This is one of the more common questions that people ask me about the book after they read it. Of course, this is work of fiction, but I have a very strong science background and so it was natural for me to incorporate a lot of "real" science in my story. I personally think that it enhances any story when there's a factual basis behind what occurs, because this adds interest and intrigue. I also happen to be a big fan of verisimilitude, much like the late Michael Crichton, who happens to be one of my favorite authors. He also enjoyed weaving fact and fiction together in many of his wonderful novels in such a manner that you could not distinguish the two.
I did address this question in my Preface and Author's Note at the beginning of both The Edge of Forever and the sequel, The Edge of Forever: Brink of Extinction. I pulled out sections from the Preface and Author's Note from both books so that you could read them here, if you are so inclined. The reality is that I did use creative license in both books, but more of the science is factual than you probably want to believe.....
We are innately inquisitive, but because of our curiosity and strong need to understand the world around us, we also tend to accept theory as fact in a rather naïve manner. There is no better illustration of this than dinosaur extinction theory. Although there has been a longstanding debate among scientists, the general public has accepted the doctrine that a six- or seven-mile wide asteroid resulted in this extinction.
The story in this book may come as quite a shock to those who have accepted the asteroid theory as fact, because it presents a very different scenario that is in many ways much scarier than an asteroid. Most of us are unaware of the unbelievably powerful forces beneath our feet—forces that may not have our best interests in mind, but we continue to live in ignorant bliss because our experience has taught us that we are relatively safe. Unfortunately, the human experience involves such a tiny blip of geological time that our “experience” is nothing more than an illusion of safety. The dinosaurs faced this realization sixty-five million years ago, and if the human race survives long enough, we will eventually realize that our time has come, as well.
Some of us still look to the sky in fear of giant rocks destroying our civilization, but maybe we should be looking at the Earth that we stand on instead, and maybe we should realize that there are things brewing that make huge asteroids seem benign by comparison. Maybe there are things that mankind was not meant to survive.
The disaster in this book is truly a worst case scenario, and although most of the science involved is factual or at least based on theory that evolved from scientific evidence, I will admit that it may be far-fetched, or maybe not.
At the end of December 2008, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory announced that they had recorded a “notable swarm of earthquakes beneath Yellowstone Lake.” The geologists noted that this earthquake sequence was the most intense in this area for some time and that they could not identify any causative factor without further analysis.
Certainly there are quite a number of tremors that occur in Yellowstone National Park each year (about 1,000 to 2,000), but the end of 2008 was remarkable, because 400 tremors occurred in only one week. It is also a known fact that the Yellowstone Caldera, the enormous magma chamber that fuels all of the hydrothermal activity at the park, has been rising as much as three inches each year. What does all of this mean? Maybe nothing, but we won’t really know the answer to this question until the event is already upon us.
II. The Edge of Forever: Brink of Extinction (this book involves a bio-technological disaster from a man-made doomsday plague unleashed by the cataclysm)
An offshoot from our inquisitive nature and our creativity is our ability to create things that previously did not exist; sometimes we do this without considering whether we should create them. This issue becomes a crucial aspect of the story that’s about to unfold. But before you convince yourself that it’s just a story, remember that human creativity is an entity that we cannot escape. Also, remember that men will continue to justify their creations even if they create horrific things that should never exist.
When you look back on human history, no reasonable person would question the violent, destructive nature of our species. And when you combine the ability to create amazing or horrific things with the lack of good judgment concerning their creation, and give this ability to an inherently destructive species, the end result is likely to be…well, let’s just say frightening.
I admit that this story is wilder and scarier than the first book and, at first glance, it may seem more outlandish and far-fetched, but that’s only at first glance. It is frightening to consider how rapidly our technology in biological warfare, chemical warfare, genetic engineering, and microbiology has advanced in the past twenty-five years, and even scarier to consider where we might be in another twenty-five years. To assume that we will never be able to create something as devastating as DM-19 is not only naïve, but foolish. Technology will continue to advance, and men will not stop trying to create advanced weapons of mass destruction.
I believe the worst of these will be the biological weapons for several reasons. Nuclear weapons cause massive destruction and death, but once the bombs have detonated and the radiation has cleared, the loss of life will dramatically diminish. Chemical weapons are also devastating, but after they’ve been dispersed into the atmosphere, they quickly become so diluted that they’re harmless. Biological weapons, on the other hand, continue to spread through infected individuals or vectors. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
To my knowledge, scientists have not substantially altered a biological agent to create a more devastating weapon against humans, although this has been performed in mice with the accidental creation of an astonishingly virulent strain of mousepox, a cousin of smallpox. The Australian scientists realized that if a similar genetic manipulation was carried out on smallpox, an unstoppable killer could be unleashed. So it’s inevitable that our technology will eventually allow us to do this—to create more effective biological weapons. Or are we already there? The following are actual facts surrounding the mysterious deaths of top microbiologists in the last ten years.
On November 15, 2001, Harvard professor Don Wiley, a prominent researcher in virology and immunology, left a gathering of friends and colleagues some time after 10:30p.m. The next morning, Memphis police found his rental car stopped on a bridge with a full tank of gas and keys still in the ignition. Wiley was supposed to meet his family at the Memphis airport to continue on to an Icelandic vacation. There was no financial or family trouble, and he had no history of depression or mental illness.
Professor Wiley was not only a Harvard professor, but also a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland and the National Institute of Health. At the Howard Hughes Institute, he performed biological research, sometimes jointly funded by the Department of Defense and the NIH. He was an expert on the human immune response to infection and had recently investigated several dangerous viruses, including AIDS, Ebola, herpes, and influenza.
Professor Wiley’s body was recovered from the Mississippi River about a month after his disappearance, and authorities issued a report indicating that an accidental fall from a bridge into the river was the probable cause of his death. Others assumed that he committed suicide, despite the protests of his family and doubts expressed by his colleagues. End of story.
Then, more biologists started to die under suspicious circumstances. Many were world-acclaimed scientific researchers specializing in infectious diseases and biological agents, such as anthrax, HIV, and DNA sequencing. And, as the body count of infectious disease experts continued to climb, connections to weapons research began to surface. Between September 2001 and June 2002, fifteen world-class microbiologists died, most from unnatural causes.. Now, statistically it’s possible that one or two of these microbiologists were killed in random accidents, but for so many to die in such a short period exceeds all reasonable bounds of statistics.
By 2005, we lost 40 microbiologists in less than 4 years—some were found stabbed to death in the trunks of cars and some wrapped their cars around trees after their brake fluid disappeared. During this time it was discovered that they all worked for the government, or government contractors, on projects related to bio-terrorism, flu pandemics, or anthrax. Then it was discovered that our government was performing strange experiments that involved exhuming bodies of people that were killed by the 1918 Spanish flu in an effort to “study” the virus. This was one of the worst scourges that mankind has ever faced, killing 20-50 million people.
So, let’s take a moment and step away from the perpetual fear-mongering of the media and assume for a moment that some party has decided to “liquidate” weapons research infectious disease experts. But there is really only one reason to kill off a bunch of scientists: to keep them from doing something they were able to do. What were these scientists able to do? Maybe blow the whistle if an artificially created disease was about to be used in a manner that those who created it did not approve of.
Note: This information and these statements were taken from WhatReallyHappened.com—Mike Rivero.
Does any of this relate to the present day? It does if you put credence in the fact that FEMA has predicted the need for a few million plastic coffins—ones with an air tight seal that would be perfect to bury victims of plague or biological warfare. There are also sources that claim the swine flu, which is killing people in Mexico, possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest it has been genetically manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.
So what do I believe? I certainly think that all of this sounds very ominous. But
have we reached a technological level where the creation of DM-19 could be a reality? I doubt it—yet. The problem is that we won’t know when this has occurred, because somehow I doubt that they will announce it to the rest of us.
