TIMELINE

• 1945 – Robert Oppenheimer invents the Atomic Engine.
• 1950 – Humanity walks on the Moon.
• 1951 – Brooklyn Lamontagne is born.
• 1956 – Brooklyn, age five, listens to coverage of Chuck Yeager’s landing on Mars.
• 1961 – Topeka, Kansas and Ufa, Russia are destroyed by meteorites. Jet Carson and the Freedom 7 face off against the so-called Mercurian Menace.
• 1967 – John F. Kennedy, saved from assassination by an alien agent, begins his second term.
• 1972 – Cleveland, Ohio is wiped out by a meteorite. George McGovern, a pacifist – and secretly an alien, loses campaign momentum, and hawkish Richard Nixon wins election to the U.S. presidency.
• Fall of 1976 – Brooklyn enlists in the Earth Orbital Forces to avoid a prison sentence. Jimmy Carter and Jessie Jackson are elected to the White House.
• July 1978 – Brooklyn and Designed Ambassador “Andy” Andromeda fly from Venus in an antique spaceship to save New York City from a meteorite and the Earth from a suicidal war against the returning First. Brooklyn sacrifices his life so the mission will succeed.
• October 1978 – Responding to First demands, Earth forces attack the Designed ambassadors. Using First Tech, the Designed shut down all electrical power on the planet for several months.
• November 1978 – Andy leads an unsuccessful attack against the Prime Ambassador’s ship in an attempt to get the power back on. She flees into space.
• November 1980 – Bob Dole is elected President of the U.S.
• Spring 1981 – Salvagers recover Brooklyn’s frozen body from high-Earth orbit, and thanks to treatments he received from the mysterious Dr Paul Carruthers, he returns to life. The EOF discharges Brooklyn with prejudice because of his alleged collaboration with the enemy, and his Earth citizenship is revoked.
• 1983 – Designed scientists create an airborne AIDS vaccine and release it worldwide.
• 1984 – Dole rides his ‘wartime’ presidency status to a second term.
• 1985 – The first of the United Nations evacuation flights heads to Venus.
• Fall 1987 – Designed scientists unleash an airborne virus that destroys the fertility of fifty percent of humans who contract it. Andy and the Designed outlaws liberate a vaccine for the contagion and give it to the United Nations.
• Oct. 14, 1987 – Baby Jessica falls down a well. She is saved within two hours by Designed engineers.
• Spring 1988 – The original Designed are replaced by the so-called Angels and the First Cathedral of the Cosmos. The Cardinal of the Cosmos becomes the First’s representative on Earth.
• 1988 – Donald Rumsfeld is elected president of the United States.
• 1990 – The U.S. and U.S.S.R. announce they will evacuate their citizens to Mars instead of Venus.
• 1992 – Pat Buchanan, with support of the First Church of the Cosmos, wins election to the U.S. Presidency. The presidential term limit is revoked.
• 1995 – The third U.N. evacuation flight leaves for Venus.
• Fall 1999 – Brooklyn gets a message.