Introduction

Human existence was forever altered on September 5, 1977. Conflict that had been culminating since the end of the second world war finally manifested itself in two wildly different occurrences. And while the two did not seem initially related, the connection that they share is now abundantly clear.

The first event is a human tragedy of sorts, complicated because the man at its center was neither a hero nor a villain. He was a man utilized, like so many of his time, by powers and circumstances greater than himself. They are circumstances that required him to walk a thin line between what we, as civilized humans, conceive of as good and evil. His affair was a small stone in a pond already rippled by two great monsters vying for the control of something which would one day reveal itself to be completely trivial and inconsequential.

The second event has led to the most significant triumph of human will that our history has ever seen. It has dwarfed any human-made wonder of our past. From the monumental undertaking of human endurance that was required for the building of the pyramids at Giza to the immensity of knowledge that was once available at the great library of Alexandria, this moment has altered human existence more than any previous occurrence and it has culminated in a re-evaluation of what it means to be a human being.