Prologue

Earthside

It was once said that there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone. And if only one percent of those stars had planets, and only one percent of those stars had planets with life, and if only one percent of those stars had planets with intelligent life, then there would be literally millions of civilizations in this galaxy.

But if it’s just us,... then it seems a complete waste of space.

Are we, or are we not alone in the universe, the sole specks of intelligence cast upon a speck among infinite emptiness?

Until the First Contact, we looked to the stars, pondering –in vain, some believed– this question. Some believed we were, either by religious dogma, or just pure ignorance.

The First Contact changed everything forever. A virtual Encyclopedia Interplanetaria, directed by radio towards Earth from what appeared to be Epsilon Eridani, preceded by one audible message, given in one burst, in every known language, including mathematical code:

Help us.

The encyclopedia bundled into that message gave us far more information than we ever imagined about who sent it to us, but to answer the ‘why,’ we had to visit them. Fortunately, the means to do so were conveniently included. As expected, the effects of the message and the events leading to the voyage to its source were near-catastrophic: riots, assassinations, mass suicides, military and religious coups, and cults of every kind across the breadth of the planet, crossing borders and ethnicities. Nearly every worst-case scenario imagined by every golden age sci-fi author came to light, save outright nuclear war. But in time, the upheavals subsided as the realization that destruction and the end of the world via invaders was not iminent. As people ultimately do, they coped with the immutable fact of their loss of position as the apparent lords of the universe. Nevertheless, as the full scope of events played out, it became abundantly clear that for better or for worse, things would never be the same again.

But human nature never changes.

People soon enough found out that all the elitist gobbledygook learned from Star Trek and other such media, flaunting the foolish notion that we would overcome our hatreds and prejudices after some glorious first liaison with an advanced alien race, was all, of course, utter nonsense. Racism, greed, selfishness, bigotry and the host of human flaws still exist. We have remained what we are, both in virtue and vice. And with the introduction of extraterrestrials, these vices perhaps abound even more.

But we have learned that that these faults were not limited solely to our species. To our mixed dread and relief, we know that the aliens themselves were the same as we. For in varying degrees, we were visited with as much distrust, racism, and discrimination from the Centaurs, Nu’Qua, and Kalinq as we visited upon them. However, as with ourselves, virtue exists with vice. And as many as were hurtful, others were trustworthy. This became the common ground that brought us together, and sustained our alliance through the dark days that were to follow.

Looking back, one can safely speculate that the crew of the Hope knew that the reason we were called to Lat was war. There are few alive, human or otherwise, who actually wonder about what we would have done, had we known in advance, the circumstances of the First Contact.

“We would have obeyed our first impulse, and buried it. Covered it up until it was just as dimissed as the Area 51 thing,” Fleet Admiral Jordan Howell once said, and not without good reason. Human nature is very predictable that way. But looking back on past events, and the capabilities of the Overlords, one can only shudder to think about what would have happened if the reason for the First Contact had been disclosed to us in that first message. If there was ever a good answer to that question, Earth Space Marine Chief, Ben “Tank” Orkino, probably said it best:

“Thank God no one is ever told what would’ve happened.”

Most everyone will agree that it was either divine providence or pure luck that we came into the war when we did. The Overlords, were weakened by their millennia of entombment, and so they at their most vulnerable. But since all attempts to find any of their strongholds failed, their power grew unfettered. As a matter of fact, on the very week that we made first acquaintances with the Latese, they decided to make their first grand power play, hitting the worlds of the outer galactic rim, with Earth in the direct line of fire. With this news, the Hope returned to Earth post-haste, refitted with updated weapons from Lat and with the Centauran and Latese ambassadors accompanying. In a valiant battle, the Odyssey ran the Overlords’ blockade and made it home, albeit with massive damage that left the Hope good for only scrap afterwards.

No one would disagree that war is a terrible way to start any new era in history. But such was the way it began, for little did we know that our blockade run forever linked our fate with that of the aliens’. The resulting damages to the Hope and the hard evidence brought by the ambassadors convinced us of our technological deficiencies, and with the clear and present danger to our very future, we ultimately agreed to join in the fight. Concerning the matter, the only answer given to the press by the UN council was, “It was the wise thing to do.”

Truer words were never spoken.

The Alliance worlds the Latese had formed long before our induction took good care of its new members; that was certain. With Earth’s joining the fray came cheap, safe, and effective technology unlike anything the world has ever seen: things which we now take for granted like antigravity, cold fusion, and medical techniques to cure nearly all known infections and cancers. The crystal matrix, above all things, provided a thousand times greater speed, performance, and interaction for any military or domestic computers than that of any old conventional means, and the internet was transformed into almost a living entity with the man-machine interface. Nearly overnight the quality of life from the most affluent to third world nations was improved dramatically.

All these advancements were first supplied to the military effort in order to build Earth’s defensive capabilities. Thanks to the use of advanced engineering technologies, new materials emerged, along with techniques for construction that made building otherwise horrendously expensive vessels for all terrain and space, forts, and space stations, extremely cheap and fast. Within a span of two years, Earth had become equipped with a fleet of half a million Warships, carriers, fighters, and craft for every kind of planetary environment, as well as state-of-the-art weaponry, as destructive as they were impressive. This caused a slight clamor with the peoples of Earth, but this subsided almost as soon as it arose, as the technologies were spread to the common populace.

Focusing closer on the events of this two year span, one will first come upon the many bumps encountered on the long road to full Earth cooperation with the aliens. Alongside the horrendous political, social, and religious upheavals which took place in the form of panics, mass suicides, riots, and the like, there came first the problem of full cooperation by all the nations. Much to the alien ambassadors’ dismay, many were loath to give away their soldiers for enlistment in the new space fleet. Only the US and a few NATO countries had acceded on a gesture of good faith toward the aliens. After several months of pleading, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, North and South Korea, and Australia agreed to yield a very limited amount of troops on a volunteer basis for boarding and aiding a Latese-Drruvan supply convoy to a galactic hot spot in the Cassiopeia sector, around the Planet Taxus. The ten-ship convoy left with a hundred American, British, French, Swiss, Russian, Arabic, German, Korean, and Australian troops on May 17, with a return date slated for a month later.

Three months later, the convoy returned, badly damaged, missing seven ships, and minus nearly three-quarters of the human compliment of the crew. Those that remained, who still retained their sanity, were filled with horror stories, which along with videos brought back from the slaughter, even further accentuated the point about the Overlords’ capabilities. The nations of the UN for the most part were now generally convinced. Immediately, plans were made for conscription of the youth of Earth into the new space fleet. Though nearly every country agreed to this, a few remained that clung to the notion that things were not as bad as they seemed. Though not large enough to constitute a threat if their ideals were to become too radical, Countries like North Korea and several African nations in political strife strongly held themselves against the war preparations, and refused to offer any backing to the war effort. Therefore, a strict embargo of the new alien technologies were placed upon each of these nations, by which they were forced to accede to the war effort, or face technological backwardness. Though this might have made lucrative oportunities for black market dealers in alien technologies, the fact that it was a military embargo enforced by new powers acceded to the UN, gave most of the underworld second thoughts about interfering. Eventually, albeit reluctantly, the nations yielded, and joined in the efforts of the other nations as the preparations continued.

Even on the home front, discontent grew from within. Through the media and internet, people learned of the importance of the worldwide draft now being instituted, but it was still something that they were not happy about. To increase morale, the governments distributed privileges to those who rendered their services voluntarily. For example, in the U.S., special perks were given as rewards for voluntary service, like free college and hospital care for the family, and marked reductions on insurance rates. It worked somewhat, and even though people still grumbled for a time, it was ultimately accepted to be for the greater good.

At first, humans served aboard alien vessels, side by side with the other races, until the Earth space fleet could be fully manufactured and organized. And at the end of those two years, after massive construction efforts, the Earth space fleet was finished. On the day of commemoration, three thousand trained cadets and six hundred veterans of the two years before boarded their respective starships, tankers, graydrakes, and space forts, ready to give birth to the Interplanetary Alliance United Space Fleet-Earth Division. All there was left to do now was test their mettle.

And tested it was. Though half of the fleet remained Earthside in defense of the mother planet, the other half of the fleet was called out into space by the aliens, in order to act as a mobile infantry of sorts, with orders to squash Overlord trouble sites, and deter opportunistic alien races from using this war as a springboard to wreak their own bit of havoc in the galaxy.

And as we learned, it was a difficult job indeed, and experience was a blessed thing. By the newer fleet members, counsel was sought constantly from the many veterans who served aboard the alien vessels in the days of the Earth fleet construction, and the few aliens who were spacefarers long before humanity even dreamed of such a thing. The Overlords were indeed strong, with technology --as we soon found out-- beyond anything even our alien friends could comprehend. They were brutal in a way we could not have imagined, utterly ruthless, and completely relentless when it came to battle. Those who survived a fight with their ships or troops still intact soon learned one thing: They fought to win.

The next two years were dark days. Though Earthside, things lapsed into a monotony of training, drills, and war games as the aliens had instructed us to do, spaceside, the fleet was taking the brunt of the attacks led by the Overlords, and repelling them with growing difficulty, for they were as smart as they were brutal. Also, the dealings with the uprisings and raids from the less scrupulous races were growing every day, leaving us with a growing list of casualties. But somehow, we held out. And with the help of the worlds of the Alliance, many of the fleet knew that things were not as bad as they could be.

But things swiftly turned for the worst on that dreaded day when the fleet lost contact with Earth. When the Earth fleet was recalled to Lat for that historic emergency meeting, and the Latese told us what we’d expected --that the Earth was under attack by the Overlords-- we were advised not to be alarmed; for this was something they had expected for a long time. As a matter of fact, expecting it to happen much sooner, they were surprised that it had happened as late as it did. Either way, it truly was a vindication for all their warnings, unheeded and scoffed at for the longest time by much of Earth’s peoples.

Though in a galactic sense, Earth, which was located in the spiral arms of the Milky Way, was a planet quite “off the beaten path.” The Alliance knew that the Overlords would not take defiance for long, and that it was only a matter of time before they set their sites on Earth, as out-of-the-way as it was.

Because of their far more sophisticated tesser-drive technology, their grasp knew only the bounds of our galaxy, and the Earth was attacked without warning. Once the fleet arrived, they were faced with a planet being ravaged from the surface, and locked off from any outside aid by the enigmatic technologies of the Overlords.

Desperate battles are the loneliest ones, and though Earth’s fleet had the backing of nearly every fleet in the Alliance, it may as well had been us fighting them alone. The battle raged on for days, fleet forces barely even putting a dent in the Overlords’ nigh invulnerable offenses and defenses. And as the fleets became decimated, and were forced to pull out one by one, Gordon Wesley, captain of the Odyssey and one of the original expeditionists to Lat on the first contact mission, came up with the starburst: a last-minute assault on the Overlords, using Starburst: a previously untested tactic with the new model Graydrake fighter craft. It was a miracle, to say the least, that it worked, above all expectations. “And if that wasn’t evidence of divine intervention in this war,” as Colonel Miles Brakert of the Space Infantry put it, “then I don’t know what is.”

To make another long story short, we dismantled the blockade, and gave the Alliance the advantage they needed to counter the Overlords, render aid to the Earth’s struggling ground forces, and win the day.

But as the Last of the Overlord troops were mopped up, it became obvious that Earth had gone through some hard times, and with the worst yet to come. Most of the Major cities and a few of the minor ones were turned into stains on the map, and many areas were turned into hot zones from the biohazardous remains of downed Overlord troops and ground craft.

But cities can be rebuilt, and humanity lives on, wounded, but grateful for their survival, and just a little bit stronger, and hopefully, more the wiser.

For the Earth, it was the day everything changed. Where the aliens were looked upon mostly with mistrust and bigotry, feelings of that sort had declined dramatically in the ensuing years, as we had recognized that it was the aliens alongside our own people who had rescued our world from death. Relations with the Alliance as well, improved significantly, as suspicions and cynicism against aliens vanished almost completely. In a sense, this was the moment Earth had truly united itself with the Aliens in the fight against the Overlords. And we knew that though we won this day, the war was far from over. Examining the events of way back then to now, we know for certain that it had just begun.

October 7, 2041

-From “A Rough Overview of the Intergalactic War”

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