Alan Cutter states that most people have a hard time telling just how much of a difference an order of magnitude is, specifically the differences between a millionaire, a billionaire and a trillionaire. To illustrate he says: "1,000,000 seconds is 12 days, 1,000,000,000 seconds is 34 years and one trillion seconds ago mastodons were still roaming the Earth". To be specific 1,000,000,000,000 seconds is 31,710 years, so one trillion seconds ago would be the year 29,688 BC, a time when Ice Age mammals like mastodons and saber tooth tigers still thrived and was roughly 24,000 years before the earliest human civilizations began.
The Great Game refers to the conflict in Central Asia between the British and the Russians during the nineteenth century.
Jason may be suffering from the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which is the result of exposure to the pressure of a blast wave, i.e. explosion, or a crash for that matter. In comparison to Chronic Encephalopathy, it is a question of intensity and frequency, which might be an issue in close contact sports.
Mandy says that she is being sent to Diego Garcia, a small island atoll in the Indian Ocean. It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is the location of Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, on lease from the British government it is a joint US/UK military base and one of two critical US bomber bases in the Indo-Pacific region. The only inhabitants of the island are the bases military personnel, the island did host a native population at one time, but they were forcibly relocated by the British government between 1968 and 1973 due to the islands strategic location, so that they could build a military base. This action was, and continues to be, controversial, in 2019 the United Nations' International Court of Justice ruled that the British occupation of the island was illegal and in violation of international law, however the British government argues that ruling is not legally binding. Due to the naval bases strategic importance, especially in light of increased pirate and terrorist activity in the Indian Ocean and the Oceania region, and increasing tensions with China and Russia, it is a virtual impossibility that either government is going to relinquish control of the island.