Previously, in Indigo Springs:

What we know for certain, so far:

145 years ago: Wildfire at an illegal potlatch kills nineteen celebrants, including popular leader Godfrey Walks-in-Shadow. The fire effectively ends a dispute between townspeople and the Chinook Nation over expansion of town boundaries beyond Indigo Ravine.

122 years ago: Elizabeth Walks-in-Shadow disappears after filing a lawsuit claiming ownership over artifacts recovered from potlatch fire.

3 years ago: A chronically under-employed gardener and handyman named Albert Lethewood dies in the Indigo Springs Hospital, of apparent liver failure.

2 years ago: Albert Lethewood's daughter, Astrid, moves into her father's old house with childhood friends Jackson Glade and Sahara Knax.

Eighteen months ago: A minor tremor in Indigo Springs is registered by Pacific Northwest Seismic Network in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.

Seventeen months ago:

A hostage siege at house formerly belonging to Albert Lethewood ends with one dead, one missing, and three taken into custody. Images of Images of Sahara Knax escaping the scene the scene on a a flying carpet are broadcast by news agencies around the world.

Indigo Springs is epicenter of a 6.3 Richter quake. Building are reported destroyed and there are multiple fatalities. Dozens of people are missing.

Massive release of magical energy concurrent with earthquake causes vegetation and animal to mutate and suffer from giantism.

Widespread panic spreads across the world as news footage and social networks continues to spread word of magical contamination.

Sixteen months ago:

Evacuation of Indigo Springs begins

Sahara Knax declares herself source of magic at Western Music Festival in California and founds the Alchemite cult.

The forest surrounding Indigo Springs is declared uninhabitable; search for missing residents is ended. Town is cordoned off and fire crews patrol the boundary, burning everything that comes out.

Falling stock markets trigger global recession.

Alchemite membership suspected to top 100,000.

Fourteen months ago:

Alchemites sink USS Vigilant and distribute video footage of the sinking worldwide via the Internet

Alchemites attack government facility in Washington. Key witnesses from hostage siege escape, but Sahara Knax is is arrested

Nine months ago: Caroline Forest, wife of Portland Police Detective William Forest, is arrested on charges of terrorism and treason. The Forest children, Carson and Eleanor, remain missing despite a substantial reward offer.

Six months ago: Sahara Knax and multiple co-defendants charged in Federal Court for terrorist acts and treason

Wendover Air Base to rise again

The government's plan to try cult leader Sahara Knax and a number of her high priestesses for treason took another step forward today with the announcement that a former air force base in Wendover, Utah, will be home to a temporary Federal Courthouse and a short-term U.S. Air Force operation.

Wendover Air Force Base was the training site for the B59 unit which dropped atomic bombs on Japan in the latter days of World War II. The base had been given to Wendover City and converted to a civilian field, but many of the original military buildings and two long runways remain. The runways are key to the continuing efforts by the USAF to suppress magical contamination in the town of Indigo Springs, Oregon.

Authorities have been tight-lipped about the move, but it seems apparent that setting up a temporary courthouse on a military base is a strategy to prevent attempts to rescue Knax, by bring a concentrated security presence to bear on the trial. Federal authorities lost considerable face last year when two of Knax's co-conspirators, Astrid Lethewood and Mark Clumber, escaped from a base in Washington State. Since that time, Alchemites have clashed with the Navy, Coast Guard, National Guard and numerous state and federal police forces. Though a number of highly-placed Alchemites have been arrested in these clashes, the price has been high: at least 200 police officers, federal agents and soldiers have been listed as missing.