Ancient animals develop sciences and cultures long before the rise of dinosaurs and mammals as dominant creatures. Sail-backed beings and other organisms use a combination of physicality, telepathy, and psychokinesis to build cities, conduct engineering projects, and perform military campaigns. High-tech, ultra-ancient warfare even influences weather and geological events, and it eventually leads to The Great Dying mass extinction event.
Millions of years later, Dorians and Mycenaeans go through phases of coexisting while sharing experiences with each other and phases of intercultural conflict. After ups and downs of interaction with each other, some members of both cultures witness extraterrestrials visit Crete. The visitors demonstrate amazing technologies and leave behind exotic gifts for the humans to marvel at, interact with, and contemplate. However, tensions between the Dorians and the Mycenaeans escalate, then explode.
Mysteries surround critical historical events, and teams of beings on both the regular spatiotemporal plane of existence and the great beyond participate in time travel, including many alternate timelines. For example, some universes feature Ronald Reagan as the 40th U.S. President; others feature Gary Gilmore as the 40th U.S. President and Reagan as the 41st President.
Amid escalating conflicts, including extreme tribalism through much of Earth in the second half of the 2010s, a council of beings from the beyond convenes in September 2019, facing a decision of if and when to open up both their set of Pandora's boxes and their set of the similarly-named Pandara's boxes. In a great many universes Earth faces a biological attack emanating from both Mars and Jupiter in 2019, which adds to the difficulties of the early 2020s. Multiple universes relate differently to how these developments vary between them, especially with different timelines' versions of the council's decisions, and their potential impact.
This critical edition brings changes to the nonfiction supplements, unjumbling an array of presences by placing them together with a more understandable, thorough, and relatable context.