he was born in Boston, in 1749, july the 4th. (which of course meant nothing at the time.) in 1759, when he turned ten, he became a cabin boy on a British naval ship. over the next few years, the ship fought several battles against the french, winning all of them.of course as a cabin boy he was never terribly involved in any of them.

he remained with the ship until after the war. at age 16, the captain gave him a letter of recommendation to the academy. he graduated in 1767. he was given the rank of ensign and assigned to a new ship. by the age of 25, he had risen to the rank of commander.

but in 1775, he retired from the British navy to train young men for the new american navy. in 1776, a price was placed on his head by the british navy. he assumed the title of captain and got together a crew of both students and rogues. they stole a british ship, which they renamed the Liberty, and became smugglers for the Americans. they also commited acts of piracy against the British.

in july of 1777, to celebrate the first anniversary of independence day, as well as Blake's 28th birthday, the crew of the Liberty took a break. they barbecued, played games, set off fireworks, and got drunk. it was a very good day.

captain Blake awoke in 2563. this came as quite a surprise to him. he was greeted by a man calling himself Revo Amaire. Revo gave Blake a brief idea of why he was here.

"For a decade, people have been working on time travel with limited success. but on January 5, 2561 (two years ago), the key stabilizing element was discovered. due to a vagary of temporal mechanics, it was discovered at precisely the same instant by 3 different people in 3 different places, tho none of them knew that at the time, that anyone else had discovered it, i mean. one was Derek Arrow, chief temporal physicist at the United Nations Advanced Research Facilities (UNARF). he immediately brought his discovery to the attention of the scientific community. several days later the announcement was made to the entire world. EarthGov quickly set up a team to decide how best to utilize this new technology, and to safeguard against misuse. meanwhile, another of the discoverers was Samuel Cessna. he was an independent researcher who was about to run out of funding when he made the discovery. he thot for a few days before doing anything, and by the time he was ready to act, the news of Arrow's discovery was made public. he knew he now would not be as rich and respected as he had thot he would be over the last few days. he got upset. he always was rather high strung and unbalanced. he decided to become a criminal. and he indeed is the single most dangerous criminal the world has ever known. more of that later. there was also Karsis Passiis (pronounced Pass-ee-iss), who in fact was not a scientist at all, yet, but merely incredibly clever and given to untrained scientific philosophizing. Passiis, btw, is of the Pactuan race, from the planet Pactus Tarksus. about a century ago, one of Earth's deep space explorer ships finally discovered another planet with an intelligent population. they were fairly level with us technologically, but they had never seen any need to leave their planet.they had of course various types of communicatiosn and monitoring satellites... anyway, we made contact, and soon developed a close alliance. working together our races developed far more swiftly than we had ever done alone. anyway, Passiis was on Earth to look at various colleges for consideration. but he hadn't made a choice yet. when it was announced that Arrow had discovered the stabilizing element in time travel, Passiis went to the government and told them he had also discovered it the day Arrow had. at the time, no one believed him. so he went to school (he finally chose UC Berkeley)

now, one of the people on Arrow's research team was an avid reader of 20th century science fiction, for various reasons. there was some stuff he especially like by an author named Poul Anderson, stuff about an organization called the Time Patrol. he suggested to the team that they put together something of the sort depicted in the stories. no one thought this sounded like a terribly scientific idea, but once they had read all the Time Patrol stories, they became rather enamored of the idea. they eventually did put together what they called the real Time Patrol.

the time patrol researched the past by actually going there. they did further research on temporal mechanics. they patrolled the timestream to make sure no one messed it up. they gave tours of the past to the public, but the technology was kept in the hands of the Time Patrol. it was illegal for anyone to attempt unauthorized time travel.

while all this was going on, Cessna planned, unbeknownst to anyone. Last year, he announced his intentions to the world, and plunged into the timestream, along with about a dozen or so others he had recruited to his operation. the time patrol was obviously about to face its greatest challenge to date. people had to go searching after Cessna's group to keep history intact. so far, they haven't done any real damage, but they remain at large. they have also read the time patrol stories, and model themselves after the archvillains of those stories, and adopted their name from them. they call themselves the Exaltationists.

now Passiis had been at Berkeley meeting all sorts of like minded individuals, making friends. when he felt close enough to them, he let them know that he also had discovered time travel. they all kept up on what we, the time patrol, and the exaltationists, were up to. after a time, Passiis and his friends formed their own time group. they too chose a name from the stories. the name they chose actually referred to a certain group within the time patrol, in the stories, tho i think it really rather suits them. they call themselves the Unattached Agents.

the Patrol kept an eye on the UA's activities as best they could for awhile, but soon enough determined that they knew what they were doing and wouldn't harm the timestream. in fact, we sort of expect they stand at least as good a chance as we do of one day catching the Exaltationists. so we leave them to their own devices.

in fact, a couple of months ago, Passiis suddenly appeared at a press conference the patrol was holding. the whole worlds were watching, and the UA knew it. he announced that he had been doing some research and discovered just why three people had discovered the factor necessary for controlled time travel at once. but i won't go into that. you'll learn in time, if you accept our offer.

which brings us to why you are here. for some time now, we have realized it is convenient,as did the patrol of the stories, to recruit people from various eras in history. we have chosen to offer you a position in the patrol. if you accept, you will stay here for a few months and take some courses to catch up on your history, and to learn about time travel and the patrol and everything i've just told you, in more depth. and many other things you'll have to know. there are also medical treatments that will better you in many ways. perhaps not to the same extent as in the stories, quite...by the way, they are of course required reading. anyway, once you are done, we will return you to the time and place from whence you were taken. you may then go on about your normal life, most of the time. however, we will occasionally call on you to perform some duty for us. and if you ever see anything unusual, temporally, you should report it to us and begin a cautious investigation. sometimes you may be asked to undertake missions in other times and places. sometimes you may need to be a part of a larger team of time patrol agents, in some operation or other. and sometimes you can actually vacation in any time and place you like, from the beginning of the world, any world which supports human life, up to the present day.

or, you may choose not to join us. in that case, your memory of all of this will be erased, and you will be returned to the time and place from whence you were taken. then you can go about your normal life. you would never think of this again.

Captain Gabriel Blake awoke July 6, 1777, an agent of the real Time Patrol.