Washington, D.C.
Oval Office
1903
Theodore Roosevelt sat in his desk, musing over the mornings paper, though his mind was on other matters. He then heard a knock on the door as those matters preceded walked in.
"Mark my good friend, have a seat." Theodore said, putting the paper down, taking a minute to straighten himself, and clearing his throat before looking Mark Russel in the eyes and saying. "I thank you for coming out here in such short notice with so little word on the matters at hand. Allow me to get straight to it."
"In 1818 an Army officer by the name of John Cleves Symmes Jr. came up with a radical theory on the nature of the earth and the planets as a whole, that it was hollow at both poles and within these holes was another world on the inside, possibly inhabited by peoples and species unknown to man. As ludicrous as it may sound, my predecessor John Quincy Adams took the man seriously and was fully prepared to send an expedition to discover it and make contact with those new peoples, and would have done so had he not lost his reelection bid to Old Hickory."
"I tell you all of this because since the ill-fated Polaris expedition we have had evidence suggesting that it may just be the truth. One fact known to exceedingly few people is this. While on their way to north pole, they discovered this." Roosevelt then pulls an old photograph, and hands it to Mark.
On it is a section of a plant with forked leaves and a decent sized piece of fruit, a bit larger than an apple but oddly shaped like a figure eight, frozen in the ice. "This was the first oddity discovered, and at first was dismissed as some unidentified species that had somehow found its way to the frozen north. That was, until this was recently discovered by the Norwegian expeditions."
Theodore this time produces a physical object, pulling it out and placing it on top of the desk. Its the top half of a skull of a creature, almost a cross between ape and human in appearance with two large canines coming from the top and an enlarged brow. "The knowledge of this discovery has so far gone unknown to the general public, it was recovered quickly and paid for by an American whaler in the arctic, who then sold it to the Smithsonian. They have since verified that it matches no known creature, is quite new, and most importantly, it's authentic."
Roosevelt pauses, collects himself and then says "I believe firmly that Symmes may very well be Copernicus successor, and that there is a world on the inside, inhabited by something at the very least human like. And I believe you are just the man to take on this expedition. I don't want to have to go to congress over this, spend American dollars on this endeavor and be laughed out of office with my proposal. But if this is the reality, that there is a second New World, I'll be damned if it isn't an American to discover it. So I give you this information, promise what resources I can to assist you, and if you can succeed, your name will be said right alongside Columbus as a man who changed the entire course of human history." Theodore stops for a moment, then looks directly at Mark and says "so, how about it Mark? Are you ready to make history?"
Oval Office
1903
Theodore Roosevelt sat in his desk, musing over the mornings paper, though his mind was on other matters. He then heard a knock on the door as those matters preceded walked in.
"Mark my good friend, have a seat." Theodore said, putting the paper down, taking a minute to straighten himself, and clearing his throat before looking Mark Russel in the eyes and saying. "I thank you for coming out here in such short notice with so little word on the matters at hand. Allow me to get straight to it."
"In 1818 an Army officer by the name of John Cleves Symmes Jr. came up with a radical theory on the nature of the earth and the planets as a whole, that it was hollow at both poles and within these holes was another world on the inside, possibly inhabited by peoples and species unknown to man. As ludicrous as it may sound, my predecessor John Quincy Adams took the man seriously and was fully prepared to send an expedition to discover it and make contact with those new peoples, and would have done so had he not lost his reelection bid to Old Hickory."
"I tell you all of this because since the ill-fated Polaris expedition we have had evidence suggesting that it may just be the truth. One fact known to exceedingly few people is this. While on their way to north pole, they discovered this." Roosevelt then pulls an old photograph, and hands it to Mark.
On it is a section of a plant with forked leaves and a decent sized piece of fruit, a bit larger than an apple but oddly shaped like a figure eight, frozen in the ice. "This was the first oddity discovered, and at first was dismissed as some unidentified species that had somehow found its way to the frozen north. That was, until this was recently discovered by the Norwegian expeditions."
Theodore this time produces a physical object, pulling it out and placing it on top of the desk. Its the top half of a skull of a creature, almost a cross between ape and human in appearance with two large canines coming from the top and an enlarged brow. "The knowledge of this discovery has so far gone unknown to the general public, it was recovered quickly and paid for by an American whaler in the arctic, who then sold it to the Smithsonian. They have since verified that it matches no known creature, is quite new, and most importantly, it's authentic."
Roosevelt pauses, collects himself and then says "I believe firmly that Symmes may very well be Copernicus successor, and that there is a world on the inside, inhabited by something at the very least human like. And I believe you are just the man to take on this expedition. I don't want to have to go to congress over this, spend American dollars on this endeavor and be laughed out of office with my proposal. But if this is the reality, that there is a second New World, I'll be damned if it isn't an American to discover it. So I give you this information, promise what resources I can to assist you, and if you can succeed, your name will be said right alongside Columbus as a man who changed the entire course of human history." Theodore stops for a moment, then looks directly at Mark and says "so, how about it Mark? Are you ready to make history?"
