“You can always tell if someone was around on Storm Day because they shiver at the sound of thunder.”
–Sgt. Howard Baker, Bug Hunter Squad
OUR WORLD
Like all imagined futures, they are always more glorious than the reality. Humanity stagnated for years in a perpetual slurry of competition, capitalism, and entitlement. Rather than focus on advancing technology in a meaningful way and reaching for the stars, man battled over profits. It was a slow process, but eventually, corporate interests all but superseded the authority of the world governments. Politicians became lobbyists for corporate interests and no one could hope to get elected without their sponsorship. The world was in trouble.
People clamored for new comfort and old tensions between nations continued with no end in sight. Nothing was changing for the better. It was during this time that the pharmaceutical empire, Gena Corporation (Genacorp) began rapid expansion into other fields. Genacorp started buying controlling stock in everything, such as video games, marital aids, clothing, and fossil fuels. The company’s aggressive expansion brought them legal trouble in the form of monopoly claims. These were merely speed bumps for the mega-corporation because any lawsuits were crushed by their team of lawyers. In the eyes of many, the failed lawsuits were a sign that the world’s most powerful governments had lost control.
In a move to establish further dominance, shortly after the lawsuit era, Genacorp acquired one of the largest private security companies in the world called Red River. Red River was made famous by their brutally efficient contracting with the UK military in the Middle East. The newly acquired security firm was used to protect Genacorp’s interests, effectively giving the company their own military force.
With the success of Genacorp, many of the world’s largest corporations followed their example and began aggressive expansion. Genacorp’s two largest corporate competitors were the internet based QueryWen and the software/hardware conglomerate Microtech. Small businesses and corporations were all but driven out of the market or consumed by the corporate machine. By 2030, most of the world could trace their employment back to three companies: Genacorp, Microtech, and QueryWen. To make matters worse, months after Genacorp began their relationship with Red River, Microtech and QueryWen also acquired private security firms of their own. No one could touch “the big three.”
STORM DAY
Everything changed on January 18th, 2030, or “Storm Day.” The skies across the world suddenly blackened from an unnaturally thick cloud cover. Energy and light flashed, and what could only be described as huge black rips in time and space appeared over some of the largest metropolitan areas across the globe. Rips appeared over New York, Vancouver, Cairo, Moscow, Tokyo, Jakarta, and São Paulo. Almost immediately, there was widespread panic.
The rips in the sky disrupted the atmosphere, and the weather went ballistic. Constant lightning, storms, flash floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes spread across the planet causing significant damage. The areas closest to the rips were hit the hardest. This went on for 3 full days. As the storms started to calm, the people of Earth thought the worst was over, but it was just the beginning.
For weeks, the black rips remained open with no reason or explanation of their purpose. During the daylight hours, they were visible in all their glory. At night, they became more obscured, only visible by the faint glow around the edges and the abrupt voids of night sky. Upon study, it turned out the rips were portals to somewhere else… Many attempted closer study of the portals, but those that entered never returned to tell the tale of the other side. Drones and androids that were sent in also disappeared.
THEN THE SKY FELL…
On February 13th 2030, the world stood still as something massive started coming through the New York portal. A huge structure that nearly eclipsed the city came crashing to the earth. Shortly after, the same thing happened all around the world. One by one, the largest metropolitan areas of the world were crushed like bugs under the falling objects. The huge impact craters cut wide swaths of destruction around the demolished cities. There were few survivors within the impact zones, and as quickly as they appeared, the portals disappeared.
As the dusts settled, the objects broke open releasing streams of insect-like humanoids who began fortifying the immediate area and cleaning up the wreckage around the huge objects. The world’s governments were baffled as the enigmatic aliens made no attempt to make contact with humanity. In order to establish a universal language regarding the aliens, they were quickly classified as a new species called “entosapien” and given the common name, “Dromanae.” These terms were created by the now leading authority in xenobiology, Dr. Hubert Cronos.
Through observation, it was quickly discovered that the Dromanae appear to have several subspecies. It is theorized that many remain undiscovered, and others may appear as an evolutionary response to our world. All Dromanae seem to have some connection with a type of hive mind. Workers, in particular, display the least amount of free-will and critical thinking of all the species; the common warrior, however, works perfectly within the group; the individual is able to quickly alter their actions to benefit them in the given situation.
Some governments chose open conflict, like Russia and most of the Middle East, while others attempted communication, like the United States and China. The fragmented attempts to fight or communicate with the Dromanae were made within a day of their landing but to little effect. The objects, now called “hives,” were made of unknown materials that shrugged off blows from everything short of a nuclear blast. Those that attempted to enter Dromanae territory, called “hive zones,” were killed with efficient brutality. Those who kept their distance were left unmolested. Those that attempted contact inevitably found themselves in direct conflict. Eventually, the ships began seeping a lingering gaseous substance into the air around the hive ships, creating an atmosphere toxic to humans. It is theorized this gas is meant to terraform the areas around the ship.
AND THE WORLD WENT WITH IT
The Earth governments and corporations started working together in an all out war against the Dromanae menace. While many grudges were still harbored, war amongst humans was all but extinguished. The unifying threat of extinction sparked a call to fight. On August 1st, 2032, a summit was held in Geneva by the UN to establish a plan to fight the alien threat. The UN extended invitations to the world’s most powerful corporate and political entities to also attend. This became the framework for the United Earth Force or UEF.
The UEF was formally established on August 15th, 2032, as a world-wide task force to keep the various militaries and entities unified and organized against the Dromanae. Genacorp, QueryWen, and Microtech financially backed the endeavor and provided private security forces for the battle and science teams for investigation. This also drove the mega-corporations to change their focus to weapons development and defense.
The organized assault seemed to spark a rapid takeover instinct among the Dromanae. The aliens began using overwhelming force to take territory and defend their city-sized hives. The terraforming also sped up as the areas close to the hives were assimilated. Scientists theorized that the full terraforming of Earth would take around 50 years and humanity would go extinct from the atmosphere. To make matters worse, new, deadlier species of Dromanae were frequently spotted within the hive zones.
The fighting waged on with no end in sight. Mankind began developing new weapons and methods to defend against the alien menace, but Russian forces fell to desperation. One November 18th, 2035, Russian officials authorized a full scale nuclear strike against the Moscow hive. The amount of force required to destroy the hive left the surrounding area uninhabitable and sent radiation into the atmosphere, affecting most of eastern Europe. The UEF declared the act an “unauthorized attack” and condemned the actions of the Russian leadership. Smaller, uncoordinated attacks of desperation occurred in Egypt but none were as significant or had widespread consequences as the Russian nuclear strike.
With Moscow lost, the UEF scrambled to regain order in Cairo but riots, religious opposition, and a disorganized military presence made things difficult. The Dromanae were spreading in Egypt and nothing could stem the tide. In December 2036, the UEF declared the Cairo hive a lost cause and began aiding in evacuation efforts. The area around Cairo is now a desolate wasteland, overrun by the Dromanae.
FALLING GIANTS
Though the war-like ways of man were focused on the fight against the invaders, greed continued to darken the doorsteps of the corporate giants. During the conflict, dirty politics, theft, corporate spying, and hostile takeovers ran rampant, particularly on the part of Genacorp. With the world distracted and the governing bodies focused on the war effort, like a ravenous giant Genacorp consumed as much of the marketplace as it could before setting its sights higher.
Genacorp, with its newfound assets, began targeting the other big two. In 2038, after a very public dismissing of their CEO for selling company secrets to “unknown sources,” QueryWen experienced a severe stock drop. Investors were troubled by this leak at the highest level and urged the board to sell the company to Genacorp for a generous profit. Though no evidence has surfaced, it is believed Genacorp played a large hand in the destruction of QueryWen.
On July 1st 2038, QueryWen and all its holdings were taken over by Genacorp. Genacorp’s main interest was in QueryWen’s robust robotics division. Genecorp seized all the subsidiaries under their own corporate banner and fired anyone, outside of the robotics department, who worked directly for QueryWen. This allowed Genacorp to push production of the first wave of synthetic humanoid Androids onto the market as obedient workers and disposable soldiers in the summer of 2039.
In January of 2040, Microtech released a breakthrough in the fields of defense and medicine: fully functional cybernetic limb replacements. This breakthrough would, unfortunately, fall to scandal when a “bug” in the operating systems of the cybernetics caused them to cease functioning, resulting in a mass recall of replaced limbs. Genacorp saw its chance with this debacle and started a slander campaign against Microtech. The company wouldn’t survive this campaign and was bought out by Genacorp during April of 2041.
Genacorp focused on acquiring the most promising projects from the carcasses of failing corporations. Projects, particularly those focused on unlocking human potential, were given near unlimited funding, and productivity was pushed. The most promising of these projects was their own study into the psychic potential of humans. Their focus and funding allowed them to discover the key to unlocking this potential. The first psychic soldiers were officially put into the field in March of 2043.
Many national economies were collapsing due to the alien threat. Currencies plummeted in value and global economists feared the worst. In October of 2043, with backing from the UEF, Genecorp helped fund the creation of the Global Credit Center and the creation of a new universal digital currency, called “credits”. The credit system took off quickly and spread across the globe replacing most forms of physical currency. By 2045 all forms of physical currency were abolished, due to their use mainly being involved in illegal activities.
One avenue that Genacorp couldn’t break into was the UEF’s research into human enhancement. The UEF used their resources to create the Eximius Project, developing their own super soldiers for the fight, called “Exims.” On October 5th, 2044, the first squad of Exims were used in a search and rescue operation into the area around the Vancouver, B.C., Canada, hive with great success.
NOW
The year is 2045, and it has been roughly 15 years since the rifts that heralded the coming of the Dromanae first opened. Humanity is losing the war. The São Paulo hive has all but taken control of Brazil, with a mass retreat on the horizon. Egypt has been overrun and lost to the alien threat. All communication was lost with Oceanica, leaving the status of the islands unknown. Eastern Europe has become uninhabitable after a full scale nuclear strike destroyed the Moscow Hive causing nuclear winter and dangerous radiation levels. Only pockets of resistance exist around Europe, most notably: London, England and Vatican City, Italy. The eastern half of North America was claimed and terraformed before a combined strike of Canadian and American forces destroyed the New York City Hive, but the threats from the Vancouver and São Paulo Mega-Hive persists.
Outside of the hive zones, Dromanae movements have forced areas to be quarantined. These new quarantine zones, while not as dangerous as the hive zones, hold many unique dangers. Criminals have taken to looting quarantine zones, and some groups have organized to attempt to seize control of certain quarantine zones from the UEF.
Recently Dromanae forces have been spreading from Vancouver, B.C., Canada into the northwestern United States. The capital of Washington state and surrounding areas have been evacuated and are now considered quarantine zones. UEF forces have been mobilized to set a base-camp in Western Washington to investigate the insurgence.
Leave a Reply