Dr. Han Lao oversees an expedition from Earth to beyond Earth's home galaxy, and the subsequent collection of experimental data in the newly established colony that is now her home.

The wall across from Dr. Han Lao illuminated, as she sat, finishing up in her office. It was now displaying a silver and blue symbol, depicting a stylized globe and a silver industrial building sitting on top of it, overlooking everything. Han stopped what she was doing, laid her hand on her heart, and paid attention. The symbol was soon traded for film footage.  “Earth’s population long strived to unite themselves,” a male voice spoke. “Before our most devastating war, rudimentary councils were formed to allow all separate nations to liaise with each other,” and the footage was of these councils: the first councilroom showed was ascribed “the League of Nations,” then the second, “the United Nations.” “We are the descendant of their valiant efforts, but we have united all of Earth more effectively than they could have ever dreamed.” A flag was shown flying— it had the same symbol as before, but this time bore a name too: EarthGov.  “All the nations once represented in those earlier councils, having been destroyed in our third World War,” the voice said, “left us a mess of wreckage.”  War footage was shown— people injured, people dying, people dead, infrastructural devastation, collapsing buildings. “From this wreckage, we built EarthGov, uniting all remaining peoples on the planet under one banner— converting the remainders of each nation into distinct sectors within our same, shared, Earth government.” A blue sky with a shining sun was now shown.  “We need to hold to our Unity more than ever as we face our next challenge,” the voice continued. “As we load our starships with colonists, to send them out into the universe, we must all remember we are one EarthGov, seeking a common goal: to settle new homes, and perpetuate our species!” The music behind the dialogue had …

Quinn goes to a technology exhibition just for a fun day out, but when she agrees to test one of the products there on herself, she can't possibly forsee the consequences.

Quinn Leslie woke up in a good mood that day. To her mind, she was in the prime of her life at the age of 27, and it was a beautiful, sunny day— a day she also had off from work. Plenty of reason to be in a good mood. She was ready for an adventure today.The past few years, she hadn’t done much beside working— she’d rarely ever ventured out of her apartment for any reason, other than to go to work, or to run errands.  She was trying something new today— she’d seen flyers up around town for a big technology expo in the exhibition center of her town— and unlike past occasions, where she had ignored any and all events in favor of staying home, or working overtime, today she was going to go.  She had no shame, either, in the fact that she would be going by herself. She’d been looking forward to today, ever since she’d made her mind up to go to the technology expo, and nothing could ruin those feelings for her. She just had to make sure she quickly got ready. First, Quinn stepped in front of her standing mirror, which was kitty corner from her bed— and assessed her hair situation. The curly blonde tresses which hung to her shoulders were what needed assessing— the curls were quite predisposed to tangling, and today as usual, they were a mess. She reached for her brush, to brush them out.  It was the work of a few minutes to return her curling hair to a semblance of order— but Quinn was satisfied at having done it, because it represented the bulk of the work she would need to do in order to prepare herself. She set her brush down, and considered her face. …