica
With a very long lead-up on Earth, so be patient!
Prologue
1986
A few miles outside Sparti, Greece
"Look at this. It's some sort of grayish metal bar."
Dr. Susan Bradley, a bombshell blond who never failed to attract enough volunteers for her archaeological digs, stopped cleaning a vase to take a look at what Ruben, her fellow archaeologist, had found.
"Hmm, looks... strange. We'll probably have to send it off to the lab back at Cornell since it looks recent..."
Of course, at least one other strange thing had been found- like what appeared to be an entire village disappearing overnight in the late era of ancient Greece, right after the Peloponnesian War. Some other people had suggested a landslide or some other natural disaster swept the village away to an as yet undiscovered location, but Susan was also a geologist (overachiever both at work and in the bed, some of her detractors had said about her, in private) and had found no evidence at all for this theory. Susan was puzzled, both about the village and the bar and would have to wait for the lab results, since this bar looked machine-made. Strange, strange...
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
"Professor Sagan! Professor Sagan!"
Carl Sagan turned around to find a tall, dark-haired young man in a standard lab coat running toward him. He seemed so excited and moving so fast... Sagan moved just in time to get our of the way of the skidding guy, who had not noticed the "Wet Floors" sign. The man managed somehow to regain his stability and balance, and started walking slowly toward the professor.
"Are you..."
"Yes, I'm okay. But look at this!
The lab coat held out a picture of a grayish metal bar, along with a LOT of lab test results in a folder, proceeding to shove the whole thing into Sagan's hands. The Professor of Astronomy frowned, but he looked at the documents instead of saying anything, since the lab tech...what was his name again?... seemed absolutely ecstatic about the results... what, is this true? Technetium center with an outside coating of an aluminum-lead alloy? It's about 2,400 years old?
As Sagan looked up, the tech... ah, Mark!... broke into an even bigger grin and nodded.
They had found something that would literally change history and allow them to test one of the most controversial ideas in science and astronomy.
--
Chapter 1- 1987 Timeline
1987
January
After many months of examination, scientists at Cornell are confident that the bar dates from about 403 BC, right after the end of the Peloponnesian War, and has a technetium center with an outside coating of an aluminum-lead alloy. Such a bar can only be of artificial origin- technetium has at most a half-life of a few hundred-thousand years, depending on the isotope, and is only made in the cores of stars or in nuclear reactors. Since the radioactive decay indicates that it MUST be about 2,400 years old and an aluminum-lead alloy can only be made in space, a team led by Carl Sagan concludes that it is of extraterrestrial origin. The world goes wild, with many people putting theories forth about the bar and it's relation to the disappeared village, now known as 'The First Alien Abduction in History', even through there is no direct evidence that the aliens actually had anything to do with the village or/and it's disappearance.
February
President Ronald Reagan of the United States announces that his administration is pushing ahead with the Star Wars missile defense system, using a purported threat of alien invasion to justify it. Skeptics and detractors note that any aliens invading Earth would very likely be much more advanced then us and a Star Wars system would be easily defeatable by them.
June
Elizabeth Ann Warren, born in South Philadelphia to a Naval Ship-building father and a factory working mother and wife of Senator James Warren (R-PA), a much older man (OOC: James is this timeline's version of Arlen Specter), graduates from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Business Administration.
August
Upon review of archaeological evidence from around the world, the team led by Carl Sagan and Dr. Susan Bradley declares that they have found 9 more cases of villages suddenly disappearing around the same time as the first village, in 403 BC. The villages are located as follows:
1-India (southern)
1-Middle East
1-Greece (the first one found)
1-North America
1-South America
1- Europe (Britain)
1- China (northern)
1- Africa (Tanzania)
1- Polynesia
1- Southeast Asia (Indonesia)
Elizabeth 'Ella' Warren gets a job at struggling United Pennsylvania Steel as a lowly junior executive in Accounting. She impresses her superiors as a woman who can detect ways to tighten the company's belts without hurting the company's production, quality, or workers' benefits, and is quickly promoted.
Comments are always welcome and highly appreciated.
An Alternate Reality Battlestar Galatica
With a very long lead-up on Earth, so be patient!
Prologue
1986
A few miles outside Sparti, Greece
"Look at this. It's some sort of grayish metal bar."
Dr. Susan Bradley, a bombshell blond who never failed to attract enough volunteers for her archaeological digs, stopped cleaning a vase to take a look at what Ruben, her fellow archaeologist, had found.
"Hmm, looks... strange. We'll probably have to send it off to the lab back at Cornell since it looks recent..."
Of course, at least one other strange thing had been found- like what appeared to be an entire village disappearing overnight in the late era of ancient Greece, right after the Peloponnesian War. Some other people had suggested a landslide or some other natural disaster swept the village away to an as yet undiscovered location, but Susan was also a geologist (overachiever both at work and in the bed, some of her detractors had said about her, in private) and had found no evidence at all for this theory. Susan was puzzled, both about the village and the bar and would have to wait for the lab results, since this bar looked machine-made. Strange, strange...
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
"Professor Sagan! Professor Sagan!"
Carl Sagan turned around to find a tall, dark-haired young man in a standard lab coat running toward him. He seemed so excited and moving so fast... Sagan moved just in time to get our of the way of the skidding guy, who had not noticed the "Wet Floors" sign. The man managed somehow to regain his stability and balance, and started walking slowly toward the professor.
"Are you..."
"Yes, I'm okay. But look at this!
The lab coat held out a picture of a grayish metal bar, along with a LOT of lab test results in a folder, proceeding to shove the whole thing into Sagan's hands. The Professor of Astronomy frowned, but he looked at the documents instead of saying anything, since the lab tech...what was his name again?... seemed absolutely ecstatic about the results... what, is this true? Technetium center with an outside coating of an aluminum-lead alloy? It's about 2,400 years old?
As Sagan looked up, the tech... ah, Mark!... broke into an even bigger grin and nodded.
They had found something that would literally change history and allow them to test one of the most controversial ideas in science and astronomy.
--
Chapter 1- 1987 Timeline
1987
January
After many months of examination, scientists at Cornell are confident that the bar dates from about 403 BC, right after the end of the Peloponnesian War, and has a technetium center with an outside coating of an aluminum-lead alloy. Such a bar can only be of artificial origin- technetium has at most a half-life of a few hundred-thousand years, depending on the isotope, and is only made in the cores of stars or in nuclear reactors. Since the radioactive decay indicates that it MUST be about 2,400 years old and an aluminum-lead alloy can only be made in space, a team led by Carl Sagan concludes that it is of extraterrestrial origin. The world goes wild, with many people putting theories forth about the bar and it's relation to the disappeared village, now known as 'The First Alien Abduction in History', even through there is no direct evidence that the aliens actually had anything to do with the village or/and it's disappearance.
February
President Ronald Reagan of the United States announces that his administration is pushing ahead with the Star Wars missile defense system, using a purported threat of alien invasion to justify it. Skeptics and detractors note that any aliens invading Earth would very likely be much more advanced then us and a Star Wars system would be easily defeatable by them.
June
Elizabeth Ann Warren, born in South Philadelphia to a Naval Ship-building father and a factory working mother and wife of Senator James Warren (R-PA), a much older man (OOC: James is this timeline's version of Arlen Specter), graduates from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters in Business Administration.
August
Upon review of archaeological evidence from around the world, the team led by Carl Sagan and Dr. Susan Bradley declares that they have found 9 more cases of villages suddenly disappearing around the same time as the first village, in 403 BC. The villages are located as follows:
1-India (southern)
1-Middle East
1-Greece (the first one found)
1-North America
1-South America
1- Europe (Britain)
1- China (northern)
1- Africa (Tanzania)
1- Polynesia
1- Southeast Asia (Indonesia)
Elizabeth 'Ella' Warren gets a job at struggling United Pennsylvania Steel as a lowly junior executive in Accounting. She impresses her superiors as a woman who can detect ways to tighten the company's belts without hurting the company's production, quality, or workers' benefits, and is quickly promoted.
Comments are always welcome and highly appreciated.