At the beginning of the new millennium, a rag-tag, scruffy group of university scientists, professors and grad students, develop a functional system of starflight. With grant funding from the US Department of Defense, a small fleet of star craft is built. Under the aegis of the US Navy, an exploratory mission is sent off into the stars to search for sentient life. The head of this mission is a young Architect, who is a close friend of the university scientists who have developed the starflight system, who have coerced the architect-designer to get involved. The first mission, due to a bone head error, is, off the bat, lost, and mistakenly travels to another distant galaxy. By retracing their steps, the first mission flies out to a close-by star, in our own Milky Way galaxy, and discovers a civilized world, teeming with creatures and cultures very similar in nature to our own. Fifty light years from Earth spins a small blue planet with two moons; close in to its star enough to have a year round 75 degree F temperature over its entire surface. The planet, Jarvrell, hosts a collection of market cities which serve a trading alliance of some 500 planets. The earth team accidently stumbles into this system. By accident, two mining prospectors have picked up early TV transmissions travelling unimpeded across 50 light years of open space. They bring copies of the shows they have recorded to the media studios on Jarvrell, WonderWorld Studios, and work begins reshaping the shows onto their technology. The Alliance, which all their planets subscribe, have strong intellectual property/ copyright laws which are carefully governed. Concern at the studio arises as to the sense in pursuing reworking another planet?s product.
