Doctor Hohenheim - Prologue

A Story by Darius Greeves

A man wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how or why he is there. He is alone and his only chance of figuring it out is to read the logs of the crew.

Prologue

In the second half of the 21^st century the human race developed three things that would irrevocably change their experience of space travel. The first was the HEID or High Energy Ion Drive, an engine capable of propelling human travellers to velocities relevant with regards to the speed of light, allowing them to traverse interstellar distances. The second was the HIP or Hypersleep Inducement Pod. This allowed its occupants to remain in stasis for a significant period of time - essentially without experiencing time itself. However, this proved problematic. Extensive tests of the HIP showed that for periods much longer than two years, serious psychological abnormalities were presented as side-effects, similar to those abnormalities experienced by living for extended periods in deep space without hypersleep. The solution for these problems had been developed years earlier. The drug MX6581 had an amnesiac effect on the brain and was developed to help traumatised patients get over their experiences. Administered correctly, it allowed a new age of astronauts to experience space without the sense of time consuming them. And so a new era of space travel was born.