Intro


It happened an hour before the new year, 2080. Mankind, as represented by the New Earth Council members, was gathered in their massive Convocation Hall, and was about to face the two greatest shocks to its existence it ever knew, and would ever know.


It was an age where product specialization and services distribution had leveled the economic playground. Corporate empires had risen and fallen to the onslaught of the empowered man, who pulsed with aggressive independence. Entrepreneurs of the new frontier of technology came, almost unconsciously, into power. Nations sought to maintain their power with war, but ultimately lost. The New Earth Council was born from the ruins, and its governing children prospered.


But on December 31st, 2079, this enlightened man encountered a cosmic circumstance that, though not hostile at the onset, shook the foundations of the peace he paid in centuries of conflict and revolution to achieve. As the celebration in the Convocation Hall came to a climax, the anticipation of the new year came to an abrupt stop. A pillar of light broke through the skydome, and a vaguely humanoid figure was left standing at the Honors Podium. But this was the lesser shock.


A fathomless minute passed. The silence in aftershock was numbing. Five more similar alien beings appeared at intervals. The first alien scanned the room, seemly understanding that the eyes and ears of the world had placed their trust in this room of human leaders.


Leaning forward at the microphonic panel, it spoke in perfect, albeit accented English: “Brothers, aren’t we all.”


The room quavered as fears and hopes intertwined agonoizingly among the councilmen. Ironically, though scholars and dreamers had speculated for centuries about what the first human reaction to extraterrestrial intelligence would be, we never got the chance for any response. From the back of the auditorium to the figure at the podium, a thundershock split the air as a blue bolt pierced through, and its dying scream was lost in the echo of the shot. The other five beings trembled, desperately fumbling their equipment, but were also struck down by more bolts.


And then it was over. For one year, during which world leaders desperately, blindly prepared for anything they could imagine. But in that year mankind’s longest, more burning question had its cryptic answer in six charred alien corpses. It was to be the last year that we understood traditional war and peace, for what began after it was the end of a traditional humanity.