Wednesday, May 20, 2015


Many readers of Tales of the Quantum Corps have expressed interest in seeing some kind of timeline of events that will help pull together the disparate parts of this story cycle. Remember that the whole cycle is still a work in progress.  Following is a timeline for the main character, Johnny Winger.

TIMELINE FOR Johnny Winger

2030:  Johnny Winger is born in Pueblo, Colorado to Jamison and Ellen Winger. Two siblings: Bradley and Joanna.

2045:  Johnny Winger lost in Eldorado Cave with Archie Hester.  His pet UAV Bailey eventually sniffs them out and saves them, leading them out of the cave.

2047:  Ellen Winger dies in a car crash driving back from Colorado Springs.  Father Jamison Winger devastated and suffers from deep depression at death of wife.  Winger children have to help with family ranch (North Bar Pass Ranch).

2050:  Parts of North Bar Pass ranch sold off to help ends meet.  Jamison Winger takes the ‘patch’ treatment for depression.  Johnny Winger applies to enter United Special Operations Force (precursor to UN Quantum Corps).  He is accepted.  Enters Basic training at Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA.

2051:  Johnny Winger graduates from USOF Basic Training (also known as ‘nog’ school). 

2052:  Johnny Winger commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, United Nations Quantum Corps.

2065:  A nanoscale robot named ANAD has been developed.  The enemy is a programmable virus named Serengeti.  The Red Hammer cartel has created an addictive antidote to a man-made pandemic.  Quantum Corps has its hands full again.  Lieutenant John Winger leads his beleaguered nanotroopers into combat, on battlefields across the globe and inside the world of atoms and molecules.  The Serengeti Factor becomes the first episode in the Tales of the Quantum Corps. 

2068:  Something-- probably man-made and probably started by the Red Hammer cartel—is altering the Earth’s atmosphere, accelerating climate change with a vengeance.  The air is becoming toxic, unbreathable.  And it’s spreading.  People have died, and more might die if the changes aren’t stopped.  Quantum Corps has its hands full again.  Lieutenant John Winger leads his beleaguered nanotroopers into combat again, in the second episode (The Amazon Vector case) of the Tales of the Quantum Corps. 

2080:   Winger heads QC detachment to divert asteroid 2351 Wilks-Lucayo from Earth impact.  Conclusion of the Hellas Enigma case, third episode in the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

2082:   Winger promoted to LT COL and TDY’ed to UNIFORCE Paris, where he serves as assistant to the Q3, Directorate of Operations, on the staff of CINCQUANT. 

2084:   Winger returns to Table Top.  Plans and heads up special op to kidnap Red Hammer Ruling Council member Dmitri Kulagin in Hong Kong.  This operation is code-named Operation Quantum Shadow.  Kulagin taken as prisoner to Table Top.  With Doc II’s help, a swarm likeness for Kulagin is prepared (an early form of angel).  Second phase of operation is to substitute angel for real Kulagin, to infiltrate the Ruling Council.

2085:   Infiltration succeeds and UNQC has an operative inside Red Hammer for the first time.  Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant are married.  Major Tallant is C/O of 1st Nano.  They reside off-base in an apartment in Haleyville ID. 

2087:   Winger and Tallant have their first child, a son named Liam.  Major Tallant heads up special intel unit at UNQC East – Singapore, preparing for assault mission on Red Hammer’s new base in Hong Kong. 

2088:   Coordinated assault on Red Hammer’s base at Hong Kong and at multiple locations around the world and on Red Hammer cells on the Moon and Mars.  Known as Operation Quantum Hammer.  Red Hammer finished on Earth but several Ruling Council members (notably Souvranamh) escape and head out into space. 

2089:  Winger promoted to Colonel and heads up UNQC West at Table Top.  Jurgen Kraft detailed to CINCQUANT staff as Vice-Commander. Winger and Tallant have their second child, a girl named Rene.

2090-92:  First violent conflicts in Africa/Middle East between humans and ANAD swarms (Nairobi, Jerusalem and Cairo).  First containment wars.  Winger plans and approves East Africa operation to push swarms out of human spaces.  Dana Tallant heads up Detachment as c/o of joint human/ANAD unit.  Tallant is injured in one encounter and has to be medevac’ed.  She recovers with nanobotic help in a hospital near UNQC Central-Balzano, Italy.  Her rehab requires her to maintain an active swarm inside her body (sort of like the Red Hammer halo) to fight off future swarm attacks.  This procedure (Repairocytes) will be applied to all nano-troopers later as part of their normal equipment. Repairocytes are also the foundation for future performance-enhancing swarm modifications embedded in nanotroopers.  Winger becomes a hold-out, refusing to go through the procedure.

2093:  Jurgen Kraft appointment by UNSAC as CINCQUANT.  Promoted to LT GEN.

2096-98:  Containment wars truce (Truce of Alexandria).  Sanctuary negotiations.   Winger appointed by CINCQUANT (now Jurgen Kraft) as a delegate from UNIFORCE.  Talks are held in Madrid.  Winger decides to have the repairocyte procedure, when he is nearly killed by unprovoked swarm assault in his hotel room.  All top Quantum Corps command staff now have tactical swarm implants in their shoulder capsules for combat operations and embedded halos to protect them inside from swarm assault or penetration.

2098-2099:  Containment Edicts in force, with three sanctuaries (east Africa, Amazon, Pacific).  Winger helps develop and standup a new command within UNIFORCE called Sanctuary Patrol. UNSP is parallel with UNQC, under UNIFORCE. 

2099:   Dana Tallant is appointed Q3 on the staff of CINCQUANT Paris, working for LT GEN Kraft.  She is given additional duties as CINCQUANT Liaison Officer with UNSP, also based in Paris.  At UNSP, she serves under MAJ GEN Sofran Chekwarthy, who is CINCSANC.  Winger and Tallant are separated by 5000 miles but try to keep their marriage going.  It’s rough, but the WorldNet and hyperjets make it possible.  Liam and Rene live in Paris with Mom, while Johnny is based at Table Top.

2100:  Nanobotic technology has advanced rapidly as the 22nd century draws near.  Bots and swarms are vital to the global economy.  But the same advances have created a new menace.  Evidence suggests that Man didn’t just evolve.  Life was seeded by the Old Ones, an ancient nomadic species of bots, traveling through interstellar space around the galaxy.  And the seeding didn’t work like they planned.  Man is evolutionary mistake and the Old Ones are coming back to fix it.  Colonel Johnny Winger leads his beleaguered nanotroopers into combat once more in the Golden Horde case, which is the fourth episode in the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

2110: At the dawn of the 22nd century, nanobotic technology is critical to the global economy.  Swarms are everywhere.  Swarms can even resemble people…they’re called angels.  It’s getting harder to tell them apart from Normals.  Out of the chaos comes a robotic messiah, a swarm savior named Symborg, who promises a new kind of paradise through the Church of Assimilation.  Along with these developments come some disturbing developments along the outer boundaries of our solar system.  It seems as if the Old Ones have sent advance scouts to reconnoiter what they started a billion years ago…and fix it.  Symborg may be one of them.  General John Winger leads his harried nanotroopers into combat in the Great Rift Zone case, fifth episode in the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

2120: In the second decade of the 22nd century, the robotic messiah Symborg is released from custody.  Strange showers of meteoric activity light up the skies across Earth.  The social movement called Assimilationism grows explosively.  An emerging sentience menaces the Net.  And the Old Ones, considered by many Assimilationists to be fathers of the human race, draw ever closer to the solar system.  General Johnny Winger is called out of retirement to face an old nemesis and the encounter will change him forever.  The Europa Quandary case is the sixth episode in the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

2155:  The Battle of Caloris Basin.  The Old Ones arrive on our doorstep, June 2155, as foreseen decades before.  The end result: victory, defeat, or something worse, is still to be determined. 

The next post on the Quantum Corps Times blog site will come in mid to late June.  I hope all readers have an enjoyable Memorial Day holiday and remember, as Johnny Winger likes to say, “Small is all!”