An original science-fiction universe by Daniel B. McMillan and Alberto M. Robles.
TQ is a decades-long science-fiction saga about freedom, faith, memory and the last surviving Nightstar—an immense living Timeship carrying the hope of a galaxy.
The story behind TQ
TQ began with youthful Super-8 filmmaking, practical effects, model building and a fascination with cinematic science fiction. By 1987, the first visions of a time-traveling vessel were taking shape. A real UFO sighting of unusual orange lights over a Michigan upper-peninsula road-side park later influenced the way the TQ would move through dimensions.
In 1989, accidental paint textures revealed the first impression of a TQ figure. In Reno, walls covered with years of concept art led to a committed writing partnership with Alberto Robles and the first full screenplay in 1993. A cave at Pyramid Lake supplied another crucial story element. Over time, illustrations, models, digital experiments and new technology continued to reveal the universe one piece at a time.
Most science fiction asks how far technology can take us.
TQ asks what freedom, faith and love require of us when we arrive.The universe
What is the Nightstar?
The Nightstar is an approximately 900-foot-tall Timeship designed as inhabited architecture rather than a conventional spacecraft. Its enormous viewports span multiple decks and look across a vast internal cathedral. It contains a prayer room, four lower landing bays that preserve smaller craft into memory, a Kurosian Orb capable of altering the ship's matter, and the Master Time Clock at its center.
Who are the Traxan?
The Traxan are a militaristic civilization that pursues dominion over minds, worlds and memory. Unable to defeat the TQ openly, they moved a Quantum Beacon into a space fold and broadcast a false distress call. Nearly every Nightstar answered—and was trapped.
What is the Master Time Clock?
The Master Time Clock is a cosmological apparatus that aligns Time Rings and identifies traversable intersections. Its rings represent potential future events, present actions, matter, memory and access to galactic jurisdictions. Entry points occur where the circles intersect.
How does the TQ enter another Time and Place?
The Nightstar can travel through space as a conventional spacecraft, but when a mission requires the TQ to enter a specific location within another time and place, the Master Time Clock opens a TQ Time Portal. A TQ Time Portal is a temporary dimensional passage rendered by the Master Time Clock, allowing the TQ to walk directly into a selected location. The portal is not ordinary solid matter. It exists momentarily in a demi-dimensional state, appearing within physical space without obeying its normal molecular boundaries. The traveler is neither transmitted nor reconstructed; they simply cross the threshold, remaining physically continuous as one place and time opens directly into another.
"That thing isn't entirely here."
Small constructed destination markers built by the TQ and Argentians. Each Beacon is keyed to a physical location within a particular Time Ring. The Master Time Clock finds the path; the Quantum Beacon defines the destination.
A highly advanced people whose minds can unite within an Orb. Their collective presence helps reshape matter, preserve memory and sustain the living architecture of a Nightstar.
Guardians rather than conquerors. The TQ exist to protect less advanced worlds from intrusion and preserve each civilization's freedom to choose its own future.
First Principles
TQ's technology, architecture and conflicts proceed from a shared moral and spiritual foundation.
Matter, memory, time and consciousness do not exist in isolation. To change one relationship is to influence countless others.
Love cannot be compelled, faith cannot be manufactured and goodness cannot be programmed.
Knowledge without wisdom becomes arrogance; strength without mercy becomes tyranny.
What evil intends for destruction may become the very means by which hope is preserved.
A prayer, a promise, a compassionate choice or a forbidden farewell may alter the fate of a galaxy.
“Yet, childlike faith, dreams, and prayers from the heart can surpass the fastest comet, reach beyond the farthest star and touch the heart of God. Of such as these were given the gift to believe, and it became so.”
Creative analysis
A recent review astonished many early script readers because it recognized the same connective tissue that has been present in Daniel McMillan's drawings and screenplay for decades.
“TQ is not simply a collection of spaceships, technologies and alien civilizations. Its strongest ideas all express one underlying philosophy: reality is built from relationships.”
“The Master Time Clock maps those relationships. Quantum Beacons define their destinations. Chrome Thresholds connect them. Kurosians preserve and reshape them. The TQ defend the freedom required for meaningful relationships to exist.”
“The Nightstar is therefore more than a vehicle. It is a cathedral of connected realities—a civilization's monastery, observatory, sanctuary and Timeship combined.”
Creative journey
A 30-minute Super-8 film made with practical effects, staged action and hand-built models.
Early Nightstar forms and a real sighting of unusual orange lights influence the dimensional travel concept.
Concept artwork, a chance paint texture, Reno collaboration and years of writing produce the first major script.
Gouache paintings, sketches, 3D experiments, websites and ongoing revisions expand the visual language.
The screenplay becomes the foundation for a novel, cosmology volume and complete production design bible.
Quick answers
TQ originated from “Time Quest,” the title of an early Super-8 film, but later developed into "Terrian Quantizer". Within the larger universe, TQ came to identify the guardian alliance formed through the courage of the people of Argentia, working with the minds of Kurosians to establish a sacred commitment to protect freedom.
The Traxan trapped nearly the entire TQ order by moving a Quantum Beacon into a space fold and broadcasting a distress signal. Vigil and his crew were absent because the Nightstar had been parked on Earth, leaving their vessel as the last free Nightstar.
TQ is a science-fiction adventure grounded in spiritual first principles: faith, free will, providence, humility, sacrifice and the belief that power should serve rather than dominate.
The novel is in development, building from the original screenplay, decades of concept art and a growing TQ world-design bible.
The next chapter
The story is now expanding from screenplay into a novel—a form large enough for the Nightstar's cathedral interiors, the Kurosian mind, the theology of providence and the full history of the trapped TQ.