McKnight's Story

Admiral Sir Douglas McKnight joined the Royal Navy to see the world. He managed to get on Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to Antartica, as he had done well in navigation school and had an interest in astronomy, but was too junior to be able to get into the Pole trip, though he was on the rescue expedition that found the bodies of Scott and his companions.

Unknown to the world at large though, is that Scott was alive when they found him. Seriously mauled and very close to death Scott pressed a metallic symbol into McKnights hands along with a small hide-bound sheaf of maps and notes, extracting an oath from McKnight to ensure this information reached Sir Geoffrey Turner at the Royal Geographical Society, and that he would tell no-one else of it. Scott then fell back on his blankets and spoke his last words, which were never recorded, but for many years puzzled McKnight : "It's full of stars".

McKnight, who had always wanted to meet the venerable explorer, and impressed by the fervour of Scott's urgings, ensured that these items were delivered to the great man, and it as this meeting that changed McKnight's life. Sir Geoffrey recognised in McKnight the same urge to explore that had driven him in his youth, and for this and more practical reasons, choose to reveal the contents of the documents Scott had pressed into Mcknight's hands, as well as the meaning of the medallion.

Even more secret than the fact that Scott was still alive, is that the real reason for Scott failing to reach the pole was that he had in fact discovered something much more important, the entrance to the Hidden Land, that volcanically-heated sub-tropical paradise hidden in Antartica.(in reality it is a "natural" horizon realm, fueled by some powerful Antartic nodes, and the many stopries of such a place, with several "natural" entry points, including at least one only accessible via submarine.

McKnight, with the experience of sailing with Scott, was chosen to lead a secret expedition following the footsteps of Scott to the Hidden Land. This he did, and his work in constructing the Antartic base cemented his position in the Convention. The Antartic base proved a perfect location to begin testing the first of the new generation of ether flyers, or spaceships as they became known after the disproof of ether as a concept.

From the Antartic base McKnight pushed hard to continue exploration of the remaining frontiers, both into the depths of the oceans and into space, and he fought hard for the British Interplanetary Society and the Antartic base to become part of the paradigm of the sleepers, but this was denied him by the money-men and other Void Engineers who declared that equatorial launch sites were more realistic. In the end he gave up and just continued his own explorations.

The war years lead to the his first real combat, where Commodore McKnight provd his leadership and tactical ability against the Nazi Bruderschaft who attempted to seize the Antartic for the Third Reich. The Hidden land became a bloody battlefield in a savage, brutal, and completely secret war fought for the mineral riches of Antartica, and the site of an ancient city constructed by a non-human race.

What led him to devote his life to the idea of colonization of other worlds was studying the writings of the ancient race. It became clear that they had been destroyed by a major cometary impact. They knew what was happening but had no way of avoiding their fate, as they had no space-craft. Finally, at the last momement one of their sorcerors found a habitable world and created a star-gate through which most of the race escaped.

The gate still stands in the city, but as yet no Convention scientist has been able to fathom it's workings.

McKnight became obsessed with the idea that Ascenscion for the human race would be impossible if they were all killed by another large cometary event, and so began the campaign that has now lead him to support defection from the Technocratic Union. McKnight believes the only way to be sure of human survival is to have colonies on other worlds.

Unfortunately, the Union in general wants to seal off the planet from outside influences and keep the Sleepers together in one place to better control them, despite the obvious danger of keeping all your eggs in one basket !

McKnight has worked with NASA ( publicizing comet Shoemaker-Levy and the near miss) and Hollywood ( Deep Impact, etc ) to try and raise the public perception of the danger, but this has angered the NWO and the Syndicate, and it is their refusal to finance further exploratory missons and serioulsy consider colonization, and the delays to the Mars Project which have lead McKinght to wholeheartedly support the defection.

He continues to hope that the Virtual Adepts and the Etherites can be convinced of the neccessity to colonize.