
                        The Basic Premise


The Awakening

Homo Sapiens had been around on Earth for well over a hundred-
thousand years when the Old Ones (also known as the Jihuti) first
arrived. What these aliens from the stars stumbled upon was a
race of beings very much like themselves in their own distant
past, a race which though it had managed to fabricate and use
tools to some primitive extent and which walked on two legs as
they did, was still perhaps a million years away from naturally
evolving the sort of intelligence that would allow them to take
their place among the stars, and even that would only happen with
the most phenomenal of luck.

The Old Ones, though very ancient, were not a patient race. They
believed in making friends... literally... and decided to
genetically enhance mankind, boosting the complexity of his brain
while leaving his physical form unaltered.

This was about 30,000 years ago, and Humanity hasn't been quite
the same ever since.

A Dangerous Savage Child-Race

Although the Old Ones could bestow upon Humanity the flames of
intelligence, they could not foresee the path it would burn. The
child race's first invention was warfare. Thousands died in
bloody carnage despite intervention after intervention. The Old
ones were perplexed. This had never happened before. Other child
races had been able to cope with their changing world without
resulting to violence to solve every problem. Humanity was
somehow different.

The key difference, perhaps, was the psychology which evolution
had bestowed. Humanity had never really occupied a specific
ecologic niche. They could hunt, gather, and even scavenge when
the opportunity presented itself. Unlike the other child races,
they were versatile in the extreme, and this versatility was
partly the result of a strange mixture of several emotions and
motivations which were the core of the human psyche. As a xeno-
biologist of a later millennium would describe them, Humanity was
as its heart a combination of "fear, opportunism, and every-
being-for-himself high-adrenalin-savagery."

The Great War & The Technology Ceiling

Around the time that the Vandals were plundering Rome, another
Empire was also in disintegration. The Old Ones had hatched a
veritable multitude of races, yet, while they were undisputed
geniuses at the art of genetic uplifting, they were somewhat
lacking in the art of government. Several of their child races
had reached the same technology level which the Old Ones had
attained long ago. This was the technology ceiling, the point at
which progress stopped for all "backwater" communities (those
without a multitude of high energy stars such as those societies
which exist in the spiral arms and in the galactic core), and
this created a situation where all races were more or less equal.
The problem was that the child races had not been treated as
equals, but rather as a cross between underlings and slaves, and
not a year went past where they were not reminded of what their
situation would be had they not been so generously uplifted in
the first place.

Many of these races wanted to colonize new worlds, to expand
their civilizations, and essentially, to stretch out, however,
all the good worlds in the local area had already been taken by
the Old Ones themselves or were homeworld sanctuaries for races
which had been uplifted some time during the recent past but
which had not yet attained a technical civilization. The child
races wanted a bigger piece of the pie than they'd been handed,
and at the instigation of one of their number, a war was begun
which, within several years, had utterly wiped out the Old Ones,
leaving only the child races in their wake.

The Coalition

Though the Old Ones themselves had perished within the early
years of the war, the fighting continued for many decades
thereafter. Without a parental figure to bind them together, the
child races were free to fight each other in pursuit of their
separate agendas. Some of these races were utterly extinguished
during these years. Several others, seeing that the situation had
gotten totally out of control, decided to band together in an
attempt to stop the fighting. This resulted in the Interstellar
Coalition which exists today.

Policy toward Newcomers

Toward the end of the war, another uplifted race had attained FTL
for the first time. It had never been contacted by the other
races. In all the chaos of the preceding century, it had been
virtually ignored. Unfortunately, the exploration vessel which it
sent out was mistook by one species as an enemy warship, and open
hostilities resulted which soon culminated in the nuking of the
newcomer's homeworld. Before the race could be totally rubbed
out, however, several Coalition members stepped in to intervene.
The Newcomer was saved, but only just barely.

From that time forward, the policy toward newcomers (races,
uplifted or otherwise, which are just attaining FTL) has been as
follows:

   (1) If they seem capable of peaceful coexistence, then they
are offered membership in the Coalition. If they refuse, they are
prohibited from leaving the confines or their own star system,
but they are guaranteed that their own space won't be violated by
unwelcome trespassers. Alternately, they may request the
guardianship of a coalition member, which means that they are
subject to the laws of that member and are, hence, indirectly, a
member of the coalition, through the auspices of their guardian
who is responsible for their conduct.

   (2) If they don't seem capable of peaceful coexistence, then
they may be exterminated for the common good or turned over to
another race for obligatory guardianship. Generally, their star
system is incorporated into the territory of a nearby race, and
that race disposes of the newcomer as they see fit. Any child
race which mismanages its own world such that its civilization
begins collapsing into ruins before it attains FTL automatically
falls into this category.

Odds against Earth

By the middle of the 20th century the majority of the coalition
races regarded Earth as little more than a barbaric curiosity,
and a passing one at that, the only proto-newcomer known to have
tapped nuclear power before developing supersonic flight. Some
lamented the day that the Solians (the Earthers) should ever
achieve FTL. Nonetheless, the majority were comforted by the fact
that Earth was slowly destroying itself with carbon dioxide
emissions and that the Solian civilization would most likely
collapse from within before it ever made it off its homeworld.

Already, they began discussing who among them would inherit Sol.
As it happened, the solar system was situated along the border of
two different alien states, the Hafaru and the Ikkadju. The
former were a small, amphibious, grey-skinned race of vegetarian
bipeds (the Old Ones were bipedal also and had a preference for
uplifting bipeds, believing them more suited to technological
society). The Ikkadju, on the other hand, were large avian
carnivores which longed for garden worlds such as Earth, and
which had begun campaigning vigorously for the Coalition's
authorization to expand its borders to encompass the solar system
before Humanity should utterly ruin the planet. Not only did they
want Earth simply for the sake of having it, but even more
importantly, they already viewed Humanity as a potential threat
(no other species waged war with such unrelenting fervor as the
humans, and that alone was reason enough to fear them).

First Contact

First contact between a modern Earth government and an alien race
occurred in the late 1940s between the United States and the
Hafaru. The U.S. military got exceedingly lucky and shot down a
Hafaru reconnaissance vessel which had been damaged in foul
weather (struck by lightning). The Hafaru were attempting to
gather more precise data on the rate of technological progress on
Earth despite Coalition edicts warning all members to stay away
from the planet.

The event, the most important perhaps in all of human history,
was kept under wraps due to the cold war with the Soviets. When
actual political contact was finally established, secrecy was
continued at the request of the Hafaru. They promised to help the
Terran civilization get past its growing pains if Earth would
become a willing member of their domain at the successful
termination of its childhood. They warned the U.S. government
that the Ikkadju were attempting to claim the Earth as their own,
and that Humanity would probably not survive incorporation with
them, so that it would be in Humanity's own best interest to
become an Hafaru protectorate. Secrecy of the deal was
maintained, although the NATO allies were individually brought
up-to-date over the course of the next several years. After the
initial shock, some of them questioned the wisdom of the deal,
but none of them were ready to stand against the others.

Into the 21st Century

Despite heavy doses of secret technical aid during the late 20th
and early 21st centuries, Earth's ecosystem began teetering,
clearly on the edge of a major collapse. The dire situation was
mainly a result of the rising world population, which the NATO
allies couldn't control, though they were informed that they
either had to or face a very bitter ruin. Meanwhile, the Ikkadju
grew suspicious that some sort of funny business was going on.
Humanity's technological level had risen much faster than
expected. In the space of only a few decades, the Earthers had
harnessed both fusion and gravity, two key steps before the
attainment of FTL. This had also provided some breathing space,
ecologically speaking, but with the population continuing to
skyrocket, even this wasn't enough.

Tension mounted on Earth, however, as the NATO alliance and
Russia (which had by then also become a trusted ally) started
dictating population levels and various global ecological reforms
to the developing nations. A sort of anti-imperialism fervor
resulted in the third world, causing outbreaks of fighting
(called civil wars by commentators, though they were really
attempts by the local strongmen to push away rising 1st world
influence and reinstate their own power-base). This would have
been a manageable situation if China wasn't also one of these
"developing" nations (despite the 1st world status of its major
cities). The Chinese were pumping out more CO2 than the rest of
the third world combined, and all attempts to regulate them were
being met by stiff resistance backed by the threat of war.

Childhood's End

Suddenly, NATO made public the discovery and implementation of
FTL. Over the course of ten years, a small fleet of ships had
been secretly constructed. The interstellar community was
shocked. No other race had ever climbed the technical ladder so
swiftly, and before the Coalition could react, news was received
that the Solians had made contact with the Hafaru, and that they
were already discussing the possibility of Earth becoming a
protectorate.

The Ikkadju were certain, at this point, that they were being
taken to the cleaners, however, they had no way to prove it. They
cited the current eco-wars on Earth as well as the balkanized
nature of the planet as evidence that the Earthers were not ready
to enter the coalition. During a period of ten years, there
ensued a political controversy among the coalition members over
what to do about Earth. During that time, however, Earth kept
soaking up Hafaru technology like a sponge, and NATO put that
technology to use by building the biggest war fleet they could
afford. The Ikkadju, realizing that their worst fears were
swiftly becoming a reality, seized a Solian patrol vessel in
order to prove their hypothesis that somebody had been giving
Earth lots of help. The technology they recovered had clearly
been copied. The designs of key systems were among those already
in use for thousands of years by other races. At this point, the
coalition as a whole realized that the Hafaru must have secretly
been providing technical assistance for quite some time.

The Ikkadju-Solian War

The breaking-point came toward the end of the 21st Century. The
Coalition was waffling over what to do about Earth. They couldn't
undo the "damage" the Hafaru had done, nor could they reward the
Hafaru by honoring Sol's request to become an Hafaru
protectorate. Despite the fact that Humanity had not made it to
space on its own (and that it certainly would never have if not
for Hafaru involvement), and despite the fact that Earth was
still building modern warships at a disgusting rate, the High
Council seemed to be on the verge of offering Humanity full
membership into the Coalition.

The Ikkadju decided to take the situation into their own hands
before that could happen. They provoked several Solian patrol
ships into a small skirmish and then used the incident as a
pretense for waging a full scale assault against Earth itself.
Fortunately for Earth, while the Ikkadju had marginally superior
technology at their disposal, they did not have the "warrior-
spirit" which is inherent to the human psyche, and many of their
ships fled the solar system when they realized that victory would
not come as easily as they had originally hoped. Despite this,
the attack devastated large portions of Earth, killing billions
of people and rendering nearly a billion more homeless.

The Coalition was shocked and outraged by the incident, and there
ensued a storm of protests. Nothing like this had ever happened
since the Great War, and while many of the Coalition members were
calling for retaliation against the Ikkadju, others were openly
relieved that somebody had squashed the barbaric Solians who
should never have been allowed to get as far as they had in the
first place.

The Aftermath

The player characters are probably military personnel who were
either involved in the Battle of Earth or were out on scouting
missions and border defense when it happened. They will be
alternately feared, hated, pitied, and ignored by the aliens they
encounter.

One neat part of the game is that (at the GM's discretion) the
players get to live through this period of history and revisit
Earth after it has been reduced to only a fraction of its former
population. Some of what were once major cities will now be
charred ruins. Large segments of the society will be homeless,
destitute, starving, and maimed. There will be decisions that
need to made regarding how to hide or protect the remaining
population from any future attacks. Civilization on Earth will
quickly degenerate if the players do nothing.

Meanwhile, while the coalition continues discussing what to do
with the planet and its remaining population, the Ikkadju may
decide to come back and finish the work they started.

jimv@empirenet.com

