by Clyde Jones

Before the Dawn of Recorded History....

No, wait. Just a Few Seconds AFTER the Dawn of Recorded History (Or we wouldn’t know anything about it, right?) pioneering Time Traveller Jason F. Terwilliger stumbled upon the person he’d been searching for, these many many relative years of his personal time line. He was surprised to find it was a woman, rather short and quite strong, with a purposeful glint of intelligence in her eyes. (Actually, for the time, it was the equivalent of the bonfire of brilliance in the eyes of Albert Einstein, but considering what little she had to work with, it was forced to be more of a really good weenie roasting camp fire.)

Having finally found the person he’d been searching for, he lured her away from her tribe with bribes of chocolate (which she happily ate), flowers (which she also ate), and then pushed her over a quite tall nearby cliff. Since he had now destroyed the actual first discoverer of the wheel (whom he held responsible for his wife and children dying in an auto accident involving several semi rigs, two busses, and a Firestone delivery truck, all vehicles with far far too many wheels) he promptly faded from existence having permanently altered that particular time stream.

And things were changed forever.

She had not only discovered the wheel, she had been the leader of her clan, which led her tribe, which pretty much ruled Africa (the only home of Man at the time, having all having migrated from the Southwest of the “North American Continent” because of the beastly weather). With her gone, Ogghhch, a particularly unpleasant male, was able to take control of the clan, tribe, etc. and divert all of subsequent history down quite different paths. For one thing, he discouraged the use of the wheel by the simple expedient of squashing any person found using (or possessing) one. This prejudice was firmly passed down to all his (reigning) descendants. So it was that when Mankind finally progressed beyond the sledge or sleigh, it was directly to vehicles with mechanical LEGS. (Pivots were fine. Real wheels were RIGHT OUT.)

With the loss of that one critical woman, the gene pool of the Human Race was changed also. Ogghhch liked to spread his genes around (a lot, often) and where previously he’d been kept out of the gene pool because of his greenish skin and nasty looks, his line flourished and by the time mechanized warfare had developed, most humans were rather stockier, uglier, and greener then they had been originally.

This beasty is a “Steppe Loper 800” escort vehicle from the Shovey-Rolley Vehicle Production Syndicate of No Haven, Disconnecticut. It gets excellent mileage on its preferred fuel of buffalo chips, but does tend to get a bit sulky during the full moon. It also tends to leak lubricating oil like a sweating pig in summer, which just adds to its camouflage finish.

The models (this and Entry 04)are built completely Box Stock, considering their divergent time line, fine products of the TMA/TERTL model company. (A few Tiltaliari detail parts were used, but they don’t really count....)

If you wish to duplicate this model, however, from local parts, you need a 1/35th scale German scout car (Tamiya is best) and several teeny Gundam Sentinel models. Use two green LEDs behind the ‘hip’ panel and one clear blue T-1 LED in the ‘gun turret’. Use solid plastic beads for the ‘head’, sheet stock for the ‘neck’ and an acupuncture needle for the antenna.

Image: Right side

Image: Right/rear

Image: Left side