1999 A.D. (574800 I.C.):
- 1999.02.08
The NEAR spacecraft flies within 3,830 km (2,375 mi.) of asteroid 433 Eros.
- 1999.07.17
0030 Japan Standard Time (approximately): Space Station New Frontier detects an intense radioactive phenomenon in Lunar orbit, followed by the appearance of an object of great mass. Furthermore, it confirms that the object is heading towards Earth, coming 5.88 km closer every second. After approximately 18 hours, it will fall onto the Earth's surface. Upon receiving the report, the United Nations Space Agency confers with the heads of every nation. They each eventually adopt a response plan.
0600 Japan Standard Time: The falling object is determined by its form and other features to be an unknown object very different from a meteorite, and its forecasted path after atmospheric entry is made public (but as a meteorite).
0700 Japan Standard Time: Since Japan is only separated by about 1500 km from the predicted crash point, the news is announced in Japan in the form of an earthquake warning due to the panic predicted. The response plan is adopted.
1815 Japan Standard Time: Amidst a dispute between a faction advocating to destroy it by nuclear attack and factions advocating for no attack, the unidentified flying object, which is given the codename "The Visitor," enters the atmosphere above Burma. Due to the high temperatures and terrific shock waves, it reduces the summit of Mount Everest by nearly 1000 meters, destroys Moscow and Stockholm, and inflicts damage while passing over all parts of Europe. Furthermore, it travels over Iceland and Greenland, causes volcanoes to erupt in Canada, and finally comes to rest in the South Pacific as it crashes onto South Atalia Island, a former French atomic bomb testing site from the First Cold War located at the southernmost tip of the Ogasawara Islands above the Tropic of Cancer.
- 1999.07.18
Upon investigation by the United Nations, "The Visitor" is determined to be an alien starship (the spacecraft is actually Zor's Sian Macross-class super space battlefortress, the Macross). It is designated as ASA-1 (Alien Space Artifact One). Public announcements are that an asteroid 3 km in diameter, composed of great quantities of metal, impacted with the earth.
As a result of the damage that the combined shock of the existence of aliens and the crash-landing of ASA-1 has done to the US, the USSR, and the major European nations, the matter is treated as top secret until chaos and confusion are brought under control. What begins as an emergency meeting between the heads of NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and the Northeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere becomes an assembly of all nations.
In response to the ASA-1's arrival, the Global Civil War ends with a temporary ceasefire as every country in the world shifts their attention to the possible existence of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.
- 1999.08.03
After being adrift in hyperspace for some time, the command tower of the Macross emerges into normal space near Luna. It crashes some 50 kilometers from a Sovereign Union-owned moonbase located in the Ptolemaeus Lunar Crater.
- 1999.08.04
The ASA-1 on South Atalia Island is explored by an international research team sponsored by the United Nations and led by Sovereign Union Navy Captain Henry J. Gloval. With him is US Air Force Captain T.R. Edwards, US Air Force Lieutenant (j.g.) Roy Fokker, Canadian Air Force Captain B.D. Andrews, Chinese Doctor of Astrophysics Oliver Chang Yi, and German Doctor of Plasma Physics Emil Lang. The ASA-2 (the Macross' command tower) on Ptolemaeus is also explored by a Lunar research team led by Ukrainian Sovereign Union Space Force Lieutenant Colonel Anatole Eli Leonard. With him is US Air Force Captain Jonathan Wolfe, Chinese PLA Navy Lt (jg) Tsien Xui Li, PLA Army Captain Zhu Lwen, Canadian Doctor of Xenobiology Lazlo Zand, Canadian Air Force Captain Wyatt Moran, and Sovereign Union Air Landing Forces Captain Dmitri Motokoff. South Atalia Island and the Ptolemaeus Lunar Crater are then designated UN spheres of jurisdiction.
