Andre Norton's Multiverse
 
"Civilizations rise, exist, and fall, each taking with it into the limbo of
forgotten things some of the discoveries which made it great." (_The Time
Traders_, p 163)

The following post is an attempt on my part to provide a coherent
chronology of the events chronicled by Andre Norton in her historical,
science fiction, and non-Witch World fantasy works.  (An accurate Witch
World chronology containing otherwise unpublished, canon Year names can be
found in the GURPS game supplement _GURPS Witch World_; far less up-to-date
ones in several other places.) Since I have not been able to find and read
all of Norton, this chronology is still incomplete.  However, I believe
that it should be helpful in indicating the breadth of Norton's interests
and the scope of her imagination.  The page numbers are based on the
editions I own or have read; these editions will be indicated in the last
post.
 
HERE BE SPOILERS!  So let the reader beware. 
 
I am afraid, also, that mere mortals make both mistakes and
misinterpretations. In some cases, Norton would mention a historical event
which existed in our universe but whose exact date I was unable to
ascertain. In other cases, the archaeological dating which Norton uses may
have been adjusted by later discoveries or more accurate techniques, and\or
my sources for such dating may be themselves dated.I would be happy to
provide anyone who corrects such information with a credit at the end of
this chronology.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
Forerunners, Star Lords, and Ancient Ones 

in the Cryptozoic: Before most of the continents had emerged from the sea
("Garin of Tav", 1947 in GtE), primitive life existed in Antarctica. Krand,
a planet near Sol whose humanoid inhabitants' scientists had seen Earth's
beginnings, was destroyed by an asteroid, comet or something similar. It
would have missed them, but Krand's orbit had been slowed thanks to Kras'
experiments with 'solar energy' ("Garan of Yu-Lac" in GtE110). [I presume
this is a reference to something like fusion or gravity control, since its
use was forbidden (GtE110), its power inexhaustible (GtE118), and solar
panels don't slow planets in their orbits.]  Since Krand had only begun to
develop interplanetary flight, most of its people were doomed.  However, a
ship powered by this 'solar energy' was loaded with a handful of Krandians
led by Thran and Thrala (GtE118).  They survived and landed on the young
Earth. Unhappy with the swampy, barren Antarctica that they found (GtE21),
they carved out caverns to live in, terraformed the part of the land they
called Tav, and genegineered plants, animals and sentient creatures to
share the land.  The people of Tav called them 'the Ancient Ones'.  They
could live up to 200 years in eternal youth, thanks to their 'ray'
(GtE23). They lived in Tav during the eons of Earth's history, hidden by
the mists of the 'Veil' they created, and guarded by psi machines.
 
[(FH) Terrans are taken from Terra by a star civilization (possibly the
Star Lords) and planted on the planet which will become known as the
Dominion of the Sun-Star Virgin.]

Thousands of years ago: A Forerunner star empire existed. In MM, Myrddin
and Nimue refer to them as the Star Lords, Sky Lords, and Sky
People. [These are not the same Star Lords as those on Gorth in _Star
Gate_; Norton explicitly imagines _those_ Star Lords as Terrans.]  It was a
people who were once great star travellers (MM2) In their traveling, they
had come to Earth.  Recklessly, the Star Lords used the primitive Terrans
as playthings and tools in their disputes, teaching them their Star Lord
science so that they would be more useful. [Apparently the Sky Lords also
visited ancient Egypt (WoT154).]
 
When the Earth was nearly destroyed as a result, the Star Lords warred
among themselves and ended by swearing that never again would they rule
another species (MM202). The Star Lords vanished and left only legends
behind; the things they had taught were forgotten or became myths (MM1-2).
 
Before the Star Lords left, however, a beacon was set; it was so well-made
that it worked on while the continents moved and changed.  Andre also
refers to a moon falling from the sky and another taking its place
(MM1). [Since the Moon is older than this, one assumes this refers to some
kind of space station.]

The beacon's creators had engineered for every eventuality except
politics. Apparently, the Star Lords gave up travel except among their own
worlds. First the empire of the Star Lords fell into weakness (MM1), and
then it fell entirely.  As one of its final acts, six unmanned ships were
sent out, with the desperate hope that what they held important might be
preserved if only one of the ships reached one of the planets in the old
records. They sent off the ships just before their enemies conquered them
(MM2). These ships contained robots for building a secret base, computers
for the preservation and teaching of their science, psi machines, coldsleep
boxes, and genetic material to implant in the natives and thus create
people capable of understanding and using the materials.  Their intention
was apparently to create a sanctuary which would preserve their knowledge
and a civilization which would be capable of using that knowledge to return
to the stars and remake the empire.
 
circa 40,000 BC [in the Paleolithic]: In a glacial age, the Soviets find a
wrecked globe-shaped Forerunner spacecraft in what would become Finland;
they plunder it for technology.  When Ross Murdock is captured and left to
die in its time, he makes his way into it and is saved by its lifeboat's
medical equipment. While exploring it, he is cornered by Soviets; so he
punches buttons in the control room at random and accidentally manages to
communicate with another alien ship on a sort of brown-and-cream
television. One alien has a triangular face covered with dark skin and
down; large round eyes; a curved, shining nose; and a cockatoo-like crest
on top of its head.  Most have a more human appearance with cream-colored
skin and a hairless face and head; Ross calls them "Baldies".  The aliens
see Ross getting captured, realize something is wrong, home in on the
transmission and attack the Soviet outpost to destroy these 'pirates'.
Ross, Ashe, and MacNeil escape; the aliens travel through the Soviets' time
outposts, capture them all, and destroy their contemporary base.  They also
track the blue alien suit Ross wears and attempt to use psi against him.
The US, encouraged by the Soviets' success, begins to hunt wrecked
starships in the past.
 
[Zacathan civilization begins somewhere around this point.]
 
circa 10,000? BC: The time of the Folsom culture.  An alien spaceship
crashes on Earth in what will someday be the Canyon of the Hohokam in
Arizona.  Project Folsom One (a continuation of Project Retrograde) comes
to that time to salvage the ship by transferring it through time as a
whole. Unfortunately, the force of the transfer sets off the engines as
soon as they arrive at their homewhen.
 
circa 8000 BC: "Baldies" arrive on the planet Hawaika and begin to conquer
it, but are thwarted by the mysterious Foanna, the piratical Rovers, and
Terran time-travelers Gordon Ashe, Ross Murdock, Karara Trehern, and the
dolphins Tino-rau and Taua.
 
In the same year: Eveleen Riordan comes through a time gate to pick up
Gordon Ashe and Ross Murdock.  She does not bring back Karara Trehern,
Tino-rau, or Taua; they do not want to go, and they are known from records
found in the future to have stayed in the past.
 
some years later: Karara Trehern writes a history of happenings on Hawaika
which is accurate enough to allow a time gate to rescue Ashe and
Murdock. Tino-rau and Taua have many descendants (though it's a pretty
small genetic pool to work with) - enough that the Hawaikan colonists of
later days find a bunch of telepathic dolphins inhabiting the seas.
 
about 2000 BC: Gordon Ashe and Ross Murdock travel to ancient Britain
disguised as Beaker traders. They find that their outpost has been
destroyed by a Soviet bombing run disguised as the wrath of the god Lurgha.
They return home and report the incident, which (from the plane's heading)
hints at where to find the Soviet time base. Ashe, Murdock, and McNeil are
sent back to search for the exact location of the base, but they are caught
by the Soviets. Ross is left for dead, but is nursed back to health by a
woman of the axe people. He finds the Soviet base (despite the handicap of
believing he really is a Beaker trader). The Soviets send him back in time
as a prisoner.
 
When Ashe, Murdock and McNeil escape from the Soviet base in the past (just
ahead of the aliens), they become separated during an attack by the axe
people. Murdock escapes but the aliens track him by his commandeered
clothing. He manages to resist their mental coercion by burning his hand
with his torch. He strips off his alien clothes as soon as his people
arrive in their whale-shaped submarine and returns to his own time to find
Ashe and McNeil there before him.

 Parallel world, planet Vallek, circa 1700-700 BC: One 
of the Kor-Kings of Lanascol defies the Orm priests 
and takes a force to invade the Orm Temple.  Only a 
few of his rear guard survived (BAN147).
 
circa 1590 BC: (_Shadow Hawk_, 1960) Rahotep and his troop of Desert Scout
bowmen help drive the Hyksos invaders out of Egypt.
 
Parallel world, planet Vallek, circa 1500\500 BC: Creed Trapnell of the
Bureau of Time Exploration and Manipulation takes the place of Lord Kor
Kenric of Lanascol as he attempts to keep the Orm Prophet from prophesying
holy war against the Kor-Kings, which will lead eventually to nuclear war
and a burned-off Vallek ("Long Live Lord Kor!", 1970 in BAN).
 
Parallel world, planet Vallek, circa 1490\490 BC: 10 years after they
destroyed the Kor-Kings in a holy war, the theocracy of the Orm priests
collapses, making way for a conqueror from the south who established a line
which later developed high technology (BAN126).
 
Parallel world, planet Vallek, circa 1290\290 BC: 200 years after a
southern conqueror established his line in Lanascol, they develop a nuclear
technology (BAN126).
 
Parallel world, planet Vallek, circa 790 BC\210 AD: 500 years after the
establishment of a nuclear technology, Vallek gets burned-off into a
nuclear cinder (BAN126).
 
circa 538-530 BC: During the reign of King Cyrus (aka Xerxes) of Persia,
King Sherkarer and the Sirrush-lau (an African swamp-dragon) are sent to
Babylon.  Sherkarer helps Daniel prove that Bel is a false god and the
dragon is mortal.  A modern boy sees all this in a magical vision. [This is
the story "Bel and the Dragon" from the Apocrypha - neither Jews,
Catholics, nor Protestants include it in their Bible canon, but it's not
regarded as actually heretical - just not inspired]. (DM)
 
53 BC: (_Empire of the Eagle_, 199) Crassus' campaign in the East ends
disastrously for Rome when a horde of Syrian lancers and mounted archers
kills 20,000 men and captures 10,000 more.  Crassus goes to a peace
conference with them; he is murdered.  The captured Roman legions are sold
into slavery.
 
Some of the legionaries find themselves going to China as an exotic gift
for the Emperor of that land.  But when they enter the desert, they are
attacked by evil wizards who herd them into a fortress in the middle of the
desert.  For centuries, the demons have been using hapless travelers and
their descendants as food.  Fortunately for them, the centurion of the
legionaries is also the reincarnation of Arjuna from the _Mahabharata_ (a
bit disconcerting for him) and with the help of his sorceress wife (the
reincarnation of Arjuna's love Draupadi) he leads the enslaved people to
victory against the immortal wizards.
 
[The accuracy of the above summary is based on my very faulty memory of the
book, which I have not read for 4 years.

circa 25 BC: (_Imperial Lady: A Fantasy of Han China_, w. Susan Shwartz,
1989) Lady Chao Chun (aka Silver Snow) is packed off to the Hsiung-Nu to
marry their chief, Khujanga.  She ends up marrying his heir Vughturoi also
and probably dies about AD 18 (Afterword).
 
circa AD 200?: During the last days of the Roman occupation, of Britain,
the boy Artos meets the Pendragon (Arthur of Britain). A modern boy named
Arthur sees this in a magical vision (DM). [Incidentally, this version of
Arthur doesn't necessarily preclude the version in _Merlin's Mirror_.  This
may just be another view of his reign; or as scholars have suggested, many
Arthurs may have contributed to the final form of the legend.]
 
circa AD 300?: (_Merlin's Mirror_, 1975) A Star Lord beacon on Earth is
answered after thousands of years by a ship sent out at the end of the Star
Lord empire.  The ship sends out a flier to impregnate a suitable native
with Star Lord genetic material.  It is sensed by an ancient installation
of the Star Lords' enemy empire, who also activate a beacon, a ship and an
impregnation flier.  Thus, Myrddin, Arthur, and the Lady of the Lake,
Nimue, are all children of the Sky Peoples' gene banks but fated to oppose
one another.  Myrddin tries to bring the Star Lords and their knowledge
back to Earth while Nimue attempts to destroy this knowledge, believing it
will bring about horrible wars on Earth as it did before. Myrddin tries to
raise Arthur as a Star Lord, but Nimue locks him inside a
forcefield. Myrddin goes into a coldsleep box for 16 years. When he comes
out, he helps Arthur win the throne and aids his projects. [There is also a
nasty ref to the historian-monk Gildas; he is our only contemporary source,
and he had to return to Britain from his studies in Ireland because Arthur
killed his brother.] In the end, Arthur is nearly killed.  Myrddin brings
him back to the small Star Lord base and puts them both into coldsleep
until the beacon is answered by a Star Lord ship.  Since "The Sky Lords do
not measure time as we do...", it "...will be perhaps a hundred centuries
more before that beacon will have an answer, if it ever does." (MrM202)

in early medieval times: Sig has a magical vision that he is in
Scandinavia.  As Sig Clawhand, he tames Dapplegrim and fights the dragon
Fafnir.  [The legend of Sigurd, in other words.]  (DM)
 
771 - 814 AD: (_Huon of the Horn_, 1951) Charlemagne (Charles the Great)
rules over the Franks (parts of France and Germany).  He is served by good
knights like Sir Roland, Sir Oliver, and Sir Huon of the Horn.
 
The book _Huon of the Horn_ is a translation of the medieval French romance
of _Huon_.  It tells the tale of how Sir Huon was discredited by
treacherous political enemies, of how he saved his honor by achieving an
impossible quest among the Saracens, how he wooed and won Clarimonde who
was a princess of those Saracens, and how he achieved so much favor with
the Lord Oberon that he was made his heir when Oberon chose to go bodily to
Heaven, and how he dealt with Arthur's claim to the land of Avalon by
dividing its wardship between them two.
 
about the same time: (_Rogue Reynard_, 1947) Sir Reynard (the fox) uses his
wiles to gain unfairly from his fellow nobles (the animals). Eventually his
evil catches up with him, and he must face King Lion's judgement. The cycle
of beast fabliaux which Norton retells in this book is based (or at least
seriously influenced) by the series of legends about Charlemagne and his
knights, with King Lion as King Charles and Sir Reynard as Sir Ganelon (the
bad guy).

circa AD 1096: Prince-Bishop Odocar of Sternsberg goes on the First Crusade
with his twelve faithful followers.  Their adventures become
legend. Prince- Bishop Mangus, who later became Duke of Sternlitz, has
jeweled figurines made of the famous thirteen.  They are known as the
Bishop's Menie, and are considered the luck of the Sternlitz house.
Treasure hunters become an occupational hazard for the Dukes; even Napoleon
is rumored to have searched for them (ASP15).
 
parallel world, in the 1200's: the Mongols conquer Europe.  Norman, Breton,
Norse and Saxon refugees flee to the Icelandic colonies in Vinland. Their
descendants will intermarry with Indians from the Anasazi empires of the
southwest and found the nation of Ixanilia, which still thrives in the 20th
century (CoT44).
 
circa AD 1286, the planet Dominion of the Sun-Star Virgin, parallel
timetracks: (_Firehand_) In the 'original' track, the inhabitants of an
island area settle into a stable feudal society; about 200 years later they
have developed a psi gift to such an extent that they can fight the
Baldies. In the 'second' track, which leads to Dominion's burn-off, the
most powerful local lord conquers all the other lands under the stimulus of
the Baldies. His children cannot hold his conquests; local society
disintegrates; and the psi gene is present in too few persons to make a
difference. In the 'third' timetrack, the legendary guerrilla leaders
Rossin 'Firehand' A Murdoc, Eveleen EA Riordan, and the great healer Gordin
O Ashean warn the other lords of the ambitious one, lead the forces of
Sapphirehold for 2-3 years, and aid the final victory.  Their names live in
story into modern times.
 
parallel world E625, England, AD 1485: Richard III's last charge at the
Battle of Bosworth breaks through Lancastrian lines. He kills Henry Tudor
with his own hand. Once his throne is secure again, Richard shows himself
again as the ablest of Plantagenets. :)
 
circa AD 1486?, the planet Dominion of the Sun-Star Virgin: (FH) In the
'original' and 'third' track, the Baldies invade Dominion, but the
psi-gifted inhabitants are able to resist. Eventually the Baldies retreat,
and since their empire is in decay, they never return. The Baldies' ships
and tech are destroyed by the irate inhabitants; Dominion scientists regret
the loss of information.  However, this enables the Dominion to develop its
own tech. In 500 years, they have developed their own stardrive. It is
slow, but does not require journey tapes for navigation.  In the 'second'
track, they are turned into a radioactive cinder for resisting.
 
parallel world E625, England, AD 1487: Richard III remarries two years
after Bosworth. His Scottish princess provides him with a secure border and
(finally!) an heir. Richard and his immediate successors provide England
with prosperity and the good parts of the Renaissance 150 years before the
Tudors did. Richard also supports trade (he had learned its importance in
his youth when a refugee staying with English wool merchants). Ships go
from Bristol to new markets in Iceland; eventually they send 2 ships to
follow traders' tales to Vinland (QC80).

[During the Reformation: Prince-Bishop Mangus, head of an old military
order, breaks from the Roman Catholic Church and creates himself Duke of
Sternlitz.  He marries and founds the Sternlitz family.]
 
parallel world E625, AD 1505: Under Richard III, the 1st English furtrading
station is planted on the North American continent (QC80). Fur traders are
followed by fishermen, who are followed by settlers. The colonists spread
down the coast and eventually form the Nation of New Britain, a loosely
held member of England's empire.
 
circa 1500s: The Spanish take over the Florida Keys from the Indians.  The
key later known as Lost Lady Key, however, is occupied by an Aztec-like
civilization which the Indians join with the Spanish to destroy. [This
culture is inspired by ruins on Sanibel.] (OEF)
 
parallel world E625, July 7, AD 1520: Cortez, driven out of Mexico City by
angry Aztecs, is killed by an arrow during a battle near the village of
Otumba.  Cortez' men, demoralized by La Noche Triste and the retreat that
followed, are defeated. Most of them die as sacrifices. Quauhtemoc (sp?)
rules on (QC80) The Spanish presence in the New World is held to a few of
the West Indies, which Spain eventually abandons for lack of gold. The
Aztecs, hated by all their neighbors, were defeated by an alliance of their
subject peoples.  Some Aztec survivors flee to what in our world is the
southwestern US.

circa AD 1540: The first Lorens van Norreys goes East with his
possibly-unwilling bride (SID17).
 
parallel world E625, AD 1560: A leader arises in Central America who
unifies the tribes and revives legends of the 'white god', calling himself
Kukulcan the 2nd (QC81-82).

circa AD 1570: The first Lorens van Norreys comes home to the Netherlands
to die, bringing back a Malaysian boat, twelve sons, and a huge fortune
earned from his trading empire in the East Indies (SID17).  [Apparently,
this was the beginning of the wealth of the House of Norreys.]
 
circa AD 1580-1707: Hendrik van Norreys travels in India during the reign
of "the Great Mogul". (SID16).  Although the name refers to Babur
(d. 1530), the whole dynasty of kings is often known as 'the Great Moguls'.
Andre may be referring to the famed Akbar (in the 1550's - this woul make
him one of Lorens' sons, working on the original trade empire) but he
probably came in the 1600's, when the Dutch presence became more heavy and
the East India Company was formed.  Presumably, Hendrik was a son or
grandson of Lorens van Norreys.
 
circa AD 1603-1625: During the reign of King James I as the Pursuivants
hunt down Catholics, in a dream Nan and Chris find themselves working
against the persecutions (RHM).

parallel world E625, AD 1624: The Civil War in the area of the Toltec
Empire ends, and Kulkulcan the 2nd becomes undisputed ruler of the Toltec
Empire (QC100). He, his two sons, and their descendants rule an empire far
greater than the Aztecs. Mayan traders spread north, Aztec refugee colonies
were taken over, and most of western North America is slowly brought into
the Toltec Empire. New Britain and the Empire clash in 2 inconclusive wars,
with the Mississippi as their natural border (QC81-82).

circa AD 1660-1668: (_Follow the Drum: Being the Ventures and Misadventures
of one Johanna Lovell, Sometime Lady of Catkept Manor to Kent County of
Lord Baltimore's Proprietary of Maryland, in the Gracious Reign of King
Charles the Second_, 1942) A seventeenth century romance/swashbuckler.
Johanna Lovell (aka van der Lynn) goes to Maryland to find her missing
brother.  She cuts a swath through Maryland's society gentry, who are not
quite sure how to take such a venturesome young lady. She ends up
establishing a flourishing household and finds both true love and spiritual
independence.
 
circa AD 1660-1688: The Duke of Monmouth orders a necklace made for
Princess Mary of England, consort of William of Orange. [This is before she
took the throne with him as Mary II of England, so either Charles II or
James II is still King.]  It is made of soft gold flowers set with rubies,
emeralds and topaz, and known as "the Flowers of Orange" (SID58).  The
necklace is ugly, heavy, and rumored to bear a curse.
 
circa 1710: (_Scarface_, 1948) The story of Justin Blade, aka Scarface - a
boy pirate. Captain Jonathan Cheap battles Robert Scarlett. The final plot
twist is that Scarface is Scarlett's son.
 
circa 1737: 100 years before OEF, the pirate Satin- shirt Jack kills off
the Spanish settlers, takes over a key and claims a Spanish woman as his
prisoner. She kills him with a dagger disguised as a fan and disappears.
The key is named Lost Lady Key after her [OPF].
 
circa AD 1762: 75 years before OPF, Augustin Rooke is born.
 
circa late 1700's: The House of Norreys checks and cleans the Bishop's
Menie for Duke Ludwig of Sternlitz; then they lend him money with the Menie
as security. He pays part of the money back; the rest was probably forgiven
for some service which does not appear in the records (ASP20) The Menie was
returned to Sternlitz.
 
circa AD 1777: Lydia Wyllyses marries Joachim von Harrach, a young officer
of Hessian mercenaries, after the Battle of Saratoga.  He is also the
youngest of the Elector of Hesse- Dohna's heirs, although the number of
heirs preceding him make his succession unlikely (IB).
 
In the Revolutionary War: when the British withdraw from New York, Amos
Rooke leaves for the Bahamas with his sisters' dowry and sets up as a
wrecker.  Augustin Rooke, his nephew, is incensed when he hears; he has
been obtaining supplies for the Continental Army.  Also, one of Amos'
brothers (Augustin Rooke's father) is killed by the British as he fights
for the Continentals; and Augustin's grandfather died of fever in a British
prison.

circa AD 1781: Lydia Wyllyses Harrach is separated from her husband Joachim
when the elector's older heirs die and he is called home to Hesse-Dohna.
The elector declares his marriage to Lydia null and void according to
Hesse- Dohnan law (it remains in force in America, of course) and forces
him to marry a more politically influential wife (IB).
 
circa late 1700s: Lord Jeffery Ashely of Hob's Green got on the wrong side
of the resident hob and broke his neck shortly thereafter when his horse
stepped in a rabbit hole.  His widow offers the hob sugar cakes, cream, and
apologies at his stone; the hob forgives them and all goes well(NW).
 
parallel world, end of the 1700's: in a world where the Mongols conquered
Europe, the enamel artist Ming-Hawn flourishes in the North American nation
of Ixanilia (CoT44).
 
AD 1793: During the Revolution of 1793, the "Flowers of Orange" necklace
passed from the House of Orange (the royal house of the Netherlands) to the
House of Norreys to settle a debt (SID58)
 
AD 1795: The Mattock house is built on their farm, Red Springs, in Kentucky
(RPR12).
 
circa Napoleonic times: in yet another dream, Chris finds himself the son
of a Riding Officer in the days when smuggling was approved (RHM).
 
parallel world E625, AD 1810: England's parliament passes the
Diversification of 1810, which gives New Britain the power of home rule
(QC91).
 
circa AD 1812-1814: Amelia's father is killed in the War of 1812 [IB].
Also, Augustin Rooke runs a line of privateers against British shipping.
When the _Eagle_ takes one of his uncle Amos Rooke's ships, Amos' son James
is accidentally killed.  Amos blames Augustin [OPF].
 
circa AD 1825-1830?: (_Iron Butterflies_, 1980) Amelia Harrach is called to
Hesse-Dohna to claim what meager heritage her grandfather (now the elector)
can grant her.  When he dies, she is imprisoned by his enemies in a castle
haunted by an evil electoress\sorceress also once imprisoned
there. However, she manages to escape with a little good magic and Pryor
Fenwick, a Tory-descended officer who was imprisoned for his loyalty to her
grandfather.  They marry and return to Amelia's estate in Maryland.
 
circa Victorian times: As smuggling becomes less respectable, Chris dreams
that he is the son of the Red Hart's innkeeper (RHM).
 
AD 1837: (_The Opal-Eyed Fan_, 1977) When Persis Rooke and her uncle
Augustin are shipwrecked on Lost Lady Key, they are rescued by licensed
wrecker Captain Crewe Leverett. Then Augustin Rooke succumbs to his
injuries and Persis is forced to confront the witch Askra, a challenge to
her inheritance by a cousin she never knew, an attack on the Key by Ralph
Grillon, and the ghost of a Spanish lady who gives Persis an opal-eyed
'fan' [OPF].
 
circa 1840-1850?: (_The White Jade Fox_, 1979) Saranna Stowell is sent to
take care of her cousin Damaris Stowell.  There she confronts the legacy of
her uncle, a successful trader in the Orient, and meets his secret wife, a
foxwoman (kitsune) who helps her save the house and family from those who
would destroy them.
 
AD 1859: (_Stand to Horse_, 1956) Set in the American Southwest.
 
circa late 1800s: ("Noble Warrior" in _Catfantastic_, 1989) Emmiline is
staying with her great-aunt, Lady Ashely, at her estate of Hob's Green
while her father is in Siam.  She is happy there until Miss Wyker comes to
stay; Wyker and Dr.  Riggs drug Lady Amelie Ashely, isolate her from her
friends, plot to declare Emmy insane, and rule the house.  But Emmy's luck
changes when her father sends her Thragun Neklop - 'Noble Warrior'- a
princess-guarding Siamese cat who senses the evil in Miss Wyker, and when
the cook summons the hob to 'clean house'.  Emmy manages to get into her
great-aunt's room and tell her what's been going on.  Lady Ashely writes a
note to her vicar, but just as she finishes, Miss Wyker comes in.  She sees
Emmy and takes her downstairs to lock her in the cellar, but Thragun Neklop
attacks her and makes her unhand Emmy, and the hob pulls her skirt so that
she falls downstairs and breaks her neck. (The story is continued in
Catfantastic 2 & 3.)
 
June 23, 1861 AD: Lizzy and Matthew Mendal disappear in plain sight in the
middle of an open field from directly under the eye of their father and the
local doctor ("The Long Night of Waiting", BAN97-8).
 
AD 1862: A year later, Mrs. Mendal hears Matthew's voice in the field.
Later, Mr. Mendal hears it too.  Then his voice fades away.  They never
hear it again ("The Long Night of Waiting", BAN98-9)
 
May, AD 1864: (_Ride Proud, Rebel_, 1961) Drew Rennie rides in Morgan's
cavalry and is joined by his cousin Boyd, while the rest of his family
supports the Union. (This is after Morgan's Raid on Ohio and escape from
prison there, during the latter part of his campaign in Kentucky.) The book
covers Morgan's crossing of the Tennessee River and follows on to the end
of the Civil War. At that point, Drew finally learns that his father is
still alive and living in Arizona; so he goes to find him.
 
circa AD 1865 - 1866: (_Rebel Spurs_, 1962) Drew Rennie goes out to Arizona
and finds his father, presumably.
 
circa AD 1870?: (_Velvet Shadows_, 1977) Tamaris Penfold is hired by Alain
Sauvage as a companion for his half-sister Victorine. Victorine proves to
be leagued with D'Lys, an evil voodoo priest, in an attempt to control San
Francisco through blackmail and threats.  However, they find that Mary
Ellen "Mammy" Pleasant (an actual historical figure) is already doing this
in a more neutral manner and is angered to encounter rivals.  Tamaris,
aided by Pleasant and Sauvage, manages to defeat their evil.  Victorine and
D'Lys flee San Francisco; Pleasant continues to rule San Francisco; Tamaris
marries Sauvage.
 
About the same time, Datu Cooms, an ex-Confederate naval officer, begins to
be a power of both trade and piracy in the islands of the Sulu Archipelago
(SiS51).
 
Also about the same time, in the aftermath of the Franco- Prussian War, the
Duchy of Sternlitz is annexed by Belgium (it was formerly an autonomous
part of the Netherlands).  Duke Ludwig Carlos, an explorer, does not seem
heartbroken to be relieved of the responsibilities of rule (ASP19).
 
parallel world, Empire of Amun, circa AD 1876?: 100 years before WoT, Chaka
rallies the people of the Nome of the Elephant in a rebellion which lasts
two years before it is suppressed by the Pharaoh Unie. [Chaka rallied the
Zulu to resist the English in our world.] (WoT197)
 
circa AD 1890: Abdul Hakroun, believed to be a descendant of the Sulu
sultans, also becomes a power in the Sulus (SiS53).  He only lost a trading
war once - with Datu Cooms (SiS51-53).
 
circa AD 1890-99: Ludwig Carlos, the Duke of Sternlitz, disappears
somewhere around the Gobi Desert.  He is rumored to have been killed by
natives.  Since no descendants of his are known, the line is declared
extinct.  (ASP20) In reality, he had married the Lady Mei, a Manchu of the
old Imperial House, before he died.  His son rules the local clans more by
virtue of his mother's blood than his father's.
 
June 23, 1900: The Mendals erect a stone where their children disappeared,
hoping still that they will come back ("The Long Night of Waiting", BAN97)
 
parallel world E625, circa AD 1910: the end of the second war between New
Britain and the Toltec Empire. A period of armed neutrality follows for the
next 50 years, during which the Empire has trouble with the frontier in the
north and Russian colonists in the West (QC82).
 
parallel world E625, AD 1912: The lords of the Toltec Empire attempt an
uprising, which is quickly suppressed (QC90).
 
circa AD 1934: (_The Prince Commands_, 1934) Michael Karl, raised in
America, learns that he is really the Crown Prince of Morvania.  He goes
there, is captured by the Werewolf (a bandit), then escapes and is rescued
by "Frank Ericson" - whom he tells only that he is a member of the Crown
Prince's court.  Soon he learns that 'Frank Ericson' is not the American
writer he pretends to be - he is actually a leader of the Royalist party
which is secretly planning to make the previous Crown Prince Urlich Karl,
whom they believe is still alive, the King of Morvania.  Michael Karl joins
their cause (with some reluctance); but just before the day of the planned
uprising, the Royalists in the capitol learn that one of their supporters
has sold them out.  Michael Karl rides out to warn the Royalists in the
countryside of the danger.  He finds them in the camp of the Werewolf, who
turns out to be no other than the missing Urlich Karl - who Michael Karl
knew as 'Frank Ericson'.  Michael Karl leads the regiment which is his
hereditary responsibility through the battle to capture the capitol, and
manages to capture the greatest of the King's enemies.  After a great deal
of clean-up, King Urlich Karl is crowned, the bad guys are legally dealt
with, and Prince Michael Karl decides to stay and serve his new country and
king.
 
The werewolf legends which are capitalized on by Urlich Karl in this book
(and which are probably courtesy of Montague Summers' famous book of
werewolf lore) show up later in other were stories, primarily in _The
Jargoon Pard_.
 
circa late 1930's: Both in our world and Andre's, the Cleveland Press World
Friends' Club was founded to create understanding among different cultures
by having children from Cleveland, Ohio become pen pals with children from
around the world (SID, Foreword).
 
circa AD 1936-37: Abdul Hakroun 'retires' (SiS53). His sons carry on the
business on a smaller scale, under their father's watchful eye.  The
Japanese do not interfere with them (SiS51).
 
circa AD 1938: (_Ralestone Luck_, 1938) A down & out family move back to
their ancestral home (Pirate's Haven in Louisiana) and search for their
lost family talisman.
 
March 10, 1939: Simon Tregarth enlists in the US Army.  He will rise
through the ranks, receive a battlefield promotion from sergeant to
lieutenant, and eventually reach the rank of lieutenant-colonel before
being court-martialed (WW8).
 
September 1939: Germany invades Poland, and World War II begins.
 
May 19, 1940: (_The Sword Is Drawn_, 1944) Rotterdam falls, Joris van
Norreys dies, the necklace called "the Flowers of Orange" is placed in a
safe which cannot be opened for two years, the ancient mansion of the
Norreys family burns after a German bomber crashes on it, and Lorens van
Norreys, heir to the wealth and power of the House of Norreys, sets off for
Java, a Dutch territory which is still free.
 
June 2, 1940: (_The Sword Is Drawn_, 1944) Lorens writes to his friend
Lawrence in America, telling him the combination of the safe in which the
Flowers of Orange is hidden and asking him to tell the Free Dutch about it
if he should be killed.  He then heads for Java, a Dutch territory which is
still free, where his cousin Piet van Norreys manages the Singapore-Java
Airline.
 
May-June 1940: Dunkirk.
 
parallel world, August 1940: Germany begins round-the-clock air attacks
(The Battle of Britain). In this world, almost all British airfields are
destroyed by the end of September.  The English used their fleet to attempt
withdrawal to Canada; some soldiers and civilians escape (CoT155).
 
parallel world, October 1940: The US sends some ships to aid the British
withdrawal. But on October 10, the Battle of the Channel began, along with
the battle for the Channel Islands.  On October 15, Japan attacked the US
with waves of carrier- based planes all along the West Coast. San
Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles were laid waste. The US attempted to
bring back its naval ships from England. Japan took the Pacific.  Australia
was invaded and its forces driven to the outback.  Southern California and
Alaska were invaded as well. The US drove Japan back to the sea, only to be
attacked on the East Coast by German raiders.(CoT155)
 
Eventually, the Nazis bombed and invaded Canada and New York.  Americans
and Free British fought the Nazis street by street.  When Hitler conquered
London, he flew there with Nazi leaders and made a victory speech. In the
middle of the speech, Hitler was interrupted by a massive no-return Allied
bombing raid.  He never did get back on the air.... :) (CoT152)
 
December 8, 1941: (SID49, 75) On the same day as Pearl Harbor (across the
international dateline), Java is invaded. Piet and Lorens van Norreys
destroy their secret airfield in Sumatra.
 
April 8, 1942: (SID49-115) Lorens writes from Sydney to tell his friend
Lawrence how he reached Australia back in December or January; he'd been
too weak to write till then.
 
April 21, 1942: (SID117) Lorens writes from America to Lawrence as he races
from Sydney to Rotterdam to retrieve the Flowers of Orange.
 
June 1942: (SID155) Lorens writes from London to tell Lawrence what
happened and that he is going back to the Netherlands again to join the
resistance.
 
circa AD 1945: The Soviets take Manchuria from the Japanese.  The Duke of
Sternlitz and his heir attempt twice to escape to the coast but fail
(ASP238)
 
Spring, AD 1945: Lorens van Norreys is released from a German prison camp
by Allied forces.  He writes to his friend Lawrence Kane, but his letters
are returned because Kane is part of Operation Lincoln. Norreys assumes
that Kane is dead (SID37).  At the same time, Captain Boone, his second-in
command Lieutenant Lawrence Kane,Master-Sergeant Sam Marusaki, and others
participate in Operation Lincoln, the brainchild of Colonel Thurston.  They
successfully liberate a secret Japanese POW slave camp and sub base in the
Sulu Archipelago (SiS14).
 
circa 1945-46: Lorens van Norreys helps restore art treasures looted by the
Nazis to their rightful owners.  The records of the House of Norreys, which
contain exact records of many famous gems, are a great help in this work.
 
At about the same time, many famous war criminals disappear, evading
capture thanks to the peculiar services of Dr.  Jorge Petronius (WW13).
 
circa AD 1946: ("By a Hair" in _High Sorcery_, 1970) After the Soviets take
over a small Baltic country, Dagmar Kark betrays her husband Ivor, a
Resistance leader, to Colonel Andrei Varoff.  When she goes to Mald and the
Countess Ana for help in getting a son for Varoff, they use their magic to
ensure that she bears her dead husband's child.  Varoff kills Dagmar and
himself, but the boy survives to be raised by the Countess Ana, his true
mother.
 
About the same time: (_Sword in Sheath_, 1949) 6 months after their
discharge from the OSS at the end of WWII, Lawrence Kane and Sam Marusaki
travel to Malaysia to find a downed pilot and (unofficially) to be another
set of eyes for the US.  Kane is astonished to find that his pen pal,
Lorens van Norreys, after working for the resistance and getting sent to a
camp, is alive, well, and trying to start up the new House of Norreys.
Piet died in his plane on a mission to Arnhem. (SiS37-38) Kane, Marusaki
and Norreys travel together on the _Sumba_, a Dutch freighter.  After
learning the fate of the pilot and rooting out a nest of holdout German and
Japanese higher- ups, they form a company with Abdul Hakroun, the native
islanders and the crew of the _Sumba_ to exploit the pearl beds and other
wealth of 'the Forbidden Place' (SiS220-221). Kane and Marusaki ponder
Norreys' job offer (SiS222).
 
circa AD 1946-1954: Kane and Marusaki accept Norreys' job offer; Lorens van
Norreys moves to New York and re- establishes the House of Norreys as a
force in the world of gems.  His success is due in large part to his skill
as a jewelry designer.  One of his most famous designs, the cupid and imp,
was conceived while in hiding on his quest for the Flowers of Orange
(SID184).  Meanwhile Norreys, Marusaki, and Kane draw upon old Resistance
contacts both shady and respectable to create a new, unofficial
organization which fights the Cold War.
 
circa AD 1950?: ("Through a Needle's Eye", in HS,1970) Miss Ruthevan sews
herself into her own private world.
 
circa AD 1953?: The Duke of Sternlitz and his heir attempt to escape from
Communist Mongolia through Tibet.  They fail and are captured.  The Duke is
killed while being questioned as to the hidingplace of the Bishop's Menie.
His son Frederick Floris Pieter Sternlitz, unaware of his father's death,
is told that if he gives the Soviets the Menie his father will be spared
(ASP238) He agrees and goes with them to the Netherlands and Belgium.
 
circa AD 1954?: (_At Swords' Points_, 1954) Quinn Odocar Anders planned to
go to the Netherlands and finish a book left unfinished by his dead father,
Dr. Wilson Anders.  Before he can leave, his brother Stark, an intelligence
agent for the US, is killed suspiciously.  At his dead brother's request,
Quinn Anders brings Lorens van Norreys a souvenir sent just before his
brother was killed.  When it proves to be part of the Bishop's Menie, a
famous collection of jeweled figurines from the forgotten Duchy of
Sternlitz on which his dead father was writing a book, Anders persuades
Norreys to help him find the men who killed his brother and the rest of the
Menie.  He is aided in his quest by Marusaki and Kane, as well as the
secret organization of which the House of Norreys is a part.  He also ends
up restoring the rightful Duke of Sternlitz to his kin as well as finishing
his father's book on Prince-Bishop Odocar.
 
Around the same time, Colonel Simon Tregarth is tricked into dealing with
the black market while a part of American occupation forces. He is
court-martialed, put in prison, and stripped of his commission. When he is
released, he returns to Europe and becomes involved in organized crime
there. [Possibly the same organization with which Lorens has connections.]
(WW8)
 
circa AD 1956: (_The Crossroads of Time_, 1956) Blake Walker, a native of
Columbus, Ohio, travels to New York City [where else would they name a
street Patroon Place? (CoT55)] to go to art school at Havers. He has a
premonition of danger and opens his hotel room door to find a man about to
be shot. Blake saves the man's life and is led to believe he is an FBI
agent. Eventually he learns that the man and his fellows are actually
Wardsmen from Vroom, an alternate Earth which has the secret of crosstime
travel. Blake assists them in countering the megalomaniac plans of the
renegade Wardsman Pranj, is captured by Pranj, and escapes crosstime to
several different parallel worlds. He eventually finds the Wardsmen again;
they capture Pranj and bring Blake back to Vroom. Blake enters into
training as a Wardsman.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

AD 1957 - 2000: The Space Age begins

 
October 4, 1957: _Sputnik I_ is launched.  A month later, _Sputnik II_ (aka
'Muttnik', _The Time Traders_, p. 41) is launched with a dog named Laika on
board.  The US answered the Soviets and a space race began.  But in the
Andreverse, there were two huge crashes on the Moon (probably caused by the
fact that mechanical pilots or ones inferior to Armstrong were used) and a
space station that didn't stay in orbit.  After that, both the US and USSR
stayed out of space for the next 25 years (ibid, p. 41) Spaceflight was
largely discredited (ibid, p. 162) However, atomic energy seems to be more
widely used than in our universe for all sorts of things.  Also atom-jets
that look like rockets are used by the military for speedy intercontinental
flights.
 
circa AD 1959?: Infra-red photography is developed 20 years before
_Galactic Derelict_ takes place; its development is skewed towards using it
to photograph the past.  By _Galactic Derelict's time, the infra-red
Vis-Tex machines' film was so sensitive that it could pick up objects
removed from the area a week before (ibid, p. 22).
 
parallel world Vroom, circa AD 1960?: (_Quest Crosstime, 1960) 3 - 4 years
after Blake Walker arrived on Vroom (CoT242), he is sent on a routine
crosstime run to a barren level to deliver supplies and check on the Rogan
sisters for his superiors. There his danger sense flares.  He meets Marfy
Rogan and learns that her twin Marva has disappeared and the station
scientists are hiding things.  When Marva is taken to another level, he
flees to Vroom with Marfy. Then the Wardsmen send Com Varlt, Pague Lo
Sigue, Blake and Marfy to New Britain to search telepathically for
Marva. They end up tangling with the radical Limiters who attempt to take
over Vroom.
 
Vroom's economy depends on trade with parallel worlds; so much of it was
blasted in the atomic wars that only a string of habitable oases
remains. Vacations on empty levels are allowed to ordinary citizens (QC12).
 
New Britain (parallel world) tech: electric vehicles, lowflying 'wings',
sonic barrier, light rods. The current Toltec Emperor is the boy Mayatzin.
 
circa AD 1963?: (_Witch World_, 1963) After seven years outside the law,
and after getting into very deep trouble with the crime organization to
which he belongs by crossing Hanson, Simon Tregarth is marked for
death. Then Dr. Jorge Petronius, the contemporary Guardian of the Siege
Perilous, offers Simon a way out - passage to the world most suitable to
Simon through the gate of the Siege Perilous.  Simon finds himself in the
Witch World and passes out of this chronology. [Btw, a similarly powered
Siege Perilous has appeared in the Marvel Universe, courtesy of Chris
Claremont.  But it made the X-Men lose their memories and their powers as
well as transporting them to places suitable to their character.][And did
it ever occur to you that when Simon fights evil in the Witch World, he is
symbolically fighting evil in his soul?]
 
circa AD 1965?: (_Fur Magic_, 1965 in _The Magic Books_) After his father
is posted to Air Rescue in Vietnam, Cory Alder is sent to Idaho to spend
the summer on his Nez Perce' foster-uncle's ranch.  After he touches a
medicine beaverskin by mistake, a Nez Perce' shaman sends him into a spirit
dream where he is a beaver in an alternate world where only talking beasts
live.  He fights the Changer (Coyote) and wins back to the world.  This
book also mentions that the Changer is due to 'turn over the world' around
the year 2000 (FM18), so that's probably the year of the Big Blow-Up.  I
have reckoned by the Mayan calendar's "end of the world" for this part.
 
circa AD 1967?: (_Operation Time Search_, 1967) A secret US government
project called Operation Atlantis attempts to travel between universes at
an old Indian mound in Ohio.  Unfortunately, photographer Ray Osborne
blunders through it into the past of an alternate universe where two world
powers, Atlantis and Mu, fight for the world with science and psi.  The
project attempts to find and draw him back to their 'window' with a
mind-seeker beam, but Osborne has become too much a part of that universe
and cannot return.  The project is suspended for fear the same thing would
always happen, as Mu and Atlantis pop back up from the sea.  Later, the
cross-universe experiments apparently led to time travel.
 
Also in that year: (_Steel Magic_, aka _Grey Magic_, 1967) Sara, Greg, and
Eric Lowry are staying at Tern Manor with their Uncle Mac while their
father is in Japan on special duty with their mother. Tern Manor was built
by the rich Mr.  Brosius, and they are drawn through a castle-shaped folly
he built and into the land of Avalon. There they meet Huon of the Horn, the
Lady Claramonde, Arthur Pendragon, and Merlin Ambrosius.  They go on
separate quests to retrieve Excalibur, the Horn, and Merlin's Ring, and
thus win back the three lost lands of Avalon from the forces of the Dark.
 
circa AD 1968: (_Octagon Magic_, 1968 in _The Magic Books_) Lorrie Mallard,
a Canadian, is sent to stay with her Aunt Margaret in the US while her
grandmother recovers from an operation in England.  She sees the same boys
who bully her tormenting a cat, rescues it, and escapes into the yard of
Octagon House.  The cat's owners, Miss Charlotta Ashmeade and Hallie,
invite her to come over; they mend her antique china doll when the neighbor
girl breaks it.  She learns many things there; but she also finds that
through a dollhouse replica of the house, the past and present can mix.
When a thruway comes to demolish the house, Miss Ashmeade, Hallie, and the
other inhabitants of the house shut themselves into the pocket universe of
the dollhouse, which is given to Lorrie to keep until she has a house of
her own for them to live in.  [Miss Ashmeade's magic is similar to that of
Miss Ruthevan in "Through the Needle's Eye", but much brighter in
intention.]
 
before the end of the Vietnam war: (_Lavender-Green Magic_, 1973) Three
siblings are sent to live with relatives in Massachusetts.  There they go
through a hedge maze into the Pilgrim\colonial past and meet an
herbalist\witch who helps them.  They have various adventures there that
ensure their town's survival in the present.
 
Parallel world circa AD 1970: (_Sea Siege_, 1957) 25 years after Hiroshima
(SS79), Griffith Gunston wants to go to the Air Force Academy and learn to
fly jets.  [Atom-jets?]  But he is still stuck on the Caribbean island of
San Isadore with his father's scientific team when the first big atomic war
occurs.  Then they learn that the mysterious disappearances of ships and
subs and destruction of coastal cities which helped touch off the war were
caused by hostile kraken, 'sea serpents', octopi and other mutant sea
creatures.  They manage to survive storms and the sea's attack, rescue the
survivors of a Russian sub, find safe ways to fish and travel in this new
world, plan to find ways to communicate with the kraken, and hope someday
to find out what happened on the mainland.  [In this world, the US is part
of the "Western Confederation", not the "Western Alliance\Conference".
Atomic generators and floodlights are available, though high-tech.]
 
Somewhere around this time in the mainline Andreverse, scientists and
techneers frustrated by security regulations which approached "a form of
'peonage'" (TSAO5) created a secret underground movement.  They eventually
formed "Free Scientist" teams, high-tech mercenaries who impartially sold
their services to any industry or government that offered.
 
Parallel world AD 1971: Lizzy and Matthew Mendal find their way out of the
Folk's world and back to Earth.  There they meet Lesley, Rick and Alex, who
show them the modern world.  They are appalled to see developers preparing
to build an apartment house right over the gate. Lizzy and Matt do spells
they learned beyond the gate to prevent the developers from doing this (to
prevent all those people slipping by accident into the Folk's world).  Then
Lesley, Rick and Alex are made carriers of the Folk's world into theirs, so
that eventually their world and the Folk's will be become one again and the
rule of iron will end.  [If this was attempted in the mainline Andreverse,
obviously the Folk's plan must have been thwarted.]
 
circa AD 1972: (_Dragon Magic_, 1972) Each of four boys who are teased
about their ethnicity go into an old house and assemble a dragon jigsaw
puzzle.  When they do, each has a vision of a legend from his ancestral
culture connected with dragons.  At the end, they are better able to
appreciate their heritage, and thus able to respect each other enough to be
friends.
 
circa AD 1973: (_Here Abide Monsters_, 1973) Nick Shaw, Linda Durant, and a
Pekinese named Lung Hsin pass through a strange fog and into an alternate
world where legendary monsters and the 'Gentry' are real.  They find other
humans, some of which have been there since the turn of the century, and
fight with them against this hostile world.  They then find that this land
is called Avalon, but this is not the same Avalon as that inhabited by Huon
and Arthur in _Steel Magic_.  They also find aliens, strangers to the land
who are drawing off the power of Avalon.  They help Avalon to fight off the
aliens and win the freedom of Avalon while still remaining human.
 
Parallel universe circa AD 1974: (_Knave of Dreams_, 1974) Ramsay Kimble, a
part-Iroquois man, has strange dreams. His friend Greg Howell was part of
the local university's Dream Project, which is experimenting with dream
telepathy; he encourages Ramsay to write down his dreams.  Then Ramsay is
killed in a car accident caused by psi and drawn into the parallel universe
of Ulad, a world where Indians set up their own kingdoms, to take the place
of his twin, Prince Kaskar, who is controlled by the unscrupulous High
Chancellor Ochall.  When Ramsay dies, so will Kaskar, without any sign of
foul play.  However, he is rescued by the Duchess Thecla of Olyroun, a
small independent country which the Empress wants joined to Ulad through
marriage. He aids Olyroun against Ulad and Ochall.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Time Travel and the First Starships 
 
circa AD 1975: Seven years before _The Time Traders_ begins, the US rescued
an agent from East Berlin.  He was almost dead, but he lived long enough to
tape-record information about the Soviets' time-travel experiment and the
starship they had found. It was almost dismissed, but the scientists who
analyzed his data thought it might be true (TT42).
 
The same year: A rod of office is found in a strange Meroean site near Lake
Chad by Dr. Lewis Brooke.  He dies later - an 'accidental' death caused by
meddling from an alternate universe where the Empire of Amun (descended
from the Nubian kingdom of Meroe) rules Africa with great knowledge of
science and psi.
 
circa AD 1976: (_The Wraiths of Time_, 1976) A year after Dr.  Lewis Brooke
discovers the strange rod of office, an ankh emitting an unknown form of
radiation is found and brought to a university for evaluation. Tallahassee
Mitford, a young archaeologist, is pulled into the parallel universe when
the Princess Ashake draws her and the two artifacts are brought together;
she is unable to return.
 
In the same year: (_Red Hart Magic_, 1976) When the parents of Chris
Mallory and Nan Smith marry each other, they go to visit their 'Aunt
Elizabeth'.  Chris buys a model of the Red Hart, an English inn, and it
gives both dreams of working together in adventures in the English past.
In the present, they both face peer pressure and learn to fight it.
 
circa AD 1978: Tales began circulating about coyotes near the White Sands
atomic testing grounds which had near- supernatural cunning.  Zoologists
investigated and found mutant coyotes with improved eyes, ears, noses and
intelligence - coyotes which were no longer just animals.  They brought
back six cubs which were raised and bred to help humans (TDA19). Their
grandchildren were sent to Topaz. [This date is based on my estimate of the
length of time it would take a coyote to be old enough to mate.]
 
Also in that year (_Quag Keep_, 1978), certain Dungeons and Dragons players
were brought to the world of Greyhawk by special figures made by a group of
amoral cross-universe psychic travelers; they were put into the bodies of
the actual people who had given them the idea for their characters.  The
purpose was to draw as many gamers into Greyhawk as possible, thus bringing
Greyhawk and Earth (already close enough that Gary Gygax could psychically
perceive and thus 'create' Greyhawk) very close together indeed - probably
with the purpose of drawing power from the magic of one and the science of
the other.  The gaming group succeeded in throwing off the control of the
evil travelers, journeyed to Quag Keep, and overthrew them; but they never
returned to their own world, and what happened to their bodies is unknown.
 
circa AD 1979: Five years before _The Time Traders_, the USSR comes out
with its first rootless discovery. (TT41)
 
circa AD 1979?: (_Snow Shadow_, 1979) Erica Jansen is invited to stay at
the Austins' beautiful house, Northanger Abbey, but finds herself enmeshed
in a web of greed, intrigue, revenge, and murder.
 
That same year: A plane of the Verdane expedition, of which Gregory Farson
is a part, goes off-course and sees a thick bluish haze off in the distance
which rises from the ice-plain to the sky.  They are too low on fuel to
investigate.  They note that the haze affects radio, creating strange
static that sounds almost like someone speaking a foreign language. ("Garin
of Tav" in GtE10-11).
 
circa AD 1980: Submarine frames are transferred whole through time to
various outpost-times.  This is the biggest transfer until the alien
starship two years later (GD).
 
In the same year: (_Star Ka'at_, [w. Madler] 1980) The Ka'ats send a
mission to Earth to retrieve "kin" who had earlier colonized the planet;
they foresee a disaster [probably nuclear war] and want their people well
out of the way.  Tiro and Mer make mental contact with Jim Evans and Elly
Mae Brown.  The children eventually see too much and must be taken back to
the home planet. There they are reluctantly accepted as 'mind-kin' to Tiro
and Mer. [This may take place closer to the Big Blow-up; until I am able to
read this, I will assume it took place at its copyright date.]
 
AD 1982: (_The Time Traders_, 1958) At this time, multiple offenders can be
assigned to the new Rehabilitation Service for the 'treatment'.  Ross
Murdock is given a choice between that or 'volunteering' for a secret
government project.  Being sane, he volunteers and finds himself traveling
up to the Arctic in an atom-jet (a low- flying rocket) to join Project
Retrograde and explore the past.  He is persuaded by another 'volunteer',
Kurt Vogel, to escape together; but when he realizes Kurt is a spy for the
USSR, Ross knocks Kurt out and drives their 'cat' back to the project base.
 
The project leaders then inform Ross that they had begun the project
because, after a long stalemate, the USSR had suddenly begun using new
technology within the past five years (TT41) which had no traceable prior
developments behind it. They were able to duplicate and use one piece of
technology; the others they could not. (TT42).  When put together with a
dying agent's recording from seven years earlier, they had concluded that
the Soviets had contacted a past civilization more advanced than their own.
Operation Retrograde was intended to find this source and either use it for
the US or close it from everyone (TT43).
 
When Murdock finishes training, he travels with Gordon Ashe through time to
approximately 2000 BC (TT135) where they found a Soviet outpost and
traveled further back in time to a wrecked alien starship from the
civilization of the 'Baldies'.  Later, they learned from tapes they
captured that the Soviets had first excavated a small spaceship in Siberia.
Since they already had the basic idea of time travel (ibid, p. 219, and
probably as a development of travel into parallel worlds), they went into
the past to find other crashed starships.  When the aliens found out, they
tried to destroy the Soviets' time travel program because they wanted to
prevent others from learning the secret of interstellar ftl travel.  Of
course, ftl is exactly what both the US and USSR projects decided to go
after!
 
circa AD 1983: (_Galactic Derelict_, 1959) A few months after TT, the
action moves to Arizona in one of the few deserts which has not been turned
into farmland with irrigation.  Travis Fox can't remember when there wasn't
a 'war scare' going on, but after a big explosion in the Baltics [the
Baldies blowing up the Soviet time-travel project], new tension was felt
and new fuel rationing begun, so that 'copters [apparently the pick-up
truck of this time] were replaced by horses except in emergencies (GD8).
Fox goes to visit the Canyon of the Hohokam and finds Ross Murdock and
Gordon Ashe there.  He recognizes Ashe as one of his old prof's friends;
Ashe tests him and finds out he's a "time-guesser".  Fox knows of the
existence of experimental time viewers like the infrared Vis-Tex (ibid,
p. 22), but is startled to learn that practical time travel has been
established.  A wrecked alien starship has been found 12,000 years ago in
the canyon; and Fox is recruited to come with Ashe and Ross to retrieve it
from the past.  Unfortunately, when the starship is returned to their time,
it sets off the starship's engine and previously set course - with Fox,
Ross, Ashe, and a technician on board.  They travel ftl to the ship's base,
meeting scavenger creatures which are either the mutant descendants of the
Baldie empire's people or their rats along the way.  At the base, the meet
sentient flying creatures which they believe to be descended from the
Baldies' pets.  They see many wonders of science and art in the ruins as
well.  Finally they manage to refuel the starship and go back to Earth.
 
circa AD 1985: (_The Defiant Agents_, 1962) The landing of the starship
could not be hidden.  [Publicly, it was probably explained as the first
flight to Luna and credited to the stimulus of the Free Scientists, since
the first successful flights to Luna, Mars and Venus are so credited in an
excerpt from the _Encyclopedia Galactica_ (TSAO5). Or Free Scientist
stimulus may have been needed _because_ the powers were focused on a 'time
race' and ignoring space.]  Since the intelligence data collected by other
governments would obviously disprove this, necessity dictated that the
existence of the alien wrecks be revealed to them.] The course tapes were
shared by lot among several nations, including the USSR.  [This was perhaps
the forerunner of the later Survey auctions run by the Galactic Patrol.]
Using the course tapes from the alien base and the ftl drive principles of
the alien spaceship, the US begins to explore and colonize the stars.
Unfortunately, they don't realize until it is almost too late that a
sleeper agent in the program has transmitted the same information to the
USSR.  [By this time, there is a 'Star Laboratory' - perhaps the site
known later as the 'Star Hall' - and the 'Western Conference Space Council'
controls the project's budget and planning.]
 
So, in an attempt to prevent the Soviets from taking over a prospective
colony planet, a crew of Apache colonists is hurriedly shipped to Topaz in
what is called Operation Cochise.  Unfortunately, it is agreed also that
they should be treated with the Redax, a machine which reproduces ancient
attitudes as well as ancient knowledge in its subjects. They also bring
along mutant coyotes, descendants of coyotes who wandered into the atomic
test areas at White Sands. [Fox later names them Nalik'ideyu (Maiden Who
Walks Ridges) and Naginlta (He Who Scouts Ahead).]
 
Upon arrival, the pilots find that the USSR has left killer satellites in
orbit to guard the planet.  Thanks to an experimental feature of the ship,
the colony ship survives, but a bad landing kills all the crew and 27 of
the colonists.  The coyotes promptly escape to the outside, but the
colonists (thanks to the Redax) experience extreme mental problems.  Travis
Fox discovers that the Soviet colony is already present on Topaz; they were
similarly Redax'd and believe themselves Mongols of the Golden Horde.  A
psi machine was used to control them, but they escaped its range.  The
Apaches and Mongols join together to defeat the Soviet forces and agree to
guard the Forerunner ruins from either side until such time as all are wise
enough to deal with them.
 
circa AD 1986: (_Key Out of Time_, 1963) When the colony ship does not
return from Topaz, the colonists are presumed lost and Topaz is abandoned.
Ross Murdock, guilt- ridden, almost leaves the project.  He and Gordon Ashe
insist upon joining the second group of colonists as they head for the
planet Hawaika six months later.  When they get there, they find that time
and tectonics have so changed the place that it is unrecognizable from the
maps found with the course tapes.  Also, no intelligent beings live there,
although they were supposed to be.  So Ashe, Murdock, Karara Trehern and
her dolphins search for a place in which a time probe would be useful.
Unfortunately, they end up falling through the gate into the past of that
world and change that past.  They fear they have created an alternate
universe by their actions, and prepare to live out their lives there. [The
Hawaika colony survives, btw, and is mentioned in later books (ZS18)].
 
slightly parallel world? that same year?: (_Firehand_, w.  Griffin, 1994)
When an entire alien civilization suddenly appears from nowhere in the
middle of the Hawaika colony, the colonists figure out that it's the result
of time agents at work.  [And how you can shield your memories from time
changes that happened upstream is _not_ explained, but then it wasn't
explained in the original books either.] They send a message to that effect
on the transport ship, and the US sends back a team including Eveleen
Riordan to rescue Ashe and Murdock. Karara and the dolphins had to stay,
since Karara had written a history that told what happened, enabling the
Corps to find their missing Time agents - and since a race of dolphins swam
the waters of the new version of Hawaika.
 
Ashe, Murdock, and Riordan are then sent on a mission to the Dominion of
the Sun-Star Virgin, a planet populated by the descendants of primitive
Terrans snatched from Earth by a pre-Baldie star civilization [possibly the
Star Lords].  Terra (or at least the US) had begun trade negotiations with
the Dominion; their technology was not as high as Terra's in some areas,
but they had psi and a stardrive developed independently of the Baldies
which could travel (slowly) to destinations without a journey tape. In the
middle of negotiations, however, the Terrans found themselves standing on a
burned-off world! The Baldies had destroyed the planet several hundred
years ago, instead of (in the original way of things) being beaten off by
the psi- gifted population.
 
So, the mission assigned to Ashe, Murdock, and Riordan was to go back 710
years to an area of the planet where the psi originally developed and
prevent the local gene pool from being destroyed by a war begun by the most
powerful of the local lords.  Murdock finds himself in command of the
mission as he convinced the locals that guerrilla warfare would allow them
to survive, with Eveleen as his second and Ashe posing as a physician. He
gets the name 'Firehand' because of the scars left on his hand from his
method of resisting Baldie mind control in TT. The Time agents spend 2-3
years on Dominion, with Murdock finding himself more and more comfortable
with the role of leader instead of follower, picking up a new father figure
in the local lord he serves, and discovering that he loves Eveleen.
Finally their side wins; then they find and face the Baldies who turned out
to be behind the whole war. They find that the Baldies (who are hundreds of
years in the future of their civilization) are using copies of the Russian
time grids they captured. Now they are in a war against the Baldies
throughout time as well as space.
 
[It seems that until the Big Blow-Up, the Corps seems to be paralleling the
development of the Bureau of Time Exploration and Manipulation (BAN). Also,
there are hints in _Firehand_ that international tension has decreased and
colonization increased greatly. It is possible as the series continues that
there will be no Big Blow-Up in this future; then again, the Blow-Up may
just be later than I have proposed.]
 
circa AD 1986: The Kattack expedition is ordered by the Dictator to seek
oil in the Antarctic.  It reports seeing a thick bluish haze rising from
the Antarctic plain to the sky ("Garin of Tav" in GtE10).
 
circa AD 1987: During the Great War of 1985-88, Captain Garin Featherstone
leads a bombing raid into Central Asia to destroy "a vast expeditionary
army" ("Garin of Tav" in GtE10) gathering there. [This was probably a
fighter\bomber action similar to the Doolittle Raid but much more
destructive.]
 
in the same year: (_The Gate of the Cat_, 1987) Kelsie McBlair, a
veterinarian's assistant from Evart, Indiana, inherits a house in the
Highlands of Scotland from her Great-Aunt Ellen, whom she has never
met. When she attempts to tame a local wildcat, she is discouraged by the
locals.  When she finds Neil McAdams out hunting it, she fights him and
falls with the wildcat through part of the stone circle on Ben Blair. It is
a gate which takes them both to Escore and Witch World.
 
circa AD 1989: ("Garin of Tav", 1947 in GtE, 1972) 6 months and 3 days
after the signing of the Peace of Shanghai which ended the Great War of
1985-88 (GtE9), Captain Garin Featherstone, ex-fighter pilot for the United
Democratic Forces, is hired by Gregory Farson to join an expedition into
the Antarctic. Farson plans to penetrate the bluish haze seen by two
previous expeditions.  When they go through, Garin finds his mind examined
and controlled by some alien intelligence.  When he is free again, he finds
that he has crashed in Tav, an artificially green part of Antarctica where
the Folk, the Gibi, and the Eron (sentient lizards, bees, and squirrels)
live and fight the Black Ones.  The Ancient Ones, a people from the stars
who carved out Tav, made the mists and created the sentient animals through
genetic experimentation, have all left Tav or lie dormant, except for
Thrala of the Light.  Garin rescues Thrala from the Black Ones, halfbreed
descendants of the Ancient Ones who live in the Caverns of Darkness in the
far south of Tav.  [The Ancient Ones are certainly Forerunners; but since
they did not generally interfere they cannot be the Star Lords themselves.]
 
During the years between 1957 and the Big Burning, there were open landings
on Luna, Mars, and Venus.  Since they had little wealth and could not be
colonized without great expense, interplanetary flights were few and far
between, and only for research purposes (TSAO6).
 
[However, other interstellar colonies may secretly have been founded. The
"Star Lords" who colonized Gorth and taught science to the Gorthians
certainly had Terran names, a well- equipped fleet of ships, a reliable
stardrive, knowledge of the making of gates to parallel worlds, and - what
later spacegoers did not have - both total freedom to settle on
already-settled worlds and total ignorance of the effect on Gorth's
civilization which their meddling would have. Their long lifespan might be
so only in comparison to the short- lived Gorthians.  Gorth is mentioned in
MoTR.]
 
Three space stations were constructed to refuel interplanetary ships and
for astronomical and meteorological observation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Big Blow-Up, Central Control, and the Pre-_Solar Queen_ Era


 
The Big Blow-Up
 
circa AD 2012?: [Well, that's when the Maya said the end of the world would
occur, and that Atlantean heritage ;) should have taught them something. :)
Besides, it gives more time for the colonies to be established and makes it
more likely that 2250 would be described as more than 200 years after,
instead of 250 years after.]
 
One of the three space stations around Terra is invaded, captured and
occupied by mercenaries employed by nationalist forces pretending to be
Free Scientists.  By chance or plan, certain installations on the station
were used as weapons against Terra. Apparently these men themselves had no
idea of how much power they unleashed, and that it immediately went out of
control.  [In the confusion, isolated units probably unleashed ground-based
atomic and conventional weaponry as well, since the EMP would knock out
most communications.]  Most of the high population areas were completely
devastated.  The loss of life was uncountable, according to the
_Encyclopedia Galactica_ (TSAO6).
 
Arturo Renzi, the sole survivor of his family, declared that science was
evil and humans should return to a simple farming life to save Terra and
themselves.  He gained many followers.  When he was assassinated
(supposedly by a Free Scientist), there was a 3-day purge of scientists and
techneers.  Saxon Bort assumed control of Renzi's followers and organized
the world dictatorship of the Company of Pax (TSAO6-7).
 
circa AD 2019?: (_The Stars Are Ours_, 1954) It is "....7, almost 8
years...." (TSAO13) after the "Big Burning" and the purge of the
Scientists.  The Free Scientists and freedom fighters based in the Cleft,
unaware of the previous and highly secret interstellar colonization by
means of the "Baldie" empire's stardrive, build a starship with a stardrive
and coldsleep method of their own devising and take off in it just as Pax
forces break into the Cleft.
 
AD 2250: (_Star Man's Son_ aka _Daybreak:2250 AD_, 1952) The story begins
more than 200 years since the chaos following the Big Blow-Up (the name of
the atomic war).  The people of the Eyrie are governed by "the Council" (as
in DA & KOT).  [They and the others of the story live inside radiation-
scarred land that the rest of the world leaves alone.  Note that later the
Big Burn was so shunned that people assumed there was no life there up
until the time of PS (PS149).  This would explain why there's no Pax around
in this story.]  Atomic cars existed just before the Blow-Up.
 
A primitive lizard civilization exists, as well as "the Beast Things",
mutated humans with animal intelligence and cannibalistic habits.  The
Plainspeople are nomads, something like Vikings in culture, who travel
north and south around the valley of the great river (SMS126). [the
Mississippi?]  The people of the Eyrie live in the Smoking Mountains
(SMS122). [the Smoky Mountains?] The Dark People are descended from black
pilots who landed in a [Mexican?] valley at the end of the war that caused
the Blow- Up (SMS62); they moved north after volcanoes & earthquakes drove
them out and the rising sea drove them into the great river's valley
(SMS63).
 
AD 2250?:(_No Night Without Stars_, 1975) This is also a tale that takes
place in radiation-scarred land after the Big Blow- Up. Here Sander the
smith, his koyot Rhin, Fanyi the spirit- talker and her fishers Kai and
Kayi face a computer of the Before Men with mind-control psi powers. [It is
similar to the Soviets' machine in _The Defiant Agents_.  Also, Jak's Mob,
which has always been connected with the 'koyots' and hailed originally
from the Southwest, are probably descendants of the mutant coyote handlers
from the same book.]
 
AD 2312?: (_Moon Called_, 1982) This is also a tale that takes place after
the Big Blow-Up.  The story begins 10 generations after the Before Time
ends.  When the Craigs are destroyed by pirates, Thora the Chosen and Kort
the dog travel away together.  They save Malkin, a familiar, from the
remains of a raided trader caravan, and take her back home as she
requested.  Home turns out to be the Valley of the Windriders, and there
Thora meets Makil, bearer of the Sword of Lur and Malkin's blood-bound.
They fight against the forces of Set, using war machines hidden in the
Before Times, and learn that Malkin's kind were genetically engineered in
the Before Times to drive war machines into battle and thus spare humans.
 
circa AD 2307\2407?: The dictatorship of the Company of Pax falls, and the
story of the Free Men's starship is found among their records.  This
inspires the newly freed world to concentrate its scientific efforts on
space (SB17-18). After the space program begins, a new experimental
starship in the RS series is sent out every five years (SB15-16).
 
circa AD 2362\2462: The _RS 1_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB17-18).
 
circa AD 2367\2467: The _RS 2_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB17-18).
 
circa AD 2372\2472: The _RS 3_ blows up in Mars orbit (SB17-18).
 
circa AD 2377\2477: The _RS 4_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB17-18).
 
circa AD 2382\2482: The _RS 5_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB 17-18).
 
circa AD 2387\2487: (_The Stars Are Ours_, 1954) The Free Men's starship
arrives at a habitable planet (SB4).  They name it Astra.  They learn that
it is inhabited by the Others (authoritarians who at one point engaged in
atomic war; they have a small population & less power than formerly, but
still have higher tech than the Terrans) and the seafolk (former slaves of
the Others who revolted and ran).  The _RS 6_ leaves Earth & doesn't return
(SB 17-18).
 
circa AD 2392\2492: The _RS 7_ goes out of control while still in contact
with Earth.  Its fate is unknown (SB17-18).
 
circa AD 2397\2497: The _RS 8_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB 17-18).
 
circa AD 2402\2502: The _RS 9_ leaves Earth & doesn't return (SB 17-18).
 
circa AD 2407\2507: The _RS 10_ leaves Earth (SB 17-18). It reaches Astra.
The crew meets the Others and is tricked into helping them.  When they see
the Others' evil, they help the seafolk and Terran colonists to defeat
them.  Then they begin their return to Terra, promising the Astrans that
their existence will not be divulged. The Astrans reveal something they
remember - that before Pax took power, there were at least two galactic
expeditions. [Of course, the AS 10 might never have reached Terra to keep
the promise of silence.  But Astra survived, and both it and the duocorns
are mentioned in later books (PS46, PtS137).]
 
[When the starships repeatedly fail to return, or when the worlds they find
do not appear to justify the expenditure, Earth burns out on its dreams of
space.  At some point, the political union dissolves into nations, the
nations begin to war, and someone uses atomics.]
 
circa AD 2956: 1000 years before _Star Guard_, atomic wars rage across
Terra.  North America is hit hardest, but Europe and Asia also suffer. Most
of the survivors live underground; they call those from before the wars
'the Old Ones'.  Thanks to the Big Blow-up and these wars, it becomes
unthinkable for Terrans to use atomics (SG151). [It is possible to
interpret "....the Big Blow-Up and the wars which followed.  Those had
occurred 1000 years before...." (SG151) to mean 'this is 1000 years after
the Big Blow-Up'.  In this case, however, the Big Blow-Up would not have
taken place until AD 2956.  This doesn't make much sense to me; so I am
interpreting "those" as a reference to "the wars which followed".  The
resulting cycle of brushfire and major atomic wars is horrifying but
consistent with human nature.]
 
Parallel world AD 3450: El Zim makes the discovery which makes time travel
possible.  Strong regulatory measures are imposed, though Zim and his
assistants had already promised to take care (BAN124).
 
Parallel world AD 3465: After time travel is organized, controlled strictly
by bureaucrats, and explored by trained and screened operatives, the newly
organized Bureau of Time Exploration and Manipulation is allowed to meddle
in history as long as it is done by the book and not in home systems of
groups in power.  On worlds burned off by war, they attempt to prevent the
burn-off from occurring (BAN124).
 
Parallel world AD 3500: ("Long Live Lord Kor!", 1970 in BAN_) ZAT, a master
computer, supplies data to the Bureau.  With this help, Creed Trapnell is
sent into the past of Vallek, a burned-off planet, to prevent the Orm
Prophet from prophesying war.  He finds himself inside the body of Lord Kor
Kenric, thanks to the machinations of ZAT's secret decision that it needed
a permanent agent in that identity.
 
Time travel takes place by mind transfer to persons with severe enough
mental handicaps that they have little personality, except in the case of
permanent agents who are transferred differently.
 
Communications: TV screen, wall screen, computer, briefing helm, spy ray.
Transport: time travel, send-sling. Weapons: blazer, stunner.  Psi:
mind-see, sleep search, mind-thrust, mind-shield, mind-sleep.
 
circa AD 3656: Central Control, noticing Terra's entrance into its
starlanes, decides to take Terra as a member. It believes the starship it
intercepts is Earth's first successful starship; so do the Terrans, even
those of Hidden Prime later [perhaps thanks to the fact that no previous
starships got home safe].  (Terrans do remember legends of ships with cold
sleep that fled the atomic wars and the ages of political\social confusion
after.) Central Control's psycho-techneers rule that Terrans are too
warlike to be allowed into space except as regulated mercenaries; this will
kill off the venturesome, reduce the number of humans around, and generally
keep Terra from getting uppity (SG18). Terrans are forbidden to trade.
However, they promised that when Terra was ready, it would gain a more
equal status.  Prime, a city built on the banks of the East River
(Manhattan Island was covered by the sea), becomes the capital and sole
spaceport of Terra (SG209).
 
Combatant forces are made up of teams, which are composed of doubles (2-man
partnerships).  There are two kinds of Combatants: Arch (archaic) and Mech
(mechanical).  Arch are organized in Hordes; their uniform is green-gray;
they wear helmets; their most advanced weapon is the stat-rifle but they
also use swords and knives.  Mechs have Legions; their uniform is blue-gray
with crossed rockets on their dress tunic; they wear bubble helmets; they
use the most advanced weapons available and their best tactic is to
frighten opponents into backing down without war.  Arch rank runs: Swordman
3rd class (S-3), S-2, S-1, Swordtan, Blademaster.  Mech rank runs: Mechneer
3rd class (M-3), M-2, M-1, Mechtan, Mechmaster.  Number of stars on tunic
indicate rank of Mech- and Swordmasters.
 
The Galactic Patrol wears black and white.  Central Control Agents
(bureaucrat rulers) wear red cloaks trimmed with gold.
 
circa AD 3706: The first remembered operations of Hidden Prime against
Central Control (SG222).
 
circa AD 3856: One in every 20 Terran troop transports is actually a colony
ship from this date on (SG222).
 
AD 3951 - 3956: Twenty Legions lost in fighting, according to one Mech
(SG9).
 
AD 3956: (_Star Guard_, 1955) Kana Karr, just out of training as an Arch
(archaic) Combatant, is hired by Yorke Horde and sent to Fronn.  The Horde
has been hired as mercenaries to fight for a Llor prince in a war of
succession.  However, Kana soon discovers that Central Control has sent
Mech (mechanical) Combatants to get rid of the Horde.  After a dangerous
march through hostile country, Kana and others try to get word of this
treachery back to Terra; but they are captured and condemned to the labor
camps by Central Control.  Kana escapes and is rescued by the Hidden Prime,
a resistance organization which works to get Terrans in the stars.
 
1000 planets have secret Terran colonies by this point, of which 30 fail
and 6 are struggling (SG223). Twenty X-Tee worlds have been taught the
Hidden Prime pattern and are also colonizing in secret (SG224).  Terrans
hope that someday they will work on exploration teams with friendly
X-Tees. [Compare with the later Star Trek.]
 
Planets mentioned: Vega 3, Capella 2, Nevers, Fronn, Procyon, Rigel 6 [home
of the Rigellian in SoS?], Mars [Martian sand mouse also in PS], Moon, Caq,
Sansifar, Wolf II, Cephas, Zacan, Sirius II,Arcturus, Polaria, Lydia I.
Also X-Tees: Yabanu (feline), Trystian (avian).
 
Transport technology: shuttle (air vessels), land jopper, 'copter, surface
mobile, transport (cargo truck), track- running truck, crawler and land
fortress (war vehicles), coaster (air vessel), wing (plane), antigravity
belt, jet (on suit), starship with Galactic overdrive that travels in warp.
Weapons technology: sword, Grace knife (for giving comrades the coup de
grace), needle knife (deadliest Arch combat form), stat-rifle (used only by
Archs), fire cartridge (burning explosive), crawler and land fortress (war
machines), blaster, spouter, flamer.  Communications technology: record-pak
(on wire) read in sleep or by portable reader, speecher (key-punched), visa
shots (photos), tele-cast.  [Archs play cards and Yano and bet on
fish-fights, but star-and-comet apparently has not been invented.]
 
[It is revealed that Terrans and other 'minor systems' have been secretly
resisting the will of Central Control.  Shock and dissension spreads.]
 
AD 4130: At the Galactic University of Zacan, Hist-Techneer Zorzi lectures
on the events recounted in _Star Guard_.  He says that it "changed history
for their species, and perhaps for the Galaxy as well. Whether this change
will operate for the general good of us all remains to be seen."
 
[The dissension and shock caused by the revelation turn into rampant
hostility and civil war.  Races are wiped out, planets are burned off and
suns are left dead in desperate attempts to maintain control or win
freedom.  Eventually, Central Control falls, but the civilizations of the
Galaxy fall with it -- and forget their previous voyages to the stars.]
 
[Civilization rises again fairly quickly.]
 
1000+ years before _Sargasso of Space_: "There are Terran colonies over a
thousand years old...There were those who went out to cross the gap in
frozen sleep, and those who lived for four, six, and eight generations in
ships before their far off descendants trod the worlds their ancestors had
set course for.  And there were earlier variations of the hyper-drive, some
of which may have worked, although their inventors never returned to Terra
to report success."  (SoS104) Some, like the ancestors of the Khatkans,
fled the atomic wars or the chaos that came afterward.
 
The Second Atomic War: A race war.  One side tried to take over Africa,
herded most of the Africans into one giant concentration camp and started
killing them off.  [They also may have used them for labor and as shields
for their secret projects, ala the Nazis using slave labor in the rocket
factories.]  When the camp's keepers were bombed toward the end of the war,
some survivors staged a revolt with the help of the enemy.  They captured
an experimental station in the middle of the camp, kidnapped the white
technicians to pilot them and took off for the stars in the two starships
hidden there.  Most of the people died on the way, but enough survived to
found a colony on Khatka.  Technology is forgotten, since survival is the
immediate goal. The highest status belonged to the darkest skin (VP157).
 
The last of Terra's atomic wars: The Big Burn, a high-radiation area
scarring hundreds of square miles, is created in North America.  The only
safe ground left is in the far west and south (PS130). It covers 3\4 of the
continent; the damage extends up to the arctic regions (PS153).
 
Psi, which popped up after the atomic wars, is respected by most people
("Wizard's World", HS2).
 
("Wizard's World" in _High Sorcery_) Even as extensive colonization of the
Moon and Mars began, the Espers were increasingly oppressed.  They were not
allowed to crew spaceships or go to the colonies.  After a while, they were
forced into E-camps to do slave labor or 'brain-twisted' into becoming
Hounds that hunt psychically for E-camp escapees.  The only safe havens
were the deserted barrens created by atomic wars (HS2).]  Craike, smuggled
out of an eastern E-camp, is sent to explore the area that used to be Reno.
But he was tricked into revealing himself and tracked by an Esper hound.
Fortunately for him, he accidentally dived into an parallel universe where
the Esper Black Hoods ruled.  He helps Takya, a woman whose power is new to
the Black Hoods, fight their power. ['Hounds' with the same name, powers,
and purpose were used by Ahab in the dark Marvel Universe future created by
Chris Claremont.]
 
500-800 years before _Sargasso of Space_: a Class Three, Asteroid Belt ship
with an experimental stardrive crashes on Limbo.  At the time, humans were
confined to the solar system, "except for a few crazy experimenters."
(SoS104)
 
[A reliable stardrive is developed.]
 
50 years before "All Cats Are Gray": The _Empress of Mars_' passengers are
killed by an invisible alien.  It orbits the solar system as a derelict for
the next 50 years, its warning lights red.
 
20 years before "Mousetrap" is told: Black Spragg finds a cache of Martian
crown jewels (BAN80).
 
("Mousetrap", 1954 in BAN) Two years after Sam Levatts finds a 'sand
monster' shaped like a woman with wings, Len Collins persuades him to show
her off.  Collins then tests a glue on her and runs off when she crumbles
anyway.  Levatts plots revenge.  Having figured out that 'sand monsters'
were created in self-defense by a Martian animal, Sam tricks Collins into
kicking the animal.  This time Collins' glue works, so he sells the new
'sand monster' to the Interplanetary Museum, buys a stellar ship, and goes
looking for the winged race.
 
The main Martian starport is known as Terraport.  The city once called
Prime is being called New York once more.  Star Stones and gormel ore are
found on Mars, and the prospectors who find them are called "desert
spiders".  There are canals on Mars. The Space Marines guard the sand
monsters. Martian sand mice live there (mentioned also in PS and CE(?))
 
Planets: Earth, Moon, Mars.  Communications tech: TV, flat pictures, shock
fields.  Transport tech: sandmobile, wind plane, rocket, stellar ship.
 
("All Cats Are Gray", 1953 in BAN) Steena (a computer operator), her cat
Bat, and Cliff Moran board the _Empress of Mars_, a derelict interplanetary
pleasure liner, and kill the invisible alien that had killed the passengers
and many would-be salvagers.  Steena and Cliff get rich and married.
 
Venaport is Venus' starport.  Natives live on at least one of Jupiter's
moons. Free spacers and others wear spacealls.  Slitite is valuable. Vernal
juice is an intoxicant.
 
Planets: Rigel, Jove (Jupiter), Moon (quarantine station even
then). Communications tech: Stellar-Vedo spreads, 'the big calculators'
(computers), photo-reg cards (old).  Transport tech: stellar
ships. Weapons: blaster (has exploding shell).
 
[As Terrans pushed out into space, Trade was made into a Service, similar
perhaps to the Merchant Marine. Apparently they meet up with the Styor, who
dominate two-thirds of the nearby planets inhabitable by humanoids.]
 
200 years before _The Sioux Spaceman_: The Plan and the Policy begin to
govern Trade.  According to Policy, Trade does not interfere with the
Styor.  According to the Plan, Trade winnows out the more defiant people,
teaches them to be sneaky, and gets them to work on the slow undermining of
the Styor Empire. [This may be an alternate universe - but as this
chronology shows, there's plenty of time for the Styor to come and
go. Also, there is precedent for the double government in SG's Hidden
Prime.] Service tests are used which fit the right person to the right
job. [These are probably the forerunners of the Psycho tests of the Solar
Queen's time.] Failure in the Service sends one to the labor gangs.
 
(_The Sioux Spaceman_): Kade Whitehawk, a Lakota of the Northwest Terran
Confederation, kills a Styor lordling on Tadder. As punishment, he is taken
from Tadder; but he finds himself re-assigned to a Mixed Team on Klor - an
elite group. There he learns that his predecessor, a Lakota, was
murdered. Kade puts his skills with animals and his empathy with the
enslaved Ikkinni natives to good use; he imports Terran horses and teaches
the Ikkinni to ride and use bows in guerrilla warfare against their hated
Styor masters. When his operation ends, Kade expects to be
punished. Instead he is informed of the Plan and told to keep up the good
work. [The Spirits of Outer Space (SS46) are referred to by the Traders.]
 
Planets: Lodi (Offworld Trader Base), Tadder, Klor, Venus, Qwang-Khan
 
Tech: Hypo-trainer, stunner, perma-steel, ear-reader,tri- dees, dura-steel.
Styor tech: sonic, slave control box and collar, hop-ship, private-flyer,
inter-atmosphere cruiser.
 
circa 500 years before _Plague Ship_: The First Martian Rebellion.
Refugees from this conflict leave Mars on the _New Hope_ for the stars, but
a plague kills its passengers.  The ship floats on forever, its 'dead'
lights seen (by legend) only by similarly unlucky ships (PS88-9).
 
[The Styor Empire falls.]
 
Alternate world, circa '23: Fifteen years after being left in '07 at Kern's
SunSpot, an illegal casino in the Port of N'Yok's JetTown, Joktar is hunted
by those who have learned he is the first descendant of humans and an alien
race that can only have female children unless it mates with another
species.  The child produced by such a genetic mix is known as a
Ffallian. Joktar flees Earth to the Alpha Lupi 'Wolf' system, where he
manages to live despite the icy environment.  He gets off Wolf, pursues his
hunters in the Patrol, and manages to make a deal with them to be left
alone. Then he finds the Ffallian world and is reunited with his extended
family. [This is clearly an alternate world, since the sentient races known
do not correspond at all to those of the mainline Andreverse.  However,
star-and-comet is played here.]
 
circa 400 years before _Sargasso of Space_: A century after it left, the
derelict _New Hope_ is sighted for the first time (SoS21).
 
circa 200 years before _Voodoo Planet_: Psi gifts suddenly appear in five
clans among the people of Khatka.  After a period of turmoil, these Five
Families form a oligarchy to lead a loose tribal confederation over all
Khatka.  Under their leadership, a new technological civilization evolves
(VP\SH158).
 
100 years before _Plague Ship_: The population of Earth, drained by atomic
wars and the colonization of the solar system and the Galaxy, begins to
increase for the first time in generations as retirees and tourists from
colony worlds move back to Earth (PS155).
 
Almost 100 years before _Plague Ship_ (PS92): Volcanic action followed by
tidal waves sinks Japan beneath the sea in two days and a night (SoS40).
 
75 years before _Voodoo Planet_: Khatka is found by a first- in Scout. The
Combine buys the trade rights to Khatka at the Survey Lottery and proceeds
to set up with Khatka as purveyors of luxury safaris (VP\SH158).
 
"some planet years back": Vegan Trosti, a billionaire with a mysterious
past, disappears as mysteriously as he appeared.  Under orders in his will,
his men dissolve his holdings after a set amount of time has passed and
form the Trosti Foundation.
 
10 years before _Sargasso of Space_: The Crater War is fought when Mars
revolts.  Mars' cities are devastated by atomic attack. As a child, Ali
Kamil survives the horrifying massacres; his family does not (PS78). Ali
attributes his survival to a psychic sense for danger, past, present and
future; and staying loner enough to be able to act on such a warning
without waiting to explain it to others (RtS).
 
8 years before _Postmarked the Stars_: In the year '21, the Trosti
Foundation sets up a lab in the hinterlands of Trewsworld. Pioneer holdings
in that area do not expand much after that year.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

From the Solar Queen to the Second Galactic Empire


 
The _Solar Queen_ 
 
[Mara Ingham, assistant cargomaster of the _Solar Queen_, is hired as
cargomaster by Teague Cofort's _Rising Star_.  (RtS)]
 
(_Sargasso of Space_, 1955) Dane Thorson, an apprentice cargomaster, is
assigned to the _Solar Queen_, a 12-man Free Trader ship.  The _Queen_'s
crew participates in a Survey auction and buys the right to exploit the
planet Limbo. Accompanied by a team of archaeologists, they find Forerunner
ruins.  Then they find out the 'archaeologists' are actually criminals,
using a Forerunner installation to wreck ships onto Limbo and then looting
them.  The _Queen_'s crew manages to survive, helps the Patrol capture the
crooks, and haggles the Patrol into granting them the trading rights to
Sargol in exchange for letting the Federation take Limbo.
 
A few months later: (_Plague Ship_, 1956) After the _Solar Queen_ has begun
to trade with the people of Sargol, they are angered to find that
Inter-Solar is trying to trade with Sargol in violation of the _Queen_'s
sole trading rights. They manage to defeat I-S and do good business with
the Salariki of Sargol.  When they leave, however, the crew begins to fall
into comas, apparently as a result of some alien disease.  When the _Queen_
comes out of hyper, the conscious crew are angered to learn that they have
been posted as a plague ship by I-S.  Dane and his friends catch the alien
critter that was causing the 'disease', borrow a medic to create an
antidote, land in Terraport's parking lot and take over the Video, all to
prove their innocence.  Since the _Queen_ was too slow to make up the time
they'd lost to the disease, they sell their contract with the Salariki to
the Combine in exchange for the right to a small but profitable mail run
between Trewsworld and Xecho.
 
A year later: (_Voodoo Planet_, ) Kort Asaki, Chief Ranger of Khatka,
invites Captain Jellico and the medic Craig Tau to Khatka to defeat
Lumbrilo, an evil witch doctor; Dane Thorson goes along as cover.  Their
flitter malfunctions mysteriously and they are affected by hallucinations;
but they manage to survive in the wilderness of Khatka and discover an I-S
man involved in Lumbrilo's plots.
 
Two weeks later: (_Postmarked the Stars_, 1969) The year is '29 (PtS138).
On the _Solar Queen_'s first mail run between Xecho and Trewsworld, Dane
Thorson is shanghaied and poisoned; he struggles back to the ship to find a
man wearing his face dead in his bunk of a heart attack.  He had come on
board to retrogress lathsmer chicks for the settlers into savage reptiles;
but brachs from Xecho are also retrogressed into their former intelligent
state.  The _Queen_ cautiously lands its cargo in the hinterlands, but a
ranger has already been sent to arrest them!  Eventually they negotiate
with the brachs, learn how the Trosti foundations are being used as a cover
for a conspiracy which secretly rules at least four planetary governments,
and help the settlers of Trewsworld keep their colony.  They also claim the
Trosti veeps' ship and thus start their own line. The _Solar Queen_'s crew
is divided and more crew are hired on Trewsworld to run esperite ore from
Riginni (the next planet in the system) to Trewsworld.
 
[According to RtS, the second ship is named the _Space Wrack_ and Jellico's
first name is Miceal (Irish spelling).]
 
(_Redline the Stars_, 1993 - & P.M. Griffin) [This may be a slightly
alternate world - the nomenclature and slang are often different - but if
so, BM did use the X of Y planetary nomenclature in Storm's paperwork, and
the major events of RtS probably occurred in the main track as well.  As
for the rest - it's retcon on a major scale, but who am I to complain about
that? ;) And "All Cats Are Gray" does provide some foundation for women in
space on a greater scale. I just wish Rael Cofort wasn't so darn Lt. Mary
Sue.]
 
When the _Solar Queen_'s mail contract with Xecho and Trewsworld is about
to run out, Jellico worries that the _Queen_ will have to renew the boring
mail contract to keep the _Wrack_.  But Teague Cofort buys the _Wrack_
through his sister Rael Cofort, and the _Queen_ is free to go Trading
again.  Rael signs aboard to learn from the _Queen_ and to get a working
passage off Trewsworld to Canuche of Halio. On Canuche, she deduces a
murder- by-rat scheme, helps Jellico photograph some elusive lizards, and
warns the inhabitants of the dangers of ammonium nitrate.  Unfortunately,
her warning comes too late to prevent a major disaster; Canuche Town is
devastated when a ship carrying rope and ammonium nitrate catches fire and
explodes. The crew of the Queen act heroically to save the victims of the
explosion, and Rael signs on as a permanent member of the Queen's crew.
 
Terra and its colonies are ruled by the Federation, and the Services by
'Central'(Central Service).  Galactic trading is well-established; Trade is
already becoming a closed clan.  There are many big Companies: Inter-Solar,
The Combine, Deneb- Galactic, and Falworth-Ignesti.  (SiS6) Placement in
the Services (Trade, Survey, and the Patrol) is determined by the Psycho, a
computer which analyzes the psychological information on one's ID wafer and
matches it to the best vacancy available (SiS9) Free Traders were
considered romantic by the public, but a dead end by non-Free Traders of
the Service.  Terraport\ Terraport East is the major Terran spaceport,
though there is a Patrol base at Stella (PS129).  Ecology (PtS16) and the
Grand Department of Immigration (PtS137) exercise authority over colonies.
If a colony does not make appreciable gains in settlement and\or exports
every year, the rights can be taken away and put up in a resettlement
auction (PtS137).
 
An entire urban folklore has developed among human spacers: cats are the
descendants of genetically-engineered alien space pets; (SiS35) to sight
the doomed ship _New Hope_ is bad luck; the Whisperers are sirens heard by
men too long in space; Sanford Jones welcomes all spacers who die in action
onto his ghostship, the _Comet_ (SiS21) and spacers speak of 'the luck of
Jones'.  [Sanford Jones is believed to be the first man to attempt
interstellar flight; his lost ship came out of hyperspace over a planet of
Sirius, three hundred years after leaving Terra.  Compare this to all the
'first' explorers of the New World.]
 
Only one Forerunner civilization is known; it ended hundreds or even
thousands of years before humans are known to have gone to space [so it may
be the Central Control civilization], in a war which burned-off planets
(ex: Hades, Hel, Satan, Sodom, Limbo) and even killed suns.  Limbo is the
first one found which is not entirely burned-off.  Many human races have
been found (descended from Terran colonies); eight nonhuman races are known
(incl. the reptilian Sliths, the semi-feline Arvas, the brachiopod
Fifftocs, the insect Kanddoyds and Mimsis, and three chemically different
races [ibid, p. 57] including the Rigellians and Salariki) and none know
anything about the Forerunners.  The Rigellians and the now-gone race on
Angol Two are known to have had interstellar travel before Terrans.
 
Weapons technology includes: stun rod, stun rifle, sleep ray rod, blaster,
force blade (illegal for civilians: SoS37), hand blaster, needler, flamer,
portable flamer, sonic screamer (rips a man apart), thorlite sticks
(explosive: SoS, p. 100), bopper (gas grenade launcher: SoS 120-1),
tangler, fire ray, hand beamer, force field, sleep gas, burner, agitator,
gas ball, implosion bomb. Transport technology includes: crawlers,
scooters, flamers (war machine: SoS65), flitters [planes: SoS52],
individual flyers, speeders, Patrol mobiles, 'copters, anti-grav belts,
stass belts (powered by feeder beam), rescue flitter, grav-jump belts, and
hyperdrive 'spacers'(starships).
 
Communications technology includes: com-units, tel-video, t-cameras,
tela-screens, visa-screens, visaplates, ship-com, helmet com (short wave
receiver: SoS36), tri-dee prints\ paintings\photographs, steelo, distance
vision lenses, ident disks, deep probe, hypo techniques, esper talents,
micro tapes, translator, personna com, sight-distort, ground beam, com
tower, esperite.
 
Planets: Naxos, Limbo, Hades, Hel, Sodom, Satan, Corvo, Gorbe, Rigel, Angol
Two, Baldur, Ombur, Karmuli, Poldar, Sargol [SoS]; Astra, Venus, Terra,
Camblyne, Luna, Asteroid colonies [PS]; Lamor, Samant [VP]; Deneb, Lithe,
Sitllith, Barbarrossa, Asgard, Riginni [PtS], Canuche of Halio, Loren, .
 
6 years before _Star Hunter_: the _Largo Drift_ disappears near Jumala with
the heir to the Kogan fortune, Gentlefem Tharlee Kogan Brodie, and her 14
year old son Rynch Brodie aboard.
 
(_Star Hunter_, 1959) Ras Hume was a star pilot until he was forced to kill
a gratz-chewing partner in the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz starline.  He found a
job as a member of the Out-Hunters' Guild, but he still wanted revenge.  He
found it in a scheme to counterfeit a claimant to the Kogan fortune,
persuaded Wass, a Veep of the Thieves' Guild, to assist him; and found Vye
Lansor, a State Child from the Five-Hour-Fever epidemic, to be conditioned
as the claimant Rynch Brodie.  Vye's planted memories allow him to survive
on Jumala, but he soon realizes that he is not what he has been conditioned
to be.  He finds a trap set by Forerunners and saves Hume from it, only to
learn that Hume's scheme with Wass had been carried out with Patrol
assistance to get evidence on him.  Lansor gives evidence against Wass and
becomes Hume's apprentice in the Out-Hunters' Guild.
 
Takes place in Ten Sector.  Psycho-techs are generally still respectable,
though some work for the Guild.  Verifiers which detect intelligence
determine whether a world is free of native sentients.  X-Tee matters are
handled by the Patrol.  Compulsive conditioning is given to those who are
fired from too many state jobs.
 
Planets: Nahuatl, Xipe, Sargon Two, Alexbut, Jumala, Flang, Sargol,
Al-tar-Ishtar, Vorm, Eucor, Ozak (spider silk).
 
Weapons: force field, electric pole (for electo-fishing), needler,
protection stunner. Transport: L-B, flitter, air-car, flyer, spacer
(hyperdrive ship). Communications: com device, voyage record tapes, tri-dee
box, T-Casts, dictation mike.
 
[At some point, knowledge of the past civilization of Central Control is
recovered - possibly from some remote planetary pocket of learning.  In
tribute to past glories, Central Service is renamed Central Control.]
 
circa 1104-1204: Clio is settled by the Psychocrats, and its colonists
mind-controlled into accepting the feudal society they are given as part of
an experiment by one of the Hierarchy of the Psychocrats.  At least two
other 'closed worlds' are settled in this manner - probably more (IC).
 
1404: The Psychocrats' domination of the Confederation is broken in the
Overturn of 1404 (IC).
 
2195: Elys of Posidonia, the Demizonda of Islewaith, is duplicated by a
Mengian android whose memories date from the day before she sings in the
full tide of Qinguam (AA).
 
2200: Lord Yolyos, head of Sargol's trade mission to Framware, is
duplicated by a Mengian android whose memories date to a time just before a
treaty between Sargol and Framware is finally negotiated (AA).
 
2230: Andas of Inyanga, Imperial Prince of the Dinganian Empire, is
duplicated by a Mengian android whose memories date from the day before he
is to be crowned heir to the throne on the day of Chaka.
 
2246: Iylas Tsiwon, a High Chief of Naul, is duplicated by a Mengian
android whose memories date from before he was to speak against an alliance
with the Upshars, on a day when he had contact with the Central Control
commissioner.
 
2250: Iylas Tsiwon gives the orders which bring the Jauavum Empire fleet
first to Naul.  He is hated and regarded as a traitor for this on every
world of the Eighth Sector.
 
2265: Turpyn, a Veep of the Thieves' Guild, is duplicated by a Mengian
android whose last memories are of the Jack port called Wenditkover.
 
2273: Hison Grasty, Chief Councilor of Thrisk, is duplicated by a Mengian
android.
 
2275: When a power failure releases six android duplicates from a Mengian
installation, they attempt to return to the lives their stolen memories
tell them they possess. When the android-Andas goes to Inyanga and attempts
to win 'back' his throne, the android-Yolyos and he fall through a gate
into an alternate universe where the Old Woman of Bones rules and the
Emperor (several years back)lives a perilous life in hiding. The Emperor
Andas had called for help, and the android-Andas agrees to replace
him. Then the Emperor dies.  His wife is reluctant to accept this new
Andas, but as they work and fight the enemy together, they fall in
love. Andas finally defeats the Old Woman of Bones.
 
3949: Thax Thorman has trading rights on Rohan after outbidding the Bendix
Combine with his syndicate of 5 Free Trader ships.  Thorman makes a good
profit on mossilk there for about 4 planet years until the thrinx plague
(possibly planted by the Bendix Combine) wipes out the spinners. 3 of the
other captains are also wiped out (US62-3).
 
circa 4430 ASF: Korwar is first colonized - 200 years before CE.  Arzor is
first colonized also, almost 200 years before TBM & LoT.
 
circa ASF or earlier: A Class-C Rover Five spacecraft crashes on Janus,
drawn there by the confused computer called THAT WHICH ABIDES by the Iftin.
 
4450 ASF: Pate Sissions, a First-in Scout, lands on Janus.

circa 4490 ASF: Over 100 years before SOW, Terrans first encounter the
Throgs, a race of sentients in an intense period of expansion in
competition for the same colonization-suitable planets.  After efforts at
communication fail, the Terrans and Throgs begin a combined war and race to
claim the needed planets.  (1 perfect out of 6 possible planets found in 25
years.) [SOW6-7]
 
circa 4560 ASF: Ladim Torry, a medico for the Karbon Combine, lands on
Janus.
 
4570 ASF: Rahuld Urswin, a stat-comp reader for the Karbon Combine, lands
on Janus.
 
(_Storm Over Warlock_, 1960) When Throgs attack a Survey planet exploration
camp, the only survivors are Shann Lantee, who does odd jobs for Survey,
the mutated animal team wolverines Taggi and Togi, and Ragnar Thorvald, a
Survey commander.  Lantee and Thorvald have odd dreams caused by the
psi-gifted Wyverns, a sentient sea species.  They convince the matriarchal
Wyverns that although they are males, they should be respected. Then the
Wyverns and Terrans join together to throw the Throgs off Warlock.
 
Exploration [and Beast Master combat\sabotage (OiO123) teams] of mutated
animals are in use, but psi animal teams are not used. Teleportation is
still unknown.  [The great advances in practical psi between SOW\OiO and FF
are notable.  Probably things learned from the Wyverns made these advances
possible.]
 
Planets: Tyr, the Circe system: Warlock, Witch, Wizard; Odin system,
Kulkulkan system, Rama, Ajax.
 
Communications: call beam, tri-dee.  Transport: rocket scoutship (have
weapons thrice as deadly as their size), plate- shaped Throg ships.
Weapons: grids (destroy unauthorized ships), stunner, blaster, dumdum
(Throg weapon), force beam. Misc: field kit, bravo tablets, atomic torch,
immunity shots, purifiers, mind- controlleds.
 
circa 4597? ASF: (_Ordeal in Otherwhere_, ) Several months after a Believer
colony is established on Demeter, the plague of 'the white death' hits.  It
kills 80 out of 100 adult men and all but 5 teenage boys, but does not
affect the women or children under 12.  After all the government people are
dead, a Free Trader ship lands.  The colonists sell Charis Nordholm, the
daughter of the education officer, to them in exchange for contract labor
from Gonwall.  The Free Trader takes her to a Jack port, where her contract
is sold to Jagan.  He takes her to Warlock to contact the Wyverns for
trade, but she is teleported away by the Wyverns and the Free Trader post
is destroyed by Company men.  When the Jacks arm the male Wyverns with
blasters to overthrow the females' rule, Charis finds herself allied with
Shann Lantee, Taggi, Togi, and the curl-cat Tsstu to help the females drive
off the males and Jacks.
 
The Confederation sends every colony a Ranger, medical officer, port
officer, and education officer (to keep fanatical colonists from warping
education and cutting off outside communications).  There are Five Tongues
known by educated persons, 2 of which are Zacathan and Danther (presumably
Gal- basic is another).  Only Patrol and Defense forces are allowed to
carry hand blasters in the Confederation [though Traders were once
permitted them]. The only war waged in centuries has been against the
Throgs [OiO125].
 
Service uniforms: Survey (brown-green), Patrol (black & silver), Medical
(gray & red), Administration (blue), Rangers (green), Education (maroon)
[OiO124].
 
Planets: Varn, Demeter, Gonwall, Sallam, Kraken, Askra, Scandia, Bran,
Minos.
 
Communications: tape reader, visa-screens, com-beam, sweep- beam search,
cook unit, duty tape, scan-plate, keyboard- operated com unit, com
mast. Transport: rocket, copter, Patrol scout, atmosphere flyer.  Weapons:
blaster, stunner.  Misc: quaffa, thumbprint locks, 'freeze', emergency
rations, take- off belt webbing, refresher, bubble dome, plasta, snap-down
table, pull-out seat, hot ration tray, glow-track, identity card, permit
cards, credit tokens, Sustain tablets, nullifier, sterile paint pencil,
plasta-board, fire tube, tri-steel, brain-locked, scanner (scans minds),
search-beam, plasta-skin, revive ration, sensatator (psi registering
device), Eazi-rest.
 
("Toys of Tamisan", 1969 and "Ship of Mist", 1976 in _Perilous Dreams_,
1976) Tamisan, a ten-point action dreamer, is leased out to Lord Starrex of
Ty-Kry to provide him with dreams at the urging of his scheming brother
Kas.  When she creates a dream of an alternate Ty-Kry and both Starrex and
Kas join the dream, they find themselves caught in the alternate Ty-Kry
with no chance to return.  With no other chance to survive, Tamisan jumps
them into yet another alternate Ty-Kry where she and Starrex live out their
lives.
 
("Get Out of My Dream", 1976 in PD) Itlothis Sb Nath, a Per- Search agent,
is sent to Ty-Kry to return Oslan Sb Atto, heir to the Atto holdings, to
Benold and his duties.  She finds him engaged in a dream of the past of
Yul, a Forerunner city on his land.  In the dream, they defeat an evil
which was almost due to hatch.  Then they return to Benold, to find that
Yul has been cleansed in truth.
 
("Nightmare", 1976 in PD) Two members of the Corps are sent to Ty-Kry to
check out a suspicious string of rich off- worlders dying inside dreams.
Their action dream is sabotaged to kill them, but they resist the other
dreamer who is trying to control their dream and wake up.  The dreamer ends
up as drool bait - and the corruption of Ty-Kry is dealt with.
 
The Council rules (PD131).  Espers are common.  The Corps is a covert
crimefighting agency which is not supposed to interfere in local rule (but
sometimes does).  Androids are used as bodyguards by most; men by the
'multi-credit' rich (PD3). There are also personal-care androids (PD8).
 
Planets: Ty-Kry, Benold, Terra, Trystia, Melytis, Avalon.
 
Weapons: burner beam. Transport: flyer, spacer (hyperdrive ship).
Communications: tri-dee projector, information tape, personal recording,
vision-message, erase, reading screen, Basic.
 
Hywel Jern is 50 yrs old: sector boss of Thieves' Guild, Veep Estampha, is
killed by Borer plant.  Jern, his prime assessor, buys out of the Guild and
retires to Angkor, a backwater planet.  He marries a hock-lock owner's
daughter & inherits the business.  Plague ship crashes, plague kills father
in law & port folk.
 
5 yrs later: Vultorian star cluster brought into cross-stellar trade by
Fortuna Combine; Angkor prospers as a shipping port of exchange; so does
Jern.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
From the Dipple on Korwar to the Second Galactic Empire
 
circa 4622 ASF: 10 years before CE, Sattor-Commander and Council Lord Varan
Di decides Norden should be evacuated and made into a Sattor-class
battleship depot.  As it proved, the depot was never needed during the War
of the Two Sectors.
 
circa 4627 ASF: The War of the Two Sectors between the Confederation and
the Council ends.  [Naill was 6-8 when he lost his home, & he was old
enough to contract out when JoJ began.]
 
circa 4625 ASF: The Fauklow expedition to Ruhkarv on Korwar ends
disastrously (CE).  Later the plans to Fauklow's time viewer show up in
captured Jack records and inspire Histechneer Zurzal to make his own (BtS).
 
An epidemic of the Big Cough hits the Dipple on Korwar.  The displaced
people from Norden almost all die (CE).
 
circa 4632 ASF: (_Catseye_, ) Troy Horan, son of a Norden range master, has
lived in the Dipple on Korwar most of his life before he finds a job with
an exotic pet store.  He quickly realizes that the Terran animals his
employer imports are psi-gifted and used to spy on the powerful people
living on Korwar.  He also meets a Ranger. He ends up allying himself with
the animals and fleeing with them into Korwar's wilderness. The [The War of
the Two Sectors which created the Dipples ended 5 years ago (CE).]
 
The Confederation was fractured by the war into three smaller "rulerships".
The Council and the Octed of the Rim are now the major powers.  Terra,
which used to be the Confederation's center, is now a 2nd-3rd rate world.
Psi-controlled animals are a new idea, a secret of the Confederation.
 
Planets: Korwar, Norden, Midgard, Terra, Wolf Three, Lydia, Hathor, Cynus,
Panare Five, Qwan, the Sweepers (6 minor solar systems), and Sidona (a once
powerful matriarchy which governs a 3-planet system).
 
Communications: tri-dee, claim disk, recorder, journey tape,
Gal-basic. Transport: flitter, van (cargo vehicle), flyer, truck (motor
platform), Sattor-class battleships. Weapons: masked solar batteries,
stunner web, sleeper cube, force screen, person-protect, blaster, tonal
barrier, nerve needler, pinner beams.  Misc: eazi-rest, psychocheck,
plasta-foam, thumb-lock, Quik rations, carbite, meta-plast, recaller,
summoner.
 
4635 ASF: (_Judgment on Janus_, 19 ) Naill Renfro lands on Janus as
contract labor (VJ). When he finds alien artifacts hidden in a tree, they
infect him with a virus that changes his DNA and psychically transfer the
memories of an Iftin warrior.  He is hunted as a demon by the colonists,
but he escapes into the forest and encounters other new Ift. They learn of
the evil of That Which Abides and fight it to a standstill.
 
Later that year: (_Victory on Janus_, 19 ) Naill (now calling himself ) and
the other new Ift find robots disguised as Ift destroying settlements and
killing colonists. They know this is the work of That Which Abides and
attempt to convince the starport of this, but the emissaries sent to them
are taken over by That Which Abides.  Using both Iftin and human skills and
knowledge, the new Ift learn that That Which Abides was a malfunctioning
computer from an alien colonization ship. In its attempts to transform
Janus and its inhabitants into the perfect place, it had only succeeded in
devolving its colonists into beasts over thousands of years. The new Ift
disable the computer and free its prisoners.
 
[The three smaller "rulerships" of the Confederation splinter further, into
four Confederacies. In the alternate world of TBM & LoT, the Confederacy
which contains Terra, Sirius, and 18 other solar systems (some Inner
Worlds, some worlds like Arzor) is attacked by the small empire of the
alien Xiks. The war will last 10 years.]
 
somewhere around this time: Zurzal finds the plans to Fauklow's time viewer
among captured Jack records.  He builds his own viewer, gets some results,
and decides to prove his case by traveling to Lochan, a planet whose past
is unknown, and produce results which cannot be falsified.
 
2 years later: (_Brother to Shadows_, 1993) When the force stone of his
Lair dies and his Master does too, the Shagga priest of the ex-Lair expels
Jofre, an offworld Brother, from the Shadows.  Jofre survives and oaths to
Histechneer Zurzal, a young Zacathan searching for archaeological treasure
to prove the worth of his time viewer. When Zurzal and Jofre manage to
escape the plotting of the Holder of Tssek (and inadvertently stop a
revolution), the frustrated Shagga priest and others of his order plot to
send Taynad, a Sister Shadow who had finished her mission on Tssek, to kill
Jofre. But Taynad has already joined with Jofre to bond with Yan, a
telepathic creature called a Jat, and agreed to help Zurzal to find a site
on the planet Lochan.  They all go through great difficulty on Lochan and
are attacked by the Thieves' Guild before the Patrol swoops down on the
Guild - and reveals that they have been using Zurzal's expedition as bait.
Taynad then decides that her oath does not demand she kill Jofre; Jofre
gives her a way to say she has fulfilled her mission. They swear to each
other, and decide to stay partners with Zurzal and Yan.
 
Planets: Asborgan, Lochan, Reese, Homeward, Wayright, Alaban, Vors, Tssek,
Varingholm, Grath, Lanker, Haren, Vega
 
 
alternate world: (_The Beast Master_, 1959) The Xiks invade the
Confederacy. In their last desperate push, they burn off the Earth with
nuclear weapons. One of the few surviving Beast Masters, Hosteen Storm,
takes his Beast Team and goes to settle on Arzor, a pastoral planet. He is
really going there to fulfill a vow of vengeance his grandfather made him
swear to kill Brad Quade for killing Hosteen's father Nahani.  When Hosteen
gets to Arzor, however, he is surprised to learn that this 'murderer' has a
reputation for compassion towards the native Norbies and his herd animals.
But Storm, hired as a range rider, is soon busy trying to protect his
employer's herd from the 'Mountain Butchers'.  When the riders get the herd
to the auction town, Hosteen meets Quade - who saves Hosteen's life.
Hosteen, confused, goes with a Survey archaeologist to look for the Sealed
Caves left by Forerunners. Most of the expedition is killed by Mountain
Butchers who disguise their work as that of a Norbie tribe; but Hosteen,
his Norbie friend Gorgol, and his Beast Team survive to find a Sealed Cave
full of off-world plants (The Cavern of a Thousand Gardens), learn that the
Mountain Butchers are really a holdout group of Xiks, and to rescue Brad
Quade's son Logan from them. Hosteen manages to warn the settlers
(including Quade) of the danger, despite being attacked by a Xik surgically
disguised as human.  Finally he learns that Nahani died of snakebite, for
which his grandfather blamed Quade and Hosteen's mother, Raquel; he told
Raquel and Quade that Hosteen had died of fever.  Raquel married Quade and
moved to Arzor; they had a son, Logan. Hosteen gives up his oath and claims
his newfound kin.
 
Planets: Sirius, Terra, Arzor, Grambage, Wolf Three, Argol, Lydis, Altair
Three, Lev, Astra, Sirius Three.
 
[In the main timeline, Arzor's Forerunner sites are also discovered at this
time and named 'The Gardens of Arzor'.  So it may well be that an alternate
Hosteen Storm came to Arzor for far more peaceful purposes - simply to live
with his kin - or that the Survey expedition had more success without the
Xiks to contend with.]
                               
alternate world: (_Lord of Thunder_, 1962) All of the Norbies have been
called back to the hills by their religious leaders, despite the fact it's
drought season. Then an offworlder comes looking for his son, whose
transport exploded but whose LB is thought to have landed on Arzor - in a
part of the hills where humans are not allowed. Reluctantly, Hosteen goes
looking for the downed craft with his Beast Team, his brother Logan, and
his Norbie friend Gorgol.  They find another Forerunner site - but one of
the survivors from the LB is using its machines to impress the Norbies into
making an empire for him. The Norbie Drummers (priests) help Hosteen &
Co. foil this would-be dictator's plan - and destroy the Forerunner
installation.
 
There are only 20 solar systems in the Confederacy.  The Zacathans are in a
trading relationship only. This is quite probably about the same size as
the Four Confederacies which were created out of the Confederation in the
main timeline.
 
Planets: Astra, Allpeace, Mayho (in Arzor's system), Valodia, Cosmos, Raybo
(Xik home planet), Zacathans (_The Zero Stone_, 1968): Murdoc Jern, an
apprentice gemologist, was raised by Hywel Jern, a gemologist for the
Thieves' Guild.  Hywel's biological children will inherit his shop and
money, so Hywel gives Murdoc a mysterious alien ring set with a Zero Stone
and sends him to apprentice with Vondar Ustle. Two years after Hywel's
murder, Murdoc finds himself on the run on Tanth after the Green Robe
priests 'choose' his master Vondar Ustle and himself as sacrifices. He
finds refuge in the house of Noskald and passage with the free trader
_Vestris_. He travels with them to the next planet on their route where
Valcyr, the ship's cat, licks a black stone away to nothing. She gives
birth to a mutant creature and Murdoc appears to contract plague. The crew
seals him into his cabin, and he hears them say that they have been paid to
bring him to some mysterious group. Murdoc, woozy with fever, takes a
spacesuit and escapes from the _Vestris_ with the mutant Eet's aid.  He
finds himself on a Forerunner craft; they use one of its LBs to get to the
nearest planet where they encounter a Jack expedition which wants the Zero
Stone and a Patrolman. They escape with the Patrolman in his scout; Eet
uses the Zero Stone to power the scout.  After a great deal of discussion,
the Patrolman (who turns out to be a Double Star Commander) agrees to
release Murdoc and Eet from all charges, give Eet sentient status, and
compensate them for damages in an amount large enough to buy their own
ship. In return, Murdoc gives the Patrol his ring and the locations of two
caches of zero stones which Eet found. However, Eet cunningly keeps one
zero stone for them, so that they can use the new ship to continue hunting
zero stones.
 
Patrol legal formula: "In the name of the Council, the Four Confederacies,
the Twelve Systems, the Inner and Outer Planets, this agreement shall hold
by planet law and star law." [These must be the names of the major legal
entities in the time of ZS. So there is not just one Confederacy, but four
- which indicates either civil war or a liking for the name. Also, there
are twelve sovereign systems. The "Inner and Outer Planets" would include
everybody who wasn't otherwise mentioned.
                           
Planets: Tanth, Hawaki (Hawaika?-ZS18), Angkor, Loki, Iona, Zacathans,
Trystians, Wyverns.
 
Later that year: (_Uncharted Stars_, 1969) Murdoc Jern and the alien Eet
buy the _Wendwind_ on Theba, but have difficulty finding a pilot until they
meet Kano Ryzk, a down-on-his-luck Free Trader.  They head for Lorgal in
the remote Fathfar sector to buy zorans.  They are anticipated by the
trader Akki, so they head for Sororis where they trade for
greenstones. When Murdoc tries to sell his greenstones on Lylestane (an
inner planet), he learns that they have been listed as unreliable. He
therefore sells his greenstones to the quasi-legal Wyvern, Tacktile. Eet
learns from Tacktile's mind that a Forerunner site is being raided by
Jacks; they go to the site and manage to save the Zacathan historian
Zilwrich.  Zilwrich pleads with them to follow the Jacks to Waystar so that
he can recover the stolen finds. Eet, Murdoc and Kano do so, with Murdoc
disguised as his father. When Murdoc and Eet return with some of the
treasure, Kano takes advantage of the situation by taking them prisoner; he
intends to turn them in to the Patrol and thus get himself
reinstated. Murdoc contacts Zilwrich with esper and gets him to free
them. Then Murdoc uses the zero stone to heal Eet. They use the coordinates
on some of the treasure to find a site with more zero stones. The zero
stones are destroyed but Eet is transformed into his true shape - a female
of a Forerunner race. Kano gets his cash, Zilwrich gets a city full of new
information, and Eet and Murdoc fall in love.
 
The Free Traders have their own confederation (US63). Waystar, the Caverns
of Arzor, and Limbo are listed as prominent Forerunner sites.
 
Planets: Tanth, Salariki, Theba (home of DC's pookhas (US14), Regillians,
Lorgal, Rakipur, Rohan, Sororis, Lylestane, Baltis, Amon, Thoth, Warlock,
Zorastians, Trystians, Zacathans, Jangour, Sirenea, Waystar, Arzor, Limbo,
Orbsleon, Faltharian, Sargol, Norstead, Rostand, Kamperel, Salod, Luar,
Thalan.
 
(_Night of Masks_, 1964): Nik Kolherne, a teenager from the Dipple, has a
burned face which medical technology has been unable to fix. When the
Thieves' Guild offers him a new face in exchange for his service, he jumps
at the chance. He helps the Guild kidnap Vandy by impersonating Vandy's
imaginary hero friend,
 
Nik Kolherne has been in the Dipple for 10 years; Stowar has bought into
the Thieves' Guild.
 
Planets: Korwar, Kali, Jigoku, Dis, Ebo, the Nebula worlds.
 
Communications: High Security (HS) villa, com-cast, psi snooper machines,
hypo-induction of information, psi-com, caster, circuit in brain to wipe
information, mental blocks. Transport: flitter, shielded LB. Weapons:
blaster, flamer, ground-based missiles.  Misc: eazi-rests, growth flesh,
stass, cin-goggles (UV), finger-heat seal (lock), scanner, radiation
tracker, Sustain tablets.
 
2 years after US: (_Forerunner Foray_, 1973) Ziantha, a psi with
psychometric powers, is sent by the Thieves' Guild to find and steal
specific data. When she does, she also finds a baked clay ball which she
feels to be important.  She cannot forget it, and after her theft is done
she goes back to its vicinity and teleports it to herself with the aid of
the telepathic animal Harath. Yasa, a Veep in the Guild finds out through
Ogan, her Psycho-tech; she decides to send an expedition to the world where
it was found. Yasa, Harath and Ziantha travel to Waystar where they
encounter Sreng, the same Jack chief that was in US, see a Jack male
Wyvern, and pinpoint the ball's origin. (Only Ziantha knows that the ball
contains a focus stone.) They travel there in a ship which owes a favor to
Sreng, only to find another Jack expedition (led by Ogan) and Ris
Lantee. Their captain allies with Ogan.  Then he uses Ziantha to find the
Tomb of Turan before Ogan can get there. Ziantha finds herself in an
earlier time, sealed in Turan's tomb with Ris Lantee. She occupies the
still-living body of Vintra, Turan's enemy (left to die in his tomb for his
glory); he inhabits the corpse of Turan. They travel to Turan's city,
Singakok, and hunt for the source of the focus stone (which Vintra wore in
the headdress which really belonged to Turan's chief consort Zuha. Zuha
didn't want to die with her husband.). They learn that it came from the
seacoast and use the stone to travel even further back into the past before
Turan's body collapses completely. Ziantha learns that the stones (the
Eyes) were used in ancient Nornoch by D'Eyree to control the Lurla (animals
whose building behavior protected Nornoch from the sea).  She returns to
Vintra's time and she and Ris travel back to the Tomb of Turan; they return
to their own time there. Ziantha learns that a Patrol ship has landed in
her absence; she tries to escape and find Ris, whom she only knows by
mind. When she learns that Ris is working for the Patrol, she fears that
she will have her mind erased. But since Ris is only assisting the Patrol,
he does not have to turn her in. When he finally persuades her of this,
they join with Harath to defeat Ogan and leave planet X One to work for the
Zacathans.
 
The Dipple has been on Korwar as long as Ziantha has been alive; Ris Lantee
looks young but is "not a boy". The city in US was discovered two years ago
(FF55); Mochican, Wotan (FF55), Ruhkarv on Korwar from CE (FF56), Var,
Llanfer, the Gardens of Arzor, and Limbo (FF72) are mentioned as notable
Forerunner sites.
 
Planets: Korwar, Lydis IV, Andros, Alaban, Warlock (FF44), Yiktor (FF44),
Fennis, Zacathans, Terra of Sol, Archon IV, Wotan, Mochican, Romstk,
Waystar, Var, Llanfer, Arzor, Limbo, Fenris, X One.
 
[After a period of chaos and warfare, trade and the Patrol begin to bind
the many sectors of the Galaxy together. The League of Free Traders is
founded to protect Free Traders' interests from the Companies and others.
As the League grows in power, the Companies at first grow more hostile; but
finally peace is declared between them.  Ships are still extremely valuable
and rare among Free Traders, however, and it would seem that the League can
afford to build only a few.  Ships' cats, whose population has been
decreasing as they become more interbred, become too rare to risk on ships;
Terra is a fabled though known planet, but the fact that it is also the
cats' homeworld has been forgotten.]
 
(_Moon of Three Rings_):
One year later: (_Exiles of the Stars_)
(_Flight in Yiktor_):
(_Dare to Go A-Hunting_):
 
2301 AF: First-in Survey Scout Jorth Kosgro discovers Dylan; he wanders
into the Folk's world and is lost (DC).
 
2322 AF: 100 years before she arrives (DC22), Dylan is discovered by
following the beacon of Jorth Kosgro's Survey ship.
 
After years of pollution on Terra - the pollut-die-off (BAN59) most of the
remaining Terrans are evacuated to Elhorn II and other planets.  These
colonists are extremely set against tech.  Afterward, Terran scientists
attempt to use a genetically engineered virus to help animals adapt to the
changing conditions.  Unfortunately, it affects humans by killing them,
sterilizing the survivors, and driving many mad. Simultaneously the animals
are made sentient.  Insane humans often react by killing their pets and
hunting down strays (BTC).
 
six years after the last plague attack: ("London Bridge", 1973 in BAN) The
children who survived the plagues work for survival in the ruined cities
left behind.  Both crazy Ups (grownups) and con-rats (upscaled rats, the
ancestors of the Rattons) endanger them.  But then the Rhyming Man shows up
- a strange Up who claims to be able to take children Outside.  When
children begin to disappear, the gangs hunt him but learn that even burners
bounce off him.  Then they see children disappear into thin air.
Eventually Lew follows the Rhyming Man (an old psi 'programmed' to find
children and bring them outside the city through a psi teleporter) and
manages to get Outside, where he and the other children begin a new life.
 
[After a planetary disaster (the one in BTC?) Terra's existence becomes
shadowy.  Even its location is a matter of dispute (DC125).]
 
2405 AF: Kilda c'Rhyn born to the Survey scout Rhyn Halcrow and his Chalox
planet wife (DC).
 
2422 AF: (_Dread Companion_, 196) Kilda arrives on Dylan as governess to
Bartare and Oomark Zobak.  Then she is taken by them into the Folk's world
and lost (DC).
 
Planets: Chalox, Talgrinn, Forsman, Lattmah, Firedrake, Korwar (Ruhkarv
site mentioned), Xcothal, Dylan.
 
[A fleet of aliens ("the Snakes") makes a sudden attack on the outer ring
worlds.  They are defeated in battle near the Nebula, but turn out to have
been only a scouting detail.  The big fleet arrives; there are many sudden
raids and attacks.  They are defeated, but the galaxy is left in a state of
chaos. Many planets are evacuated and\or have their garrisons withdrawn to
fight elsewhere, as happened to Dylan.]
 
2483 AF: Jorth Kosgro, Kilda c'Rhyn, and Oomark Zobak arrive back on Dylan
after escaping the world of the Folk. They meet the few settlers left on
Dylan and spend some time there. Jorth and Kilda decide to take Jorth's
scout ship and leave together (DC).
 
Planets: Argol (Algol?), Nordens.
 
[After the war, trade is restarted.  The Confederation gains in power;
science and technology experience a brief period of fertility. However,
internal strains quickly pull the Confederation apart.]
 
The Four Sectors War: Four sectors rebel against the Confederation; the war
lasts ten years and causes the Confederation to withdraw so many forces
from frontier worlds that many are lost to it.
 
(_Dark Piper_,1968): Beltane, a rim world settled 105 years ago to serve as
a biological research station, is unprepared for the chaos that follows the
Four Sectors War.  The few surviving veterans who come home from the war
are resented as militarists, so their warnings of danger go unheeded. One,
Sector-Captain Griss Lugard, takes his veteran's land-pension in the form
of an abandoned fort and sets it up as a refuge.  When a shady ship full of
'refugees' arrives and the Beltane Committee lets it land, he is
unsurprised when later the 'refugees' turn out to be Jacks looking for a
safe base who have signaled their find to many friends - friends who won't
take no for an answer. The children of the settlement, whom he has taken on
a field trip, survive the ensuing bombing run and use of a biological
weapon, but the rest of the humans on the planet do not. [This story is a
re-telling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.]
 
At this time, recruits learn the saga of The Cry of Yamar (a prophet of
soldiers) to learn the difference between soldiers and civilians.  Beast
teams fought in the war.
 
[The Confederation and Council both disintegrate into smaller units.  One
such unit is the South Sector Empire, which apparently includes Terra,
Sargol, Volsper, and Spica.]
 
Two years before EM: In a reaction against colonialism, the Council of the
South Sector Empire decides that the frontier worlds, especially those
inhabited by intelligent species, should be set free to set up their own
governments. Therefore they begin to withdraw the Patrol from these
worlds. [This seems to compare to the British Empire instead of the Roman
Empire; possibly EM is inspired by the Mau-Mau revolt?]
 
(_Eye of the Monster_, 1962) When the Patrol begins to withdraw from
Ishkur, Rees Naper is sure there will be trouble.  However, his uncle and
the other mission people do not agree, seeing his views as racist and
hysterical.  [If it is a religious mission, we never learn which religion.
It seems to be more of a scientific\diplomatic mission.] The mission
people, the Salariki traders, and most off-worlders are slaughtered.  By
luck, however, Rees manages to rescue the Terran child Gordy Beltz and the
Salarika child Yannah; he is joined by Isiga, an adult Salarika whom the
slaughter made Name-Head by Salariki law.  They journey together to
Wrexul's, a mining camp with heavy defenses; there they signal the few
remaining Patrol members and fight off the Ishkurians until a robo flyer
arrives to take them to the port.  There is foreshadowing that Isiga brings
them all to Sargol, where she calls on the Truce Court to help her
bloodfeud against Ishkur and takes Rees and Gordy into her clan business.
 
The Services are hereditary businesses - children begin training at birth
and enter cadet Academy at age 12.
 
Planets: Ishkur, Terra, Sargol, Volsper, Spica.
 
Communications: com unit, guide beam, recorder-reader, recorder (mental key
words activate re-run beam into mind), mind-touch (humans can't do it with
Ishkurians, but they can with each other), record tape box, field guide
beam, ride-beam, Basic.  Transport: 'copter, robo-control of vehicles,
jungle roller, hopper, spacer (ship).  Weapons: blaster, flamer, force
beam, beamer.  Misc: sonic net (bug repeller), foam plasta mattress,
survival kit, py-ri-ration, plasta bubble tent, sonic screen, spider silk,
dura-steel, proxlite, hummer (lulls things to sleep), sense detector
(detects intelligences above a set quotient), inhalant (powder which
intensifies sense of smell temporarily), Viv-ra-packs, lift platform
[anti-grav?], persona- locks (species' body-heat activated version), lift
beam, time lock, floods.
 
(_Breed to Come_ ) 500 years after the First Ship arrived on Elhorn II, the
_Pathfinder_ (Elhorn's first starship) arrives on Terra.  Its crew learns
the fate of Terra's people and is confronted by sentient animals.  The
local animal tribes (the Folk, the Barkers, and the Tuskers) unite against
their common human enemy (called the Demons), but the Rattons (rats)
attempt to ally themselves with the Demons to get their technology. One
crewmember goes mad (possibly he caught the disease), but others help to
hold off a Ratton invasion.  The _Pathfinder_'s crew returns to Elhorn II,
promising not to return and warning the animal tribes not to follow the
tech path.
 
(_The Iron Cage_) Rutee, a colonist kidnapped from Ishtar by aliens, and
her son Jony manage to escape from the aliens' ship onto a strange planet -
Earth.  They are aided by the People, a tribe of intelligent
animals. Eventually Rutee dies of the coughing sickness.  Jony and the
twins Maba and Geogee grow up among the people.  Then a human ship arrives
seeking Forerunner artifacts.  They capture Geogee, Maba, and several of
the People.  Volney, an unethical sensitive, convinces Geogee that the
People are just animals; Geogee helps them to find ancient artifacts.  Jony
rescues Maba and the People, destroys the artifacts and the ship, and
allows Geogee and the humans to live as best they can.  The People work to
be ready for the next ship.
 
'Sensitive' is the term used for espers.
 
Alien tech: sleep gas, hyperdrive ship, controllers.  Human tech:
grav-shaft, blaster rod, mind-control collar, flyer, stunner, visa-screen,
laser.
 
[As the inner worlds grow in strength once more, they are shocked by the
anarchy which has destroyed the frontier worlds in only a few hundred
years.  They dream of unifying the Galaxy into one peaceful, impartially
ruled unit.]
 
(_Forerunner_, 1981): Simsa, from the Burrows of Kuxortal, meets Thom
Chan-Li Yun, a ranger seeking his brother Thom T'seng, when she tries to
sell artifacts to 'the sky men'.  They run afoul of Lord Arfellen and the
Kuxortal Thieves' Guild and end up following T'seng's route into the Hard
Hills.  There they find a hidden Forerunner city, where a Forerunner war
fleet still sits on the field, plundered by Jacks and Lord Arfellen's
Guildsmen.  Simsa and Thom send a warning to the Patrol; Kuxortal and the
League are saved; and Simsa is mentally joined with a dead Forerunner
priestess.
 
The League rules many worlds (F133). X-Arth is the term for things which
came from Earth - only a few believe that Earth ever existed (F54).  Free
Traders wear winged hats again.  Zacathan Histor-Techneers work for the
League (F132). The Patrol still battles Jacks (F214).
 
Weapons: tangler, blaster, nuclear weapons.  Transport: gravity nullifier,
anti-grav belt, ship (hyperdrive).  Communications: visa-picture, persona
detect, distant vision charger, espers.
 
[The League's Chain Worlds grow overcrowded, so the League begins to
colonize empty planets again. Helman Horris Voor, a First-In Scout, finds
an inhabitable planet.  Since it is his last tour, Survey names the planet
"Voor".]
 
70 years before VL: First Ship on Voor lands at Portcity.
 
6 A.L. (After Landing); 64 years before VL: The first babies born on Voor.
 
30 A.L. (40 years before VL): Lausur's expedition does an edge sweep of the
Tangle.  This reawakens the Shadows. That same year, Sanzor becomes the
first human outpost to fall to the Shadow Death.
 
50 A.L. (about 20 years before VL): the first major strike of the Shadow
Death.
 
51 A.L. (about 19 years before VL): more deaths from the Shadow.
 
52 A.L. (about 18 years before VL): Voor's Grove struck. Three children and
one old woman survive, including Illo.
 
54 A.L. (about 16 years before VL): Mungo's Town struck. 220 die; 3
children survive including Bart s'Lorn.
 
(_Voorloper_) Bart s'Lorn, a Voorloper (wandering trader), and Illo, a
Healer, both survived major attacks of the Shadow Death as children.  When
they meet, they end up searching out the cause of the Shadow Death and
defeating the Shadows.
 
Planets: Voor, Astra, Arzor, Kerdam, Slotgoth, Limbo, Zacathans, Trystians.
 
circa AD 5054?: The First Galactic Empire is founded as the whole of the
Galaxy comes under Central Control's dream of impartial rule. [This date is
based on Zinga's remark (SR26) that 'this empire' had lasted about three
thousand years. He's a Zacathan; he ought to know.]  It would seem to be an
empire without an emperor, but with the cosmopolitan ideal of citizenship.
 
AD 8054: (_The Last Planet_ aka _Star Rangers_, 1953) "The First Galactic
Empire was breaking up.  Dictators, Emperors, Consolidators wrested the
rulership of their own or kindred solar systems from Central Control.
Space pirates raised flags and recruited fleets...Here and there...a group
of men tried vainly to dam the flood of disaster and disunion...  among
these last-ditch fighters who refused to throw aside their belief in the
impartial rule of Central Control were the remnants of the Stellar Patrol,
a law enforcement body whose authority had existed unchallenged for almost
a thousand years ....Jorcam Dester, the last Control Agent of Deneb, who
was nursing certain ambitions of his own...summoned the half dozen officers
still commanding navigable ships and ordered them - under the seal of the
Control - ...to locate...and re-map forgotten galactic border systems
no-one had visited in at least four generations.  One of these ships was
the Vegan Scout _Starfire_ (SR7-8)".
 
The _Starfire_ crashes on Terra.
 
Central Control falls, and the galaxy descends into barbarism.
 
Civilization rises again.
 
The Second Galactic Empire begins.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 


Book list:
 
This is not a bibliography, but a guide to the editions I used for my page
numbers.  "H" means Hardcover, "P" paperback, "S" softcover.
 
AaA:    Android at Arms (1971) Ace p
BM:     The Beast Master (1959) Ace p
BtC:    Breed to Come (1972) Ace 1981 p
BtS:    Brother to Shadows (1993) AvoNova 1994 p
CE:     Catseye (1961) HB&W h
DP:     Dark Piper (1968) HB&W h
DC:     Dread Companion (1970) HBJ h
EoM\SS: Eye of the Monster\Sea Siege (1962) Ace Double
FH:     Firehand [& PM Griffin] (1994) Tor h
FF:     Forerunner Foray (1973) Roc p
F:      Forerunner (1981) Tor p
FS:     Forerunner: The Second Venture (1985) Tor h
GtE:    Garan the Eternal (Fantasy Publications, 1972) [C] DAW p
HAM:    Here Abide Monsters (1973) h
HS:     High Sorcery (1970) [C] DAW p
HoH:    Huon of the Horn (1951) Ace p
IC:     Ice Crown (1970) Ace p
ICg:    Iron Cage (1974) Roc p
JoJ:    Judgment on Janus (1963) HB&W h
KoD:    Knave of Dreams (1975) Ace p
MB:     The Magic Books
BAN:    The Many Worlds of Andre Norton (1974) 
	[= The Book of Andre Norton] [C] DAW p
MM      Merlin's Mirror (1975) Ace p
MC      Moon Called (1982) 
MnM     Moon Mirror (1988) [C] [inc. Outside]
NoM:    Night of Masks (1964) HB&W h
NNS     No Night Without Stars (1975)
OEF     The Opal-Eyed Fan (Fawcett Crest, 1977) H
OTS     Operation Time Search (1967)
PD      Perilous Dreams (1976) [C] DAW p
PC      The Prince Commands (1934) Tor 1983 p
QK      Quag Keep (1978) Ace p
RR      Rogue Reynard (1947) [YA] 
SS      Sea Siege (1957) Ace p
SLR     Secret of the Lost Race (1959) [= Wolfshead] Ace p
ST      Serpent's Tooth (1987) [CB]
SS      The Sioux Spaceman (1960)
SG      Star Gate (1958)
S\V:    Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet (1961\195 [O/2N]
SMS     Star Man's Son 2250 A.D. (1952) [= Daybreak - 2250 A.D.]
VoJ:    Victory on Janus (1966) HB&W, H
Vl      Voorloper (1980) Ace 1981 p
WoS     Wheel of Stars (1983)
WW      Wizards' Worlds (1989) [C]
WoT     Wraiths of Time (1976)
XF      The X Factor (1965) HB&W, H
YB      Yurth Burden (1978)
 
The following books have been excluded from this chronology: all the Witch
World books except when they touch on Earth; Black Trillium [w. MZB & May]
and Golden Trillium; The Elvenbane [& Lackey]; Magic in Ithkar 1,2&3
[w. Adams] (at least until I figure out what kind of spacecraft it was
whose landing began the fair....); and Mark of the Cat.  I may put the
non-Witch World books in later; but the Witch World chronology is easily
found in several sources - most completely (and with information found
nowhere else and given by Andre Norton) in the game supplement _GURPS:
Witch World_ by Sasha Miller and Ben W. Miller.  (Just realize that their
map of Karsten doesn't fit the description of the coast given in WW.)
 
I am still looking for info on the following books: Bertie & May, Caroline,
Catfantastic 1 & 3, Day of the Ness, The Hands of Lyr, House of Shadows
[w. Miller], The Jekyll Legacy [w. Bloch], Maid at Arms, Moon Mirror, Rebel
Spurs, Ride the Green Dragon [w. Miller], Serpent's Tooth, Seven Spells to
Sunday [w. Miller], Sneeze on Sunday [w. Miller?], Stand and Deliver, Stand
to Horse, the Star Ka'at books, Ten Mile Treasure, Wheel of Stars, Yankee
Privateer, Yurth Burden, and all anthologies edited by her.  Any
information given will be credited in the next version of this chronology.
 
The following persons contributed information to the chronology: John
George Brown, Henry Churchyard, Theresa Ann Wymer, Peter Donald, John
C. Wenn, Ethan A. Merritt, Audrey Dorofee, Irene R. Harrison, and Mary
McKnapp.  They have my utmost thanks.
 
All quotes and information taken from Andre Norton's books are her property
- if they weren't, why would you want to read this sucker?
 
The previous posts and the timeline arrangement they contain is copyright
to me, Maureen S. O'Brien.  If you want to use my chronology, you should
send me some e-mail and ask me.  

First posted January 29, 1995. Archived in the sf-lovers ftp site at 
Rutgers for many years.

[End of Norton Timeline!]

Maureen S. O'Brien
ej613 at cleveland.Freenet.Edu (no longer active)
mobrien at dnaco.net