"Ad Astra Per Aspera Et Terram" (To the stars through difficulties and dirt)
Base: Bunker 42, Sector 7G | Comm-Link: 555-WORM | Net-Mail: director@subastro.edu
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Department of Subterranean Astrophysics
"Ad Astra Per Aspera Et Terram" (To the stars through difficulties and dirt) Base: Bunker 42, Sector 7G | Comm-Link: 555-WORM | Net-Mail: director@subastro.edu |
Fig 1. Our state-of-the-art laboratory.
Our facility was originally an abandoned missile silo, which we acquired through a clerical error and a very convincing fake university letterhead. The concrete walls are three feet thick, providing excellent shielding from government surveillance and rogue gamma rays. The glowing monitors you see constantly run complex fluid-dynamic simulations of worm slime, occasionally interrupted by games of Pong when the mainframe is compiling.
Dr. Thorne has dedicated his life to the study of the Lumbricus terrestris. After a tragic accident
involving a high-voltage coil and a bucket of bait in 1968, he discovered that worms could resonate with cosmic
frequencies. Prior to this awakening, he was a simple soil analyst for a fertilizer company, but he left it all
behind to pursue the Truth.
He is rarely seen without his favorite specimen, "Barnaby," whom he claims dictates the daily research schedule telepathically. Dr. Thorne believes that his crazy hair acts as an additional antenna for stray Wormyons. Note the standard-issue white coat, which we wear mostly because the underground lab is quite chilly, and also because it makes us look incredibly legitimate to the pizza delivery guy.
While Dr. Thorne handles the biological side of things, Dr. Vance is responsible for the hardware. Seen here
adjusting the primary tachyon-alignment dials on our Burroughs B6700 mainframe, she ensures that exactly 149.6
million kilometers worth of solar delay is mathematically simulated for the worms.
Dr. Vance previously worked at NASA, but was dismissed after she repeatedly tried to integrate a terrarium into the Apollo 11 command module. She holds three degrees in Theoretical Astrophysics and one in Heavy Machinery Repair. She also insists on the white coats, as the CRT monitors tend to leak a surprising amount of static plasma. It was Dr. Vance who discovered that fixing a blown fuse with a bent paperclip temporarily increases worm tunneling speed by 4%.
We must also acknowledge the contributions of our former intern, Dave. During a particularly intense Wormyon barrage in late '75, Dave stepped over the lead-lined safety barrier to retrieve a dropped pencil. There was a bright flash of neon green light, and Dave vanished. All that remained was his clipboard and a single, perfectly smooth, 149.6 millimeter long earthworm. We miss you, Dave, wherever (or whenever) you are.
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