Dr. Abid Zook

The founding pioneer and namesake of Zook Travel. Dr. Zook's experiments in faster than light travel opened the door for the foundation of intergalactic connectivity and ushered in the modern era of civilization.

Early Life
Abid Zook was born to Arthur Zook and Catalina Robespierre and was the youngest of five children. With both parents earning doctorates by the time their middle child was born, the home life of the Zook children was quite peaceful, though always rigorous. All children were pushed hard to achieve and even innovate in their studies, and all managed to live up to expectations, even young Abid who was known throughout his youth for being somewhat clumsy and, as his mother called him "space headed". Both of his parents would recount stories of their son seeming to lapse away in daydreams while in the middle of even basic tasks, and always explaining the lapse away as getting lost in thought over a new idea. Abid graduated first with an engineering degree from Purdue University, then moved on to Masters programs on Mars and eventually a doctoral program on Europa.

Work
Zook began his career as an assistant to Dr. Polina Yount who pushed the upstart scientist toward the field of Applied Theoretics which sought to take the realm of Theoretical Physics and bring it to usable technology. Working at the University of Europa first, Zook achieved some minor breakthroughs as part of a project to develop the first prototypes of a quantum powered engine. While the project was considered a success, Zook left the team to accept a position in a research lab on the Pluto adjacent Charon Colony. Here, Zook was a member of Project Zephyr which sought to make new strides in the field of space travel.

Stories of Zook's major breakthrough differ by source, but the most widely accepted account says the epiphany came as the result of an accident. While working on a new experimental engine, Zook placed his lunchbox down on the platform nearby and as he began to pull out the contents, he knocked over a container of cranberry juice. The drink mixed with the fuel the doctor had been working with and in his hurry to stop the spill, he bumped the engine and started the ignition sequence. Once started, he was unable to stop it until the fuel had been fully expended, by which point the engine had broken itself from the table it was mounted to and imbedded itself in the side of a hanger... on the far side of Jupiter.

With the surprise breakthrough, Zook was able to put theory to practice quickly and soon developed a two man pod ship that used his prototype engine and fuel formula, and with the help of test pilot Cailean Fall, Zook set the Solar speed record by reaching the sun and back approximately four times in a six hour span. After this, Zook was quickly acclaimed as a hero of physics and engineering and helped further blaze the trail of intergalactic travel as he furthered his design.

Sadly, Zook's path of innovation would meet a tragic end. In the course of an experiment, Dr. Zook made what was calculated to be a successful jump in a small, one man pod that was plotted to take him from his laboratory in Charon Colony to the homeworld of the Vishnian people, but he was never received at his destination. A search effort was made across the entirety of the still growing and developing sector, but after more than a decade of searching, the operation was called off. To this day, no one is truly sure what came of Dr. Zook.

Legacy
Zook is considered the father of the galaxy in many ways. His contributions are known not only through the name of the travel method itself (the Zook), but also in the name of the calendar system as well where time across the galaxy is now measured in years After Zook. In the two millennia since his disappearance, there have been some instances of the doctor being taken as a deity or prophet figure for minor cults and spin up religions. These saw him as a messenger of The Theos or occasionally as a minor Theos himself, but as of the turn of the last millennium, the last of these sects had died off. Today, the largest shrine to the man can be found on the sight of his original laboratory on Charon Colony, still looking into the vast field of space beyond the planet of Pluto.