WTTimeline
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The Super-Age (1936 to 1945)
1936: The world is awed as Der Flieger (The Flier) suddenly appears in Germany, flying into Berlin Stadium to light the Olympic torch. He is the first ever to exhibit the "Talent", or paranormal abilities beyond the capabilities of humanity or technology (though scholars debate that perhaps other figures in history were Talents before him).
1938-1945: Talents appear all around the world as nations are drawn into war. The most stressful situations bring out the latent Talent.
1941: On a destroyer sunk by a German U-boat, the first American Talent is born and nicknamed "Indestructible Man".
1942: The Wisconsin Supreme Court decides in Wisconsin v. Taft, the first case filed against a Talent for the use of his powers -- levitating to work is ruled to violate the public peace. So-called "Taft laws" spring up all over the US, restricting the use of Talents without a permit.
1943: Lord Yama appears in India and soon gains a following of nearly a million. He is the first known Talent not controlled by a government and not used for war purposes as well as the first Talent who is a leader of mundane men.
The Deepening Abyss (1946-1952)
1946: USSR backs a coup in Iran by the radical fundamentalist Tudeh party, which has had many Talents born to its ranks by the Shah's persecution. Iran becomes the first non-European Soviet ally.
1946: Using recovered Nazi research, British scientists unlock the first of a new type of Talent. Prior Talents, now called "War Talents", could counter each others' powers through force of will and were relatively weak. This new type of Talent, dubbed "Wild Talent", could reach unimagined levels of power.
1947: The Talent Volunteers ("Teevees") are formed to help in the reconstruction of Europe. They would later rebuild key infrastructure in third world nations and respond to disasters. By 1970, the Teevees became an independent international organization, largely unwelcome by the US government for its many links (though non-political) to world governments and secretive membership, but they are still respected and beloved by the average citizen.
1947: As the British leave India, border skirmishes between Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim escalate into all-out war between India and Pakistan. Millions are killed; Gandhi's popularity as a peace advocate wanes. In October, a bomb takes Gandhi's life, and total chaos erupts. India soon occupies all of Pakistan and signs the South Asia Defense Pact (SADP) with the US.
1947: Something crashes near Roswell, New Mexico. A being calling himself IAM apparently emerges from the wreckage and is released after lengthy questioning. Whether or not IAM is truly an alien, or perhaps the Talent emerging in strange ways in the scientist who was apparently killed in the crash, is still unknown. The US government steps up its space campaign.
1947: The first Wild Talent, Grey, is announced by the British government. Two weeks later, Stalin announces the Soviet Union's squad of 14 Wild Talents. Intelligence shows he may have twice that already. By 1948, Wild Talents were springing up everywhere in response to stressful situations. By 1949, all Talents manifesting were Wild Talents; no WW2-type Talents ever manifested again. Scientists are baffled.
1947: Soviet puppet governments assume control throughout Eastern Europe. US forces build up in Germany. Western Europe forms the Atlantic Treaty for mutual defense. NATO is formed the following year.
1949: At the Moscow Air Show, the Soviet Union debuts over a dozen suits of the "Stalin Power Armor Mk II", a huge armored suit capable of flight. American hyperbrain analysis shows that the Soviets have at least one Wild Talent who had overcome the flaws of Goldberg Science.
1949: After scrambling the project after rocket demonstrations at the Moscow Air Show, the first man-made satellite, a radio transmitter called Ajax, is launched into orbit by the US. Months later, Captain Lloyd "Indestructible Man" Moreland is launched on a suborbital flight and is the first human in space.
1950: Backed by China and the USSR, North Korea invades South Korea. American, British, and French forces immediately respond. The UN fields an international peacekeeping team of 50 Wild Talents and 1500 War Talents, but Seoul is captured by sheer numbers.
1950: Red Chinese Wild Talent spies are discovered in Moscow. Sino-Soviet cooperation turns to hostility overnight, and China tumbles into an economic and political downturn which would take 35 years to rebuild. Soviet and Chinese forces in Korea begin to skirmish. General MacArthur invades and pushes the Chinese and North Korean armies back. As Chinese forces gather for a counter-offensive, President Truman authorizes the use of the atomic bomb named Sword. Dropped onto an unoccupied mountaintop in China just north of the North Korean border, the bomb -- and the mountain now known as "Flat Top" -- is a clear message, and China withdraws from Korea. American forces push the Chinese and Soviets out and reunite the Korean peninsula in democratic rule.
1951: The Soviets unveil Star, a Wild Talent capable of flying into space and orbiting fifteen times before returning to Earth. They also unveil the propaganda film "Our Future In Space" in which they promote their program to create space-capable Wild Talents.
1952: Victorious General and Republican candidate Douglas MacArthur defeates Democratic incumbent Harry Truman in a landslide.
Mankind Conquers Space (1953-1970)
1953: The Treaty of San Francisco ends Japanese imperialism and reforms it as a democratic state. To counter Soviet influence, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the US form the South Pacific Treaty Organization (SPTO).
1953: Josef Stalin suddenly disappears. Talent foul play is presumed, but no body or trail of evidence is ever found. After several power struggles and assassinations, Georgy Malenkov is announced as new Premier of the USSR. His regime is even more brutal in its purges, but his progressive policies toward consumer goods and space exploration bolster the Russian economy.
1953: The US launches Spirit 1 and Spirit 2, two manned orbiting capsules. Talent astronauts break all space records.
1954: Fearing Soviet aggression, King Faisal of Iraq signs a mutual defense treaty with the US and UK. Battalions of Stalin Power Armor, Russian tanks, and Iranian Talents gather in Iran.
1956: MacArthur and Vice President Eisenhower are reelected in another landslide, obliterating Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson and running mate Estes Kefauver.
1957: King Talal of Jordan enters an alliance with Iran and becomes a Soviet ally. Over 200 Soviet Talents are detached to defend Jordan. NATO Talents are sent to Syria in response.
1958: A bloody confrontation between armed segregationists and Teevees breaks out in Mobile, Alabama. Two black Talents are gunned down by Army troops as they try to surrender, and the event is caught on film and aired all over the US and the world. Race war breaks out throughout the United States, and President MacArthur declares martial law and mobilizes the US Army into every major city. The Soviet Union protests at the UN, and public opinion teeters against President MacArthur for the first time.
1960: Idealogue and human rights activist Hubert H. Humphrey, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, accepts the Democratic nomination for President and trounces Vice President Eisenhower, the Republican candidate. The Civil Rights Act is enacted shortly after his inauguration.
1961: The space station America 1 is launched and settles into position in orbit around the Moon.
1962: Captain Jason "Skip" Clark becomes the first human to set foot on the Moon on December 22, 1962 in a lander dropped from America 1. His first words on the lunar surface were "We come in peace... for all mankind." Plans for a permanent moon base are announced.
1963: The first Soviet "kinetic weapon", a massive magnetic rail gun launching a four ton rock, is tested from orbit and blasts a crater into northern Siberia. Only one year after, the US lunar ground base America 2 is armed with a similar but smaller weapon.
1964: The powerful Iris telescope, mounted on the dark side of the Moon, begins operation. Amazing discoveries in astronomy and cosmology explode into the Western scientific community.
1966: Calls at the UN for a ban on kinetic weapons testing, but the Soviets and Americans veto. After many heated weeks, China, the US, and the USSR abandon the UN in all but name only, reducing their UN commitment to the bare minimum.
1966: A plot is uncovered in Italy to mass produce gold using the powers of two Dutch Wild Talents who can transmute the atomic structure of objects. They were caught before distributing significant amounts, but governments and the public lost all trust in precious metals, and the values of gold, silver, and platinum crashed to prices lower than those in 1910. Most nations abandon the gold standard for their currency by 1970.
1967: At the lunar station America 1, an American Wild Talent able to teleport anything he can touch to anywhere he can see uses the Iris telescope to transport a huge platform and payload to Mars orbit. Controlled by a near-instantaneous communications system using new theories of quantum particle entanglement, robots and computers begin constructing the Mars station Vanguard.
1968: The US exploratory satellite Sojourner 1 is launched to probe Jupiter and then continue to the edge of the solar system.
1968: A huge influx of peace activists move in on Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Some were there to support candidate John F. Kennedy, others to protest space weapons. As hundreds of thousands clog the city, the governor of Illinois calls in the National Guard to maintain order, including the Wild Talent team "Team One". As Kennedy is nominated for the Democratic party, protesters and troops scuffle and riots soon break out. A rampage of looting spreads throughout the city. On the third day of the riots, the Odd Squad suddenly appears. The existence of this group of independent Wild Talents had not been confirmed until now, but they calm the protesters and arrange a massive but peaceable sit-in of 150,000 near the Convention Center. Army Talent Team One gives the crowd 24 hours to disperse. Many do, at the urging of the Odd Squad. As the clock hits zero, the first all-out peace-time conflict between teams of Wild Talents the world has ever seen begins. Four city blocks are leveled, and several members of Team One are hospitalized. The Odd Squad emerge victorious, and photos snapped of them emerging from the rubble become infamous and iconic. No warrants are issued as investigations show that Team One instigated the fight, and The Odd Squad are public counterculture heroes overnight.
1968: Democratic senator from Massachusetts John F. Kennedy becomes the favorite in the Presidential race. The Republicans put up an opponent with similar good looks, California governor Ronald Reagan. The race is closer than all predictions, but Kennedy wins and vows to fight Soviet aggression on Earth and in space.
1969: American astronauts set foot on Mars on October 9, 1969. Unlike the Moon landing, though, the public is jaded, Mars seems distant, and the growing threat of global annihilation drowns out the accomplishment. By 1971, nearly 250 Americans, Canadians, and Britons reside in the Syrtis Minor base and make preparations to carry on the human race in case of apocalypse.
1969: IAM, the strange alien and member of The Odd Squad appears on the Dick Cavett show. IAM reveals his history, claiming to be an alien and the survivor of the Roswell UFO crash. President Kennedy calls for a thorough investigation into the Air Force cover-up, the Chief of Staff resigns, and much of the Roswell documentation is released to the public, though many are still skeptical and believe IAM is simply a deranged man. IAM closes the interview with the statement "There are many others in the stars. They will come here. Soon."
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend (1971-1991)
1971: Soviet-backed Israeli forces march into Lebanon, claiming to be capturing a rogue nuclear weapon. American-backed Syrian forces drive in and secure Beirut first. Kennedy threatens escalation if Beirut is attacked. Kinetic weapons in orbit and on the Moon target all major cities of both superpowers. Newspapers predict the end of the world. Both sides dug in, and a demilitarized zone is created, bisecting Lebanon. President Kennedy is later quoted as saying "Never before have we come so close to the end of everything."
1971: Kennedy declines a second term, citing his failing health. He would retire from politics in 1972, win the Pulitzer Prize for his 1978 book Lebanon, and die quietly at home in 1981.
1972: The Xerox Corporation announces the first microcomputer system for home users -- the Xerox Home Office. Manufactured in India, and featuring a cutting-edge document-based software suite made by the Indian company Veda, and a revolutionary input device dubbed a "mouse", it debuts at an affordable $540. The one millionth unit is sold within six months. The Home Office would remain the dominant computer of the decade, with software easy enough for an average user to use. Companies like IBM and Digital founder in their attempts to compete, and stick to mainframe computing, which would be dead in ten years. Five months after debuting the Xerox Home Office, Xerox opens The Grid to home and business users. Using normal telephone lines, the Grid connects all XHOs in the world to local hub computers, which can trade digital mail ("d-mail") between users and serve up personal Nodes of information. In just a few years, the Grid becomes the primary mode of communication.
1977: Sojourner 1 reaches the edge of the solar system and discovers the heliopause, a cloud of charged solar particles, beyond which opens the empty maw of space. Readings delivered from beyond the heliopause showed discrepancies. Hyperbrain astrophysicist Micah Nerut discovers that the heliopause distorts all radio signals which pass through it in either direction. The JPL's 22-meter radio listening dishes are recalibrated to compensate. One by one, star after star in the sky comes alive with broadcast radio signals. Project Earshot is immediately classified. Though analysis of the signals reveals apparent images and other unknowable information, it is inconclusive, but it is clear that humanity is not the first to overcome the heliopause.
1978: By this time, Xerox and Veda had dominated all comers to the personal computer market. Veda was a worldwide name as big as Coca-Cola and McDonald's, and over 250 million XHOs had been sold worldwide. D-mail had surpassed standard mail ("slug-mail") in daily usage. In 1978, Xerox announced the Notepad, a portable 5"x8" tablet computer with all the power of an XHO Desktop. It retailed for $600 and featured handwriting recognition as well as wireless Grid access (in major cities) and telephone functionality via phone system bridges at the Grid hubs. Ubiquity would be an understatement as Notepads swept across the world.
1980: President Walter Mondale is inaugurated, and weeks later meets with Soviet Premier Viktor Grishin and shares some information regarding the extraterrestrial signals. A space treaty is signed in just 14 days after the summit meeting. By the end of the year, NATO and Soviet forces are conducting joint exercises in Europe, and Russian astronauts are visiting American lunar bases. The public simply sees the Cold War ending, but the governments both know they are preparing for invasion.
1982: Project Earshot computers discover the same signal emanating from three different stars four light years apart, heavily implying evidence of the first interstellar empire. The closest of these is one of the closest stars to Earth -- Epsilon Eridani 11.5 light years from Sol, with no planets but a single ring of debris orbiting the star. Soviet and American radio and optical telescopes all turn to spy on Epsilon Eridani, and Wild Talent precognitives focus their attentions on the star and the fate of humanity. Science fiction turned out to be science fact, as the ring of debris was soon identified to be a solid, artificial mass with a dark side and a light side -- a ringworld.
1984: A joint announcement is made by Soviet and American space agencies. Definitive proof of alien intelligence had been found. Rings had been identified around all three stars showing the signal of the aliens now called "The Builders". Theories and clairvoyants speculate that The Builders destroy all planets in a star system to use them as raw materials for building their rings... and Sol was next along the path of stars. World markets plunged, mass suicides occurred, riots broke out in Africa and Asia. Conflict in the Middle East ceased for the first time in centuries and nearly 50,000 people of all faiths held vigil in Jerusalem.
1985: One of seven Russian-American probes launched out into deep space detect a large gravitational body just past the orbit of Neptune on June 25, 1985. The mass appears to be a rocky Jovian or Saturnian moon that has fallen out of orbit, except that it was transmitting a beacon signal in a mathematical code much like the "Builder" signal. Four first contact teams were transported to America 2 to wait for contact, as all kinetic weapons were pointed into space.
1986: On April 22, 1986, the new planetoid-ship suddenly vanished from its distant orbit and appeared, as if by teleportation, inside the orbit of Mercury. From Earth it could be seen by the naked eye as a dark point against the sun. Nineteen hours later, live feeds from the Iris telescope saw the world-ship pass by Mercury as Mercury broke apart, collapsing into a field of debris that would later stretch out into a lumpy ring around the sun. The world-ship then moved toward Venus. Riots again broke out, this time in many first world cities. Grocery stores and hardware stores were looted en masse. As Detroit and Los Angeles broke out in firestorms, President Mondale declared a state of martial law.
1986: On April 23, 1986, President Mondale and Soviet Premier Konstantin Chernenko agreed that now was the time. All out attack was ordered. Thousands of tons of rock were hurled by the massive rail guns and mass drivers at vast speeds toward the Builder world-ship. The barrage struck the world-ship on May 18, forming huge craters, removing chunks of material, and knocking the ship from its course. The huge object's signal stopped transmitting, and it now sits spinning in an elliptical orbit between Venus and what was once Mercury.
1991: The American-Soviet space program builds a deep space habitat called Peace to transport Wild Talents to the Builder world-ship, hoping to reach the dead vessel and salvage its information and technology. Plans are to have it operational in the second half of 1992.
Recent Events (1992)
February 2: Just starting his second term, President Robert Kennedy and Soviet Premier Chernenko meet with the heads of state from 26 of the largest world governments in Berne, Switzerland to sign the Berne Accord, a world defense treaty that calls for humanity to concentrate on eradicating disease, famine, and overpopulation. As the USSR opens its economy and its borders, trade and tourism flourish between the two former foes. More and more nations join the Berne Accord, the most notable exceptions being China, some militant Islamic states, and a few breakaway communist dictatorships.
February 19: Now known as Black Wednesday. Yaum al-Qiyamah ("Day of Judgement"), a radical Islamic Wild Talent protesting the new de facto world government, uproots the Eiffel Tower and tosses it into the public square, killing over 400 civilians before French police Talents kill him.
Monday, March 23: Present day.
Excerpted from Wild Talents, © 2006 Arc Dream Publishing
