Shortly after abandoning Tiphares, Dr. Nova was saved from exposure and starvation by a tough lady of the wastes.

This lady was such a good cook, that the incredible deliciousness of the flan she made reached psychoactive potency on Dr. Nova's weakened system, triggering a mystical experience and an irreversible change in his karma.

His already burning love of flan became all-consuming, he pledged himself the lady's apprentice and vowed to infinitely widen the horizons of flan with his nanotechnological acumen.

Decades later, NovaFlanVentures and its flan, flan-flavored sweets, instant flan, flan milkshakes, flan beer, flan pumpkins and flan-producing sixteen-uddered cows have become the commercial and industrial powerhouse of the surface and a luxury import in the hanging city and beyond; ushering in a new era of prosperity for the Earth beneath the wary glances of the space powers...