Looking Glass Land

ISA SECURE DATABASE

"LOOKING GLASS LAND" — SUMMARY

TOP SECRET//LG/SAR-HG//ORCON/NOFORN

Timeline

Timeline color key

Prime

Looking Glass Land

Both

1800s

Year	Date	Event
1859	1-2 September	The Carrington Event occurs. One of the largest geomagnetic storms on record, a major coronal mass ejection occurs at around noon on September 1 and impacts the Earth less than a day later, causing auroras bright enough to read newspapers at night in some areas, and visible as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph operators around the world report receiving electric shocks and being able to transmit with their power supplies turned off, when systems aren't disrupted by the storm.
		A damaged Hoomiku space station arrives from 1955 on a hyperbolic orbit around Earth. Due to the severe damage it received in a firefight with the Otonichi, the remaining crew abandon the station, with the commander planning to manually activate the station's thrusters to place it on an orbit for disposal into Sol. Of the 150 crew on the station prior to the firefight, only 11 remain. 4 of the crew enter an escape pod with no damage containing the backup recorder for the station's computers. This escape pod lands successfully in the English countryside outside of Farnborough. 5 others enter a damaged escape pod and are exposed to high levels of radiation from the geomagnetic storm. Due to the damage to the pod's shielding, the pod suffers a catastrophic failure on reentry and disintegrates over the English Channel, killing everyone aboard. The remaining 2 members of the crew, the station's commander and executive officer, enter a final escape pod after verifying the station is on the proper course for disposal and land successfully near the first 4 in England.
		A damaged Hoomiku space station arrives from 1955 on a hyperbolic orbit around Earth. Due to the severe damage it received in a firefight with the Otonichi, the remaining crew abandon the station, with the commander planning to manually activate the station's thrusters to place it on an orbit for disposal into Sol. Of the 150 crew on the station prior to the firefight, only 11 remain. 4 of the crew enter an escape pod with no damage containing the backup recorder for the station's computers. This escape pod lands successfully in the English countryside outside of Farnborough. 5 others enter a damaged escape pod and are exposed to high levels of radiation from the geomagnetic storm. As this pod leaves the station, a team from Project Hourglass, arriving from 2014 in the modified Otonichi infiltration ship ISV Opened Item, trigger a proximity alert and are hailed by the station commander, who asks them to effect a rescue. The Hourglass team docks with the damaged pod and incapacitate the injured Hoomiku with knockout gas before securing them. After verifying that the data recorder they are looking for is not aboard, the pod is left to burn up in the atmosphere. The Hourglass team then board the station and move it into a stable orbit around the Earth before prepping it for a jump to the Asteroid Belt. After an initial confrontation, a truce is reached between the commander, his executive officer and the Hourglass team, and the 5 rescued Hoomiku from the damaged escape pod are treated for radiation sickness. The 4 Hoomiku in England are left on Earth to avoid interference in the timeline.
1868	July 1	Lindsey Waldroup arrives from 2020 and steals the data recorder from the Hoomiku crew who landed on Earth in 1859. As she is attempting to leave, she is robbed by an unidentified assailant. The robber manages to steal the data recorder from her as she attempts an emergency jump forward to escape. Due to a miscalculation, the device she uses to escape sends her to Waxahachie, Texas on September 30, 2014. The data recorder is eventually sold multiple times until it lands in the possession of Jordan Thorpe, a small-scale artifact dealer who books passage to America on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.
		NOTE: The above event has been identified as the point of divergence between the Prime timeline and the alternate timeline known as "Looking Glass Land". According to data acquired by Project Hourglass/Bootstrap, all information currently points to Lindsey Waldroup's actions being the catalyst for the events that followed in the Prime timeline, rippling backwards to 1859 due to the presence of Hourglass personnel at the arrival of the Hoomiku space station. The Prime timeline, in effect, is a paradox created the moment Ms. Waldroup entered the past.

1910s

Year	Date	Event
1912	10 April	RMS Titanic departs Southampton on her maiden voyage, bound for New York via Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland.
		The members of Project Hourglass arrive in Southampton from 2013 and board the Titanic in order to secure an artifact that is clearly of Hoomiku manufacture from the ship prior to its sinking. They are booked in Cabins B-51, 53 and 55 for the voyage under names which appear on the official manifest in the future.
1912	14-15 April	RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks 2 hours and 40 minutes later, killing more than 1,500 people. News of the disaster shocks the world and leads to the establishment of new safety standards on the seas.

1930s

Year	Date	Event
1938	Summer	((Bombing of Reskont goes here.)) Shortly after dawn, a ship belonging to a rogue hoomiku group known as the League of the Emerald Claw enters orbit over Ishonko and, using forged Otonichi IFF transponder codes, begins an approach to the main spaceport at Reskont. Minutes later, the ship violates the airspace over the city and detonates at 157 megaton thermonuclear device directly over the mausoleum of the Great Scribe, the most revered figure in all of Otonichi history. The mausoleum and a large portion of the city are destroyed, and approximately 1.5 million Otonichi die instantly, with a further 750,000 succumbing to the effects of acute radiation sickness. Despite attempts by Hoomiku high command to distance themselves from the group, the attack prompts King Zalkyo Jeskalt to terminate all negotiations. The king vows that the destruction of Reskont will be avenged with extreme prejudice.
		((Time travel to recover Scribe/Archives goes here.))

1950s

Year	Date	Event
1954	1 March	Castle Bravo, the first test of a solid-fueled thermonuclear weapon by the United States, is conducted at Bikini Atoll. The bomb exceeds its intended blast yield by nearly 2.5 times, generating a yield of 15 megatons. The test is the largest weapon ever detonated by the United States and causes a large amount of fallout. The radioactive debris contaminates nearby islands, their inhabitants and the crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5"). Members of Project Bootstrap have speculated about (but have not yet confirmed) the possibility of time travelers at this event due to indications of possible temporal abnormalities on this date. However, this situation is still under investigation and no conclusive proof has been found.
1955	5 November	Acting on a tip, the Otonichi Intelligence Service discovers the location of a rogue Hoomiku research and mining installation. The information they receive leads OIS to believe that experiments in time travel are being carried out by the facility. King Zalkyo Jeskalt orders an immediate strike to neutralize the base. An intense firefight ensues, and as the situation appears to be reaching a climax, the severely damaged station disappears without a trace. The station crew, in an act of desperation, activate their time machine using their dwindling power supply and travel to the Sol system. Due to the emergency nature of the jump and damage to the time machine’s computing cluster, they jump a significant amount of time in the past, arriving near Earth on September 2, 1859. Despite an exhaustive search, no clues can be found by the Otonichi as to the whereabouts of the base.

1960s

Year	Date	Event
1962	26 October	Cuban Missile Crisis: President John F. Kennedy meets with the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) and confides that he believes an invasion of Cuba is the only way to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from the island. He is persuaded to wait and continue with diplomatic and military pressure. The situation is at an effective stalemate. On Ishonko, researchers from the Royal College of Alkonost meet with King Zalkyo Jeskalt to discuss the situation on Terra. Two schools of thought exist within the College: a first advocates for immediate intervention in order to resolve the crisis or shape the situation to one beneficial for the Otonichi while the second advises that doing nothing is the only possible option, due to the possibility of the crisis either resolving itself (peacefully or otherwise) or of the mere presence of an outside force defusing the situation in a way that would be undesirable to the empire. At an emergency meeting of the royal Cabinet, a lone researcher for the College convinces the king to allow the crisis on Terra to continue until it reaches its inevitable conclusion, with Terra running headlong into the Great Filter through nuclear war. The king agrees and orders no intervention be carried out.
1962	27 October	Cuban Missile Crisis: As tensions reach a boiling point between the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union, Soviet submarine B-59 is surrounded by a group of American ships, which begin to drop depth charges in an attempt to force the submarine to surface. Unsure whether war has already broken out, Captain Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky and political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov agree to use a nuclear-tipped torpedo. Flotilla commander Vasili Arkhipov, whose vote is required in order to authorize the launch, disagrees and denies the launch, averting what could have been the opening shot of World War III. The submarine eventually surfaces and leaves the area. This day, later known as "Black Saturday", is one of the closest moments in Terran history to possible Armageddon.
1966	14 January	Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer of the Soviet space program, dies following an operation. The loss of the lead designer and driving force behind the Soviet Union's success in the Space Race deals a devastating blow to Soviet plans for spaceflight. The possibility of Otonichi agents murdering Korolev was investigated by members of Project Bootstap, but cannot be conclusively determined. This is considered unlikely, however, in view of his numerous health issues. Copies of Otonichi Intelligence Service records from the time period do suggest plans to eliminate Korolev and Wernher von Braun by agents on Terra, however no serious attempts appear to have been made against either.
1967	27 January	During a dress rehearsal for the launch of Apollo 1, a cabin fire ignites and kills Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. Major changes to the design of the capsule and to procedures are implemented in the aftermath of the disaster. The cause of the fire is never conclusively determined. Decades later, investigation by members of Project Bootstrap reveals that the direct cause of the accident was sabotage of the cabin electronics by elements of the Otonichi Intelligence Service working to sabotage Terran spaceflight activity. Apollo 1 is their first major attempt, and while it results in a temporary setback of the Apollo Program, their efforts do not work as intended. They regroup and formulate new plans.
1969	3 July	The second launch attempt of the Soviet N1 rocket ends disastrously just 23 seconds after liftoff. A damaged engine causes the automatic shutdown of the rocket's first stage engines just 15 seconds into the flight, and the fully fueled lunar rocket crashes back onto the pad in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the history of the planet. The explosion completely destroys the launch pad, and subsequent United States satellite imagery confirms that the Soviets are building a rocket capable of reaching the Moon. The cause of the disaster is eventually traced to the liquid oxygen tubopump of the #8 engine on the first stage exploding due to ingestion of a foreign object, most likely a loose bolt. Fuel filters are added to future missions. The pad requires more than 18 months of reconstruction. A subsequent investigation by members of Project Bootstrap reveals that the ultimate cause of the accident was Otonichi tampering. It has subsequently been concluded that the Otonichi attempts to sabotage the Soviet lunar program were a direct attempt to avoid the possibility of a Soviet lunar landing being used as motivation for a NASA mission to Mars and future Solar System exploration. Their work was greatly assisted by a badly underfunded Soviet space program which featured numerous competing design bureaus attempting to court state favor and the death of Sergei Korolev.
1969	20 July	Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle lands on Earth's Moon, and Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on its surface. This moment is, effectively, the end of the Space Race between the United States and Soviet Union and fulfills President Kennedy's 1961 promise to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. On Ishonko, researchers from the Royal College of Alkonost meet with King Zalkyo to discuss the implications of the landing. It is universally agreed that Terran spaceflight activities, if continued at their current pace, will lead to the eventual discovery of the Otonichi. A small number of researchers suggest peaceful revelation of the existence of the Otonichi to the people of Terra. Their proposal is rejected and the King authorizes further covert attempts to interfere with possible Terran discovery of the Otonichi by tampering with radio astronomy investigation programs and further attempts to sabotage Terran spaceflight activities.

1980s

Year	Date	Event
1980	14 March	Fractal Sinclair is born in Roswell, New Mexico.
1980	12 April	Cora and Halni Jeskalt are born in Alkonost, on the planet Ishonko. As Cora is born first, she becomes next in line to the throne of the Otonichi civilization.
1986	27 January
1986	28 January	Space Shuttle Challenger explodes during launch of STS-51-L, killing all 7 on board, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe.
		Space Shuttle Challenger explodes on the launchpad during launch of STS-51-L, killing all 7 on board, including school teacher Christa McAuliffe.
1986	9 June	The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident releases its report and submits it to President Ronald Reagan. The cause of the disaster is found to be a failure of the O-rings in the right Solid Rocket Booster due to the cold conditions at launch, which led to the escape of super heated gasses and the subsequent breakup of the vehicle 73 seconds after launch. The report also notes a number of contributing causes to the accident and criticizes NASA management decisions that led to the accident.
		The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident releases its report and submits it to President Ronald Reagan. The cause of the disaster is found to be the unauthorized activation of the range safety system onboard the Shuttle at the moment of booster ignition, destroying the Shuttle, the launch pad and killing several ground personnel and spectators. The report concludes that a valid command was sent to the system to arm and activate it at liftoff, but records from Patrick Air Force Base and testimony from the Range Safety Officers indicate conclusively that no command was sent from them. The failure is attributed to a serious fault or outside tampering, but the exact cause is never determined with certainty. The report includes testimony from Morton-Thiokol engineer Roger Boisjoly, noting the possibility of a failure of the Solid Rocket Booster O-rings during launches on days with very low temperatures. Initially seen as a possible cause for the accident, investigators cannot conclusively find evidence for this as a cause for the disaster and the subsequent discovery of the range safety system activation leads to a lack of further investigation into this possibility. It is included as a mere footnote in the report.
1989	24 March	The New York Times publishes classified documents obtained by CIA analyst Jack Thornwell which contain numerous details on projects involving the Hoomiku performed by both the United States and Soviet Union. The story becomes a media sensation overnight and Thornwell is arrested within hours of publication.

1990s

Year	Date	Event
1990	24 April	Space Shuttle Discovery launches on STS-31, carrying the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
		Space Shuttle Discovery is destroyed shortly after liftoff, killing the 7 astronauts onboard and destroying the Hubble Space Telescope. An investigation is immediately launched and all future Space Shuttle missions are grounded indefinitely.
1990	15 November	The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Discovery Accident releases its report and submits it to President George H. W. Bush. The cause of the accident cannot be conclusively identified, but it is most likely believed to be a major manufacturing defect in the vehicle's External Tank which caused a catastrophic failure and in-flight breakup of the vehicle. Despite safety modifications introduced after the Challenger accident, the report concludes that a reevaluation of the entire Space Transportation System is required before America can again launch astronauts into space.
1991	29 January	At the 1991 State of the Union Address, President George H. W. Bush announces the cancellation of America's manned space program and shifts NASA's priorities to the cause of robotic exploration of the Solar System. The three remaining Space Shuttles are decommissioned and placed on display in museums, with Space Shuttle Columbia placed on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C..
1991	4 December	Pan American World Airways ceases operations, with PAA Flight 436 from Bridgetown, Barbados to Miami, Florida being the last flight in the 64 year history of the company.
1993	21 October	The House of Representatives narrowly votes to approve funds to continue the construction of the Superconducting Super Collider in Waxahachie, Texas. The project, roughly 1/5th of the way to completion, faces increasing scrutiny on Capitol Hill due to reports of project mismanagement and skyrocketing costs. Over the next few months, a staff shakeup leads to lower cost projections and a revised timeline for completion, with the massive particle accelerator due for activation before the end of the year 2000.
1993	27 October	The House of Representatives votes 283 to 143 to reject a Conference Committee report with continuing funds for the Superconducting Super Collider. The project is officially terminated. Access shafts to the 14 miles of completed tunnels are filled in and over the next year, the project is officially wound down and abandoned.
1995	August	A private expedition to the wreck of the Titanic is carried out by a group of French treasure-hunters. After contracting the Russians in order to use the R/V Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and its MIR submersibles, a number of artifacts are recovered from the wreck. INTERPOL, acting on a tip, arrests the men and confiscates the artifacts, a number of which corrode due to improper cleaning and handling. The artifacts are eventually sold to Magnolia Parks and Entertainment, for use in a future museum devoted to the ship.
1997	15 October	The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn launches on a Titan IV-B booster from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The $3.2 billion Flagship-class mission promises to unlock untold scientific discoveries of Saturn and its moons.
1998	24 August	NASA announces that it plans to launch a Mars sample-return mission before 2010, and planning begins for a tentative launch in 2008.
1998	15 November	DOS-8, the core module of the Mir-2 space station, launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Russian Federal Space Agency finalizes plans with the Chinese government for cooperation on space station construction. The European Space Agency expresses interest, but doesn't commit to the project in full.

2000s

Year	Date	Event
2000	9 October	The first particle beam collision, at an unprecedented energy of 40 TeV, occurs at Superconducting Super Collider. The event is hailed as a monumental moment in physics and science and scientists from around the world anticipate new discoveries, chief among them the Higgs boson, the long sought particle thought to imbue mass and a critical missing piece of the Standard Model of particle physics. CERN announces it will suspend operation of the Large Electron-Positron Collider by 2001, and several European countries push for the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in an attempt to foster new scientific innovations while America probes new frontiers of particle physics.
2000	12 December	Following a lengthy and contentious recount of votes in Florida, the United States Supreme Court issues its ruling on Bush v. Gore, ending the recounts in a 5-4 decision and, as a result, George W. Bush is elected 43rd President of the United States, defeating Vice President Al Gore.
2002	18 April	Zachary Calliden is born in Waxahachie, Texas.
2002	4 July	At a press conference at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory, researchers from the SDC and GEM experiments announce the discovery of a new particle with properties consistent with the Higgs boson at an energy of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV/c2 and 126.0 ± 0.6 GeV/c2, respectively, with a significance of 5 sigma (a probability of a chance result being as strong being less than 1 in 3 million). In attendance at the event is Peter Higgs. President Bush praises the discovery as a national and international triumph.
2002	August	After failing to secure an affordable rocket booster in Russia for use in an attempt to send an experimental greenhouse to Mars, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as SpaceX, is founded in California by Elon Musk. The company announces its intentions to build low cost rockets and open up access to space to wider markets than before.
2003	1 February	Space Shuttle Columbia is destroyed during reentry over Texas, killing all 7 astronauts aboard. An investigation is immediately launched and all future Space Shuttle missions are grounded indefinitely.
2003	26 August	The Columbia Accident Investigation Board issues its report. The immediate cause of the accident is revealed to be a breach in one of the reinforced carbon-carbon composite panels on the left wing of the Space Shuttle, caused by foam from the External Tank striking the panel at supersonic speeds. During reentry, plasma entered the wing and compromised its structure, leading to the eventual destruction of the vehicle due to loss of attitude control. The report also indicates a large number of faults with NASA decision making policy and risk assessment procedures, as well as a culture where deviations from design criteria were regularly accepted so long as mission success was not compromised. The report makes numerous recommendations for future spaceflight operations. The International Space Agency's fleet of Orbiters, recently approved for construction, begin to undergo design modifications to allow for higher crew safety standards.
2003	10 November	The International Space Agency's governing body, the International Council on Spaceflight Activities, gives authorization to proceed with the Phoenix Program. The program's goal is to return astronauts to the lunar surface in the 2010s and establish a permanent research outpost at the lunar south pole. In a separate vote, the Council gives tentative approval for a project to use components from the lunar program for use in a possible mission to Mars before 2020.
2004	5 April	The SSC Large Ion Collision Experiment (SLICER) comes online after multiple construction and testing delays. The detector, designed to collide lead ions at extremely high energies, is designed to shed light on the earliest moments of the Universe by generating temperatures hot enough to produce quark-gluon plasma. Early results are uploaded to the SSCL's website for international collaboration and for general study by scientists around the world.
2007	5 June	Magnolia Parks and Entertainment announces plans to commission a replica of the RMS Titanic from Harland and Wolff in Belfast. The company plans to moor the ship at a specially built pier on the Atchafalaya River near the city of Magnolia Bend, Louisiana until a study concludes that extensive and impractical dredging of the river will be needed. Alternate plans are placed in motion to construct a museum in New York at Pier 54, and the company enters into talks with the City of New York to begin construction to open the museum in time for the 100th anniversary of the sinking.
2008	September	As the subprime mortgage crisis continues to rattle financial markets in the United States, Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy on September 15th, causing the Dow Jones to plunge. American International Group (AIG) is taken over by the Federal Reserve the next day and worried investors begin to make runs on banks, leading Washington Mutual to declare bankruptcy. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, a $700 billion proposal for the US Treasury to purchase troubled assets and supply cash directly to banks to avoid further collapses, is rejected by the House of Representatives on September 29th, sending the Dow plunging by 770 points and throwing markets around the world into chaos. The Great Recession begins to rock the United States.
2008	4 November	Edward Marshall is elected 44th President of the United States, defeating Arizona Senator John McCain.
		Barack Obama is elected 44th President of the United States, defeating Arizona Senator John McCain.

2010s

Year	Date	Event
2011	21 July	Space Shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center, concluding STS-135 and ending NASA's 30 year Space Shuttle program. The ISA adopts a new numbering system for its flights, beginning with STS-163, a final mission for the Department of Defense, launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. All future ISA Space Shuttle missions launch from LC-39D and E at Kennedy Space Center and SLC-7 at Vandenberg is decommissioned.
2011	23 December	Phoenix 4, carrying two Americans, a Russian and a Finn lands on the Moon at Schroter's Valley, becoming the first manned mission to do so since Apollo 17 in 1972.
2012	April	In a huge celebration, a replica of the RMS Titanic sets sail from her construction dock in Belfast and, after undergoing sea trials, sails to Southampton. Exactly 100 years after the original ship set sail, the replica follows the same route, sailing to Cherbourg, France and Cobh, Ireland before continuing on into the Atlantic, escorted by support ships for the journey. On April 15th, the ship stops directly over the wreck site of the original ship and a ceremony is held to honor the lives lost a century earlier. The ship and her escorts arrive in New York Harbor on April 18th, and the ship is permanently docked at the museum at Pier 54. Work begins on the replica’s final conversion to a museum ship.
2012	18 December	An international team of astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz announce the discovery of five planets in orbit around Tau Ceti, including one within the habitable zone of the star
2013	12 September	A number of odd stock market trends and minor irregularities comes to the attention of an artificial intelligence working with Project Looking Glass. After investigating, the source is trace back to one Melor Oliver. After making contact, it is revealed that Oliver has invented a prototype of a time machine and is using it to send stock information approximately 2 minutes back in time to himself in order to make a profit on the stock market. After an initial series of missteps, a meeting is arranged between Project Looking Glass director Acker Robicheaux and Oliver, after which he agrees to work with the ISA to develop the technology for use on a larger scale. A new division of Looking Glass is organized and dubbed "Project Hourglass".
2013	10 October	With work rapidly progressing in secret on a full scale version of a time machine capable of transporting objects the size of a person backwards in time, an artifact being restored at the RMS Titanic Museum in New York comes to the attention of Project Hourglass. Originally retrieved from the wreck site of Titanic by an illegal French salvaging operation in 1995, the heavily corroded object contains a plate of a material identified as titanium with alien writing on it eventually identified to be Hoomiku in origin. As the artifact predates the arrival of the Hoomiku on Earth by more than 30 years, no suitable explanation exists for why it was on the ship or even what the device was. Planning begins for an expedition into the past to retrieve the artifact before the sinking and either replace it with a replica, or study it and return it to the ship before the sinking.
2013	25 November	Members of Project Hourglass travel to April 10, 1912.
2014	22 May	After several months of quiet negotiations, the Department of Energy gives approval for TCI Research to begin construction on the abandoned Superconducting Super Collider. The company purchases the remains of the various facilities from the government and begins the process of drilling new access shafts to the abandoned 14 miles of tunnels to determine their condition. Construction is estimated to take a bare minimum of 6 years. In an effort to speed up the process while negotiations are made to acquire land needed for the project, seven tunnel boring machines are ordered and one of the largest civil engineering projects in United States history begins to take shape. Opposition in Congress is immediate, most notably from Idaho Senator Arlen Hawking, who criticizes the project as a handout to the home state of President Marshall, a gross expenditure of money that could better be spent elsewhere and a possible threat to humanity.
2015	22 June
2016	8 July	A week and a half before the Republican National Convention, presumptive nominee Donald Trump announces that he is suspending his campaign, throwing the race for the Republican nomination into chaos. At a press conference announcing the event, Trump implies that he is withdrawing from the race against his will due to coercion by outside forces and hints of a "witch hunt" against him. He does not, despite repeated questioning, establish what forces he is referring to.
2016	19 July	On the fifth round of voting, Senator Arlen Hawking of Idaho wins the nomination for President, defeating Texas Senator Ted Cruz. In his speech to the convention, Hawking pledges to unify the party and begin the process of making the nation prosperous once more.
2016	21 July	Ares 1's Mars Descent Vehicle (MDV) Mayflower lands at Eberswalde Crater, becoming the first mission to land astronauts on the surface of Mars. Hours later, Harold Hamilton becomes the first person to set foot on the Martian surface, followed by David Sanders, Vasili Petrov, Karri Litmanen, Liu Junlong and Kan Yamakawa. The crew begins a 550 day mission on the surface.
2016	8 November	Arlen Hawking is elected 45th President of the United States, defeating former Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Gaines.
		Donald Trump is elected 45th President of the United States, defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
2016	25 December	A surprise attack is launched on critical orbital infrastructure around Ishonko. At least six large civilian ships fitted with advanced Terran FTL drives acquired on the black market are filled with explosives and rammed into the main civilian spaceport, Otonichi Imperial Fleet headquarters and a large orbital repair dock over the planet. Numerous civilian and military ships docked to the stations suffer severe damage and thousands are injured, killed or missing. Multiple daring rescue missions are made as Kessler syndrome begins to occur in Ishonkan orbit. Within hours, the Otonichi deorbit the remains of their primary military command center and civilian spaceport and mobilize their fleet in a defensive posture. The Otonichi fleet is given full access and use of a ship repair facility under construction by Looking Glass in orbit around Proxima Centauri. Ishonko goes into full planetary ground stop for the first time since the bombing of Reskont.
2017	15 March	Princess Regent Cora Jeskalt gives royal assent to the 3rd Monarchy Act, becoming sovereign of the Otonichi Imperial Empire. The act includes numerous provisions seen as an overt power grab by Parliament. Among the provisions included in the law is a clause which states that the monarchy shall be declared dissolved on the death of Cora Jeskalt provided she has not produced an heir. Hours after signing the document, HM Jeskalt travels to New Orleans on Terra for undisclosed reasons.
2017	29 August	North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile, which flies over Hokkaido, Japan before crashing into the Pacific. With tensions on the Korean Peninsula reaching a dangerous tipping point, the United Nations Security Council meets to discuss options. President Trump states that "all options are on the table" and threatens to retaliate with "force unlike anything they've ever seen" should any further provocation occur.
2017	3 September	The United States Geological Survey detects a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in the vicinity of North Korea's principal nuclear weapons test site. The DPRK claims it now has a hydrogen bomb capable of mounting onto an intercontinental ballistic missile. An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council is called. Hours after the test, two defectors attempt to cross the border at the Joint Security Area of the Demilitarized Zone. North Korean soldiers fire at the defectors. In the chaos, a round strikes a US Army soldier and severely wounds him. A brief exchange of gunfire over the border takes place before a tense standoff occurs. For three hours, the situation remains a tense one as the defectors and American soldier are rushed to a hospital. Five hours after the initial exchange of gunfire, a third defector attempts to cross into the South, and is mortally wounded by North Korean troops firing at him. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula skyrocket and President Trump orders an aircraft carrier strike group sent to the Peninsula. In tweets that evening, the President warns Kim Jong-un of an impending wave of destruction should any further hostilities against American troops take place.
2017	29 October	Five snow leopards are arrested after attempting to sabotage the upcoming launch of Shenzhou 12 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia. After intense interrogation, Chinese officials announce to the world that the saboteurs are not terrestrial leopards and that they are part of an operation intentionally tampering with affairs on Earth, specifically, Terran spaceflight programs. An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council is called. The men are convicted and sentenced to execution by China while an intense global effort is launched to find anyone else suspected of being associated with the program. Propaganda appears almost overnight across the globe: "Beware the Otonichi scourge!"
2017	30 October	As news spreads across Earth of the existence of the Otonichi and their attempts to sabotage Terran space activities and interfere in global affairs, leaders of various Hoomiku communities on Earth try to distance themselves from possible association with the Otonichi. Several attacks on both Hoomiku and random snow leopards take place around the world. The Otonichi Intelligence Service receives alarming reports from their agents on Terra. A decision is made to inform the monarch about the situation and to bring her up to speed on the status of attempts to intervene on Terra. Cora Jeskalt is made aware of the full extent of the project and orders a halt to all intervention on Terra and an immediate withdrawal of Otonichi agents from the planet. The damage, however, has been done.
2017	31 October	An intergovernmental task force is created to find and capture any and all Otonichi on Earth. Amidst a global panic and outrage, 6 elderly Hoomiku reveal the full scope of their species' dealings with the Otonichi to the world in graphic detail, and vow to work with the governments of the world in an effort to enact revenge not only for the crimes dealt to them by the Otonichi, but for the interference the Otonichi have caused on Earth. A new project is started at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory to use a time machine as a matter teleportation device. A project is also started at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland to develop a biological weapon tailored for use against the Otonichi.
2019	15 March

2020s

Year	Date	Event
2008	4 November
2020	October 28	With units of the Montana Army National Guard surrounding the mine and additional military assets being mobilized for a strike on the fortified mine serving as their base of operations, final preparations are made to send Lindsey Waldroup into the past in an attempt to alter the timeline and prevent disaster. Realizing he cannot go with Lindsey due to his appearance and the limited capacity of the time machine's power source, Zachary Calliden attempts a last-ditch maneuver to save his own life. Using information recorded in a journal by his maternal grandmother, he uploads his consciousness into Lindsey's mind while she sleeps, unaware that there is no way for him to escape once he does so. Fractal Calliden and Melor Oliver discover Zachary's still living body shortly thereafter and hide it from Lindsey, fearing that her resolve to attempt the mission will falter if she realizes what has happened. After rapid calculations, an incredibly remote possibility of retrieving the Hoomiku's body from their timeline is found, and instructions for the process are hidden on Lindsey's phone, addressed to their alternate selves. Data on the history of the world is also gathered and placed on storage devices. Zachary, in a persistent vegetative state, is placed on an intravenous drip and given oxygen.
2020	October 29