Crichton-1

(Also referred to as "Jurassic Farce" and "Open the Door, Get on the Floor")

Current Year: 1995 In roughly 66,000,000 BC something we call the K-T Extinction Event occurred in our universe. Believed to be the impact of a large asteroid that caused ecological effects that devastated Earth’s biosphere, it caused a Mass Extinction Event that killed nearly three quarters of the total number of species that existed on Earth at the time. The most notable casualty of this Extinction Event were the organisms we know as dinosaurs. In our universe, interaction with dinosaurs is typically limited to seeing their reassembled skeletons in natural history museums. This is not the case in the Crichton-1 universe. In this universe, it appears the K-T Extinction Event asteroid may have had a different trajectory, missing the planet Earth altogether. On Crichton-1, human civilization coexists with living dinosaurs that have continued to survive and evolve past the Cretaceous Era on into our modern Cenozoic Era. Some species of dinosaur have remained biologically unchanged in the 65 million year interim, similar to the evolutionary stagnancy of the crocodile seen in our universe. Others have undergone surprising and unpredictable genetic  alterations in order to maintain survivability and no longer resemble what we in our universe have seen in Paleontology books. Genetic descendants of dinosaurs such as birds still exist in this parallel, simply existing as evolutionary offshoots rather than as sole surviving traces of previous species. Human society and development is, surprisingly, largely indistinguishable from our own when it comes to the balance of world powers, technology and culture with the exception of specifics relating to dinosaurs themselves. It looks like this universe is free of any changes like Hannibal riding T-Rex’s over the mountains to conquer Rome or Nazis riding pterodactyls into London during the Blitz, thankfully. Instead, the main alterations seem to be exclusive to the continued existence of dinosaurs themselves. By the Current Year, they are considered a heavily at-risk Endangered Species that exist in wild-life preserves (which double as educational zoos) as well as still roaming naturally in places like sub-Saharan Africa, the jungles of India and the rainforests of South America, where they are frequently the targets of ruthless and enterprising poachers.

Crichton-1 has proven to be a tantalizing opportunity for Infinity Patrol’s Biology research sectors who are desperately seeking non-invasive ways to acquire access to specimens of various species that have been extinct for millions upon millions of years in Homeline. Another less professional reason that Crichton-1 has become a popular parallel among Infinity Patrol staff is for its leisure and nostalgia-related value. Crighton-1’s Current Year is 1995, and it’s no more ridden with war or disaster than the 1995 we experience in our Homeline’s history unlike other parallels in the 1990’s like Malverde-1. Many Infinity Patrol members seek the opportunity for participating in undercover interdimensional vacation in Crichton-1, both for the ability to experience the totally unique experience of attending a “Dinosaur Zoo”, as well as relieving the 90’s they knew from their childhoods in general. Despite the existence of living dinosaurs, this universe still hosts a relatively unaltered version of 1990’s culture. It’s a rare opportunity to visit a parallel unmarred by war or disaster where Pogs are still popular and commercially available, television is still dominated by Home Improvement and The X-Files and books from the Animorphs and Goosebumps franchises still dot every library shelf.