They pushed too far.
The year is 2076 and the people ready themselves to celebrate, they’ve finally cracked the equations and found a way to manipulate reality directly. They created a device believed able to directly alter the very fabric of existence on a level far beyond the subatomic. This was believed the foundation for breakthroughs in so many fields it simply boggles the mind. This one technology would revolutionize the world.
At first all went well, they used this technology for little things, like making food from base atoms. Manipulating gravity wells for flight and the beginnings of space exploration. Revolutionary medical techniques, and yes even long distance instantaneous teleportation.
Sadly as with all great advances someone thought to put it to a military application. In secret a group was brought together and set on a project to create the ultimate weapon. A device specifically designed to disrupt all forces, maters and energies in its effective blast radius. A weapon that wipes clean a section of reality itself, leaving nothing, not even the base components of atoms in its wake.
They tested this reality bomb and it was deemed a complete and total success, it wasn’t until later that it all started falling apart. The first people who entered the test site spoke of strange side effects. Their view would constantly jump from place to place as if the world were bending around them, small rips would form floating in the air sparking like static. Objects set aside might not be there even minutes later when they would go back for them..
When the side effects were discovered word came down from those on high that the project would be mothballed until whatever lingering distortions in the target area faded away. It was promptly swept aside and forgotten in the bureaucracy.
Several years after the blast those sparking fissures have grown larger, and some have even started connecting together. Most are still only the size of your fist, but a few are big enough for something to pass through and pass through something did.
For several months now there have been reports from various places of small communities being discovered after some indescribable horror seemed to pass through. Buildings were smashed open and every living creature in the near area was slaughtered. There were never any survivors.
Eventually all great secrets must come to an end and all around the world the people were shocked when news footage was sent out live during one particularly bold attack on a small city, massive insectile creatures were seen swarming over everything, butchering whoever they came across. Suffice it to say, the signal was soon lost.
The public outcry was massive and military from around the world were sent in to fight off this ‘alien invasion’ as the press had labelled it. This had been a world where wars were fought through technology, they just weren’t prepared to fight an enemy like this and took heavy losses in their first few encounters with the invaders. However eventually they adapted and began winning more and more battles, however the bug war had no end in sight. It dragged on for nearly two years because as many as they killed, more seemed to just keep coming from what was dubbed the master hive.
Through joint military cooperation the bugs that had spread across the continent were killed off allowing them to focus their forces on the main target. They pushed hard and killed their way right to the source. They had achieved victory or so they thought. When the portals were spotted crews were quickly put together and sent through to scout out the other side while the rest of the military dug in and formed a perimeter.
It was lucky they did because almost immediately they received word from their men on the other side telling of a massive force waiting to attack. It was not even a week after what was to be the final victory that a new force was sent through. The military guarding the unstable zone were bloodied and almost completely wiped out before the call came in to pull back. A strategic nuclear strike had been called.
The missile came, it went through one of the biggest gates and it detonated on the other side wiping out the enemy. The world celebrated victory.
Science teams were sent in to find a way to close the gates and it was determined that the gates would just keep getting bigger, further study required. Time was running out, spy drones sent through the gate had returned with horrible news, the bugs were already regrouping and would likely attack once more within the year.
There are few things that can truly unite a nation better than a common enemy and as has happened many times before a common enemy has united the peoples but on a far grander scale. It has been 79 years since the bugs first started showing up and the world has been united under a common cause, survival. A unified world army stands guard on the gate zone ready to beat back the almost daily attacks. Most of the rifts have now merged, while there are still a few small rifts our main issue are the three main rifts. The first and biggest is nearly 200 feet across and dwarfs the other two who combined are only half that. At least construction on the wall is almost complete.
The wall, say it like that and it sounds so simple and small.
Hardly.
The wall has been under construction for nearly 60 years, when complete it will completely enclose the gate zone (an area of approximately four square miles) and stand more than 40 stories high. It extends back from the heavily reinforced and armoured front wall a quarter kilometre thick and houses all the weaponry and military personal that fight on the wall.
There are no doors on ground level, the only access to the inside of the ring are high level lifts kept far above the reach of the bugs. Evenly spaced along the internal perimeter thousands of blast doors protect weapon stations for various heavy ordinance.
Surrounding this massive ring a city has built up to support the almost two million soldiers stationed on gate guard. The entire worlds economy has become dedicated to supporting the never ending war and resources are starting to run low.
120 years after first invasion. The Great wall is successfully keeping the bug invasion contained and the techies have been working on the gate problem. They haven’t yet found a way to close the rift but they’ve managed to slow its growth. Now theirs some good news, what was once three main rifts and several tiny ones is now one massive rift nearly 600 feet across.
A massive structure has been constructed above the main gate supported by a lattice of struts arcing from one side of the ring to the other and the miners have under dug the affected area and constructed what amounts to a giant lens. For the last several months they’ve been sending blasts of some kind down from the tower and bouncing it around inside the bowl. As far as I can tell all its really good for is vaporizing the piled up bug corpses but they say its also stabilizing the gate and keeping it from getting bigger.
Fighting a world war is draining on the economy if it lasts even a couple years, this war has been going on for nearly 12 decades. We would have lost long ago simply from having used up all our resources but those science guys came through for us once more.
While they haven’t yet found a way to close the main rifts, about 14 years ago they found a way to open smaller ones that they could control, to different realities. Someone got the bright idea of sending diplomatic envoys through to habituated worlds for trade agreements and straight out harvesting crews to uninhabited worlds just to strip them of resources.
This is where our story begins.
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(Posted Tue, 13 Sep 2005 03:45)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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