From the 16th Century, Cuthbert Grimbald–Kairos–reaches forward in time, altering a key moment in aviation history. But fortunately for us all, Nikki notices the anomaly in the continuum.
“The Wright Brothers invent powered flight in 1903 and win a U.S. Army contract in 1908, which leads to an increased use of the airplane during WWI, marking the beginning of a rapid advancement in aviation technology. Air power becomes a defining component of our military success during WWII. But in the altered continuum, the Wright’s mechanic, Charlie Taylor, dies on a test flight and the Wrights are not able to complete the trials. A failure that condemns aviation to the back burner for two more decades. As you know, we barely make it out of World War I and World War II becomes an unmitigated disaster.”
The disaster Nikki refers to is a World War II with a very different ending. The continuum has been shifted and now the war ends only after the United States has detonates atomic bombs mounted on trucks in France, Italy and Germany. Millions die in a desperate attempt to stop the Nazis.
In our time continuum, a twenty year old West Point graduate, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge becomes the first aviation passenger fatality when a propellor on the Flyer, piloted by Orville Wright, delaminates and gets entangled in the aircraft’s rigging.
And what happened to Charlie Taylor, the mechanic who built the first successful aviation engine? He lived many years after the failed test flight, dying in January 30, 1956, at the age of 88. Charles E. Taylor was buried in the Portal of Folded Wings Mausoleum dedicated to aviation pioneers, located in Valhalla Memorial Park, Los Angeles.
Thomas Selfridge, who was a pioneering aeronaut, manned a kite in 1907 and later in 1908, an aircraft, the White Wing, designed by the Aerial Experiment Association formed Alexander Graham Bell. Lieutenant Selfridge was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Learn more about the first powered flight fatality
Learn more about First Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge
Qaitbay, built in 1480, rests on a foundation of stone from the lighthouse. Addison carries the Alchimeia scroll through the street fighting as Aurelius puts down Queen Zenubia’s revolt, hiding in a crypt within the lighthouse foundation. The lighthouse did indeed exist and you can walk the streets of Alexandria and see the citadel today. But don’t go lifting floor stones looking for an entrance to the crypt! This is fiction, after all.
Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC quickly became a center of culture, learning and commerce for a thousand years due to it’s harbor and geographic position. The Great Library, which is purported to have housed the most extensive collection of writings on the planet at the time. At its height, the library acted to gather as much of the knowledge in the world within its buildings, housing from an estimated 40,000 to 400,000 papyrus scrolls. Librarians would depart Alexandria in search of new writings and ships coming into the harbor were asked to surrender their books for copying by the library.
DIEBACK enter the city, 272 AD, the Roman emperor Aurelius was in the process of putting down a revolt led by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, destroying much of the remaining library buildings and contents.