April 2003 - The USAF dropped an 'MOAB' on an Iraqi bunker in a remote part of Al Anbar Providence. While an army unit was clearing the bunker, they found that the rear wall had collapsed showing a passageway. It was evident that the Iraqis didn't realize that it was there. They found a door at the end of that passageway with ancient writing on it. They filled it in their report and went on fighting the rest of their war.
May 2004 - Lt. Col. Marks, who was a member of Pa National Guard unit activated for the Gulf War, was cleaning up the paperwork for his battalion's operations. He came upon the report since he was an amateur archeologist he decided to visit the site to see if it was worthwhile to notify the Iraqis on this new find. When he got to the location and the door at the end of the passageway he stood there in amazement, he couldn't read it, but he recognized the writing as ancient Greek. What were the Greeks doing in the middle of the Iraqi desert, the coast maybe but here, There was never any record of the Greeks being here to build such a substantial structure. He then noticed that the door had hinges, hinges were not in use until at least 1600 BC, before then people were using an early form of the modern hinges to make massive objects move which was nothing more than wooden pegs in stone holes. On the right side of the door, he saw what looked like a handle. He reached for it and gave a tug. Slowly the door opened. And inside on what appeared to be a metal floor were boxes. In the boxes, he found sheets of a thin metallic paper which had diagrams and writing on then. He got on his radio back to battalion HQ, hold off on forwarding that report about this place and get some archeologists and intelligence people down here.
August 2004 - The site was put off limits, under the guise of being a chemical weapons dump. The room was cleaned out, and everything placed on a C17 and sent stateside. A team was put together to translate, prioritize and catalog everything and place the data in computer files. Everyone on the project started out the same way, expecting each day that they when to work this, would be the day that they would find a rational explanation. The plans for a nuclear fusion reactor was found and given to a university that was working in this field and on other top secret projects. Six months later the USA had its first working nuclear fusion reactor.
August 2006 – Archeologists finished translating the documentation, and it told a story about a group of people called the Twelve Colonies of Kobol fleeting the Cyrannus system after losing a war. They came to earth approximately 150,000 years ago and decided to send their ships into the sun. They separated into small groups and blended in with the natives. One group wanted; if they didn't survive there would be some record of their existence, so they left this depository of knowledge.
June 2008 - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) assumed control over the project. For each different technologies, a department was created. Various universities received contracts to develop the medical and civil engineering technologies.
February 2015 - NASA was able to build a raptor-like shuttle minus the FTL drive it uses a small fusion reactor to power a Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine. In the space where the FTL drive would have been they placed a quantum vacuum plasma thruster (or Q-thruster) with these two engines and Earth own advances in plasma engines, allowed it to achieve orbit, although it immediately needed to be refueled with hydrogen once in space. Q-thrusters already existed in laboratories. The fusion reactor was the big breakthrough they needed. They began searching the solar system for this mineral called tylium to replace the hydrogen. Still this gave them a vehicle those endurance that once in space was only limited by the Expendables. Most of the rest of the technologies to one degree or another already existed; the navy already had rail guns, the armor was not that much more advanced then what on an M1 tank or British Chobham armor except that it was 6 to 8 feet thick. Their medical technology was on par with where the earth was. They had not found a cure for cancer and still suffered from the common cold. Their computers were what both slowed down and confused the earth's scientists. How could a society that developed an FTL drive have such basic computers? Everything was purpose build. Once again the small fusion reactor was the big breakthrough and understanding their total lack of general purpose computers. The last major area was the FTL drives and gravity plates. One of the scientists had a theory they received these technologies from someone else and didn't understand the physics behind them.
June 2017 - A university in Finland was working with diamagnetic fields. These fields could levitate small animals. The professor that was in charge of their physics department was invited to join DARPA, He refused but agreed to have several US scientists join his project if the US helped with funding. After getting the Finish government approval, this was done. They soon had a gravity plate; it produced 0.75g. Higher G's plates required exponentially more power. These plates although not identical to the Colonials worked on the same principle. With a 2500 MW reactor, it would approach 0.97g's, but the plate would self-destruct. Just before this occurred there were signs of space folding.
December 2018 – The US announced that with the aid of the British and other NATO allies the US was going to build a ship in orbit. The British Skylon would be used to move the necessary materials to space to build the first vessel. The first ship would be used to gather resources from the asteroid belt and the moon to build future ships.
March 2022 - The first ship as completed it was unofficially named Colonial-1 it had six main (VASIMR) engines each tied to its fusion reactor. And the largest (Q-thruster) build to date. It used small (VASIMR) engines placed around the hull as maneuvering thrusters. It was based on the design of a colonial destroyer. With an armored hull that was 10ft thick vs. the 4ft on a colonial destroyer. The first 6ft was the standard armor and where the Colonials had a three ft void it was filled with a concrete type material that would not harden unless exposed to space then one ft of steel and ceramic armor that was both strong and flexible was placed on the inside. The concrete was both liquid and under slight pressure. From tests that were done by the British, this was shown to stop both micrometeorites and radiation. During a review of this ships potential, a question was asked if this ship could be interstellar. The lead scientist for propulsion stood up and said yes. Although let's be clear this ship was only designed to keep the crew safe from both radiation and meteorites while flying around the solar system. But there is no reason it couldn't reach Alpha Centauri, and using both the VASMIR and Q-Thruster brought up to 0.5C and be there in 8.48 years. The engines only need power during acceleration and de-acceleration, of course, we have the problem of how to slow down and turn around. So, this ship could stay in space almost indefinitely. The biggest thing I do not understand about the colonials is why they carried water. Other then food for the crew the only expendable is hydrogen. Water and oxygen are almost entirely recyclable. And I will predict that as we get more experience with this ship, one of the first things we cut back on is oxygen carried and increase the inert gasses carried, we don't want the crew to start living in a progressively purer oxygen atmosphere. I am very proud of this ship and believe in many ways it's more advanced then the colonial design. Someone asked; if we should even continue to invest the people and money in the FTL technology. The project leader nodded to the scientist who currently had the floor and said: "go ahead John you're on a roll."
Yes, it is still worthwhile in exploring the FTL drive as a matter of fact most of us believe it to be the holy grail in all of this. But remember what some scientists were afraid of during the Manhattan Project that we would create a chain reaction in the atmosphere and destroy the earth. Well, here we are playing with folding space and possibly creating a wormhole, possibly a giant wormhole. So, once again we should work at understanding the basic physic behind the FLT drive. And when we are ready to test something we would go to somewhere in deep space and test there whether it's our design or a colonial rip off. Someone then asked the question "But what good would it do to travel a just couple of light years from earth if this thing could create a wormhole. Well just like after the Trinity test it was shown it was impossible for the atomic bomb to explode the atmosphere, we would find the same thing here, we just don't know. Based on the fact that these were widespread across the colonies and even in the shuttles before they had to flee their home worlds we will find the same thing here. Maybe this is something we want to develop but put on the shelf in case we ever have to do an evacuate earth thing by building an ark to save humanity. At this point, we just don't know. The project leader then took the floor and asked for a final question, someone from the back of the room asked that since all of the colonial ships had weapons on them would the Colonial 1 also have weapons. Yes, it will have two railguns on the bow in turrets not the colonial design but the same as on the Navies D1000, their latest destroyer. Also, there will be 4 VLT (Vertical Launch Tubes) for general purpose missiles. There is so much we are just starting to learn. What will be the long-term effects of both micrometeorites and small asteroids on the ships armor? Will we be able to target and destroy the asteroids with the railguns or will our speed be limited by our ability to detect them with RADAR and avoid them? What will be the long-term effects on the crew in a diamagnetic field? Several scientists were developing a theory where if these fields could be made strong enough it would both give them the benefit of getting closer to 1g gravity on the ship with the field on the deck and second field with reversed polarity in the bow forming a deflector system to avoid asteroids
January 2024 – A large Tylium deposit was found on several asteroids in the asteroid belt, and mining of these asteroids was started.
June 2035 – Mitsubishi Industries started building robots that would allow manufacturing of consumer products in space. They partnered with Toyota and SpaceX. Toyota made hydrogen fuel cell cars, and SpaceX transported them in (VLCC) Very Large Car Carriers back to earth. This was all possible because Earth now had a cheap, safe and reliable access to space. Toyota stated that it was cheaper to build a car in the asteroid field by robots and ship it back to earth then make the same car in Japan and ship it to the US.
August 2036 – IBM's advances in Silicon Photonics, Quantum Computing, and quantum entanglement, now allowed instant communication anywhere in the solar system, theoretically anywhere in the universe. An ISP was not needed to connect servers. The stock prices of Google and other internet companies collapsed while this was all being sorted out.
May 2038 – Apple came out with the Q-Pad, the IBM system only provided communication between 2 quantum devices. With the Apple system, you bought one device but a second device was built and stayed with Apple in their data centers massive supercomputer, which ironically IBM developed and sold them. Allowing instant communication with any device that Apple ever sold. Overnight anyone that ever saw the internet and this system wanted to leave the old internet and start using the Apple system. After a year, the US began anti-trust hearings against Apple and subpoenas their CEO. He appeared and simply read a statement, "Gentlemen because of the physics of this thing there can only be ONE. And we are that ONE. And we can operate anywhere in the known universe have a nice day".
October 2040 – There was an accident at the tylium processing plant on the moon resulting in a significant loss of life. The processing plants develop new safety measures, but still a few months later there was another accident luckily, this time, no one died. A review panel was created to give suggestions on how to proceed. Yes, a tylium rocket engine was much more powerful than anything we had, but still tylium when in the front end and came out the nozzle as exhaust. It was a reaction rocket and a step backward from a hydrogen plasma engine and with the recent developments in gravity plates, this advantage can be negated. So it was decided to continue experimenting with tylium, but not go into extensive use.
June 2045 – Pennsylvania State University had been working with antimatter since the 1980's. They put forth a proposal that used a fusion reactor to create antimatter protons. Their system solved two of the biggest problems with antimatter engines producing the antimatter protons and storing them. If the reactor stopped working for any reason, the plasma field collapsed, and antimatter production stopped. A prototype was built and placed on a destroyer after testing the fleet was refitted.
May 2051 – The University in Finland that was working with diamagnetic fields came forwarded and said they had a type of FTL drive that they wanted to test. It would require a larger ship than a destroyer. After NASA and DARPA had reviewed their designs, it was decided that they would build a colonial heavy cruiser in orbit and use it for testing. Its layout as far as its engines were concerned was the same as a destroyer. These were well tested and proven systems. But, most of the additional space inside was taken up by three massive fusion reactors. It had two large rings that were superconducting magnets each one was 250 meters in diameter and 30 meters in width and 15 meters thick. One was placed 120 meters from the bow, to create the forward field that would collapse space. The second one that was reversed polarity as placed just in front of the rear engine block. This one would expand space and push the "bubble" forward. The ship named Explorer-1 traveled to an empty area of space outside of the solar system. Not because they were afraid of what would happen when they turned on the drive but so they had less of a chance to run into something. The ship spent the next month testing and calibrating the drive which worked as planned with minor glitches. Although it shared several similarities with the colonial "Jump", drive it was different in that it was a continuance type of drive. The power needed to fold space to the point where a "Jump" would occur, was still consider to be outside, what was deliverable by any known device. But finally, we were much closer to understanding the basic physics behind it. That year a Nobel Peace Prize in physics was awarded to Professor Evind Svinhufvud of the Helsinki University. Although a lot of work still had to be done in the area of sensors to keep from collapsing the bubble in front of a massive object we could see that was the purpose of several systems on the colonial ships and these systems were being install on our vessels. With our improvements in computers, this same system could be automated and greatly improved.
May 2062 - A plan to construct three more cruisers and two destroyers passed thru the Senate. They each had four large fusion reactors tied into a power distribution panel. Since this type of reactor was in use for the last 40 years, this was viewed to be sufficient with a considerable safety factor. One reactor was always scheduled to be offline for routine maintenance. The destroyers now had enough room and power to install the FTL drive. Also, since our computers were so much more advanced and networked with Q-Servers, the crew requirements were substantially reduced to where the destroyers only had a crew 125 people and the cruisers 345. All the ships had a Q-thrusters and anti-matter engines for their main drives inside a solar system. This fleet would go to Alpha Centauri. Due to pressure brought on by the United Nations the US conceded to having one cruiser and destroyer manned with an international crew. The other three ships would have a NATO crews as planned.
March 2063 – On March 15th the fleet Left for Alpha Centauri A it would take three weeks to get there Although most of the time would be spent traveling out of the Sol system and back into the Alpha Centauri system which was three stars in proximity to each another. Alpha Centauri A was thought to have planets in orbit, so this is where the fleet headed after exiting the FTL bubble.
August 2063 – The fleet returned after surveying Alpha Centauri; the system had three suns and 36 planets. All were either gas giants or barren rocks.
December 2085 – Earth's fleet of 3 cruisers and eight destroyers when through a Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization Program or as it was called, "FRAM". Explorer-1 (although it never left the solar system) continued in its role as a test bed and science vehicle. As more manufacturing relocated off the planet, the earth when through a renaissance, it was feared that this would cause massive unemployment, but new jobs grew out of the new industries. The North Korean dictatorship finally collapsed, and over the objections of China enter into an economic union with South Korean.
March 2097 – An Anthropology professor gave a talk on the Science channel that we were all Children of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. As it turns out, humanity has almost been wiped out several times in our distant past. How did it happen, and why did humanity always bounce back? The DNA samples found in the Colonials of Kobol depository of knowledge did not have the genetic drift that there should have been if you mix in 50k humans with a population of several million. Other scientists maintained that this DNA would have degraded too much to be of any use. The Professor giving the talk put forward the theory that the colonist would not have simply gone native, but would have introduced farming and sanitation and other advances, that would have greatly increased their numbers. And if this did not lead to them directly overcoming natural disasters their increased numbers would have. While the rest of the human population that, did not have these fundamental advances, did not recover and died out. A resurgence of interest in the Twelve Colonies of Kobol soon followed.
July 2098 – Most of the nearby systems close to earth were surveyed, and they were found only to contain gas giants and barren rocks. A team had been reviewing the star charts in the Colonial depository of knowledge to find a system worth exploring. When someone almost jokingly had the idea, were looking for someplace interesting why, not the Cyrannus system. Someone else spoke up and said one word "Cylons". It has been over 150 thousand years; they can't be still looking for the Colonials if they even still exist. After much-heated debating it was decided, they would build a Battlestar and go to the Cyrannus system.
December 2100 - It was decided to construct a Battlestar, it was by far the largest ship built to date, 1250 meters long with six 5000MW fusion reactors and six large anti-matter fusion engines for acceleration. And 2 Q-thrusters, these there still the most efficient way to cruise around a solar system. It had four railguns in the nose and 24 general purpose missiles launch tubes but, no point defense weapons or vipers. Each hanger pod house a Raptor squadron and the rest of the space taken up with storage and science labs. Since it traveled in a warp bubble, the pods did not have to be retracted. The ship was named Galactica II
April 2101 - The Galactica along with two cruisers and destroyers left for the Cyrannus system.
October 2102 – The fleet arrives at the outskirts of the Cyrannus system and begins scanning the system. They find no signs of any activity and after two weeks they proceed to the planet Caprica. They find a blue planet much like earth with an abundant amount of plant and animal life. The two cruisers were dispatched to the other colonies to survey them. Some ancient ruins were found but no signs of any recent 500-1000 years activity. In several conferences calls with earth, it was stated several times. With the lack of other habitable planets being found these planets must be re-colonized. After six months of exploring and just before their return to Earth, a raptor when down to a hill overlooking what would have been Caprica City. A plaque just said: "The children of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol have returned".