Contact Is Lost With Yang Gao

August 28th, 2004

in 1619, a schism developed in the Holy British Empire when the Archbishop of Styria, Ferdinand, declared himself the true heir to the papacy through his Roman ancestry. Pope James I fought the rogue heretic for 30 years before finally stamping out the Roman heretics.

in 1249, Caliph Amal bin-Yusuph convenes the Conference of Cairo to recodify Sharia law in Islam. bin-Yusuph favors a more liberal interpretation of the Koran, and hopes to change the Sharia to reflect this.

in 1938, Northwestern University awards an honorary degree to Edgar Bergen’s dummy Charlie McCarthy. The jocular mood of the occasion is broken when the “dummy” comes to life and flees the stage, leaving a dead Edgar Bergen behind.

in 1961, Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land becomes the first science fiction novel to reach the top of the New York Times’ bestseller list. Literary critics begin reexamining a genre that they had disdained for many years and the field experienced a renaissance in popularity, both critical and commercial.

in 1963, Martin Luther King, chairman of the Semitic-African Resistance organization in America, gave his stirring I have a dream speech in Washington, D.C. As he called for the nation not to fall under the sway of the European New Reich at the end of the speech, Chairman King was arrested.

in 1999, a murderous cult appears to be slaying people throughout the Philippines. Police determine a strange pattern to their slayings, with each victim being born under a particular star sign.

in 4697, contact between the Chinese Empire and its Yang Gao colony in the Tchou star system is lost. Imperial officials press for a fleet to be sent to the system to see what has happened to Yang Gao, and Emperor Xiao Yang authorizes his Star Fleet to send one out with all possible speed.

in 2003, Livinia Nixon is plucked out of the South Pacific by an Australian naval vessel. She appears to be severely dehydrated, but otherwise doesn’t seem in ill health, except for the fact that she seems to be in some sort of coma.