Turns out, that silly man with the silly hair on that silly history channel was right. Ancient aliens are real. Sorry. If you’ll believe it, they visited us tens of thousands of years ago with the best of intentions. ‘Gift humanity with advanced technology and uplift the whole species’, they thought, ‘grant them a way to find us when they’re ready’. So they left us a wondrous machine, a great obsidian monolith with two strange boulders at its base convulsing with energy and covered in looping cables. They told us it was a device capable of harnessing the leftover cosmic energy of the Big Bang to create a conduit to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, but our forebears rejected this opportunity. They regarded the aliens and their gift with fear, the oldest and strongest of human emotions, and with regret the visitors from beyond the stars left us. Their machine was abandoned and forgotten; buried by the sands of time. The memory of this extraterrestrial visit passed into legend, then myth, and finally to the obscure footnotes of dusty historical tomes. No one outside of kooks on tacky internet forums regarded the stories with any real interest, and it seemed the promise of exploring the stars would remain lost forever...

However, in the waning years of the 20^th century, there was one academic who refused to believe the ancient legends to be mere superstition. Doctor Dylan Djakov (mockingly called “DeDe” by his disapproving colleagues) was a small and slender man, well suited to life spent buried in libraries. Adolescence was a confusing time for poor DeDe, for rather than envying the lives of buff athletes and strapping action heroes like most other boys his age, he instead imagined himself in the place of the curvy, adoring damsels clinging at their sides. Running from these troubling fantasies, he immersed himself in the pursuit of history, and soon became obsessed with the legends of ancient aliens and their visits to Earth. He would not rest until he proved them true, no matter the cost to his professional reputation or sanity.

Thankfully for DeDe’s sanity (though not for his reputation, that was dead on arrival), he didn’t have to wait long. Exhaustive study of ancient historical records and careful translation of long-dead languages led him to a dig site deep in the desert, where the great ebony column was finally unearthed after eons buried underground. Immediately, the military took notice of this monumental discovery, and spirited both DeDe and the obelisk off to a secret base nestled safely between the Twin Peaks mountains. However, the expertise needed to restore the device to proper working order eluded everyone they could get their hands on, so the top brass finally sent for their last and best hope, a brilliant young officer named Major Stefanie Garter.

Described by her many male (and female) admirers as possessing the brain of Einstein and the body of a porn star, the child prodigy had graduated MIT with nine degrees at the age of only fourteen, blown up her first sun at sixteen (she doesn’t like to talk about it), and was snapped up by the military soon after. She soon found that her old-fashioned superiors would often underestimate her intelligence on account of her platinum blonde hair, stunning good looks, and improbably perky breasts that constantly imperiled the buttons on her suggestively tight (and somehow still regulation) uniform. However, she never let any of that dampen her round-the-clock work ethic or unflappable optimism, and if anyone sight-unseen mistook her for a man (understandable due to her insistence on using the name “Stef” in all her official documents), she would subject them to a long and torturous lecture on the female anatomy and its lack of impact on military life. Choosing the pursuit of science over the pursuit of love all throughout her life, she affected a militant “fish not needing a bicycle” attitude towards men, though this lonely path would leave her with a constantly aching heart and a dangerously repressed sexual appetite.

Not long after her on-site arrival in the Twin Peaks mountains, she and DeDe formed a tight working relationship, and their combined efforts soon decoded the mysterious engravings on the monument’s surface and brought it up to full operation. After some testing, it was revealed that energy built up in its two protuberances was released through its large pillar, and this plasma projection would travel far past light-speed to land with unerring accuracy at any place of the traveler’s choosing, bringing whoever was standing at the point of origin along for the ride. Taking inspiration from its fuel source and intended purpose, DeDe and Stef innocently named the machine the “Big Bang Conduit”. What with the military’s love affair with acronyms, you can guess how it was referred to from there on out.

Immediately an operation was greenlit: send a team to ride the BBC to the stars and make contact with the ancient aliens that created it. These interstellar explorers would be known as “Bang Jumpers” (BJ’s), and their secret base would be christened “Jumper Operations – Interstellar” (JO-I). It was widely and officially reported that no one found those names humorous at all. However, JO-I leadership needed a dependable soldier to lead what was to be the “1^st Bang Jumper” team (BJ-1), and so they called out of very early retirement a former spec-ops squad leader named Colonel James O’Nelly (known to his fishing buddies as “Jimmy”). By this point turned world-weary and bitingly sarcastic by years in the military (as well as his own personal struggles), Jimmy was nonetheless a perfect fit to command the unconventional unit that was BJ-1.

Though he fought with the same confusing feelings as DeDe over the course of his life, instead of coping with them like DeDe had by eschewing traditionally masculine pursuits, he embraced those pursuits with a passion only explainable through deep overcompensation. With his tall and athletic frame, he excelled at all the sports he tried, and with his dry with and easygoing charm he had his pick of female companionship (even though he’d much rather have traded places with them). He was an easy catch for the military recruiters that were inexplicably allowed to lurk around schoolyards, convincing himself he could kill his persistent desires for femininity by killing the enemies of his country. Predictably, this did not work, and he only grew more bitter and disillusioned with every black ops mission he was sent on. Despite his clear aptitude as a soldier and as a leader, the foundations of his self-identity were cracking, and his burgeoning Impostor Syndrome led him to doubt every aspect of his life. Retiring after less than a decade in the service, he sought peace in the simple passion of fishing. But the top brass of JO-I knew nothing of his struggles, just that he was a model commander with a knack for out-of-the-box thinking. So, deaf to his protests, they ordered him back to the life he despised.

So, BJ-1 had its first roster. ASAP, they were taking their first ride on the BBC, a three-man mission (though, burning with righteous indignation, Stef would demand it be relabeled to a “two-man and one-WOMAN mission”) to a set of coordinates engraved upon the shaft of the machine. Once arrived and suitably shaken by the experience, they discovered to their horror that the civilization of the ancient aliens that first visited Earth had been usurped by a megalomaniacal race of parasitic brain worms known as the “G’ehrks”. Taken captive by the G’ehrk god-king Ahl’phist’yha, they learned that the insane, yet undeniably campy and enjoyable warlord was hell-bent on galactic domination, and was well on his way to getting it thanks to his army of enslaved warriors called the “P’ihms”. BJ-1 now had reasons to be taking trips on the BBC other than just fun and discovery: to defend Earth and defeat the G’ehrk empire.

Though escape seemed impossible, they received help from the Number One Alpha of Ahl’phist’yha, a legendary P’ihm warrior named Cyan’c (though anyone who shared a communal shower [or bed] with him would soon call him “Big C”). A towering mountain of man-meat, Big C had never found himself troubled with confusion or doubt like DeDe and Jimmy were. Raised from birth to believe his G’ehrk masters to be gods and his own people to be their faithful servants, the P’ihm warrior knew as far back as he could remember what his destiny would be. He devoted every waking moment of his life to training hard and rising through the ranks until he could take his place at the right hand of his god, Ahl’phist’yha. Fanatically embracing the P’ihm ethos that masculinity was strength and strength was paramount, Big C eagerly participated in the traditional punishment meted out to P’ihms deemed to be “weak”: using advanced G’ehrk technology to thoroughly feminize the offending “man” (past-tense), and immediately passing them around to all their former battle-brothers until they deeply understood their new station in life and vocally regretted pretending at anything else. The fact that these newly-minted women always seemed to enjoy their punishment was studiously ignored.

It was because of this ethos that Big C decided to betray his false god and help BJ-1. Ironically, it had only been after achieving his dream that he had experienced his first moment of doubt. Finally, he saw his masters for what they truly were, creepy little critters only pretending at strength. Deeply disgusted but still as stoic as he had ever been, Big C patiently bided his time until the perfect moment to strike. When he first laid eyes upon Jimmy in Ahl’phist’yha’s dungeon, much like the military back on Earth, he failed to see the turmoil and self-loathing within him. All he saw was his chance to get revenge on his former god and master. He truly respected Jimmy as a fellow warrior and “real man”, and took the gamble that he and his team were the ticket to overthrowing the G’ehrks. After helping them to escape, Big C would be granted a place on BJ-1 and their adventures would truly begin.

Over the months spent fighting Ahl’phist’yha, the whole team would receive numerous brushes with death and disease, and the biggest factor keeping them in the field was JO-I’s resident chief of medical, Doctor Jennifer Niles (privately she preferred “Jenny”, but was far too professional to let that name spread). Acting as practitioner, surgeon, epidemiologist, and nurse, she managed almost single-handedly to keep BJ-1 healthy and active no matter what scraps they inevitably stumbled into. The other doctors found little work left for them to do once Jenny arrived, gliding between sick beds with the grace of a ballerina (no small feat considering her gigantic breasts, basketball-sized cheeks, and childbearing hips were constantly poised to knock over everything in the vicinity).

Graduating top of her class at medical school, Jenny had never once given thought to applying her prodigious talents to the military. In fact, rather than helping to take away life, she envisioned herself helping bring life into the world. Since she was a little girl, Jenny had been fascinated with motherhood, and would have likely have married early and lived a life of quiet contentment as a happy housewife, if not for, ironically, other girls. Jenny had the rotten luck of developing early, and by the time the other girls were out shopping for their first training bra’s, she was already more well-endowed than most full-grown women. One would have hoped a sense of sisterhood would prevail, but unfortunately the other girls, green with envy and seething at the unfairness of it all, bullied poor Jenny relentlessly. Taunting cries of “fat cow” and “dumb slut” followed her relentlessly all throughout her teenage years, and with tears in her eyes she turned to food as her only coping mechanism. Her self-esteem plummeted as her dress sizes grew, and though her genes sent most of the weight to areas other girls would have killed to see filled out, nothing could stop Jenny from seeing a fat, dumb cow-slut in her reflection.

Tragically born too early to live in a world where “thickness” was desirable, Jenny never developed the confidence to even ask a boy out (not that any would be caught dead out on a date with her, lest they get bullied like she did), and so her dreams of blissful family life died in the cradle. Instead, much like DeDe and Jimmy, she put her nose to the grindstone to avoid looking in the mirror. The other girls had convinced her that she was too grotesque for any man to knock her up, but she wouldn’t let that stop her from helping make the end result of that safer for the more (in her traumatized eyes) fortunate women of the world. Jenny devoted herself to studying hard for medical school, and there discovered her calling, and more. As it turned out, she excelled at almost every medical field she tried her hand at, soaking up knowledge and skills like the gauze she’d become so proficient with. She graduated early with top marks, but despite the wide range of options she was presented with, her heart was still set on only one thing: the maternity ward.

There, she was regarded as an angel (sometimes literally), as nary a mother nor infant would be in any danger during delivery once Jenny arrived. Mortality rates plummeted as her reputation as a miracle worker grew, but peace still eluded her.She had hoped for some measure of happiness now that her second dream had been realized, but as time passed she realized with a growing sense of dread and guilt that ensuring the joy of others could never ensure her own. Adding to her dismay was constant news of her former bullies settling down and starting families of their own, serving as further reminders of her own unrealized desires.

Gradually, yet another dream would be stolen from her as the passion she once had curdled into bitterness and resentment. When the call came to Jenny that the military was looking to recruit her for a classified project, she answered without delay. BJ-1 would immediately come to respect the skill and expertise she brought with her (even making her an honorary member of the team and inviting her out on missions with them), but they would never know the joyful and kind persona she presented to the women at the maternity ward. That Jenny had been left behind, replaced with a grim mask of curt professionalism that covered a deep well of sorrow she had accepted would never be filled.

Eventually, BJ-1 would go on to defeat the forces of Ahl’phist’yha in a quite satisfying manner, but yet graceful retirement eluded them. They were sent to defeat all the other G’ehrk false gods (very few of whom were as cool or captivating as Ahl’phist’yha), a hivemind of evil robot scorpions (who were for a while led by a naked android copy of Stef for indecipherable reasons), and even an empire of evil space nuns with laser guns (who birthed for themselves a busty space messiah in a series of events that were inexplicably less interesting than they sound). Along the way they recruited the final member of their team: a space pirate/thief/con-artist named Mala Van Dorian, who, despite having been abandoned by her deadbeat parents on an alien planet, was surprisingly well-adjusted.

Numerous run-ins with various law enforcement agencies and criminal organizations notwithstanding, Mala had made quite the life for herself. Burglary was a breeze for her lithe and nimble frame, piracy was pitifully easy with her dexterous and experienced hands at the controls, and pulling off cons was never complicated after she flashed her patented disarming smile (as well as the rest of her body). Sure, she could stand to gain a bit of weight and she compulsively lied to everyone about everything, but those were minor issues compared to the nightmares plaguing the rest of BJ-1. Mala had a healthy sex life (unlike everyone else), a healthy self-identity (unlike everyone else), and no real personal demons at all (unlike EVERYONE ELSE). Seemingly for no other reason than to have a breath of fresh air around JO-I (or maybe just for the fun of it), she was invited to join BJ-1, making her the second non-Terran to join the team (technically third, but no one remembers the other guy).

Mala immediately made herself at home, relentlessly flirting with anything that moved, choosing a cutesy Earth nickname (“Mallie”, after the song “Good Golly Miss Molly”, which she was convinced had somehow been written about her), and genuinely becoming a valuable addition to BJ-1. However, the team she joined had become very different to the one that first set off on the BBC. DeDe had grown disillusioned and despondent over the corruption of BJ-1’s purpose from intrepidly exploring the stars to overthrowing interstellar governments (he had in fact quit the JO-I entirely on several occasions, each time failing miserably in private life and being forced to crawl back on his hands and knees). Jimmy’s self-doubts had progressed to a full-blown existential crisis, and even his beloved fishing pond held little reprieve for his depression. Apparently as some cosmic joke, Stef had finally attempted to come to terms with her romantic needs (as opposed to what she had always done, which was bury herself in work and ignore them), and opened up to Jimmy about her feelings for him only for him to shoot her down (due to his ongoing full-blown existential crisis).

Big C, meanwhile, never having been swayed from his narrow-minded ways, was beginning to have doubts about the masculine strength of BJ-1 as a whole (he had, in fact, been entertaining fantasies of hyper-feminizing the lot of them and taking his place as the King of his people with the transformed and conquered BJ-1 as his royal harem, but was keeping that to himself for the time being. Ironically, if he had just asked, every member of BJ-1 might have enthusiastically agreed for one reason or another). Lastly, Jenny was still languishing in her private pit of misery, but had taken to crying herself to sleep at night as her breaking point loomed ever closer. Mallie, for her part, was privy to none of this, but took note of their collective melancholy anyway and committed herself to fruitlessly attempting to cheer them up with her bubbly, flirtatious personality.

On the eve of their current mission, the members of BJ-1 were as divided as they’d ever been. Lustful desires, romantic longings, and crises of identity had ensnared them all in a toxic web of dysfunction and co-dependence from which there seemed no escape. Little did they know that all these snares would soon be untangled in ways they could never have imagined, not even in their wildest dreams. Little did they know that this mission would likely be their last, for they were about to enter a world of wanton hedonism and the thirsting of teeming millions; a world both strange and familiar; a world of wondrous advances and hopeless regressions. They were about to enter...The 25^th Century.