The Same Year: Yin 2150, Yang 371.652

Earth has finally made contact with extra-terrestrial life but unexpectedly it's not in our universe and it's not only human but our organic counterpart in a multi-verse.

Communication was made possible by a team under the direction of Cambridge University Physics Professor, Nick Caine. Nick and his team developed a real-time language translation system using a powerful quantum computer nicknamed, 'The Engine' as well as a social network called 'CHAT'. Thanks to quantum entanglement technology, CHAT is now ubiquitous across both worlds, which have been designated the names, 'Yin' and 'Yang'. The former, Yin, refers to the world we know as 'Earth' and as everything including the planets are counterparts, the latter, Yang, is the world of, to us, the extra-terrestrials.

When the two advanced societies came together, the combined knowledge, culture, and benefits to each society grew significantly. So too did the physically detached but emotionally close relationships enabled by the CHAT social network. The communities were destined never to meet in person but like pen friends or 'ham' radio enthusiasts in the first half of our twentieth century, this inevitable separation added to the chemistry as they discovered more and more about each other's lives. And because of this growing attachment, there grew a tremendous sense of helplessness in one world when the other was faced with nothing short of an existential threat.