OORP the new version not being DB compatible required a restart from scratch with gameplay inspiring the following story, which since it again involves the new raider spoiler I am posting in this thread in the spoiler forum. I set raider known systems to 1 to create the same effect as the previous version bug i.e. an early raid on Earth. So here is a new fiction, just for fun.
A history of the hitherto unreported fate of the gangster empire and its transformation in a spacetime happening of mind blowing proportions.Deep in the bowels of a secret drugs laboratory, a gangster scientist known only as "X", exploring the boundaries of spacetime for recreational purposes using transnewtonian physics and the drugs cocktail known as "Sleuth", potent peccadillo of gangster strategists which sharpens the intellect to an astonishing degree, stumbled on a mind potentising cocktail of technology involving an illegal psycho-physical neural interface and a synthetic transnewtonian crystal lattice, stolen from a rival oligarch's lab, which enabled transmissions carrying the perceptions and productions of their consciousness to travel in time and connect with the processing cores of quantum computers from an earlier age.
In one such exploration an opportunity arose to converse with a scientist from 2023 and X, the gangster scientist, feeling free of moral or ethical constraint due to the influence of Sleuth seized it, sharing information which only someone from the future could know to prove their stated identity was reality and not a hoax. Of course the conversation turned to lotto numbers, share prices, bitcoin market patterns but money aside it involved details in the news and the political ramifications which would corrupt the affairs of humanity turning them from chaotic demagocracy into worldwide cleptocracy.
To the receiving scientist, who cannot be named and will be referred to only as "W", the discussion proceeded over many months through 2023, even though for X it was a single Sleuth session of several hours, pursuing W relentlessly along the river of time from a vantage point in a later era. X proposed a collaboration with W, to gain and stash wealth for their mutual benefit, in return for a cut. W agreed, however, once armed with the necessary details and convinced of their validity, W was not content to allow the vision of the future they had received to unfold and chose to challenge and change it.
X realised their mistake on removing their VR goggles, the world outside the vicinity of the jury rigged crystal, balanced precariously atop a pile of expensive looking lab equipment, had become a dark grey mist, X was sufficiently versed in theory to understand what had happened, the universe was dissolving into a quantum foam, becoming a future which didn't happen. Outside the protective field of the central quantum crystal which had made the foray into the past possible, timespace was collapsing. The crystal, constructed with atomic precision as a complex array of transnewtonian elements capable of tunneling through spacetime, was losing power as the source was cut off. The power station which had supplied it no longer existed, only the laboratory capacitor directly beneath the experiment and within the crystal's protective field remained as did X who sat close by. The information they had impregnated on the past having wrought their own destruction. In the few seconds which remained X saw with the clarity Sleuth allowed, that their incautious greed had caused their own destruction, before existence blinked out and X was gone.
Since 2023, scientist W had been busy, accruing vast wealth from a series of lucky lotto wins and stunning financial gambles they had set about changing the world and succeeded. They had financed worthy candidates against cleptocrats, influencing elections, beginning a global campaign to bring humanity back from the brink of the moral abyss. Several of the worlds best PR agencies were enticed away from problematic agencies to work long and hard on a transformative treatment for the ailments of human culture and their solution had gravitated to the styles and culture of an earlier era of optimism, the post war euphoria of the hippies.
Through their contrivance, bankrolled by a lot of money, they enhanced the natural rose tinted views of retro style and everything hippy became fashionable once again, psychedelia, love, peace, the emblem of the flower, ecology and a philosophical fascination with mystical rewards over materialist gratification. Guided with the information from the future, for the time it remained accurate, W was infallible and unstoppable. The criminal era was forestalled and humanity reinvented itself, in this timeline adopting an ashram culture lead by W's powerful PR machine.
It was a hippy Earth which met the visitors from beyond.
W had gleaned a little about the alien threat from X before transmissions ceased. W knew what the aliens would do and tried to encourage those who stood behind the new hippy culture to develope defences against the unknown but even with the knowledge of transnewtonian elements gained from X and extracted from the sub-quantum information fields which remained entangled in the quantum computer through which X had contacted W, the resistance of Earth was insufficient. In X's timeline there had been no defences at all. In W's there were going to be orbital platforms and missiles, W would see to it.
The new arrivals, as the press called them, had been watched on scanners approaching. W made sure it was broadcast to the world, wanting them to see the truth about these new arrivals as a salutory lesson. Many took to the streets and stone circles making signs of love to the sky. The Arecibo message was rebroadcast, carved into crops and chalk landscapes across the world. All the hopes and dreams of beautiful star creatures from the loving hippy population of Earth met the alien ship as it closed on Earth and...
...opened fire, as it always had, as it always would, this time destroying one of the "Lennon Karma" defence platforms, so named in a public acknowledgement of the dangers of violence even in a hippy world and a careful preparation for this moment. All the more reason to choose love, W's well remunerated PR agencies had reasoned and love must be defended.
The New Order of the Velvet Glove, as the armed forces of Earth had been rebranded, replied in kind. Their missiles "Spear of Truth One" hit but failed to prevent the invader from destroying the platforms and just as they had done in the previous timeline, blowing up the diplomatic station "Cosmic Liberty" in a show of contempt for hopes of peace. However the Earth's weak resistance changed the raider's strategy and the unforeseen tragedy of "Little Flower" unfolded.
In the aftermath the slightly damaged single raider ship departed and Earth desperately tried to recover the lifepods which had ejected from the destroyed orbital fleet. There were no interplanetary engines available, there had not been time to develope them, even though W knew they were possible from discussions with X.
A space-going equivalent of the WWII 'Air-Sea Rescue Float' was hastily developed and launched, christened the "Little Flower" it did its duty in rescuing and returning the few survivors to Earth. However the raiders now sought to dominate the people of Earth and sent a large fleet to crush their hopes and salvage the wrecks of the orbital fleet. Little Flower was destroyed on sight and somehow, noone knows exactly how, the lifepods of the valiant crew, including the commander Jill Zieman, were ejected from Earth's orbit.
When the raider fleet left briefly and while interplanetary engines were still being developed, a second Little Flower rescue pod was launched and attempted to reach Zieman's pod on thrusters alone. Unfortunately the first raider scout chose this moment to return and picking the second rescue pod up on sensors immediately closed to destroy it, leaving no survivors. Agonisingly the Earth looked on, powerless to help, as Jill Zieman's life support gave out.
It was only a few weeks later that the design for a powered rescue pod was finalised, 'the organisation' as developed by W to ensure the positivity of humanity in defiance of good taste and common sense, had arranged to give it an even more upbeat name but "Little Flower Groovey Baby" was too late for Jill. Her tragic tale had become an object lesson for the hip people of Earth who now understood the fight was on for their survival and behind the scenes for their very soul.
For years the alien fleet scavenged the solar system, taking all the wrecks and looming over the Earth like a harbinger of doom. The hippies who believed in their existential struggle for liberty and love, were not cowed and with peaceful meditations, drew up their plans for war. Then as swiftly as they had arrived the raiders left and the hippy planet set about winning the next round, which X while extant had assured W was coming.