A Brief History of Time
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1849 |
The first confirmed contact with an extraterrestrial race known as the Eriarti occurred in 1849 during a dispute between Navajo Indians and Mexican farmers in New Mexico; this incident was not revealed publicly until Colonel Johnny Chee, Marine commander aboard the Federation Starship USS Virgo (and a descendant of one of the Navajos involved) related this account to the NSA upon debriefing in 2001. Interviews with 21st century Navajo healers confirm most elements of Colonel Chee's story.
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1948 |
An Eriarti craft crash-landed near Roswell, New Mexico (not far from the site of the initial confirmed contact) in 1948. This craft was the subject of extensive public inquiry and speculation throughout the 20th century. The United States government took possession of this craft and stored it and the remains of its two Eriarti controllers in a secret base in Nevada known as Area 51. An intense program of reverse-engineering formed the nucleus of what would later become the Space Defense Force.
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1967 |
In 1967, a manned Soviet lunar expedition was intercepted
by the Eriarti in an incident suppressed by the KGB. It's widely believed
that the untimely death of Soviet rocket designer Sergei Korolev was
due to his overzealousness in investigating the loss of Salyut-Luna
and its crew, Colonel N. A. Popov and Major I. I. Tverdovsky.
The remains of Salyut-Luna and the Eriarti craft which intercepted it (along with the remains of Popov, Tverdovsky, and four Eriarti) were discovered on the Moon in 2011. The two cosmonauts left behind notes detailing their capture, how they overpowered their captors, and a very rudimentary translation of the Eriarti language into Russian. They also left a note, in Russian and English, warning Earth of the Eriarti plot. The 1967 incident, however, prompted the KGB to compare notes with the American CIA and NSA and draft Action Plan Alpha, a comprehensive strategy for coordination between the two superpowers in the event of alien attack. After the normalization of relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1979, China was also incorporated into Action Plan Alpha.
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2001 |
In 2001, the Federation Starship USS Virgo, using Quantum
Mirror technology captured from the Eriarti, was transported from
its own reality to the 21st century Earth in this reality. Unknown
to the crew of the USS Virgo, this Earth was one in which their lives
and adventures were the creation of an online role-playing group,
the Burgosian Innovations RPG, centered around the television program
Star Trek and its spinoffs. The American National Security Agency,
believing that the Virgo and its crew were related to the Eriarti,
attempted to detain the BIRPG players for questioning; only timely
intervention by the Virgo crew thwarted this plot.
The NSA research lab at Area 51 was able to obtain a small Federation craft, the USS Seth, and build a warp-capable replica, making the trip from Earth to Mars in a few hours. Unfortunately, this effort (and the use of Quantum Mirror technology by the Virgo) drew the attention of the Eriarti in Earth's solar system. An Eriarti craft was dispatched to Earth to investigate. Upon detection of the Eriarti craft by NORAD, Action Plan Alpha was initiated. Action Plan Alpha's fatal flaw lay in its secrecy: only the governments of the United States, Russian Federation, and People's Republic of China were aware of the true nature of the situation. Other countries took the force integration maneuvers to be hostile actions. A minor airspace transgression over Taiwan escalated into a shooting war that, before it ended, would spread worldwide and cost over five million lives. North Korea invaded South Korea; Iraq fired missiles at Israel and was attacked with a nuclear weapon in return. Baghdad was completely destroyed and Jerusalem largely ruined before the Virgo crew intervened, destroying the Eriarti vessel and convincing the three major powers to call off Action Plan Alpha. Under the guidance of the Virgo crew, the governments of the United States, Russia, and China (now unified with Taiwan) laid the foundation for a new cooperative venture: the Space Defense Force. The BIRPG players were trained by the Virgo crew in Federation technology and retained by the SDF as technical advisors.
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2011
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It is now 2011. Humanity has expanded its boundaries
dramatically thanks to the technological revolution wrought by the
BIRPG advisors, with bases on the Moon, Mars, and the moons of Jupiter
and Saturn. The Space Defense Force has as its mission the protection
of Earth's solar system. It is a large and desperate task, with many
hardships and only the slimmest possibility of success should the
Eriarti attack en masse. But the Space Defense Force remains ever
vigilant...
...Sentinels
against the darkness! |