I see now! Yes, either way. Reader beware!

If I do the website (or a book), I'd have a helpful key explaining all that of course.

Everything is carefully cited!

P.S. You should read Book 7 soooooon .... because the first seven books are sort of the complete first "arc" (in my opinion). It's a good "break" point, because starting in Book 8, there's a whole new storyline introduced.

January, 1950 (approximate)
Jack Braun and his wife, Kim, spend two weeks in Palm Springs, (1: Williams)

Monday, Jan. 30, 1950
On the final day of Jack’s vacation in Palm Springs, he is subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington. He and Kim fly out that night. Jack meets with Earl, David and Archibald, all of whom have been subpoenaed as well. They discuss the implications of what’s happening, and consider strategies. (1: Williams)

Tuesday, Jan. 31, 1950
Archibald Holmes testifies before HUAC, and is indicted for contempt of Congress. (1: Williams)

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 1950
David Harstein is next to be called before the committee. He uses his ace ability such that the process ends up in his favor. (1: Williams) Later that evening, Tachyon and Blythe arrive in Washington, D.C., having also been subpoenaed. (1: Snodgrass)

Thursday, Feb. 2, 1950
Blythe testifies before HUAC. After her, Tachyon is called in next; by the end of his testimony, the committee is threatening Tachyon with deportation. (1: Snodgrass)

Friday, Feb. 3, 1950
David Harstein testifies a second time, now in a specially-constructed glass booth so he can’t use his powers. He is indicted for contempt of Congress, just as Archibald was. (1: Williams)

Monday, Feb. 6, 1950
Jack testifies as a friendly witness, providing the Committee with new information about Earl and Blythe. Jack then flies back to California, while Earl testifies and ends up indicted for contempt of Congress. (1: Williams) Meanwhile, Tach and Blythe are informed that Blythe will have to testify a second time. (1: Snodgrass)

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1950
Blythe returns to give her second testimony. The Committee grills her for information that she has absorbed from Tachyon’s mind. She begins to give up the names of aces that Tach treated, and so to protect their identities, Tachyon uses his telepathy to clamp down on Blythe’s mind. The maneuver shatters Blythe’s own mental control, and the eight personalities she had absorbed over the last three years begin to run rampant, driving her mad. (1: Snodgrass)

Hours later, while Tachyon is attempting to minister to Blythe, she is taken away by Henry van Renssaeler. (1: Snodgrass)

Thursday, Feb. 9, 1950
Joseph McCarthy declares in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, “I have here in my hand a list of fifty-seven wild cards known to be living and working secretly in the United States today. (1: Martin “Red Aces”) (Date is conjecture, based on the real-world analogue to the event, which occurred on February 9, 1950. “Red Aces” intimates that from this moment, McCarthy symbolically took over the wild card witchhunt that had previously been HUAC’s purview. That suggests that the week of the Four Aces’ persecution has already occurred by this point. The text of 1: Williams confirms that this persecution occurred in February of 1950, which has informed the placement of that week in this timeline as having begun on January 31st and then continued into the first and second weeks of February, ending only two days before McCarthy’s Feb. 9th speech.)

Mid-February, 1950 (approximate)
Tachyon tries to visit Blythe in Whittier Sanitarium, to which she’s been committed by her husband, Henry. (1: Snodgrass)

March, 1950 (approximate)
Having been sentenced to deportation after his HUAC testimony, Tachyon is finally put aboard a ship sailing for Liverpool. (1: Snodgrass)

April, 1950
The Golden Boy movie is released “two months after” the HUAC hearings. (1: Williams)

1950
Harstein and Holmes are both imprisoned. Holmes serves six months. Earl Sanderson, Jr. flies to Europe, renouncing his U.S. citizenship. A month later, he is living in Paris with Communist actress Orlena – or “Lena” – Goldoni. (1: Williams)

During her third year of lunar exploration, Aarti spends some time experimenting with altering her Moon-based form into various shapes and guises. Ultimately she settles on a default form that is her eighteen-year-old self, from before her wild card mutation. (29: Mohanraj Two)

July, 1950 (approximate)
Jack Braun fights in the Korean War, a tour that ends in September. (1: Williams)

August, 1950
Dr. Tachyon is now living in Paris. He has become the “new darling of the French intellectual left,” affiliated with Lena Goldoni and Earl Sanderson, Jr. Tachyon begins a relationship with a 19-year-old communist revolutionary named Danelle Moncey. Eventually Lena asks Tachyon to use his telepathic powers to serve the revolution. He refuses, and doesn’t reveal the fact that he has been psychologically blocked – and thus unable to use his telepathy – ever since the incident that destroyed Blythe’s mind. Lena denounces Tachyon, and Danelle is the only person to come to Tachyon’s defense. (4: Snodgrass)

January, 1951
No longer a friend to any of the French communists apart from his lover, Danelle, Tachyon bids her farewell at a Parisian train station before leaving the country. Unbeknownst to him – and possibly to her as well – Danelle is pregnant with Tachyon’s child. (4: Snodgrass)

This is excellent work, Doot. Thank you.

Doot, stop wasting time with all this nonsense of trying to sort out someone else's fictional world and get back to working on the Grand Unified Smallville Theory.

He's not Doot R.R.R.R. Martin, so I'm sure he can do both.

They are slightly different.

The Wild Cards one is just documentation of what happened in the books, albeit with a smidge of fan speculation.

The Grand Unified Smallville Theory is a fan-fic, telling what was REALLY going on during each episode. Same "timeline" format for both. But the Smallville one is longer and much more involved, which is why I am GRRM-ing on it.

Well, as with the actual G R.R.R.R.R.R. Martin, you should make Wild Cards your priority and do that first. I blame all of Martin's writer's block on sublimated guilt - deep down he knows he should be working on WC not GOT and it holds him back creatively.

Don't make the same mistake, Doot. I implore you. The Smallville saga (done right) needs to wait. If you don't finish the WC stuff first, forever will it consume your destiny, as it did Tolkien's apprentice.

Well ... I mean, the Wild Cards project is finished.



Somehow I don't seem to be getting that fact across.

That said, this is a good analogy. I think you're on to something.

Something called CORRECTNESS.

Hold on to that feeling...don't stop....um...compiling...

...and I know you've already done all the work, I just wanted to make the George analogy.

Fair enough. A good analogy is a beautiful thing.

Feb. 27, 1951
Wilbur Leathers, captain of a steamboat called the Natchez, is shot and seemingly killed. Although his body lies dead, in fact the wild card virus lets his persona survive in the form of a “ghost” made out of steam. This new incarnation of Wilbur finds himself mostly invisible and unable to leave the Natchez. (24: Leigh One)

March, 1951 (approximate)
Over the course of March, 1951, Croyd Crenson is manipulated by a psychologist named Pan Rudo. Rudo, via hypnosis and suggestion, is able to give Croyd partial control over his random transformations. However, Rudo despises wild cards, and ultimately he sets Croyd up to be arrested by the federal government. (13: Zelazny)

Eventually Croyd escapes government custody. He breaks into Pan’s apartment and tells Rudo that he may one day kill him. After the entire episode is ended, Croyd’s situation is no better off than it had been before he’d met Pan. He goes back to enduring his original wild card condition, whereby he changes randomly and uncontrollably with each bout of sleep. He also returns to his habit of attempting to postpone each bout of sleep via chemical stimulants. (13: Zelazny)

Mar. 21, 1951
Larry Parks, star of The Jolson Story, testifies before HUAC. (A real-world event, referenced in 1: Williams.)

Spring, 1951 (approximate)
Eleven-year-old Gregg Hartmann is spurned by his schoolmate, Andrea Whitman. In revenge, Hartmann’s wild card power – a psychic entity/alter ego, which he will come to think of as “Puppetman” – takes control of mentally disabled teenager Roger Pellman. Stoking Pellman’s own baser instincts, Puppetman compels Roger to rape and murder Andrea. Roger is blamed for the crime, while Gregg’s connection to the incident is not discovered. Starting with this first gruesome incident, Gregg/Puppetman will grow increasingly depraved over the years. (1: Leigh) (Given the birthdate shown in M&M, incident must take place after Hartmann’s 11th birthday in October of 1950 but before his 12th, in October of ’51.)

Summer, 1951 (approximate)
In Donegal, twelve-year-old joker Anya McNulty discovers that she has an ace talent: the ability to see through the eyes of crows and control them. She also learns that her deformity – a terrible skin condition – is temporarily healed whenever she is able to bring about the death of someone that she considers to be a “hero.” (27: O Guilin “Coming”)

Autumn, 1951
In England, a mysterious new silver-skinned wild card criminal debuts, and soon comes to be known by the moniker “Spring-Heeled Jack.” Over the coming months, some will speculate that Jack is actually Francis Fisher, Jr., who transformed into a silver statue during the original infection on the Queen Mary back in ’46. (27: Murphy “Fire)

Jan. 8, 1952
Kenneth Foxworthy’s mother, Anne Violet Foxworthy, dies. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

March, 1952
Fed by the soil surrounding his casket – leaking in after it was disturbed by the burial of his mother on the same plot – Kenneth Foxworthy returns to life. He emerges from his grave and speaks with the church vicar about what to do next. Over the next few days, Captain Flint reconnects with some of the people from the Queen Mary. Harry Hugesson, the handsome “sexless doll” now nicknamed “Handsome Harry,” has become a tailor, and he obligingly crafts some military raiment for Kenneth. Years later, Harry and his adopted joker son, Arthur, will open a tailor’s shop called “Hugesson & Son.” (27: Murphy “Fire”) (“Hugesson & Son” from 28: 3/12/20)

Kenneth eventually makes his home on the docked Queen Mary, which has become a residence unto itself for several disenfranchised wild cards, including three-headed James Gully and a gargoyle-like figure called Crispin Barbour. Flint learns about the statuses of several people from the Queen Mary, such as Lady Arkwright, now known as the Ermine Queen. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Sometime in spring of 1952, Franciszek “Frank” Majewski discovers that he is an ace, with the power to slow down time. (1: Levine)

April, 1952
In America, the Senate Committee on Ace Resources and Endeavors (SCARE) is formed – essentially a newer version of HUAC, a forum for Joseph McCarthy’s persecution of wild cards. Just as HUAC had, SCARE begins to call suspected aces to testify. (1: Martin “Red Aces”) (month of April confirmed via 27: Murphy “Fire”)

In England, around Easter (April 13), the jokers aboard the Queen Mary read in the newspaper about the formation of SCARE in America. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Summer, 1952
The Network vessel Opportunity comes to Earth to observe the results of the population’s having been infected by the Takisian virus. The Master Trader onboard the vessel is unimpressed; however in order to keep tabs on the planet, the Trader assigns two operatives to stay behind as spies. One of them is a member of the Embe race, called Ekkedme, who is stationed in a ship orbiting the planet. On the world’s surface, the Trader leaves a Glabberian xenologist named Jhubben, who will be able to “hide in plain sight” amongst the humans, pretending to be a joker. Jhubben quickly establishes himself as “Jube the Walrus,” a newsvendor in New York’s “Jokertown.” Extremely long-lived by human standards, Jube will be a Jokertown mainstay over at least the next seven decades. (2: Martin “Jube Two”)

Let's get through 1953-1955, shall we?

Dec. 1, 1952
Kenneth Foxworthy spends an evening in his new home aboard the Queen Mary, feeling melancholy. Handsome Harry arrives to give Flint an early Christmas present, a particularly durable greatcoat. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Dec. 5-9, 1952
During the five days of the Great Smog of London, Captain Flint tirelessly walks the city streets, delivering people to homes and hospitals, saving them from the choking poison of the smog. On the second day of the Smog, Dec. 6, Foxworthy comes face to face with Spring-Heeled Jack for the first time, the latter apparently in the middle of another of his characteristic daring robberies. Flint assumes that behind Jack’s mask, he must be the resurrected Francis Fisher, Jr., just as others have hypothesized. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Dec. 25, 1952
At a Christmas party aboard the Queen Mary, everyone is feeling very jolly – particularly after Margaret, the Queen of England, makes a television address thanking Captain Flint for his heroism during the Great Smog. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Jan. 5, 1953
Captain Flint goes to Buckingham Palace, where he meets Alan Turing – a silver-skinned ace whose code name is “Enigma” – as well as Winston Churchill and Queen Margaret. The Queen decides to form a coalition of wild card “knights,” which she dubs the Order of the Silver Helix. Churchill – also a wild card – confirms that this order will be a government agency, designated MI7. Margaret wants either Turing or Foxworthy to be the head of the Order, and proposes a contest: Whichever of them is the first to finally apprehend Spring-Heeled Jack will be made the head of MI7. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

January, 1953
After the meeting at Buckingham Palace, Captain Flint does some investigating, and learns that Jillian Fisher disappeared less than a week after the first appearance of Spring-Heeled Jack, lending more credence to the theory that Jack is her resurrected brother, Francis. Later, on the Queen Mary, Foxworthy consults with Crispin, James Gully, and Lookout on strategies for finally tracking down Spring-Heeled Jack. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

April, 1953
On a Monday night in April, Flint, Lookout, Crispin and James manage to spot Spring-Heeled Jack. Crispin goes on the attack, but is defeated by Jack and left to be caught by the police, framed as a suspect for Jack’s crimes. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

Later, after Crispin has been arrested, Queen Margaret is persuaded that he is innocent. However, it’s decided to keep Crispin imprisoned, so as to potentially lull the real Spring-Heeled Jack into complacency by making him believe that the police have closed the case. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

May 9, 1953
The headline “NYC’S JOKER PLAGUE SPREADS WEST” is published in newspaper The Los Angeles Clipper. (29: Rowe Twelve)

June 2, 1953
At Queen Margaret’s coronation, Captain Flint spots Jillian Fisher and attempts to arrest her for harboring her brother, Spring-Heeled Jack. She laughs and reveals that “Spring-Heeled Jack is Spring-Heeled Jill.” It is Jillian. (27: Murphy “Fire”) (Date is conjecture, based on the real-world date of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.)

Sometime later, Queen Margaret decides to employ several of the players in the “Spring-Heeled Jack” drama as members of the Order of the Silver Helix, including Jillian herself. By the end of the meeting, the list of operatives reads, in part: Kenneth “Captain Flint” Foxworthy, Grand Marshal; Alan “Enigma” Turing, chief analyst; Henry “Redcoat” Astor; head of security. Other operatives include Crispin “Grey Gryphon” Barbour; John “Lookout” Gully; James “Triskelion” Gully; Edward “Father Thames” Waters; and Jillian “Miss J” Fisher. (27: Murphy “Fire”)

1953
David Harstein, the Envoy, is released from prison, having served out his three-year sentence. (1: Williams and 1: Martin “Red Aces”)

Sometime in 1953, Timothy Wiggins is brought to testify before SCARE. His ability to make his skin change color at will is so inconsequential that he quips during his testimony, “If I’m an ace, I’d hate to see a deuce.” From that point on, “deuce” enters the English lexicon as slang for an ace whose superhuman talent is trivial or useless. Fourteen months after his testimony, Wiggins hangs himself. (1: Martin “Red Aces”)

At some point in ’53, Croyd Crenson is arrested and imprisoned. He escapes eight months later, when he wakes up with the ability to walk through the wall of his cell. (1: Martin “Red Aces” and 1: Vaughn)

Late in the year, Tachyon returns to Paris. He calls Danelle, who rejects him immediately and doesn’t tell him about their two-year-old daughter, Gisele. (4: Snodgrass)

November, 1953
David Harstein visits Blythe in the sanitarium, and uses his powers in an attempt to comfort her. (6: Chapter Six)

December, 1953
Drunk and destitute in Paris, Tachyon reads the news of Blythe van Renssaeler’s death in a newspaper. (1: Snodgrass and 1: Martin “Jokertown Clinic”)

1954
After the fall of Dien Bien Phu (real-world date: May of 1954), the CIA contacts Jack Braun with a plan to have him intervene in Indochina. He declines to become involved, and from there on out never works for the U.S. government again, neither officially nor otherwise. (1: Williams)

Sometime in 1954, the first of the “Wild Card Acts” is enacted: The Exotic Powers Control Act requires any person exhibiting wild card powers to register immediately with the federal government. Later in that same year (presumably), the Special Conscription Act is passed, granting the Selective Service Bureau the power to induct registered aces into government service for indeterminate lengths of time. (1: Martin “Red Aces”)

Though there are rumors of many aces being secretly drafted via Special Conscription, only two are drafted openly. One is Lawrence Hague, a former stockbroker whose telepathy had previously led to a panic on Wall Street. The other is David Harstein, the Envoy. Harstein’s summons is served to him “less than a year” after his release from prison. He never reports for conscription. (1: Martin “Red Aces”) By 1960, Lawrence Hague has been appointed the director of SCARE. (1: Levine)

?????
Jack Braun is caught cheating on his wife by ace detective Nick Williams. She divorces him. He ends up alone, living in a house in Malibu. (1: Williams) (Identity of the detective from 13: Murphy)

1955
Archibald Holmes dies. (1: Williams)

David Harstein disappears from public life. He will eventually have plastic surgery, put on weight, grow a beard, take voice lessons, and become a Broadway actor, going by the name “Josh Davidson.” (1: Martin “Red Aces”) (Harstein’s transformation to Josh Davidson from 6: Chapter Six)

Walter Newcomb, the man whose generosity toward jokers allowed a small Jokertown to flourish on the Santa Monica Pier, dies. (WEB: Brennert “Skin Deep”)

Over the course of 1955, McCarthy begins to overreach himself. He introduces the Alien Disease Containment Bill, mandating compulsory sterilization for all wild card victims, jokers as well as aces. The bill is defeated in both the House and the Senate. Later, McCarthy launches an ill-advised SCARE investigation of the Army. During the Army-McCarthy hearings, public opinion swings dramatically against McCarthy. (1: Martin “Red Aces”)

This is Wild Cards gold, Doot. Gold.

Woo hoo!

On to 1956 and 1957 ...

1956
Tachyon, drunk and destitute in Hamburg, is found by KGB agent (and secret ace) Georgy Vladimirovich Polyakov and taken to a safehouse. The alien is detoxed and nursed back to health. Tachyon provides intel to the Soviets about American aces, Takisian history and science, and the wild card virus itself. He’s then expatriated to West Berlin to remain in deep cover under the codename “Dancer.” (4: Cassutt, 5: Snodgrass Three, and M&M)

July, 1956
Jack Braun begins filming the first season of a Tarzan TV series that will premiere in the fall of 1956 and last through the spring of 1962, six seasons in total. (1: Williams, which actually specifies only four seasons. But Jack is filming the show in summer of 1956 in 1: Cassutt and is still working on it in early 1962 in 13: Murphy.)

August, 1956
Ace Hollywood producer Karl von Kampen wants to find out what is behind the odd behavior of Brant Brewer, star of his television series Captain Cathode. At the recommendation of Jack Braun (who is filming Tarzan on the same lot where Cathode shoots), von Kampen hires investigator Edison Hill to follow Brewer. Hill is killed. After further investigation, von Kampen learns that Brewster is one half of a serial killing pair of wild cards, the other half being an ace agent named Saul Greene. The entire affair literally goes up in flames when Brewer – tormented by guilt – blows up his house with Saul and himself inside it. (1: Cassutt)

September, 1956 (approximate)
Two weeks after the explosive end to the Brewer affair, Karl von Kampen quits his job as a Hollywood producer and heads to Tomlin Air Force Base to resume his earlier vocation: rocket scientist. He will possibly work alongside Herbert Cranston, the first human being ever to speak to Dr. Tachyon. (1: Cassutt)

Late Fall, 1956
During the Suez Crisis, Henry Astor – the Silver Helix operative known as “Redcoat” – is killed. The codename “Redcoat” will be passed down to another agent of the Order. (27: Snodgrass)

Apr. 28, 1957
Joseph McCarthy is admitted to the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland. (1: Martin “Red Aces”)

May 2, 1957
Joseph McCarthy dies. (1: Martin “Red Aces”)

1957
Sometime in 1957, an ace patient in the mental institution known as St. Dympna’s Home for the Mentally Deficient and Criminally Inclined, goes on a killing spree, murdering 37 patients. The psychopathic ace is stopped by another ace – who’d been catatonic for years – and who defeats the murderous patient by draining his mind. (17: Chapter Four)

Summer, 1957
At the Garden of Allah hotel in Hollywood, ace thief Trudy “Magpie” Pirandello engineers a “meet-cute” with Jack “Golden Boy” Braun, not long before he is set to go to Mexico to start filming the second season of Tarzan. Trudy is aided in her endeavor by Eloise, a seeming six-year-old girl who is actually the alter ego of another ace, the 47-year-old actress Kay Thompson. (31: Murphy) (The time of year is conjecture, based on the assumption that the new season of the Tarzan series would premiere in the fall, and thus start filming in summer.) (Kay Thompson’s age based on real-world biography.)

Jack and Trudy sleep together. Sometime later, Jack brings Trudy with him to the Tarzan set in Chupaderos, Mexico, as his personal assistant and script girl. Trudy becomes acquainted with the joker that portrays Tarzan’s chimp, Cheetah. A sometime Jokertown resident who looks human from the waist down but like a chimpanzee from the waist up, the young man goes by “Cheetah” even in his personal life, having no affection for his given name. (31: Murphy)

Trudy and Jack team up to attempt to recover a treasure in lost silver from a Mexican mine called La Calavera Llorando, the Weeping Skull. Their efforts are complicated by the interference of local mob boss Tiburcio Aguilar and his flunkies. Trudy uses her ace teleportation power to defend herself, killing Aguilar and his henchmen. She is forced to abandon Jack and the treasure, but as she escapes, she hopes that Jack is still able to recover a bit of silver for himself, at least enough to pay the alimony owed to his ex-wife. (31: Murphy)

Jan. 4, 1958
On the radio, Aarti listens to the news of the Russians’ Sputnik satellite crashing back to Earth. She is happy to hear of any setback in mankind’s space race, because she doesn’t ever want any men landing on the Moon. (29: Mohanraj Two)

I love the Jack Braun stuff - I hadn't read those so it's fun to know about stuff like 'Cheetah'.

Cheetah shall return, before the '50s are over!

(Then he'll disappear. It is a Wild Cards loose end ... what happened to Cheetah???)

Apr. 12, 1958
The Los Angeles Herald publishes an article about the U.S. government’s plan to send an experimental rocket plane, the X-11A, into orbit. On that same day, Edgar Thayer joins the X-11A project, which is based at a NACA facility at Lake Muroc. He is grilled by security officer George G. Battle, and then meets several members of the X-11A team: the project’s head, Dr. Wilson Rowe; pilots Mike Sampson, Al Dearborn, Woody Enloe and Casey Guinan; and nurse Margaret “Peggy” Durand. Thayer will eventually learn that Rowe and all four pilots are aces. Thayer himself is a “nat,” i.e. a “natural” – someone who has not been infected at all by the wild card virus. (13: Cassutt)

Apr. 14, 1958
The Los Angeles Herald reports that a Soviet attempt to launch a craft into orbit has failed. At Lake Muroc, Edgar Thayer and Peggy Durand begin an affair. (13: Cassutt)

Apr. 20, 1958
Dr. Wilson Rowe announces to the personnel at Lake Muroc that Woody Enloe and Casey Guinan will pilot the X-11A when it makes its historic flight. (13: Cassutt)

Late April, 1958
Peggy Durand takes Edgar Thayer to the hangar where the U.S. Government keeps Baby, the confiscated living spaceship that brought Dr. Tachyon to Earth twelve years earlier. Peggy and Edgar make love inside Baby. (13: Cassutt)

May 4, 1958
One of the chase pilots working on the X-11A Project, Major Meadows, gives his young son, Mark, a brief tour of the Lake Muroc facility before taking him to school. Little Mark Meadows is bored by anything relating to airplanes, and wants to see “spaceman things.” (13: Cassutt)

Peggy Durand breaks off her relationship with Edgar Thayer, and moves on to Woody Enloe. (13: Cassutt)

May 5, 1958
Peggy sabotages Enloe’s flight suit, and then seduces her ex-lover Edgar Thayer, to distract Thayer from checking the suit and discovering what she’s done. The X-11A flight fails, the malfunction leading to a crash that kills both Woody Enloe and Casey Guinan. Edgar Thayer will eventually be sentenced to prison for “gross negligence,” then killed in a car crash six months after serving his sentence. (13: Cassutt) (Car crash from 13: Leigh Four)

When Aarti – who had been praying that the X-11A project would fail – learns the news about the Lake Muroc disaster and the death of the two pilots, she believes her prayers have been answered. (29: Mohanraj Two)

May 8, 1958
A memorial service is held for Woody Enloe and Casey Guinan. (13: Cassutt)

Fall, 1958
Yajnadar takes Aarti out in public to see the film Madhumati at the cinema. Just outside the cinema doors, Aarti suffers a paralyzing pain spasm, which leads to a spectacle as the public around them react to the joker woman in their midst. She instructs Yaj to take her back home, and he complies. (29: Mohanraj Two) (“Fall” placement based on real-world release date of Madhumati, Sept. 12, 1958.)

Not long after, Aarti decides to test whether she is actually visiting the Moon or if it is just a dream or hallucination. She uses her ace powers to paint a vast structure on the surface, over a quarter-mile high. The next day, the newspapers are emblazoned with headlines about the discovery of the structure by astronomers. Satisfied, Aarti somewhat reluctantly tears the structure down, returning the Moon back to its previous state so as not to hasten mankind’s space race. She is confident that the brief appearance of the structure will be written off as a transient phenomenon or glitch, and swiftly forgotten. (29: Mohanraj Two)

Still wanting an enclosed space in which to dwell while in her Moon form, Aarti paints into existence a new structure, a mini Taj Mahal located in the Tsiolkovsky Crater on the Moon’s far side, as far from Earth and potential discovery as possible. (29: Mohanraj Three)

August, 1959
Fifteen-year-old Fleur van Renssaeler, having been raped and impregnated by her father, Congressman Henry van Renssaeler, comes to Jokertown hoping to find someone who can help her get an abortion. Calling herself “Flo,” she befriends teenaged joker Chuck Tanaka, nicknamed “Chop Chop.” The two of them eat at a Chinese restaurant called the Twisted Dragon, near the Chinatown/Jokertown border. They go back to Chuck’s apartment, where they make love, and afterwards Fleur tells Chuck about a plan that her father is involved in with gangster Meyer Lansky, to burn down Jokertown. Chuck gets in contact with a joker named Waffles, who arranges a doctor’s appointment for Fleur, for two days later. (13: Wu)

The day after meeting Fleur, Chuck goes to a pair of young jokers, Troll and Cheetah, to ask them what they know about Lansky. They tell him that Lansky rented some warehouses in Jokertown recently. The three of them break into one of the warehouses. They fight the men who are guarding the building, and a stray bullet ignites some of the explosives being stored there. Chuck, Troll and Cheetah escape the warehouse before it goes up in flames. Jokertown citizenry form a bucket brigade in order to keep the fire from spreading, and eventually are able to neutralize the blaze entirely. Afterward, Troll gives Chuck a dud explosive that he found in the wreckage. (13: Wu)

The following day, with the help of his boss, Peter Choy, Chuck is able to get the failed explosive into the hands of a journalist named Matt Rainey. Rainey goes on to expose Lansky’s arson plot in the press, effectively foiling it. Later, when Fleur fails to meet Chuck at the time they’d agreed upon, Chuck assumes that she might be in danger. He speaks to newsvendor Jube the Walrus, who tells Chuck that his friend Flo is actually Fleur van Renssaeler, the Congressman’s daughter. Chuck, Troll and Cheetah go to her home and rescue her from her father, Henry. Chuck and Flo manage to get to her appointment just on time. A joker doctor, “Peking Doc,” performs the abortion. Afterward, a vengeful Henry van Renssaeler shows up at the office, but he is shot and killed by Meyer Lansky before he can do any harm to Fleur or Chop-Chop. Fleur says goodbye to Chuck and takes a taxi out of Jokertown, and out of Chuck’s life forever. (13: Wu)

September, 1959
The Russians send up a probe to map the surface of the Moon. The pictures it brings back – when they are made available to the public – show no evidence of Aarti’s miniature Taj Mahal, which is heartening to her as it confirms that her lunar home is well hidden. (29: Mohanraj Three) (Month of September based on the real-world launch date of Russia’s Luna 2 satellite on Sept. 12, 1959)

Reporter Matt Rainey is murdered, presumably in retaliation for exposing the Jokertown arson plot a month earlier. (13: Leigh Two)