As the Valorians are attempting to evade the Rulon forces who are chasing them throughout space, Questar announces that their only hope of survival is to use the Space Time Energy Projector, colloquially referred to as the S.T.E.P. The Valorians are being chased by a fairly large fleet of Rulons, and their ship, along with the S.T.E.P, has come under considerable fire. Turret explains that they may not make it due to the amount of damage but proceeds with the course of action. When attempting to use the S.T.E.P, they come to the realization that they do not have enough power for the operation. However, the Rulons lock on to their ship with a tractor beam, thinking they are about to escape. With the tractor beam locked onto their ship, though, the Valorians use it as a source of energy, allowing them to make the jump through time, and unknowingly dragging the main Rulon ship with them.
The Valorians make a crash landing, soon encounter numerous dinosaurs roaming the land that surrounds them, and realize that they have traveled back to prehistoric earth. The Rulons, having landed farther away, in a darker and what appears to be volcanic environment, have not yet discovered that they have traveled through time and have spent two days trying to contact Rulon forces in the area. Numerous beings curiously approach their grounded spaceship. Thinking that they are Valorians, Krulos orders that they are to be fired upon, until he sees that it is a pack of Deinonychus. The Rulons then see that there are dinosaurs everywhere; Krulos curses Questar for dragging him through time. He then vows to get the Valorians’s precious S.T.E.P, so he can return to his empire in the present day. He announces that they must destroy the Valorians. The Rulons make plans to brain-box powerful dinosaurs so they can defeat the Valorians and steal the S.T.E.P, thus allowing them to return to the present day. Upon hearing laser shots outside the valley area, the Valorians find out that they are not alone and prepare their own dinosaurs for a Rulon attack.
In regards to the dinosaur (and other animal) species present, the series is extremely anachronistic, showing late Cretaceous species like Tyrannosaurus rex alongside species from earlier eras, including the Permian genus Dimetrodon, which actually lived 200 million years earlier, before dinosaurs had evolved. However, these anachronisms only emerged with the second wave of Dino-Riders toys; the first wave included mostly dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period (exceptions are Diplodocus and Pterodactylus, both from Jurassic period), which coincided with the official statement that the series took place 65 million years in the past.
Genre: Animation, Children, Science-Fiction
