Perold Jones's Origin: The Ark Royal, the "2000 Secret," and the Long Journey to Janast (Full Text)

Type: Narrative — Canon History (Full Text) Status: Canon (confirmed by creator) — full text preserved per archival standard

See The 2005 NWMG Collapse and Jonas's Confrontation with LMT for the "2000 Secret" as later revealed to Jonas's associates, and Perold Jonas's existing "Jonesboro Posse" section for the shorter, previously-documented account of his 1927-1932 departure. This page provides the full, richly detailed original narrative — chronologically earlier in Jones's life than most other documented material — including his psychological state as a young man carrying the weight of Maf's greatest secret.

The Ark Royal and Perold's Birth

200,000 people fled Earth aboard the Ark Royal, a colony ship 6 miles long and 1⅓ miles wide, built by "Vee" and launched to escape a looming war on Earth. Approaching the speed of light, the ship reached Maf — in the neighboring Snickers Galaxy — in just 3.2 years of ship-time, while over 3,000 years passed on Earth. Perold Jones was born aboard the Ark Royal as it broke orbit around Earth — the first human baby born in space, though not the last.

The "2000 Secret" — Original Framing

In the late 1910s (1917-1919) on Maf, secret computers hidden in Jonesboro detect the first evidence: Earth is coming for them. It will take nearly a century, but Earth's eventual return is treated as certain. ✅ This is the earliest-documented version of the "2000 Secret" later revealed to Jonas's associates in 2005 (see linked page above) — establishing that the prediction actually originated decades earlier than previously documented, refined and re-confirmed over time rather than a single 1990 event.

The computers forecast: Maf's own "World War 2" would erupt around 1939-1940 via a mysterious, unexplained phenomenon dubbed "parallel development" with Earth's own history — and beyond that, a World War 3 on Maf, even though Earth itself had not yet experienced its own third world war by the time the Ark Royal departed in 2037. The computers set a critical deadline: by 1940, the Empire (Maf's largest, most advanced industrial power) must have discovered enough of the truth for LMT and Jonesboro to begin "pushing" — seeding critical, precisely-timed innovations (new inventions, drugs, industrial processes) into the timeline, in the exact sequence needed to prepare Maf's technology to face Earth by the time it returns (potentially as early as 2000, roughly 84 years out from Jones's own young adulthood).

Jones's Psychological Burden

At just 22, Perold Jones begins to buckle under the weight of this secret — the single greatest secret in Maf's history, known to almost no one, while millions die in Maf's wars that he technically possesses the knowledge to end. His elders and superiors reassure him "everything is going to plan," which only deepens his private anguish: how can it be a plan, when millions die on battlefields while the technology to stop it exists, withheld for fear of provoking Earth's early arrival? Revealing too much too soon risks inviting Earth's premature return before Maf is ready; moving too slowly risks Maf being crushed outright when Earth finally does arrive. Meanwhile, Empire spies draw steadily closer to uncovering Jonesboro's secrets — each fragment of truth they find only deepens the mystery rather than resolving it, since the full picture makes no sense without the missing context of Earth and the Ark Royal.

Jones's Path Into War Studies

Fascinated and horrified by the devastation of Maf's "World War 1," Jones resolves to master warfare in all its dimensions — strategy, tactics, logistics, operations — driven by the conviction that if Maf must one day face Earth, he will ensure it is not unprepared.

The Fellow Associates and the Weight of the Plan

At age 25, Jones is invited into the "Fellow Associates" — the true, hidden power behind LMT Corporation, orchestrating the seeding program he'd known of only abstractly before. He comes to understand the sheer scale required for the plan to work: LMT and Jonesboro alone — with maybe 300,000 to a million people even with the most advanced technology — cannot stand against Earth. They need the Empire itself: its 1.1 billion population, its colleges, factories, intellectual leadership, and constitutional-monarchy political structure, all falling into precise alignment. The sheer intricacy of what must occur — perfectly timed, perfectly sequenced, across an entire civilization — proves too much for Jones to bear.

1930: The Departure

✅ Fog-of-history note: this account gives Jones's expedition team as 330 men and women (compared to the previously-documented figure of "300 followers" / "the Jonesboro Posse" elsewhere in the archive — preserved here as an alternate/more precise figure per this source, rather than overwritten). In 1930, Jones quits the Fellow Associates outright, turning his back on Jonesboro, LMT, and his family, and assembles his team for what becomes the defining journey of his life: crossing the Great River into the unexplored continent beyond.

The Great Expedition (1930-1934)

The team expected uncharted wilderness. Instead, they discover hundreds of advanced nations the Empire had known of but never disclosed to the wider world — including the sprawling democratic Republics of Waon. The journey exacts a brutal toll:

A plane crash kills a dozen team members.
A cavern collapse during exploration kills several more.
Conflict with a forest tribe costs additional lives.

Over three years, the survivors traverse settled kingdoms, cities, and tales of kings and wars, eventually reaching the continent's western coastline — the only unclaimed stretch of shore they encounter. Here, some of the team chooses to settle, founding early cities, farms, and ranches. Jones, however, pushes onward.

Crossing the Sharmarin Ocean

Determined to cross the vast 20,000-mile Sharmarin Ocean, Jones and roughly 200 remaining crew spend a year building 3 huge flying boats. With 150 team members, Jones departs by air toward a group of islands the Ark Royal's cameras had detected years earlier — drawn by an inexplicable curiosity he can't quite name.

Arrival at the Janastian Islands

A month later, the flying boats reach the islands — cool, foggy, northern, but populated by warm, friendly people in "cozy" cities. Jones discovers "Jonas" is a common local surname and adopts it himself, formally becoming Perold Jonas — a deliberate act of distancing himself from the nightmare of his old identity and the crushing burden of the Fellow Associates' plan. With a final party of 9 team members (the rest having taken the flying boats back to the main continent), Jonas pushes deeper into the island chain and discovers the nation of Janast itself, for which the Janastian Islands are named.

Durin College of War

In Janast, Jonas discovers Durin College of War — destined to become the planet's most prestigious military studies institution — and enrolls immediately. For the first time in his life, Perold Jonas feels he has found home.

1940: World War 2 and the Path Forward

As predicted by the Jonesboro computers, Maf's "World War 2" erupts in 1940 — sparked by the Empire's oil exploration (discovered in the 1920s in the deserts Jonas himself had skirted during his expedition) intruding on Kaolsan tribal lands, and the Republics of Waon's resulting protest and eventual declaration of war. In Janast, that same year, Jonas accepts a commission as a junior lieutenant in the Janastian Army — the happiest he has ever been. Though the significance of "1940" (the computers' original deadline) still nags at him, he sets it aside: either the Empire has discovered the truth by now, or it hasn't — it is, he tells himself, no longer his problem.

Appearances

Creator-provided detail (ChatGPT export, "Continent Topography and Climate" — see RAW SOURCE, conversations-001.json #19)

Open Questions

Whether the Empire ever did "discover the truth" by 1940 per the computers' deadline, and what specifically happened as a result, is not resolved in this extracted section
The 330-member expedition figure here versus the "300 followers" figure documented elsewhere is preserved as a fog-of-history discrepancy, not reconciled