[geoschmo]

Welcome and thank you for visiting our newest exhibit here at Temporal World where our motto is “Happiness, through history”. Please keep your appendages inside the car at all times and do not attempt to stand until the car has come to a complete stop.

Now, join us as we travel back in time over 500 years. Back to the beginning of the Sallegan Empire. Back, on our

Journey to yesterday!

Our first stop is the Orbital Services research Laboratory on Narcisston VIII, in the year 2400.0. We see here Professor Krankton, hard at work on his most important invention. The Mark one Ion Engine.

Sallegans first broke the bounds of gravity and ventured into space over a hundred years before. Computer guided probes had visited several planets, and the first manned expedition to the closest planet in the Narcisston system had returned just 18 months earlier. But the limitations of chemically propelled rockets meant that it took 3 years for the round trip. At that speed, it was simply not practical to venture far from our homeworlds orbit.

But the awesome power and efficiency of Professor Krankton’s engine meant that any planet in the system could be reached in a month or less. Ships could be built that could make several such trips without having to refuel. This finally was the key that allowed the Sallegan people to explore their system. To establish colonies on the other suitable planets, and begin the long long process of terraforming their atmospheres. And it allowed the creation of ships that could travel deep into the atmospheres of the great Gas Giants and extract their raw materials.

T minus 3, 2, 1…Aksu 1, ignition…. Launch.

Here on our next stop on the Journey to Yesterday we see the first Sallegan Inter-Planetary research vehicle, Aksu 0001 taking off on it’s maiden voyage. This 150 Kt design was the first production ship to be fitted with the Krankton Ion-Engine. Led by Captain Grandow, who later would be so prominent in Sallegan early space history, and crewed with the finest men and women that the Orbital Service could produce. Launched on 2400.3, its mission was to explore the Narcisston system.

The Aksu 0001 was also fitted with a launcher that could launch nuclear tipped, computer guided missiles. This was originally intended to be used to destroy rouge comets and asteroids that might someday threaten our world. It was a quite fortuitous decision as we later found out we were not alone in the galaxy.

But that is a story for another day...