This just sort of randomly occurred to me, in re the very first UF story:

At the beginning of the story, there is still—barely—a Soviet Union. By the end of the story, and for reasons not in any way connected to the events OF the story, there is not.

I mention this because it just crossed my mind and I thought it was interesting, and also because it led to a train of thought about how coming of age in that very particular time—at what felt then like the end of a period of endemic global danger encompassing not only their lifetimes to date, but in many cases their parents' as well—will have shaped their view of and approach to the armed galactic do-gooder business.

Unfortunately I didn't get articulably far on that train of thought because it's 3 AM and I had it while trying to go to sleep, but still, I was struck by what a curious convergence of events that is, in hindsight—that the USSR happened to be falling exactly as the Core 1 endgame was playing out in Worcester.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

LAST EDITED ON Nov-12-17 AT 08:02 PM (EST)
 
The immediate post-Cold War Earth would have been interesting in UF. Between an American city being wiped off the map twice in the span of a year, the rise of GENOM, and the sudden revelation to world leaders of life beyond Earth, it would be like trying to explain how the Eugenics Wars happened in the 90s of the Star Trek universe and we totally missed them.

True, the period between the Core 1 and First Contact is "short" on a historical scale, but a lot of major events can get packed into a single year. Think of it like X-COM, only the aliens launched a couple of terror missions, then promptly vanished into the aether. Just the very existence of an otherworldly force capable of that level of destruction would radically alter everything from defense spending to cultural values.

>True, the period between the Core 1 and First Contact is "short" on a
>historical scale, but a lot of major events can get packed into a
>single year.

That is so, although—depending on whether you credit the chronology that has the Wedge Defense Force returning to Earth almost immediately in the spring of 1992, or the one that has them taking a couple of years to get geared up—there were either five or seven years between the Second Battle of Worcester and First Contact. Still not a terribly long time, and yet still plenty of time for Things to Happen, though, so your point remains.

There was almost certainly a lot of controversy and conspiracy theory flying around during that period, since it was a time in which the governments of the world actually were colluding to try and keep evidence of extraterrestrial contact from the public—or at least assumed they were; no one outside GENOM (which wasn't about to disclose anything) knew what the hell that business was really about, but logically, what else could it be?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>There was almost certainly a lot of controversy and conspiracy theory
>flying around during that period, since it was a time in which the
>governments of the world actually were colluding to try and
>keep evidence of extraterrestrial contact from the public—or at
>least assumed they were; no one outside GENOM (which wasn't about to
>disclose anything) knew what the hell that business was really about,
>but logically, what else could it be?

If I recall correctly, and I REALLY don't want to have to go back to read it, because I know for a fact that it will be not at all good (no offense, Ben) and I'd like to preserve the memories of the fifteen-year-old me who thought it was fuckin' rad, the WDF actually negotiated directly with the US government regarding the repatriation of those members of it who got to see the Great Dark Beyond up close and personal, decided it wasn't for them, and got off the ship when it came back to Earth.

Presumably those people were debriefed in some way by some burly gentlemen from the various organs of the national security state, but probably in a very gentle fashion, given that the implicit threat of the enormous space dreadnought returning in a vexed mood if any of its former crew got a little of the 'ol black site treatment hanging over the affair.

-Merc
Keep Rat

I actually think that the WDF asked to be able to do so, and were rejected. I recall a scene of returning people who didn't want to buy the full ticket using a Shadow Legios sometime during Core 2.

>the implicit threat of
>the enormous space dreadnought returning in a vexed mood if any of its
>former crew got a little of the 'ol black site treatment

Here at the Wedge Defense Force, we do indeed have a very strict policy against any of our people being rendered into green alien zombie juice.

--G.
yes, I know that's not what you meant
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.