Grand Unified Timeline

[Sirrocco]

While we're in the process of nailing things down, I think that we ought to have a timeline of Important Things Leading Up To The Con (and presumably after, once the storyline progresses). Specifically, we ought to have at least a timeline thread, and quite possibly a pinned-to-the-top Official Timeline Post. I know that there was some work done on this in the superthread at one point, but I do not have time or impetus right now to go digging for it. If someone else could dredge it out as a starter, would be much appreciated.
Also, as a complete side note, who *would* have the responsibility of posting Haruhi's first message on the Convention thread? I'm not saying it has to be *just* yet, but I'd hate to have the whole thing stall out here because everyone was waiting for someone else to post a major message from the pivotal NPC.

[M Fnord]

Fenspace Grand Unified Timeline (GUT) version 0.03a

Most recent additions in blue.

2004-5: (conjecture) The events of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya occur.
Late 2006 - Early 2007: Handwavium is "invented." Samples are sent to high-security mundane labs for analysis.
Spring 2007: The handwavium manages to slip past the security and starts filtering into fandom.
May 10, 2007: SS Uncertainty launches.
August 31, 2007: Worldcon Yokohama - The first public demonstration of the power of handwavium when an enterprising fan refits his car and flies to Japan for the con; NASA/DARPA/USAF establish Transrationality Scientific Assessment Bureau (TSAB) to study and reverse-engineer handwavium devices.
Fall 2007: That Con - Enterprising idiot spikes the hospitality suite food with concentrated handwavium, causing unexpected biomods in the convention goers. USGov goes nuts, "quarantines" the guests until they make their own escape.
November 2007: The Pearl Forrester, among others, begins a short but VERY successful space tourism service, earning enough money from celebrities like The Donald, etc. to be very comfortable.
December, 2007: Kazakh government agrees to sell the abandoned Buran space shuttle hull 1.02 Ptichka to Sandwich.Net Interstellar, LLC.
Fall/Winter 2007: First wave of handwavium-equipped explorers hit orbit, Luna, Mars.
Winter 2007/08: The Professor hits Paris with much bwahahaha-ing; Hermes Universal Deliveries founded; Rockhounds, Inc. orbits their first Space Rock.
February 14, 2008: Horatio Caine of the Miami-Dade PD's CSI team tracks down Colombian drug mogul Gervasio Faustino de Leon to his yacht, the Pinnafarina, in drydock. Exciting gun battles take place within, and the druglord's Ferrari crashes through the vehicle bay doors, leading to a car chase, exploding Italian coachwork near the airport, and Major Arrest #65 or so for Horatio.
Feburary (n+15), 2008: Wave Convoy's escape to orbit becomes one of the staple clips for Fen exodus documentaries. Last of the original 17 biomod subjects still on Earth leaves with him.
March 21, 2008: SS Epsilon Blade launched.
April 4, 2008: Noah Scott begins construction of L5 station Stellvia.
April 13, 2008: Ptichka arrives at Wittman Field, Oshkosh, WI for refitting.
Spring 2008: The fan eventually known as "Mr. Morden" inadvertantly provokes the Russian Federation to formally declare the ownership of Handwavium or use of 'wavetech items by anyone but liscensed professionals to be illegal.
May 4, 2008: Warsie Earth-Luna L5 base established. Important Warsie holiday - the first official annual May the Fourth Be With You Day.
May 21, 2008: AI Sora Hasegawa "wakes up", the first of Noah Scott's "angels" to gain self-awareness.
May 22, 2008: AIs Kohran Li and Yoriko Nikaido "wake up".
May 23, 2008: AI Yayoi Fujisawa "wakes up", the last of Noah Scott's "angels" to gain self-awareness.
Summer 2008: Floating Island launches; major factions begin moving off Earth en masse; Professor steals/borrows/blackmails the Sol Bianca from the Danish crown and makes his way offworld; Space Rock #7 is returned to the Belt to become the core of Seijutaigakure no Sato.
June 1, 2008: Trials are over, and the Pinnafarina goes to auction. Winning bid registered to Joseph Corcoran of Londonderry, NH.
June 21, 2008: The Jason leaves Earth onboard the Fateful Lightning.
October 12, 2008: USSR Ptichka leaves Wittman Field during a standoff with state and federal law-enforcement officers.
October 20, 2008: US government passes draconian handwavium restrictions in wake of the Ptichka incident, to take effect on December 1.
October 18, 2008: SS Galaxy Express 999 launches.
November 30, 2008: SS Pinafore (nee Pinnafarina) departs US airspace just ahead of American anti-handwavium legislation taking effect.
Fall 2008: Mars Terraforming Project begins; Colonel Stephen Caldwell, USAF, appointed administrator of TSAB Station Benjamin Franklin.
Fall 2008: A lone moron claiming to be the Professor attempts to hold the world hostage by threatening to drop kinetic weapons on major cities. Shortly afterwards he is handed over to the USCG Admiralty Court for trial by Mr Morden. Shortly afterwards, Morden is awarded a full pardon by the Russian President and the Russian Federation Air Force assign him the honorary rank of Colonel before throwing him into the River Volga.
Winter 2008/09: Senshi settle on (above) Venus; Venus Terraforming Project begins.
Spring 2009: Trekkies and Galaxy Express stage the Great Beijing Fake-Out.
Summer 2009: Worldcon Floating Island - First off-Earth Worldcon; first Articles of Convention produced, voted on; Kaboomite becomes known because of a testing accident at Worldcon Floating Island. (No fatalities, but total property damage runs over $10,000,000.) Those in the know refuse to discuss what kaboomite is; its use within 1000km of any ship or station is outlawed in the Articles of Convention drafted at Worldcon. Afterwards, a substantial amount of 'Dane/Fen trade moves away from Earth orbit and into Fenspace proper.
August 15, 2009: World Watch One launches from the Northeast Texas countryside.
September 21, 2009: SS Admiral Heinlein launches.
September 23, 2009: Hephaestus lifts from rural Alaska, completely ruining one young USAF pilot's day.
September 28, 2009: Qin Shihuangdi launches.
Winter 2009/2010: USS Miranda leaves on its five-year mission to take astronomical readings from locations far from Sol.
January 1, 2010: The Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic Information established as a non-profit organization, headquartered in Irving, Texas, with a sister office in London, England.
March 2010: KandorCon - First formal Convention; treaty between the Fandom Nation and the governments of Earth. Blanket amnesty given to all fen who left Earth during the hardest parts of the handwavium restrictions.
May 2010: The first class of five students graduates from the Vesta School of Biochemistry.
August 15, 2010: The Banzai Institute Shuttle HB88, better known as the Jet Car, makes its maiden flight. Airspace is violated, windows are shattered, and the speed of sound is broken. The Blue Blazer Irregulars realize one of the Jet Car's quirks (Leadfoot Syndrome, see Ship Registry) firsthand.
August 16, 2010: The crew of World Watch One finish repairs to the windows of Mrs. Johnson's home outside of Wichita Falls, Texas. Upon departing, they manage to keep the Jet Car at the speed limit until they reach the Oklahoma border.
September 4-6, 2010: The Jet Car is stolen for the first time by an attendee of the 2010 Burning Man Festival at Black Rock, South Dakota. A merry chase ensues, with the Jet Car disrupting several camps at the festival. The Blue Blazer Irregulars retrieve the car and depart the festival on Monday. On their way out, they set a personal record of 400 mph across the Playa, before taking off.
July 1, 2011: SC Virgil Samms launched.
September 2011: A group of drones steal a Toyota Corolla Le 2005 from their owner. 36 hours later, the Schrottplatz is named, and leaves earth.
March 31, 2012: Less hidebound elements of the US Navy (and the last action of a retiring Admiral) launches USS Stingray (SSN 2161-X), a black project that was willing to deal with fennish quirks.
April 20, 2012: The SS Grover's Corners lifts off from West Virginia and in the process plunges the United States into a new round of antihandwavium paranoia.
May 7, 2012: Suzumiya's Convention - SOS-dan calls a Convention under the emergency clause; Star Patrol founded. Operation GREAT JUSTICE begins.
December 12, 2012: Miranda detects an alien automated beacon, 1000 light years from Sol.

---

Points Of Divergence

Commisar's Note: The following events have been chronicled in complete and incomplete Fenspace stories as posted to the board. However, as they deal with a period after the conclusion of GREAT JUSTICE and the Miranda discovery, they have been tagged as "noncanonical" for the time being. Depending on the ebb and flow of Fenspace storytelling, some of these events may become canonical. Some may not. The only way to know for certain is to keep watching the skies. Thank you. --Mal
2012+(n+(Hephaestus invent the Sparkman-Hermes Fluidic Bearing Reactionless Drive Electrical Turbine, a nearly-unlimited source of nearly-free electrical power.
[b]May 21, 2058: "Boskonian" coup in the city of Helium, on Mars.
2088: The entire planet Earth is absorbed into a posthuman gestalt mind. Mundane and fendane refugee crisis in Fenspace.
2098: The posthuman Earth is reconfigured into material for a matrioshka brain. Fen evacuate Fenspace, moving Mars, Venus, Luna and other major settlements to Beta Coma Berenices.
Fall 2157 - Summer 2158: Zeta Tucanae system mapped "down to its larger asteroids".
May 21, 2208: Beta Hydri colony station destroyed because of stellar flares; there are no survivors.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/[/b]
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[M Fnord]

---

Also, as a complete side note, who *would* have the responsibility of posting Haruhi's first message on the Convention thread? I'm not saying it has to be *just* yet, but I'd hate to have the whole thing stall out here because everyone was waiting for someone else to post a major message from the pivotal NPC.

---

Theoretcially, as Commisar I should probably have the honor of doing so, but frankly I'm scared to death of fucking up the character too badly. I move that the honor goes to whichever one of us knows Haruhi best.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Feinan]

Summer 2008: The Jason leaves Earth
Also - I have to share this mental image...

---

Spring 2007: The handwavium manages to slip past the security and starts filtering into fandom.

---

This gave me the image of a large, roughly man-shaped mass of goo - dressed in a trenchcoat, fedora, and sunglasses - carefully oozing past a security guard at the door while his back is turned.
*grin*

[Foxboy]

Sunday, x months before $month, 2012, Before or simultaneous with the Grover's Corners launch
less hidebound elements of the US Navy (and the last action of a retiring Admiral) launches USS Stingray SSN 2161-X, a black project that was willing to deal with fennish quirks.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Bluemage]

---

Sunday, x months before $month, 2012, Before or simultaneous with the Grover's Corners launch
less hidebound elements of the US Navy (and the last action of a retiring Admiral) launches USS Stingray SSN 2161-X, a black project that was willing to deal with fennish quirks.

---

Two months after that, the _Calling Port_ launches for the first time. Nobody notices, once it gets high enough to pass 'dane radar.
About seven months after *that*, America, Russia, and Norway all open files on a flying junkball sighted near their naval bases...
************
Sorry about going nuts there, guys. This a bit better?Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines...

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[M Fnord]

---

Two months after that, the launch of the _Calling Port_ deprives the 'danes of the just-finished International Space Station, their first (and only?) base outside the atmosphere of Earth...

---

*sigh* Bluemage, comrade, read the thread marked with your name, please. We've things to discuss about the Calling Port.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Sunday, x months before $month, 2012, Before or simultaneous with the Grover's Corners launch

---

Foxboy, the Grover's Corners launch has been explicitly defined as one month before SOS-Con, almost to the day. Unless you want to delay the Stingray's launch, it's almost certainly in space weeks or even months before the GC gets off/out of the ground.
Never mind, I just saw the blue edit in the timeline above. I could swear that wasn't there when I started writing.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[drakensis]

Spring 2008: TFLKAMM* inadvertantly provokes the Russian Federation to formally declare the ownership of Handwavium or use of 'Waviumed items by anyone but liscensed professionals to be illegal.
Fall 2008: A lone moron, claiming to be the Professor attempts to hold the world hostage by threatening to drop kinetic weapons on major cities. Shortly after a brief trial under the auspices of the nascent TSAB, he is handed over the Professor's custody. Simultaneously Mr Morden is awarded a full pardon by the Russian President and the Russian Federation Air Force assign him the honorary rank of Colonel before throwing him into the River Volga.
*The Fen Later Known As Mr Morden
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[M Fnord]

---

Shortly after a brief trial under the auspices of the nascent TSAB, he is handed over the Professor's custody.

---

A quibble here: TSAB as written is a research organization, without regulatory or law-enforcement powers, so it couldn't hold a trial, brief or otherwise.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Ebony]

August 15, 2009: World Watch One launched from the Northeast Texas countryside.
January 1, 2010: The Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic Information established as a non-profit organization, headquartered in Irving, Texas, with a sister office in London, England.

Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[ECSNorway]

---

A quibble here: TSAB as written is a research organization, without regulatory or law-enforcement powers, so it couldn't hold a trial, brief or otherwise.

---

Yep. The trial is more likely to be an Admiralty Court at USCG Station Tranquility.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[classicdrogn]

Late Feb 2008 - Wave Convoy's escape to orbit becomes one of the staple clips for Fen exodus documentaries. Last of the original 17 biomod subjects still on earth (Shuko) leaves with him.
As a side note, I thought there were handwavium samples that just mysteriously showed up? Maybe that was an older revision of reality...
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Foxboy]

November 2007, the Pearl Forrester, among others, begins a short but VERY successful space tourism service, earning enough money from celebrities like The Donald, etc. to be very comfortable.
Major "ports" for space tourism before the crackdowns after THAT con included: Boston, New Orleans, Paris [before the Professor's incident], Kyoto, Montreal, Toronto, Sydney, Canberra, Moscow, and the capital of South Africa, whose name eludes me right now.
February 14, 2008. Horatio Kane of the Miami-Dade PD's CSI team tracks down {insert generic Colombian drug lord name, this may be one of the lead Zwilniks} to his yacht, the Pinnafarina, in drydock. Exciting gun battles take place within, and the druglord's Ferrari crashes through the vehicle bay doors, leading to a car chase, exploding Italian coachwork near the airport, and Major arrest number 65 or so for Horatio.
June 1, 2008. Trials are over, and the Pinnafarina goes to Goverment auction. Winning bid registered to Joseph Corcoran of Londonderry, NH.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Morganite]

Obsessed fan feels required to point out: It's Caine.
-Morgan. "I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[M Fnord]

---

Obsessed fan feels required to point out: It's Caine.

---

Technically it's Horatio Caine: SUPERCOP! But why quibble?---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Epsilon]

---

Technically it's Horatio Caine: SUPERCOP! But why quibble?

---

But did he take off his glasses, just so that he coud have an opportunity five seconds later to put them back on in a dramatic manner?
-------------------
Epsilon
It's a trick question. Of course he did.

[drakensis]

>> A quibble here: TSAB as written is a research
>> organization, without regulatory or law-enforcement
>> powers, so it couldn't hold a trial, brief or otherwise.
>
> Yep. The trial is more likely to be an Admiralty Court at
> USCG Station Tranquility.
Let it be so then. Is it okay to have him handed over to the Professor's custody? As a test subject?
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[The Hunterminator]

Just a quick note,
September 2011: A group of drones steal a Toyota Corolla Le 2005 from their owner. 36 hours later, the Schrottplatz is named, and leaves earth.

[Foxboy]

Any objections to our "Lead Zwilnik" being named Gervasio Faustino de Leon? Of course, everyone calls him Faustino... {and edit the entry for the Pinnafarina gunbattle appropriately, please?}
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[M Fnord]

---

Let it be so then. Is it okay to have him handed over to the Professor's custody? As a test subject?

---

Considering that in '08 the Professor is still considered a known and highly dangerous terrorist, I'd say the chances of the 'danelaw justice system handing anybody over to him are... very slim at best.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[ECSNorway]

---

Considering that in '08 the Professor is still considered a known and highly dangerous terrorist, I'd say the chances of the 'danelaw justice system handing anybody over to him are... very slim at best.

---

And considering that it's a USCG Admiralty Court trying him, it's much more likely that he's enjoying the sights of beautiful Fort Leavenworth.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[CattyNebulart]

No handing people over to the professor for the mundies.
1) Creuel and unusual punishment
2) They went through a lot of effort to paint him as someone worse than the anti-christ, someone who eats babies for breakfast, and lunch too, as a terrorist who made Osama bin laden and Sadam husein look like inocent little puppies. It's going to take more than a few years to recover from that kind of reputation. He has aquired the 'not that bad' rep among fen, but even among them buy the media myth. Denmark just about the only country that doesn't revile the Prof, and that is because he dismanteled a nuke set to blow up their capital and Ryoko playted it up for the live news feed of the capture using all her skills at manipulation, including the data manipulation skills she could still all upon. The only reason the Prof can even get a mundane job, even working from remote as he is, is because his abilities with handwavium are equally mythed up by the media, and profit is a stong driving motive, esspeially when the madman can't get withing a thousand km of you.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[robkelk]

A few more entries for the GUT...
May 4, 2008: Warsie Earth-Luna L5 base established. Important Warsie holiday - the first official annual May the Fourth Be With You Day.
Summer 2009: Kaboomite becomes known because of a testing accident at Worldcon Flying Island. (No fatalities, but total property damage runs over $10,000,000.) Those in the know refuse to discuss what kaboomite is; its use within 1000km of any ship or station is outlawed in the Articles of Convention drafted at Worldcon Flying Island.
Summer 2009: After Worldcon Flying Island, a substantial amount of 'Dane/Fen trade moves away from Earth orbit and into Fenspace proper.
July 1, 2011: SC Virgil Samms launched.
December 21, 2012: The Mayan calendar comes to an end. Many "new age mystics" consider this to be an omen of doom. A few Fen expect or hope that Something Important will happen in Fenspace on this date.

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

---

The Mayan calendar comes to an end. Many "new age mystics" consider this to be an omen of doom. A few Fen expect or hope that Something Important will happen in Fenspace on this date.

---

Shadowrun-playing fen terribly disappointed when they find that they still can't do magic.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...