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The journals of Jerry Staute
a.k.a. "Chance" Staute

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Once upon a time there was a case of mistaken identity involving two men of the same name (in a manner of speaking). The mistake was made by an ultra advanced artificial intelligence from the far future which was only following its most important original programming directive: no matter how long it took to obtain the technology, return to the past to rescue its original biological maker from his own mortality. Unfortunately for the A.I.'s creator, he neglected to provide the software entity with sufficient hard data or in-depth algorithms to deal with the uncertainties brought about by the intervening two thousand plus years needed to realize this goal. This error resulted in the fates of two different men being forever after intertwined. Entangled, to such an extent as to eventually be mistaken by history itself as being one and the same person. This page and others on-site strive to correct that error. It remains to be seen if the history books themselves ever change.


Please click on a selection below

  • Crossroads; (this section still being written up) Being a young boy geek in the late 1960s/early 1970s in America was no picnic. Add to the mix a rough and rowdy rural hometown-- filled to the brim with bullies, tricks, traps, and gangs of all sorts-- and things get tougher still. Throw in an impoverished financial situation too, and things can quickly spiral out of control.

    This is basically one young country geek's survival story.

    Shadowfast supercar fans seeking that Mustang's earliest days with its driver/owner will find them in the second half of Crossroads. But bear in mind in these early days the driver possessed only average teen driving skills, and the car was virtually unchanged from factory specs.

    Somehow though, driver and car survived this time intact, when his much-more-talented-at-driving best friend-- equipped with a much newer and downright superior 1971 factory-built Boss 351-- did not.

    Thumbnail image of a 1961 Chrysler 300 G
    A schoolmate's yellow and black 1969 Mach 1 Mustang
    My best friend's green and black 1971 Boss 351 Mustang
    The yellow and black 1970 Boss 302 of an associate
    Thumbnail image of a black 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with front spoiler and 429 Boss hood scoop.

  • The Shadowfast supercar driver logs; A young American geek comes of age in the early 1970s driving a spectacularly capable car he built himself.
  • Image of the real-life home-built Shadowfast Mustang supercar

  • The Chance of a Realtime; [1972] During college our geek gets a lot more than he bargained for when he wishes for a break from his dreary routine of engineering classes, jobs, and loneliness on campus. However, he won't recall these events until 1990.

    [See 1990 link below for his recollection of the story]

  • The Moonshadow flying wing pilot logs; (this section still being written up) [1975-ish through the summer of 1979] Completely oblivious to his previous time traveling adventure due to a mind wipe, our geek (now bereft of his supercar and burdened by the effects of mental traumas he doesn't understand) takes to the skies and mountain tops in a homebuilt airship to make his illegal fortune.
  • Image of the home-built Moonshadow airship

    a - j m o o n e y h a m . c o m - o r i g i n a l

  • Special solutions for special problems: Chance Staute's entrepreneurial case logs; (this section still being written up) [late 1979 to mid-1990; includes Lost and found] Stymied by forces beyond his control, our geek broadens his entrepreneurial efforts to tackle a wider variety of pursuits-- while trying to ignore the surveillance efforts the feds have promised to maintain upon him indefinitely.

  • The Chance of a Realtime; [mid-1990] Staute is traumatized by a memory dump from his time-traveling 1972 younger self, allowing him to recall at last the extraordinary events of eighteen years past.

  • The Fate-storm logs (also known as the Staute spacetime recursion by certain future scholars); (this section still being written up) [1990 through present day; includes Shadowfast version 2.0 pilot logs] Luck and a millennia-spanning conspiracy on the part of others enabled Staute to abscond with a car-sized chunk of 2483 AD future technologies in 1972 from his captors-- plus a bit more. However, some mighty big responsibilities and restrictions accompany use of the impressive new hardware. Staute was unable to recall the existence of these well-hidden items until 1990.

    Early 1980s post-firefight scenario; man gripping a shotgun.

    An original sketch portrait of Jerry Staute from the early 1980s. His mounting fatigue from strenuous events is evident.

    Soon Staute finds himself in command of resources rivaling any other on the planet-- including the entire military and technological might of the USA itself. But using them for personal gain (or even anonymous benevolence for his fellow man) could unravel the future he now recalls seeing. As well as call down the wrath of entities the rest of humanity thankfully has no inkling of, circa the early 21st century. The least of these entities may be an entire advanced civilization from Earth's deep past, now living in the outskirts of Sol system, already contemplating the genocide of the human race, without any knowledge of Staute's own stash of future tech to concern them...

    Unfortunately, events regarding certain of these entities are coming to a head in the present all on their own. And Staute seems to be the only one in a position to deal with them. He can't even consult with his brilliant counterpart of the period ultimately responsible for his time-travel jaunt. The integrity of the future timeline and the destiny of all humanity itself may depend upon him handling these challenges alone, while also allowing no clues of the crises to alarm the world and change future history. Still worse, his own future technologies store may be inferior to what the space people possess. Not to mention Staute and his A.I.s being outmanned by maybe billions to one. Staute may be older and wiser now, compared to his youthful supercar days. But his particular bits of future tech do little to remedy the ravages of aging, injury, or loneliness. Can he at least delay Armageddon until someone better qualified somehow shows up to relieve him of his burden? That's his hope.

    It doesn't help matters that he must also stop certain of his fellow human beings who are seeking a home-grown route to Doomsday...and do so without giving away his own secrets.

    One of the things Staute does in his spare moments is try using a 'back door' method to seek help from his far future friends, via carefully worded web site accounts on the internet of the early 21st century. He knows it's possible such aid could arrive any moment, no matter how long it takes for them to detect his coded S.O.S. But he also knows his allies would choose their own point of intervention-- if they decide to intervene at all...and the odds may be overwhelmingly against him receiving help of any sort...

    a - j m o o n e y h a m . c o m - o r i g i n a l

  • One man's adventures in the great beyond; (this section still being written up) It had to happen eventually. Staute meets his end. But apparently there's more to some of us than just our mortality.


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