Page 1 -- Time Travel (Use of the Orb of the Moons -- -- by Dr. Johann Spector (and the Fox) -- = Forward = = December, 1895 = The story of my trip to Mars began many years in the Future - nearly 100 years from now. At the time, i was (will be?) deeply involved in writing an account of my exploits in Eodon, the alternate dimension dubbed "The Savage Empire" by that young reporter, Jimmy Malone. As i struggled to convey the might and the majesty of the place and its denizens, I received a telegram from the adventurer who calls himself the Avatar. "Come Quickly," it said. Arriving at his home, I was surprised to learn that he had not. in fact, contacted me at all. Here was a mystery! As we discussed the origin of the mysterious telegram, an odd-looking woman rapped on the door and delivered a package. When we turned to examine the contents, the woman slipped away; her last words a warning that we held the fate of her people in our hands. The mystery deepened! The contents of the package did little to enlighten us. Inside we found a map showing the location of a laboratory in the mountains of Colorado, an old photograph, a letter signed "Nikola Telsa" and a book, ostensibly written by me entitled "Time Travel: Use of the Orb of the Moons." The book was, needless to say, the very work i find myself writing now. The photograph was of myself, the Avatar, Nikola Tesla, Sigmund Freud, and several other historical figures! Though neither the Avatar nor I had any recollection of having travelled through time , we agreed that we would be Page 2 remise if we didn't investigate. After all, it isn't every day one receives a package from someone long dead! With the mysterious map to guide our way, we soon found ourselves in a long abandoned lab - the map was genuine! Thus encouraged, we placed the Orb of the Moons eight feet in front of us at a heading of 37 degrees, and a timegate appeared. The orb (acquired in an earlier venture to the fabled realm of Britannia) was a capable of taking us to the distant past as to fantastic, other- dimensional worlds! Upon stepping through the gate, we found ourselves in 1895, where we were greeted by none other than Nikola Tesla. History books make no mention of the events Telsa went on to describe. He informed us that the astronomer Percival Lowell had discovered an explosive substance called Phlogistonite capable of propelling a train-sized bullet through space. The power of Page 3 this substance was, in his own words, beyond description. Unfortunately, its nature has been lost to the ages. In any event, Lowell had no trouble finding a backer for the construction of a space cannon - William Randolph Hearst, noted newspaper publisher, supplied the funds in exchange for exclusive rights to the story. Discretion dictates that I not reveal the details of Lowell's voyage or the course of events after we would-be rescuers arrived on the Red Planet - one must, after all, reserve some things for lucrative autobiographies! (Even scientist- adventurers must pay the rent.) Suffice to say that the Avatar and I returned safely to Earth. In a very short while, we will return to our own time, but not before I turn this book over to Dr. Tesla, so he may ensure that it is delivered into our hands a hundred years from now. NOTE: I must be sure to implore Tesla not to read this journal. Though the details of our journey through time will be revealed in another forum at another time, I feel the need to record my thoughts about the historical figures with whom I shared this, the grandest of my adventures to date. I intend to record here not only biographical information through the years 1895, but also the events of the years that followed. Were this information to be revealed to the natives of the 19th century, all of history could be changed forever. Needless to say, our goal in this era our own past was not to alter history, but to preserve it - to ensure that everything that had already come to pass in our reality would, in fact, happen. I hesitate even to consider the consequences of a temporal anomaly, however slight. Page 4 = Companions in Adventure = Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of our adventure was the company we kept. for among our fellow space travellers were several notable historical figures. I will endeavour to describe them both as they are remembered by historians (at least insofar as I remember my history!) and as I came to know them in the flesh. It is difficult to express the thrill of meeting some of history's most famous men and women face tot face! Freud, Roosevelt, Edison - these legendary figures are more than just names in history books. They are real, flesh and blood people, people whom the Avatar and I, alone among modern men, have had the opportunity to know. Page 5 = Rescue Mission = Nellie Bly (1867-1922) This investigative reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World has always fascinated me. Here was a liberated, modern, career woman in an era when such were few and far between. At a time when women hardly considered careers in journalism, Nellie Bly checked herself in a New York insane asylum to report on patient abuse, went to prison to write about the treatment of inmates, and investigated crooked employment agencies that preyed upon young women. But her greatest claim to fame came in 1889 when she embarked on a round-the-world trip to beat the 80 day "record" set in Jules Verne's novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. (She made the trip in 72 days, six hours, eleven minutes, and zero seconds.) Miss Bly journeyed to Mars to chronicle the rescue expedition's adventures for her employer (who, by the way funded the rescue expedition in an attempt to upstage his archival, William Randolph Hearst). I am happy to report that Neille was everything I'd hoped she would be - resourceful, brave, strong-willed, capable...all in all, a most remarkable person. Page 6 Dr. C.L. Blood (Unknown) Dr. Blood was something of a mystery to me. Though Tesla, Freud and other would be rescuers seems well-familiar with him and his accomplishments, I had never heard of him before our arrival in 1895. Apparently, Dr. Blood was reviled by the medical establishment of the 1870s for espousing the curative powers of his: "Oxygenized Air" The general public cared little about the disdain of Blood's peers - thousands claimed to have recovered from illness and infirmity after undergoing oxygenized air treatment. Despite his somewhat checkered past and lack of esteem among the leading lights of the medical community, Blood proved to a conversed and able doctor, well able to handle the rescue expedition's medical needs. Page 7 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Until I learned about the mysterious Martian artifacts dubbed "dream machines" by the members of the 1893 expedition, I wondered what role Dr. Freud would play among the rescuers. The father of modern psychoanalysis, Freud dream analysis, free association, and sexual basis of neuroses revolutionized a field that had depended upon hypnosis and electroshock therapy in the treatment of patients. It was shortly after the first reports reached Earth concerning the dream machines that communication from Mars stopped. Freud's expertise allowed him to explain the strange visions produced in those who used these Martian artifacts. Page 8 Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) An unsung genius and unparalleled eccentric, Tesla was on of the late 19th and early 20th centuries most innovating electrical engineers and invertor. His greatest achievement was the invention of the AC induction motor, which led to the virtual replacement of the DC current in everyday life. Despite being responsible for this major technological advance, Telsa is usually remembered more for his failed efforts to broadcast electrical power through the air, like radio waves. His technological expertise made the rescue expedition possible and proved invaluable in the understanding and repairing numerous Martian machines. And of it was his time spanning message that brought us to this place and time. Page 9 = The 1893 Expedition = The members of the stranded expedition were no less fascinating than their would-be rescuers. Those aboard Lowells' craft when it blasted off from the World' Columbian Exposition represents a veritable Who's Who of the Victorian era. The year was 1893 and all the world had turned its attention to Chicago, the site of the Exposition. There, ornate edifices housed displays of mankinds greatest achievements. A Ferris wheel 264 feet in diameter and capable of carrying over 2,000 people at a time towered over the fair. The worlds nations sent emissaries to show off the lifestyles and accomplishments of their people. Perhaps the most remarkable attraction stood near the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building. There, spectators marvelled at Percival Lowell's Space Cannon, designed to take mankind to Mars. A crew was gathered, a launch date set. A day before the scheduled launch, Lowell gave a tour of his cannon to a select group of fair attendees and workers. Suddenly the cannon discharged. Some at the scene claimed the explosion had destroyed the bullet within, killing all aboard. Some thought the whole event was a colossal hoax. In fact, the bullet rocketed towards Mars with many of the Victorian era's leading lights aboard. I can't imagine the world without the crucial contributions these people made to the advancement of science, the arts and government. You will, no doubt, understand what i mean when you read the list of the missing. Page 11 Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) This French actress was the most renowned performer of her day. Her international tours sold out on every continent of the globe.Her appearances in Queen Elizabeth (1912), one of the earliest feature-length motion pictures, lent credibility to the fledgling art form. Her theatre background proved surprisingly useful in our adventure on Mars. William F."Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) Western scout and hunter. Folk legends have it that he single- handedly killed more than 4000 buffalo - an heroic feat at the time. With the taming of the West, he turned to show business, leading a troupe of cowboys and Indians in a series of phenomenally successful Wild West shows. He took up with fellow westerner Calamity Jane on Mars Page 12 Calamity Jane (1852-1903) A frontier woman who eschewed dresses and petticoats for "manly" clothes. Calamity Jane, born Martha Jane Burke, served as an army scout, a pony express rider, and as aide to George Armstrong Custer. Calamity is reputed to have been a prostitute and Wild Bill Hickok's mistress, but she refused to discuss this with me. On Mars, she quickly tired of the Martian cites and took to wandering the plains with Buffalo Bill. Together, they supplied Oxium and other survival items to the city dwellers and planetary explorers. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) Railroad tycoon and steel magnate who felt that the duty of the rich was to distribute surplus wealth to those who needed it. Toward the end, he set up many charitable and educational institutions and foundations. I was quite surprised at Carnegie's first-hand knowledge of steel and manufacturing. Carnegie was charged with constructing a space cannon on Mars, make it return flight possible. If only more modern executives were as familiar with the nuts and bolts operations of their companies. Page 12 George Washington Carver (c1860-1943) Born to slave parents, Carver fought the odds and turned a lifelong affinity for plants into a career. In 1896, he became head of agricultural research for the Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes at Tuskee, Alabama. There, he pioneered multi-crop farming and crop rotation, and synthesized over 400 substance from peanuts and sweet potatoes (including dyes, milk, linoleum, glue, soap, flour, oil, paint, ink, butter, coffee, and even synthetic rubber). Thomas Edison once offered Carver a salary of $100,000 to join him at his lab in New Jersey, but Carver turned him down, saying he was needed at Tuskegee. Remarkable, remarkable man. Page 13 Marie Curie (1867-1934) This Polish-born French physicist discovered the radioactive properties of radium and polonium. In 1903 she was rewarded with the Nobel Prize for physics, followed by one for chemistry in 1911. She dies of leukaemia, no doubt caused by her pioneering research into the nature of radioactivity. Some of the Martian artifacts discovered by Lowell and others were powered by radioactive substances, making her expertise invaluable. Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) Earp, a genuine American folk hero, was a noted frontier lawman, serving as a policeman in Wichita, Kansas and later as assistant marshal in Dodge City. Moving to Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt, his brother Virgil, Morgan, and James, and Doc Holiday found themselves feuding with the Clanto and McLaury brothers (cattlemen who augmented their earnings by rustling). The feud escalated into all-out war on October 26, 1881, when the Earp and Doc Holiday gunned down Billy and Frank Clanton and Tom McLaury in what came to be known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp was acquitted by the courts. My experience with Mr. Earp was limited (and, from what I know of him, I must say that doesn't displease me). Page 14 Thomas Edison (1847-1931) America's most prolific inventor, and the first entrepreneurial scientist, Edison was issued over 1,000 patents in his lifetime. He is popularly credited with inventing such history-making devices as electric lights, the phonograph, and the motion picture. I was quite taken aback by the animosity between Edison and Dr. Tesla. Friendly competitors they more assuredly were not. I can only assume Edison saw in Tesla's alternating current motor the demise of direct current, of which he was a leading proponent. One can only wonder what these two geniuses could have accomplished had they been working together. Still and all, Edison's engineering expertise proved invaluable in our attempts to understand and repair a variety of Martian machines. Emma Goldman (1869-1940) Anarchist and proponent of birth control and draft obstruction, Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania and raised in Russia. At 17 she moved to the US, where she soon became involved with anarchists. Arrested several times for inciting riots, she was convicted of interfering with the US preparations for World War I and sent to prison. Deported in 1919, she went to Russia but disapproved of the Soviet regime and moved on to England and later Canada. Late in life, she took an active role in the Spanish Civil War. Her role in events on Mars is clouded in mystery. Page 15 William Randoplh Hearst (1863-1951) Hearst, a renowned American newspaper publisher and pioneer of "yellow journalism" was the financial sponsor of the ill fated 1893 Mars expedition. Hearst papers were cheap, sensational, and provocative, appealing to the common man in a way no news paper had before. He and his bitter rival, Joseph Pulitzer, competed for the minds - and pennies - of the public. By the end of the 20th century, he was probably best-known for his California home, the bizarre San Simeon. It will come as no surprise to those familiar with San Simeon that Hearst became a collector and trader of Martian artifacts (perhaps junk would be a better word) during his stay on the red planet. Page 16 Nikolai Lenin (1870-1924) Lenin, born Vladirmir Ilyich Ulyanov, was the most influential Communist thinker of his day. The Russian revolutionary, and rounder of the Bolshevik party, first studied the teachings of Karl Marx in 1889, while a university student. In 1907, two years after the failure of the first Russian revolution, Lenin left the country, but continued the struggle to bring Marxism to his homeland from abroad. In 1917, he returned to lead a successful revolution which left him in charge of a new Soviet government. He led the USSR until his death in 1924. Lenin's dream of a world in which all members of society shared ownership of property and in which wealth was distributed equitably found curious expression during his experience on Mars. Page 17 Percival Lowell (1855-1916) Lowell, an American astronomer and leader of the 1893 expedition to Mars, was born to one of America's oldest and wealthiest families. After graduating from Harvard University, he managed his family's cotton mills and utility companies. For a time, he served as a diplomat, notably in the Far East. Upon learning of the controversy over the Martian canals, he turned a life-long interest in astronomy into a career. Using his inherited wealth, he built an observatory in Arizona, specifically for the observation of Mars. He mapped 184 canals, each so regular that no natural phenomenon could explain their existence - clear evidence, he thought, that some intelligent lifeform was responsible. Dark patches on either side of the canals were clearly vegetation, growing close to the only apparent source of water and shifting with the seasons. The canals, he hypothesized, ended in 63 oases - collection and transfer stations 120-150 miles wide. In later years, he predicted the existence of a ninth planet in the solar system. Though Lowell never saw Pluto, his pioneering work led to a successful search for it. Page 18 Georges Melies (1861-1938) A French magician, theatrical producer, and actor, Melies achieved worldwide fame at the turn of the century as the most innovative and adventurous of the early motion picture makers. His 1902 film, A trip to the Moon, was remarkably similar in some ways to our own real-life adventure on Mars. One has to wonder whether he was inspired by the events of 1893-1895. Melies expertise in the area of things photographic proved invaluable on Mars. Page 19 Robert E. Peary (1856-1920) Peary, an American explorer, is best known for his trek to the North Pole. He entered the US Navy in 1881, first travelled into the interior of Greenland in 1886, and reached the North Pole in 1909. Shortly after being stranded on the red planet, Peary embarked on an expedition to it north polar region. His discoveries there marked a turning point in events on Mars. Page 20 Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1871-1916) At the time of our Martian adventure, Rasputin, Russia's "Mad Monk" was a wandering holy man and mystic yet to make his mark on the world. He is said to have possessed mystical power of persuasion, particulary over women. Alexandra, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, fell under his spell and, through her, Rasputin influenced the tsar himself. Often blamed for the conditions which led to the Russian Revolution, he was ultimately assassinated by conservative forces in Russia. The story of his execution is a strange one - legend has it that he was poisoned, stabbed, shot and then thrown into a hole in an ice-covered river, where he finally drowned. Tales of his psychic powers take on greater, more frightening, significance in light of events on Mars. There may be more truth to the tales than modern men care to admit... Page 21 Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) Teddy Roosevelt, or "TR" as he was known, served in the New York State Assembly; spent two years as a rancher in the Dakota territories; became Police Commissioner of New York City; acted as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; organized the Rough Riders cavalry troop in the Spanish-American War; and served as New York's governor. In 1900 he was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket with William McKinley, and when McKinley fell to an assassin's bullet, ascended to the presidency, serving from 1901 to 1909. Roosevelt's police experience and familiarity with the latest developments in forensic technique proved invaluable during the Martian adventure. Page 22 Louis Confort Tiffany (1848-1933) Louis Tiffany, son of renowned jeweller Charles L. Tiffany, began as a painter in oil and water colours, but eventually found his true calling in the design of decorative objects made of iridescent "favrile" or Tiffany glass. He also worked extensively as an interior designer, co-founding one of the leading design consortia in the United States. Among his noteworthy interiors were the White House and the home of Samuel Clemens (see Mark Twain, pg. 23) Page 23 Mark Twain (1835-1910) Pen name of American writer Samuel Longhorn Clemens. After years as a printer's apprentice, a riverboard pilot, and a journalist, Clemens turned to fiction. Writing under the name Mark Twain, he penned such enduring classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince of the Pauper (1882), Huck Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Page 24 H.G. Wells (1866-1946) Renowned British writer whose work included such seminal science fiction tales as The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898), the latter almost certainly inspired by his experiences on Mars. He also penned such popular non-fiction works as The Outline of History, which encompassed all of Earth's history from the dawn of time. --- Transcripted by The Fox