Dr Winnifred Strausse and the Time Vehicle

We begin our story in the year 3142, we join Dr. Winnifred Strausse, an esteemed fellow at Ruby University, Mars.  Dr. Strausse has been working for several long and arduous years on a project that one day might change the world.  That project seeks to enable Time Travel so that Man can better understand its past and foresee the faults it has created in its future in an attempt to prevent them rather than cure them.

Dr. Strausse's research is not without controversy, many an activist group has expressed opposition to Time travel and called for it to be made illegal before it has even been made possible, arguing that Man should not have such power.  The most influential activist group in opposition of this research are the Collective Chronological Conversationalist Consortium, aptly named C4, whose methods are rather more drastic than that of their less extreme friends.

Dr. Strausse's research is complex, and as part of the ongoing development she heads a team of PHD students, 7 in all.  Unbeknownst to her however within that 7 lies Alistair Cauldon, known to her as a Physics Major but known to C4 as their most valuable asset, a mole.  Alistair has used his position well to deliver endless volumes of research material to C4 as well as schedules and agendas for all of Dr. Strausse's movements.

Our story begins late in the progress of Dr. Strausse's research.  After years of study and design a prototype Time Vehicle has been created.  The Vehicle resembles a Helicopter, however it is egg-shaped with the absence of rear blades.  The overhead blades spin at great velocity, beneath them a generator is used to create a field around the vehicle, the blades then lift the vehicle into the air.  At the centre of the vehicle lies the heart of Dr. Strausse's research, the Flux Capacitor.  The first manned test flight is planned for launch the following day.  Present in the flight test will be Dr. Strausse and two of her research team.  As of yet all tests of the time vehicle have been forward through time, it is argued that any backwards test would have to be far enough not to coincide with the existence of the vehicle, or any of its occupants as the consequence of the two meeting could not be known without more research.

The first manned flight would follow the convention of forward motion, with a small target of only one week planned.  However, the night before the testing Alistair and his comrades of C4 chose to enter Dr. Strausse's lab and sabotage the Time Vehicle.  They chose to set the coordinates to a place on Earth where Dr. Strausse and her team would not likely be able to return easily, the time they set would be over one thousand years into the past, 1,130 to be exact.  It took great effort and many hours of work for Alistair to reprogram the console of the Time Vehicle to display the intended target coordinates and mask the true destination, but with focus and determination he succeeded.

The next day all went according to plan, Dr. Strausse set the coordinates, checked and double checked them along with all remaining pre-flight checks.  Everything appeared in order.  Dr. Strausse was accompanied by two PHD students, Sarah James and Matthew Connor.  The flight began, and proceeded as expected, the blades accelerated and the Vehicle was engulfed in a ball of white light and in a moment there was nothing.  One week passed and the Vehicle did not arrive on schedule.  Another week passed and then another until finally one month had passed and the experiment was declared a failure.  The University called the event a tragic accident and after much political pressure shut down its research project.  The activists goal had been achieved.  Another week later as the lab had been packed up and all the research papers and backups had been placed in archive boxes, C4 once again struck the University.  In one night a fire unlike any the University had ever encountered raged throughout the entire Northern Campus consuming all in its path, including Dr. Strausse's lab.  All information pertaining to the project was lost with no hope of return.  The remaining members of Dr. Strausse's research team dropped out of University shortly after and chose to retreat into lives of reclusion, hounded by the press and berated by the families of Dr. Strausse and the two PHD students that had accompanied her the found it hard to find peace.

What happened to Dr. Strausse then?  Exactly what C4 had planned, she and her team were sent back to the year 2012 and found themselves on Earth, in the heart of Tioman Island in the South China Sea.  Fortunately the Vehicle had landed in the heart of the forestry where Dr. Strausse and her team could conceal it well.  After much deliberation there was little they could do.  They knew that the Vehicle had been tampered with and they could not risk using it again.  Upon inspection Dr. Strausse's only logical conclusion was that the console had been tampered with, it would require reprogramming, unfortunately not a single computer in existence would be able to interface with the console, the physical connections did not exist and it would take some time to create them from scratch that is, if they even knew how.  Of the three Matthew was the most experienced when it came to Computers and engineering but even he did not understand the technology enough to recreate it.  They were stuck.  The Vehicle itself was not even capable of true flight over great distances.  It would have to remain on the island.  As for the team itself, after much deliberation again it was concluded that they should remain on the island, as it would not be prudent to leave the vehicle there to be found.

The first few nights were rough, the team slept in the vehicle as best they could and lived off what little rations they had taken with them.  It was not yet clear if it would be safe to approach the locals.  On the second day the team had agreed to decosntruct the time vehicle.  The started with the flux capacitor which would in the end turn out to be their salvation.  The capacitor's core was coated in diamond, the only substance hard enough to withstand the pressure that was generated.  It was the lavish expense that would later be bartered and exchanged for a considerable amount of money, enough to set the three team members comfortably to remain on the island.  Dr. Strausse opened a small library and taught the local school children how to read English.  Sarah and Matthew eventually married and had several children, the oldest three of which where told the truth about the Time Vehicle and where it could be found.  As those three children grew and had children of their own the secret of the Time Vehicle was passed down from generation to generation.  There were only ever three people at any given time who knew of its existence and its location.  It was not until several hundred years later in a tragic plane crash that the three keepers of the secret perished and existence of the Vehicle was lost.  There in the heart of Tioman Island the Time Vehicle slept for centuries, undisturbed.