Equipped with knowledge from his own future self sent via the Zarkovian Comet that gave him proof of the reality of time-travel and allowed him to restore his families ailing fortune, Lord Peter Asmouth realised that meddling in the time-stream could threaten the present or secure the future for enemies of civilisation and bring about the impending disaster he had been forewarned of.

Despite his own hand being guided by the paradox of predestiny until recently, Asmouth used his newfound political influence, foresight and financial acumen to plan and fund the Greenwich Time Laboratory. Situated beneath the Greenwich Observatory the lab's function is to prevent disruption to the time stream, to collect data harvested from the past and future and to study anything captured by the Gravitational Well.

The Well itself is constructed around an artificial singularity, its destructive power constrained in one place by a shield of inverted cavorite acting against its gravitational pull. The full list of safeguards is a well-kept secret. The singularity acts as a distortive field, not only gravitationally but temporaly as well drawing and trapping vessels traveling via the fourth dimension.

Anything captured via this net is stored and studied, including advanced technology and future records. Any occupants are imprisoned, interrogated and finally brainwashed into becoming "productive members" of modern society, with no awareness of the past or future beyond a fictionalised identity created for them. Their location is then closely monitered for any regression.

Thus an effective barrier to the future and the past has been established. Or so it is believed.