This is the Way the World Ends

The so-called “death” of human civilisation was not a single catastrophic event, much as the naysayers would have you believe, but instead was merely the end result of the patterns that had been set in motion long before. One after another, multiple disasters around the world continually ate away at humanity's chances for the future, until the Last Conflict broke out (the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, as t'were) and made humanity's mind up for it. Our time was up, it seemed. Was it, though? Well, yes and no.

The problems began back when the US started towards the path of darkness back in the 20th century. Atomic power had gripped the imagination of the general public, and the government latched onto the wave and rode it all the way. They declared it “ideologically correct”, inexorably linking the power source of the future with the idealism of mid-20th century America. Soon nuclear power was everywhere, and those who warned of the horrific side effects of radiation poisoning tended to be laughed off stage at Congressional hearings. There were big forces, powerful forces out there that had a lot of money to lose if nuclear power got a bad name.

Of course, all was not well abroad as the US' number one foe, the Soviet Union, stood defiant, the wellspring of communist ideology that America considered the antithesis of everything that they stood for, and, worst of all, the godless communists had the gall to harness the power of the atom as well [1]. Plus, the US had always thought that the Soviets had gotten off too well in the aftermath of WWII. Korea had been united under communist rule, ensuring that Japan remained under continuous occupation by the Americans, as they believed they couldn't trust the Japanese to not pull an Aaron to America's Moses and start praising Marx while America's back was turned.

Nuclear stockpiles began to swell, and mutually assured destruction became the mantra of warfare. Not that this prevented the superpowers from engaging via proxy; America's victorious campaigns in southeast Asia combating the communist menace ensuring that America's mindset became “we can drive the commies back if we just commit long enough and fight hard enough”. This led to campaigns against communist regimes (or regimes merely sympathetic to the Soviets) across South America, Africa and the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Soviets, not having the cash or manpower to commit to such excursions, instead settled for running arms to rebels while focusing on internal development and reform.

Unsurprisingly to all, such a mentality would cost the US dearly. With anti-communist rhetoric and paranoia becoming ever more overt and extreme, personal freedoms began to slip away as the US became increasingly dictatorial in its methods. The intelligence branch bloated to ridiculous levels to keep track of suspected communist sympathisers, and the civilian internet was killed in its cradle, for “security reasons”. Black veterans, fresh from wars in the Congo and West Africa, took issue with the fact that the government still refused to give them equal rights, and the conflict eventually turned bloody (the US government's actions to crush anti-apartheid activists in South Africa were particularly damning in their eyes). The economy became dominated by a conglomerate of corporations, who worked as hard as they could to maintain the status quo, and income inequality skyrocketed. Even the US' allies in Europe took issue with its actions, and their move towards harmonising relations with the Soviets only served to amplify the US' already-out-of-control paranoia.

The collapse of the People's Republic of China in the early '90s was perhaps the biggest preface of what was to come. Having never experienced the liberalisation and reforms of the Soviet Union, China under Mao's legacy simply could not sustain itself and soon began to crack down the middle. Society slowly devolved into riots and famine as government authority broke down around the fringes before it spread inward, finally consuming the nation as China descended into warlordism, once again beginning the cycle of its existence anew. Tibet regained its independence, while the Soviets moved into the north to bring stability back to the region, while America attempted to bring the eastern coastal regions under its wing. This led to a falling-out between America and Taiwan, who each wanted an American puppet-led Chinese government on the mainland and a reunified independent China under Chinese leadership, respectively. In the end, the Soviets gained hegemony over inner and north China, Taiwan ended up with jurisdiction over southernmost China while America took the rest as a puppet, a compromise that satisfied no one.

Then the environmental disasters started up. Despite nuclear power becoming ubiquitous, use of oil and coal still remained widespread the world over, largely thanks to entrenched interests and easy availability. Unfortunately, with wars and terrorism in the Middle East making oil well fires a near-weekly occurrence, oil scarcity began to be a problem starting in the 2010s. Not only that, but global warming began to take effect, with the ocean acidifying and wildfires and super-storms beginning to batter vulnerable regions. The hole in the ozone layer swelled to unprecedented levels, CFCs having never been banned (the US dismissed the campaign to ban them as a “commie plot”). Desertification began to spread, sea levels began to rise, and food shortages set in.

Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, a viral outbreak spun out of control in Europe. RU17, as it was called (they never got around to giving it a snappy nickname), seemed to be a horrific airborne variant of rabies that caused bleeding gums, bloodshot eyes, and damage to brain functioning causing paranoia, hallucinations, and a vastly enhanced violent streak, resulting in infected people degenerating into violent psychopaths. Worst of all, it sometimes took several days for the virus to manifest itself in a host's system, meaning infected people could travel far beyond quarantine and continue to spread the virus; as a result, infected yet asymptomatic individuals were given the title “dead men walking”. In any ordinary situation, quarantine would be difficult, but not impossible. Unfortunately, that was not the case here.

In France, where the outbreak first started, a hard-right government had just been elected through suspected wide-scale voter fraud, and as a result massive anti-government protests were ongoing at the time. Protesters had long since turned violent, and the army, called in to restore order, responded in kind. Infected protesters got mixed up with the others, spreading the virus to them and the soldiers and policemen who suppressed them. Civilians fleeing to neighbouring countries carried the virus with them, and soon it had spread beyond any reasonable possibility of containing, engulfing most of Europe and northern Africa, with order breaking down all throughout. The Soviets, concerned about their geopolitical integrity and the safety of their European allies, moved troops into Eastern Europe to stem the flow of refugees and assist in maintaining order, while the US did the same to Western Europe. Both sides accused the other of deliberately releasing a bioweapon to further their own ends, and relations sank to ominous new lows.

Everyone was pretty much now convinced that the end was nigh. Apocalyptic religious groups were rife, and there were multiple instances of mass suicide around the world. And, alas, it all came crashing down around them in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. A combination of frayed nerves at a nuclear response facility, a computer glitch, and unfortunate timing resulted in a message making its way to a higher-up that the opposing side was planning a full-scale nuclear assault. Believing them, the senior officer relayed this to the nation's leader, who ordered full deployment of the nation's nuclear arsenal, which was responded to in turn. On October 25th, 2024, the world was engulfed in nuclear flame, and to this day, no one is sure who fired the first shot, nor where the virus that engulfed Europe originated.

The initial death and destruction was absolutely catastrophic, but the bigger die-off came afterward, as a near complete collapse of order across the majority of the world ensued along with the after-effects of nuclear fallout and nuclear winter. However, surprisingly, due to the timing of the seasons, much less soot and radiation made it into the atmosphere than was predicted, so the nuclear winter was neither as long or as severe as one would have imagined, and the cooling effect (ironically) went some way towards mitigating the lingering effects of climate change. Still, the climate took a beating, and the seasons and weather went all wonky for quite some time. Nuclear power plants, going unmaintained, began to decay and collapsed, further poisoning local environments.

The majority of deaths occurred in the northern hemisphere, with most major cities destroyed and much of the surviving population dying from radiation poisoning or starvation, due to vital resources being cut off. Society devolved back to tribalism, as food, water and fuel, already precious resources pre-war, became sought-after commodities people were willing to kill for. The RU17 virus consumed the remainder of Europe, north Africa and the Middle East (the final Hajj was a big mistake for all involved), before the remaining hosts died out, unable to sustain themselves in the absence of food. Other African nations collapsed as well, their sources of aid that sustained them cut off, and the largely arbitrary existing borders became meaningless as they too once more resorted to tribal geopolitics and formed new nations on their own. The inhabitants of the space stations in orbit and rudimentary bases on the Moon (products of a fiercer space race) died and the structures ceased functioning in the absence of supplies from Earth.

However, South America managed to come out of the whole debacle on top, now hosting the majority of the world's population and maintaining stability, for the most part. The civil war and division of Brazil following the inundation of much of the Amazon left Argentina the premier power on the continent, and remained so after the Last Conflict, gaining a sphere of influence over most of South America. Meanwhile, in South Africa, the nuclear warhead aimed at the capital malfunctioned and crashed down without incident, and the black population, having experienced greater and greater oppression over the course of the apartheid regime, overthrew the Afrikaner leadership and established a new nation where all people could be free, regardless of skin colour.

Then, 23 years after the nuclear war brought human development to a crashing halt, the aliens arrived. Yes, aliens.

They arrived with very little warning, though humanity can't really be blamed as very few people were monitoring the skies at the time. Later revelations discerned that the aliens (or, rather, an organisation consisting of two different alien species known to humanity as “the Coalition”) had been monitoring our solar system for quite some time, as well as quite a few other planets in the local galactic neighbourhood, searching for other inhabitable worlds to colonise. They had seen our world and monitored it for several decades, measuring its atmospheric composition and taking note of solar activity to measure Earth's size. Detecting oxygen in the atmosphere, they took it to mean that it had life on it, and was thus suitable for colonisation, having detected and colonised. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on context, the fact that their home planet was a little over a hundred light years away meant that they were measuring Earth a little over a hundred years in the past, back when carbon emissions were only just beginning to ramp up in a massive way. Alien scientists noted the unusual recent increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, but it was dismissed as a mere natural event like a large volcanic eruption of some kind. A colonisation ship was prepped, and sent on its way, reaching Earth in the blink of an eye thanks to FTL technology.

Upon arriving, the colonists were understandably surprised. Not only was their planetary destination already inhabited by a sapient species (they had come across other planets with life before, but most were simply microbial ecosystems), but it was also horrendously contaminated by environmental degradation. It was nothing they couldn't handle, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in their plans for settlement. However, their biggest surprises came from the moon bases and space stations that had been built by humanity prior to the nuclear conflict. They had not yet come across another sapient species that had advanced as far as humanity had, much less made it to the spacefaring stage of development yet. The only prior analogous event was when the langaros, the original spacefaring civilisation, came into contact with the akaestri, who at the time of contact had only just invented rifles (and, with the assistance of the langaro colonists who first made contact, since been uplifted technologically to the point of parity with the langaros and joined them to form the Coalition).

The langaros [2] first evolved on a moon orbiting a super-Earth around a yellow binary star slightly more than 100 light years from Sol. They are quite tall, their average height being around 225cm (about 7ft 4½in), with a sleek trunk of a body with 4 relatively thin limbs (the lower gravity of their homeworld, about 68% of Earth's, means that they do not have to support as much weight). Their bodies and limbs are largely covered in an intricate naturally-forming armour made of keratin plates, with only their faces completely uncovered, creating a lightweight yet durable form of protection over their bodies. Their backs are covered with large, horizontally-orientated segments that taper to a small tail, resembling the back of a lobster. On their snakelike heads, they have a very sensitive bifurcated olfactory receptor on the top where our foreheads would be, and three eyes; one at the front, and two to the sides.

They retain the claws on their hands and feet which their ancestors used for climbing trees and gripping onto the moon's surface so as not to slip, but which are nowadays tend to be filed down. Their means of sexual reproduction is rather strange from a human perspective; they are hermaphroditic, and mate via joining mouths while an elongated sexual organ goes out each of their mouths and into the others', dispersing “genetic fluid” for lack of a better term, that is carried down to their reproductive organs via a chemical transport system to fertilise. The foetuses then gestate inside their bodies, before the parent gives birth by bringing the baby up through their mouth.

The langaros took to space travel quite easily, the lower gravity of their homeworld making it easier to get into orbit and the wide open expanse of the planet they orbited just waiting to be explored, and managed to colonise several other moons and planets in their solar system (with the assistance of powered armour to cope with higher gravity) before discovering how to generate and harness negative energy and, with it, achieve FTL travel. They began to spread outwards from their star system, coming across several other worlds with their own ecosystems and setting up colonies (the less inhabitable planets and moons tended to be given little more than was required to set up an outpost). Naturally, they focused on binary star systems, assuming this configuration was the default for producing inhabitable planets, and this seemed to be borne out by the results (ignoring, of course, their obvious selection bias). It seemed to them that while microbial and simple life was common, sapient life was unique. Then everything changed when they visited a planet located within a binary star system about 82 light years away from their homeworld, and came across the akaestri.

The akaestri are a species that dwells on a dense super-Earth approximately 20% larger than Earth, and, as such, they are fairly short by Earth standards due to the higher gravity. They resemble particularly squat and stocky bears, individuals being covered in a thick layer of fur to compensate for the relatively frigid environment (something that was not particularly accommodating for the acclimatised-to-heat langaros). They evolved in the relatively short in height but more extensive mountain ranges throughout their planet, formed as a result of their planet's more widespread and active plate tectonics. However, they are actually quadrupedal, having four rather compact hoofed legs for stability along with their two arms, as well as rather large, distinctive ears, solid black eyes and vestigial venom sacs in their jaws (their muzzles are shorter than Earth bears', and allow for a more recognisable vocalisation system (at least to humans)).

Biologically speaking, they are closer to monotremes than placental mammals, reproducing every so often via mating during the yearly breeding period, followed by the laying of an egg from which they hatch their young. Strangely, they are not all that much stronger than regular humans, but they have vastly greater stamina from lugging around their bulk their whole lives, which are fairly long. Owing to their planet's incredibly strong (possibly abnormally so) magnetic field, they have developed a strong magnetoreceptive ability, giving them a very good sense of navigation. They also have the ability to control their own metabolic rates, to compensate during long winters when food is less regularly available.

First contact with the akaestri homeworld was a shock for both sides to say the least. Originally, the established system for colonisation went something like; fly interstellar ship into orbit, land colonists and equipment via shuttlecraft, set up xenoforming equipment, and once it was self-sufficient, send back the craft to report and collect more colonists (simple two-way communication with the homeworld has never been viable; FTL on a large carrier ship is one thing, but it's not the sort of thing one can easily miniaturise, and negative energy is still frustratingly difficult to generate and contain). Coming across another sapient species was not something that factored into that formula, and unfortunately things did not kick off well.

In an incident that triggered a massive overhaul of the colonisation program, the langaro in charge of colonising the akaestri homeworld saw this as an opportunity to carve out xir [3] own private region of space, y'know, screw the homeworld. Given that the roughly 1 and a half billion akaestri were spread rather thinly across the surface of their planet and had vastly inferior technology, xe assumed that they would be a cakewalk to subjugate. Unfortunately, xe did not take into account several things; the climate, which the colonists were horribly unused to dealing with; the gravity, which made them dependent on powered exoskeletons to function; and lastly, the fact that a little over 4000 colonists against a planet of 1 and a half billion individuals already quite skilled in advanced ground warfare on their own turf does not add up to a good outcome for the colonists, regardless of the technological difference.

The war lasted for quite some time, with the langaro colonists making large early gains, but as numbers and supplies began to turn against them, they resorted to increasingly desperate measures, including unleashing a large number of “clean nukes” (standard issue in xenoforming toolkits) against the akaestri population. It ensured their temporary control over a portion of the continent they had landed on, but the rest of the planet remained, having basically united in the face of the alien threat. The langaro leader who had started all this, not content until the entire planet was under xir control, ordered xir second-in-command aboard the interstellar ship to deploy the xenoforming equipment to convert the planet's climate to something more palatable. The second-in-command, well aware that a large number of akaestri would die as a result and already horrified at xir acts of genocide, did what xe had been planning for a while; turned the ship back towards the homeworld and took off to report everything that had happened.

After hearing xir testimony, the leaders of the langaro nation that commissioned the colonisation of the planet dispatched a secondary crew to resolve the situation. When they arrived, they found that in the absence of the colony ship, the situation had fallen apart, with the colony leader having been killed (no one since has ever determined conclusively whether or not it was an assassination by xir own contingent) and the colony had fallen apart, with the colonists being taken prisoner by the akaestri, who were attempting to reverse-engineer their technology to attain an advantage over their neighbours. The secondary crew made contact with the most amenable nation on the planet and offered them assistance on the geopolitical landscape through technology and military assistance. The nation accepted and quickly became immensely powerful at the expense of its neighbours, bringing them under its umbrella. Combined with the release of the imprisoned colonists, the crisis was defused, and the crew accomplished their designated mission; to secure the friendship of an alien species and bring them into their fold.

As the decades passed, the akaestri became increasingly integrated into the langaro interstellar empires as the langaro leadership realised what a boon having a massive population to help them was, particularly as far out as the akaestri homeworld was. Langaro and akaestri populations began to intermingle, serving on ships and colonising worlds together. This brings us to 225 years later, whereupon after a refinement of the policies regarding sapient aliens was made in the event of such a contingency, an interstellar colony ship with a crew of 2448 langaros and 720 akaestri encountered a little planet called Earth.

This time, the colonists were a little more tactful in their approach. Landing without much fanfare on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the langaros and the akaestri went out of their way to be non-threatening as they made themselves known to humankind, laying their weapons at their feet in a sign of non-aggression. The air was tense, as though someone was waiting for someone to start shooting, and one could hardly blame them; humanity was still a heavily shellshocked species recovering from its most catastrophic disaster since the Ice Age. The situation was not helped by the fact that communication was horribly difficult, with langaro speech to humans sounding like a loud, droning buzz, punctuated with various pops, clicks and changes in tone. Akaestri speech fared only marginally better, its only consolation being that it soundly vaguely like actual speech. Luckily, after quite some time having to communicate via convoluted games of charades, the langaros managed to puzzle out enough of human languages to create a translation program that allowed genuine dialogue to occur.

The Coalition colonists explained to the humans that they came in order to explore and possibly colonise their planet, but they did not know that Earth was already inhabited. They had seen the sorry state of humanity, and offered a compromise; humanity would grant them the right to settle on Earth, and they would supply technology and know-how that humanity could use to get their planet and their species back on its feet. Above all, they promised them access to the wonders of the universe itself; the technology allowing for interstellar flight. Hell, if humanity played its cards right, reasoned the colonists, they might even make it as full-fledged members of the Coalition themselves one day. The human diplomats were very hesitant, even if the colonists were willing to answer all their questions, but ultimately decided the reward outweighed the risk and agreed.

It is now the year 2110, 86 years after the Last Conflict and 63 years since First Contact, and, funnily enough, things are looking up for humanity (it probably helps that once you've hit rock-bottom, the only way you can go is up). Most of the planet, particularly in the northern hemisphere, is still tribal, but the civilised regions are experiencing record levels of prosperity. The environment is slowly being restored to comfortable levels for all species thanks to xenoforming equipment provided by the alien colonists, as well as the vastly decreased human population allowing for nature to reclaim a lot of former civilisation. Europe, almost entirely depopulated after the viral outbreak and the nuclear conflict, is now a massive forested landscape, working hard to clean out all the gunk that humanity filled the atmosphere with. The ocean, having been overrun with jellyfish feeding off humanity's refuse after the majority of sea life died out, has been cooling back down and slowly retreating back to its original level, as new sea life takes the place of the old ecosystems.

The majority of langaros have settled in the various nations of South America, and, for the most part, coexist with humanity peacefully. Langaro numbers have swelled to a greater extent than humanity first predicted (langaro population control laws that their empires had established on their homeworld apparently no longer applied to them), to the consternation of the more conservative individuals within the South American nations, who fear that the aliens are attempting to subsume humanity through greater numbers. However, as an entire new generation has grown up in the langaros' presence, their residence on Earth has become largely accepted, if still fraught with some cross-cultural issues.

Greater Argentina is still the world's foremost power, supplemented by its alien population and the technology that comes with it. Having essentially absorbed Chile, Bolivia and the northern Andes (Paraguay, they decided, wasn't worth directly incorporating), it dominates the rest of South America, which has not endeared it to the Brazilian successor states, many of whom are feverishly working to reunify Brazil to create a viable contender to Argentinian power. Coupled with a rising independence movement brewing in Peru, the Argentine government currently has its hands full just trying to keep their hegemony united (alas, even in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, nationalism never dies).

It is currently run under a democratic socialist government, though meaning of such a title has slightly shifted to emphasise the more socialistic aspects. Most of South America is united into a cohesive economic sphere, intended to ensure that wealth is not concentrated in one place, but unfortunately this has not stopped the wealthy individuals in more corrupt nations from gaming the system and funnelling wealth into their own pockets. Indeed, as cheap solar power provided by the Coalition allows for localised energy production at an unparalleled level, more and more calls for autonomy are being made as decentralisation continues to threaten the authority of the Argentine government.

However, despite all that, things are still pretty good. The langaros have integrated themselves thoroughly into Argentine civilisation, and cultural attitudes have rubbed off on one another. Sexism is much less prevalent, as is racism, and the city of Buenos Aires has become a shining city on a hill for the whole world. Packed with towering skyscrapers, filled with clean-energy transport (conservationism is another area which has become much more relevant, as raw materials have become much less readily available), and with income inequality at an all-time low, it has become a beacon of progress the world over. It is also the hub of Earth's largest space program, built on existing human technology enhanced using langaro and akaestri designs. Indeed, the Moon is being recolonised, the first humans landed on Mars a few decades ago, and a mission to Jupiter has just launched (no FTL is available for such endeavours, however; negative energy is scarce enough that its use is restricted purely for interstellar travel).

Some popular culture has also been exchanged. Langaros seem to have an affinity for art in Indian styles, and humanity has taken to langaro music, the likes of which is often played in dance clubs, where its low, sharp, thudding, pulsating beats are widely enjoyed (the langaros are perplexed as to why anyone would want to dance to their classical music). However, cultural differences have prevented some overlapping interest; the langaros have a hard time enjoying Victorian literature, and langaro films are a niche market on Earth, as they usually have a much bigger emphasis on psychological themes and obscure symbolism that tends to be lost on a human audience. Media regarding colonisation, being portrayed in a good or bad light, is also looked upon uneasily by langaros [4].

Indonesia is also a post-LC success story, with the New Majapahit Empire stretches throughout southeast Asia. Founded in the aftermath of the Last Conflict, the islands of Indonesia fell apart as central authority collapsed, to be reunited piecemeal under a new naval power. The New Majapahit Empire was founded by a reformist Islamic movement in Sumatra, in tandem with Chinese refugees and American naval power that was stationed in the area and found nowhere to go in the aftermath of the nuclear war. Re-establishing central authority throughout the archipelago was difficult, but becoming one of the largest naval powers in the world certainly made things easier, as they now controlled the channels that made commerce possible, and set about clearing out the pirates that now plagued the region.

Today, Majapahit stands as a powerful, democratic nation that encompasses the Indonesian archipelago, mainland southeast Asia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, coastal southern India, New Guinea and quite a few Pacific islands. They retain their naval prowess, and are staunch allies of the Argentinians, cooperating on many exercises in the Pacific with Argentina providing aerial power (blimps, naturally; they're more energy-efficient, and they look pretty to boot). They maintain vigorous trade, particularly in raw materials; India and south China are a treasure trove of pre-LC artifacts, and minerals from western Australia also fetch a large buying price (Australia itself is no more; after its major cities were nuked, communications and travel broke down reducing the continent to a small number of feuding city-states in the south, while the rest of Australia largely went native).

The government of the Empire, despite theoretically extending throughout the entire realm, is fairly decentralised out of administrative convenience, with many of the island territories retaining a great deal of sovereignty. Culturally, it is a religious melting pot, being a mix of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and various denominations of Christianity, and fortunately religious freedom is a constitutional right. Also, despite being an Argentinian ally, surprisingly few aliens reside there (most of them work in diplomatic capacity, or visit as tourists). However, they are more than willing to purchase alien technology, and the Coalition is more than willing to sell it to them.

South Africa remains the primary counterweight power to the Coalition-backed powers on Earth. Despite the best intentions of the leaders of the original revolution that ousted the white leadership, the few ethnically white individuals remaining today are unofficially disenfranchised throughout the nation. Since then, after the alien colonists landed in South America, South Africa became a haven for the humans who were not on board with coexisting with alienkind and as such, anyone who openly resents aliens living on Earth has at least considered moving to South Africa at some point. Despite this, no one there seems to complain about all the alien tech that they avail themselves of on a daily basis (most of which has been obtained through less than scrupulous means).

South Africa has since expanded its reach throughout sub-Saharan Africa, intending to create a genuine human-centric world power, as at the moment their hegemony only extends as far as Zanzibar, attempting to unite the various feuding groups into a single cohesive power (with South Africa obviously at the head). They present themselves as a force for order, wiping out the various warlords who came to dominate in the immediate post-LC environment and imposing their own brand of “Republican” government upon them, often times at gunpoint, though “liberated” regions have to first reach a certain level of “development” before the population may have their own say on local issues. Depending upon the warlord they overthrow, this sometimes works and sometimes ends up going badly (like, “time for a little ethnic cleansing” badly). South African rule is fairly harsh, which they attempt to justify by blaming the environment in which they live, and the need for humanity to remain united and strong in the face of threats of various natures.

But what has truly made South Africa a pariah among nations is their decision to re-establish a nuclear weapons program, something that is controversial even amongst its own leadership, who remember all too well the horrors of the Last Conflict, and the fact that South Africa itself came quite close to immolation itself. Nonetheless, they press on with their efforts to create a nuclear deterrent from the alien menace (and keep their “undeveloped” populations in line, not that they mention that in their propaganda), earning them the condemnation of every other civilised society on the planet (and beyond). While the local Coalition representatives are fairly sure they are all bark and no bite, regardless, they keep an eye on them along with a finger on the button ready to engage in a little orbital bombardment should they get out of hand.

Meanwhile, the majority of akaestri have taken up residence in the relatively sparsely populated Siberian and Alaskan wilderness', though the local human population still outnumbers them by a large margin, despite their numbers too swelling (though not to the same extent as the langaros). While taking well to the northern landscapes, they have not fared well in the northern Pacific, which is a bit of a bummer for the akaestri since they have a very strong seafaring tradition back on their homeworld. The akaestri simply did not take into account the fact that the waves would be higher on Earth due to our lower gravity, which resulted in more violent voyages than they were used to. Couple that with their enhanced sense of balance being violently thrown off, and pretty soon almost the entire species was retching over the side of the ships. In the end it became bad enough that they had to train and hire the local humans to crew their ships, while they stick to navigation in specially designed rooms to minimise the rocking effect (they claim that operating in Earth's weaker magnetic field is like walking in a fog).

Most cities that have been constructed in the local re-establishment of civilisation have been built to the akaestri model, with solidly constructed, bottom-heavy buildings laid out in a more spread-out fashion than most human cities, and despite them ostensibly having to comply with orders regarding species equality, they are inevitably designed with akaestri interests in mind, with the human majority getting the lesser dwellings and jobs. Additionally, akaestri culture (or at least what humanity has been exposed to) tends towards the individualistic, inevitably leading to some conflicts to those used to living under a socialist regime regarding how to run civilisation. It almost boiled over into conflict until the langaros had to remind the akaestri of what had happened to langaro colonists who tried to lord over the akaestri. In the end, the humans and akaestri managed to compromise and work out methods of living side-by-side, which mostly consisted of a lot of autonomy deals.

The local Russian-speaking population is still not too happy with their presence (though it never really rises above half-hearted grumbling), and they refer to them in a semi-derisive way as “mishkas”. The akaestri don't really mind, as the feeling is mutual; they refer to humans as “torgi”, after a small, irritating, six-legged salamander-like pest back on their homeworld (they seem to be counting on the fact that the humans will never find out what a torg is). However, they do take issue with the fact that humanity, going by what it has seen, tends to stereotype them as short, muscular bears with thick, dark grey speckled fur, while the differently-furred akaestri frustratedly insist that the majority of their species is not speckled grey; it's just that the nation that holds a monopoly over space travel on their planet (aka the one that the langaros picked as an ally) is the one that sends the majority of its citizens into space, which just happen to be speckled grey. Apparently, it's a sensitive issue.

All in all, while not a full-fledged member of the Coalition yet, humanity is certainly making big strides of its own. Having recovered quite well (though not discounting Coalition assistance) from their biggest self-inflicted disaster ever, humanity seems to be learning from its mistakes and is set to make its mark on the universe. Human explorers have already travelled on an FTL ship and visited the langaro homeworld, returning home with tales of towering, glittering cities, lush orange-leafed forests with plants as tall as redwoods, bizarre wildlife unlike anything ever seen on Earth and the planet around which the moon orbits, hanging there in the alien sky in all its exotic majesty. The akaestri homeworld remains unvisited by humans as of yet, but bookings have been made on the next interstellar flight.

And as a select group of humans prepare to make their first voyage aboard a Coalition colonisation ship to an uncharted star system where an alien planet is waiting, who knows where humanity will end up...


[1] Chernobyl still went up in smoke, and ironically was a boon for US propaganda and nuclear technology advocates; obviously, nuclear power produced under communist rule was inherently inferior to the atoms harnessed by the Republic!

[2] The langaros are a race whose vocalisations are difficult to translate into human speech, and as such their designated name is a colloquialism; in this case a contraction of the Spanish translation of “lobster lizards”.

[3] Gender-neutral version of his/her, given that human genders cannot really be applied to them. Equivalent for he/she is “xe”.

[4] One particular piece that is quite contentious in langaro circles is a book written by an American refugee about a man who cryogenically freezes himself underground to escape a nuclear war. When he re-emerges, however, he finds that civilisation has been taken over by a race of intelligent mutant horses, who have built a society on the remains of human civilisation. Fish-out-of-water miscommunications and hijinks ensue as the man struggles to deal with living in an alien society in a satire of living amongst alien races. Apparently, the langaros have different ideas about what qualifies as good satire.