Difference between revisions of "The Secret History of Stellvia Corporation"

Revision as of 01:12, 30 June 2014

A Work In Progress. Please do NOT link to this page from any page that is not part of the StellviaCorp cluster; this page contains spoilers.

So, you want to know the secrets of the Richest S.O.B. in Fenspace and his closest associates? You've come to the right place...

Season 0

2007

September 2007: On the same day, Noah Scott Anderson stumbles across a small cache of handwavium solids while geocaching and wins the largest lottery jackpot awarded to a single person to date. He uses his two given names - Noah Scott - when claiming the winnings in order to protect his family's privacy.

December 2007: After following instructions posted anonymously on the Internet and dissolving one of the solids to create his first batch of liquid 'wavium, Noah 'waves his old laptop PC in order to find out what would happen. The result is Eimi, Noah's first AI.

2008

January-March 2008: Noah, Eimi, and Noah's nephew Charles (over the objections of Charles' father Gerald) build what is believed to be the first purpose-built Fenship, the Epsilon Blade. Everyone involved denies trying to "one-up" the Delta Flyer from Star Trek: Voyager, despite the similarity in names and design philosophies. Meanwhile, Noah negotiates with NASA (through his father's contacts) to purchase a half-dozen Shuttle main booster tanks to use as the basic skeleton of a space station. He decides to create AIs for his crew, discovers A.C. Peters through the informal online community that would later become the SMOF mailing list, and asks A.C. to design bodies for the AIs.

21 March 2008: Noah, Charles, and Eimi successfully test-fly the Epsilon Blade into orbit. Upon their return, Charles is grounded by his father, forcing Noah to look for other help. (Charles mentions the test-flight in his blog; as a result, he starts an on-line relationship with the only person who left non-mocking comments, Minerva Swansen.)

22 March 2008: A.C. delivers the first batch of android bodies for Noah's AIs.

4 April 2008: Noah starts building the station that would become known as Stellvia.

21-23 May 2008: Six of Noah's AIs - Sora Hasegawa, Agatha Clay, Natsuko Aki, Kohran Li, Yoriko Nikaido, and Yayoi Fujisawa - "wake up". Agatha and Natsuko immediately leave. (See Log of the Long-Term Autonomous AI Experiment for details.)

June 2008: Noah asks Yayoi and Kohran to put together a plan to gather all the easily-accessible fissionables they can reach, before somebody else can grab them and use handwavium to turn them into atomic weaponry.^[1] Kohran agrees, then spends a week convincing Noah to let her try building her own nuke. Noah finally allows the Kaboomite Project to proceed.

June-July 2008: Doug Sangnoir, a visitor from another reality, helps build Stellvia and socialize the AIs. Doug teaches Kohran and Sora gravity control theory, which Noah immediately declares even more secret than the Kaboomite Project. (See the prologue of Legend of Galactic Girls for details.) Eimi leaves Stellvia and Fenspace with Doug. Upon their departure, Noah and Kohran immediately begin preparing for the people they hope wouldn't be following Doug eventually.

Autumn 2008: Noah sees the first great exodus of Fen into space, and realizes there's money to be made in the luxury-goods business. He redesigns one of Stellvia's old shuttle tanks to be a "general store".

2009

Spring 2009: Noah opens Meg's,^[2] a Middle-American-style lunch counter, in the store. The tollhouse cookies quickly become Meg's' best sellers.

1 July 2009: Noah founds Stellvia Corporation and Stellvia Trading, formalizing his business of selling luxury items to other Fen.

Autumn 2009: Kohran causes the Kaboomite Incident at Worldcon Floating Island. As a result, Fen take their business elsewhere, leaving Stellvia Trading facing bankrupcy. Noah turns his attention Earthward, promoting the space tourist trade. He purchases and refurbishes one of Air France's Concordes, christening it Ad Astra during its relaunch 6 October. Yayoi is the ship's first pilot, but Noah quickly hires a Fendane crew for the ship when personality issues between Yayoi and Ad Astra's AI Star become evident.

2010

2010: blah blah Stellvia expansion... and Minerva's oldest sister Leda graduates at the top of the first class at the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry

2011

first half 2011: undefined blah blah

1 July 2011: Noah and his "angels" act to prevent a runaway fenship from destroying Aukland, using an overpowered hardtech gravity generator as a black-hole bomb. When asked later, he claims the device is a ship's gravity drive adapted to catastrophic overload. (See We don't need that hammer, Lucifer... for details.)

second half 2011: more blah blah - Stellvia expansion, Hotel Stellvia opens, Meg's moves to its own oversized module and becomes a full restaurant and dance hall, Stan's Kwalitee Danegoods opens and closes shop on the Main Concourse on the same day, Noah and Leda first meet when he visits Crystal Titusville to officially open the StelOil refinery

2012

first-quarter 2012: undefined blah blah

20 April 2012: Grover's Corners launches. Noah and Leda become friends, Sora's agoraphobia is discovered, causing Noah to inadvertently reveal she's an AI while calming her to the point where she can do something other than shake in fear. Sora begins receiving treatment from Kat Avins for her phobia.

Season 1

2012: more blah blah - SOS-con (where Noah and Katz Schrödinger meet for the first time, and Great Justice is founded), start of the Boskone War (many battles take place, Kohran's "Red Lad" radio show goes on the air, The 2012 Season of Astroball is played)

2013

The year's trend: Major Change.

2013: more blah blah - Boskone War continues all year, Crystal Osaka falls (Noah rescues Leda from the disaster), OGJ schism becomes public

Makoto Miyadera

June 2013: Sora Hasegawa leaves StellvaCorp and joins the Soviet Air Force.

15 June 2013: Nikaido Foundation founded.

Third-quarter 2013: Space Patrol founded by the Nikaido Foundation.

August 2013: SerenityCon. Noah presents a redacted version of the Whole Fenspace Catalog to the Convention.

9 October 2013: Safety "wakes up."

9 November 2013: Miyuri Akisato "wakes up."

10 November 2013: Takami Sakuragi "wakes up." Because of the events at SerenityCon, she was designed to be a computer hacker par excellence, with a literally superhuman ability to detect patterns and a filter against apophenia. (Within four days of awakening, her first use of that ability nearly gives Buckaroo a virtual heart attack and Blackstone a real one - see Training the New Girl.)

21 December 2013: StellviaCorp uses an invitation-only Solstice party on Stellvia as a cover for a war council. Every group that sent a representative pooled the data they'd gathered on Boskonian activities, and gave it to the Hacker Underspace to analyze. Before the end of the year, the Underspace comes back with three possible locations for Boskone Prime extracted from the pooled data.

2014

1 January 2014: Kagome Mishima "wakes up."

15 January 2014: Fall of Boskone Prime. Noah gives the USS Stingray the last of the kaboomite warheads, which are used up in the assault. End of the Boskone War.

Season 2

14 March 2014: Yuu Inagawa effectively "wakes up".

15 March 2014: Noah Scott and Leda Swansen marry. His nephew Charles Anderson and her sister Minerva Swansen meet face-to-face at the ceremony, although they'd been on-line friends for years. (See With This Station-Ring for sparse details.)

1 April 2014: The April Fool's Purchase. Noah quickly converts the Artemis Foundation from a holding company to an actual corporation, assigns all of the purchased NASA manned-space-program assets to it, and hires Sullivan Dwyer as Artemis' first director.

31 May 2014: The first (annual) Cosmic Party is held, on Stellvia. Naoko Sato and Agatha Clay attempt to disrupt it by remote control. (This story is "on the spike.")

15 June 2014: Yomiko Readman "wakes up."

10 October 2014: Stellvia Corporation declares independence. Less than an hour later, Helen Yoriko Swansen-Scott is born. Leda Swansen, Jake Hansen, Patty O'Neill, Kelly Harrison, Micheline Rouleau, Jerry Freedman, Lea Meadows, Dr. Sergy Gudanov, Kohran Li, Yayoi Fujisawa, Star, Safety, Miyuri Akisato, Takami Sakuragi, Kagome Mishima, Yomiko Readman, Yuu Inagawa, and Helen Scott are granted shares in StellviaCorp.

5 December 2014: Noah Scott begins concentrating on StellviaCorp, appointing Jake Hansen to take control of Stellvia.

Almost everything below this line is subject to change.

14 December 2014: Yomiko Readman sells her StellviaCorp shares back to the company, moves to Grover's Corners, and takes full-time employment as the teacher at PS 238.

2015

The year's trend: Yayoi Fujisawa, as Vice-President of StellviaCorp, serves as the public face of the company more often than Noah does, while Noah ensures he doesn't neglect his wife and their daughter. Patty O'Neill forges closer ties between station Odyssey and the Trekkies.

February 2015: Operation Cats Cradle, a.k.a. the Quattro Incident.

April 2015: Noah Scott realizes he's "getting too old for this shit" and resigns his Troubleshooter commission, thus severing the last official tie between StellviaCorp and the staff of Great Justice.

8 April 2015: Yayoi Fujisawa lays claim to asteroid 3895 Earhart, and begins work on a private residence and the Earhart Flight Academy. (The flight school will open on 5 August 2029 - still in Infinities.)

Mid-November 2015 to mid-April 2016: The First Zeta Tucanae Exploration Mission. The expedition finds little of material or biological interest, but it does establish a reliable communications line from Sol to ζ Tucane. Many of the expedition's crew would continue to work together for the rest of their careers.

2016

May 2016: Noah Scott finally gets fed up with the constant political posturing in cislunar space. StellviaCorp announces that they "support the efforts of the Clarke Group of Central Station to coordinate activities of interest to everyone in the Earth-Luna L5 area," substantially reducing their own political power in the process.

June 2016: StellviaCorp purchases 10% of Hermes Universal Deliveries (to inject cash into a friendly company that's in direct competition with CHOAM) and 25% of the Solomon Space Agency (to secure preferred access to a launch facility on what is quickly becoming one of the busiest trade routes between Earth and cislunar space). Construction of station Ultima begins - the station is designed to be the Sol end of the communications line left by the first Zeta Tucanae exploration mission.

11 June 2016: Charles Anderson and Minerva Swansen marry, and both start work with the Artemis Foundation two weeks later. Neither reveal that they are blood relations to Noah and Leda.

August 2016: Stellvia Hotels is founded as a subsidiary of Stellvia Trading. Kelly Harrison becomes its first CEO.

October 2016: Ground is broken on the Hotel Choiseul (located just outside the SSA's ground facility), Stellvia Hotels' first on-Earth location.

2017

TBD 2017? (maybe as much as a year earlier or later - this depends on Mal's timeline update and other people's input): Evidence is found that StellviaCorp withheld parts of the Whole Fenspace Catalog before releasing it. Stellvia/VVS and Stellvia/Warsie relations sour temporarily.

March 2017: Takami Sakuragi promoted to Chief of Information Security for StellviaCorp.

Second-quarter 2017: Star sells her shares back to StellviaCorp, buys the Concorde that serves as her body, and uses the remaining money to found the passenger-aerospace company Route à les étoiles.

31 October 2017: Natsuko Aki meets and immediately recognizes Makoto Miyadera. Because of this, she breaks her self-imposed estrangement and contacts Stellvia, reaching Kohran Li. Kohran tells Natsuko everything she knows about Makoto and thanks Natsuko for finding the woman.

1 November 2017: Kohran Li starts making arrangements for an uneventful succession of her responsibilities at StellviaCorp to other employees and gives two-months' notice to Noah.

2018

The year's trend: Kohran and Natsuko slowly reconcile over the year.

3 January 2018: Kohran buys a small residence on Deimos, sells her StellviaCorp shares back to the company, and resigns from StellviaCorp. She invites Makoto Miyadera to live with her.

5 January 2018: Noah "indulges his muse" one more time and starts to build another AI. Amazingly, Prim Snowlight wakes up the same day and assists in her own construction.

10 January 2018: Kohran is hired as the pyrotechnician at the Clark Savage, Jr. Memorial Stadium and Music Complex, on the understanding that she also performs her Red Lad Revue there at least one a month.

2 April 2018: Noah tells Oliver Towne that the Nikaido Foundation is to operate as it sees fit, without further direct guidance from StellviaCorp. Noah puts half of StellviaCorp's stake in the foundation - 26% of the total shares - up for sale, giving up his majority shareholder status.

8 April 2018: Yayoi Fujisawa holds an invitation-only housewarming party at her new private residence on 3895 Earhart. Natsuko attends. Noah, Leda, and Helen do not attend; they're busy with "affairs of state" involving the Senshi. Sora brings Mal and Teena, who receive a warmer welcome than they expected. Prim shows off her brand-new body. Kohran brings Makoto, who charms almost everyone in attendance and raises a few eyebrows.

30 June 2018: Prim Snowlight is appointed Chief of Research and Development for StellviaCorp, gaining access to Kohran Li's old files and many of the redacted portions of the Whole Fenspace Catalog.

2019

1 January 2019: Honami Takase Ambler wakes up for the first time. She was built so that StellviaCorp could get a head-start on using the magical knowledge that they had redacted from the Whole Fenspace Catalog; however, her unusual genesis gave her a cinematic case of multiple-personality disorder. She remains with StellviaCorp, and on Stellvia station, because they're the only ones who have even a vague idea how to act around her.

February 2019: Construction of station Ultima is completed. Miyuri Akisato is assigned as its commander and Yuu Inagawa becomes the manager of the Hotel Ultima. Kagome Mishima fills Miyuri's place as second-in-command of Stellvia "on a temporary basis;" as of 2022 she has yet to find a permanent replacement for that position.

May 2019: Hotel Choiseul opens its doors.

2020

9 July 2020: Makoto Miyadera foils a public attempt on Kohran Li's life.

8 September 2020: Helen Scott attends PS238 for the first time.

2021

First quarter: Construction begins on station Eyrie, temporarily in orbit around Ganymede.

11 April 2021: Makoto Miyadera makes her first appearance in the Red Lad Revue.

2022

16 January 2022: SCSV Rinna Kazamatsuri (nicknamed "Hanger Queen Rinna" by the Starfleet engineers who built her) is finally launched. Safety is appointed as her first captain, and given orders to crew the ship and go explore the Beta Hydri system. She immediately recruits most of the crew of the first Zeta Tucanae exploration mission as the core of the Rinna Kazamatsuri's crew. While the ship is supplied by Artemis, it remains under direct StellviaCorp control. (See Distance Learning, still in progress.)

Fenspace Infinities

As always, Fenspace Infinities and Fenspace Alternates are completely mutable and might not happen at all.

• Alternate: The South Is Rising (Someone Get A Hammer) (in which the Anderson and Swansen families disappear with the rest of the continental US and Honami Ambler wakes up two years "early," on 1 January 2017).
• Infinity: 2025: Station Eyrie is completed and flown to the Zeta Tucanae system, where it becomes a neurtal port and the new "home port" for the Rinna Kazamatsuri.
• Infinity: November 2025: Helen builds her first companion AI, Miyuki. While humanoid, Miyuki cannot pass for human. She can, however, pass for an 11-year-old girl mentally, and enrolls in PS238 alongside Helen.
• Infinity: 13-15 April 2029: The Last Noah Scott Story (which involves the Sons of Rome trying to get their 2014 terrorism operation right this time, using near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis).

Notes

1. ↑ At this point, it isn't widely known that handwavium impedes explosions rather than enhancing them. The prevailing theory among Fen was "It enhances everything else, so it should enhance this too."
2. ↑ Noah names the lunch counter after his twin sister Megan, who died in a traffic accident two decades earlier.

v • d • e Stellvia Corporation People Current: Noah Scott · Leda Swansen · Helen Scott -- Yayoi Fujisawa · Jake Hansen · Honami Takase Ambler · Shizuka Hayama · Kagome Mishima · Takami Sakuragi · Prim Snowlight -- Safety · Miyuri Akisato · Yuu Inagawa Former: Eimi Anderson · Star · Sora Hasegawa · Kohran Li · Yoriko Nikaido · Yomiko Readman Ships Current: Digamma Thunderbolt · Epsilon Blade · Haruka · Little Deuce Coupe · Rinna Kazamatsuri · Takumi F. · Tsujimoto · Virgil Samms -- Atlantis · Calypso · Challenger · Discovery · Endeavour · Gjøa · Resolution Former: Ad Astra · Stellvia Annex Installations Current: Stellvia · Odyssey · Ultima · Wonderland -- Beta · Chawla · Handwavium Propulsion Laboratory · McAuliffe · 2709 Sagan Infinities: Eyrie Gazetteer In-Universe: Stellvia Corporation · Artemis Foundation · Nikaido Foundation -- Halcyon Meta: The Secret History of Stellvia Corporation