Looking back, it doesn't seem all that long ago that I first started writing my Galaxii scifi series. As it turns out, that was back in 1991 - my final year of high school - when I first started writing the backstory of Galaxii. It was futuristic, it was distantly post-apocalyptic, that is, it was set about a century after a devastating war... World War 3... The Big Nuke.The year of that war? 2020.
The cause of WW3? The American president at the time, I postulated, tongue in cheek - ever the satirist - had sparked off an international nuclear frag-fest by accidentally nuking the wrong small Middle Eastern country.
The strikes and counter-strikes from targeted countries and their allies, and those joining in just to advance their gains in the aftermath - or just as a final act of vengeance - laid waste to the civilizations on the planet Earth... The survivors looked on at the devastation in disbelief...
Below, another extract from "The Galaxii Guide to the Terran Empire", a handwritten reference I compiled in 1994:
Remember, this was all in the midst of a positive atmosphere back in 1991 - when the Soviet Union collapsed, when the Berlin Wall came down and East and West Germany reunited, and when positive change in South Africa too seemed a coming reality... Even the brief anti-climactic first Iraq War did little to dim optimism for the future - and yet my story required a cataclysm in the not too distant future - one which the characters in Galaxii ("Blachart") could look back on as a dark time in Human history which heralded a brighter future. Only thing was, it was an extraordinarily dark time!
To frame it still further, at the time I first started work on Galaxii, home PC's that could be useful in a writer's life - and mobile phones were still firmly sci-fi notions! As time went by, I edited later updated versions of the Galaxii tale to omit specific references to the exact year of the cataclysm - since we were rushing inevitably closer and closer to 2020 (which is why you won't see the date in current versions of the books! It was easier to just refer to "some point early in the 21st century", which could cover any time from 2000 to 2050!
Imagine my amusement... no, strike that - my horrified fascination on the three days ago - on the third day of 2020, when reality seemed to mimic fiction!
The American president - without first obtaining approval of Congress as mandated by the Constitution - launched an illegal strike to assassinate a foreign person, an Iranian general, on Iraqi soil. Somehow firing missiles openly at other countries leaders on foreign soil half a world away doesn't constitute a declaration of war to some people - even though history tells us it took far less than that to start WW1, a war sparked by a single bullet fired in another assassination that led to around 20 million deaths in a war that lasted 4 years! Regardless of whether or not the Iranian general got what was coming to him, the fact is, America has been deliberately thrust into a very dangerous position by a man who is not only selfish, narcissistic and unwitting, but also completely oblivious to the realities and responsibilities - or limitations of his office.
When I first wrote that WW3 should start at the time and in the place it did in my backstory to the Galaxii Series, it was pure fantasy and seemingly random chance... It was all fantasy and fiction and adventure! I had no idea that some inept and malicious narcissistic orange oompa-loompa would somehow become president of the USA and be handed the "nukular football" to take the world to the brink of making it all a terrible, gruesome reality!
Ironic, isn't it?
Of course, while I hope I didn't predict total global disaster - and that the situation is ultimately averted, there was in Galaxii a brighter future in store for the Earth afterwards. Rebuilding a unified Earth - no more nation states, no more "foreigners" or "immigrants" illegal or otherwise... only neighbors, and zero tolerance for 'isms' and phobias or hatred, no more war amongst ourselves... Moving out into the solar system... being joyful and glad to be alive. That is, if the survivors don't end up being bombed back to the Stone Age.
What would be really awkward would be if it all happened in August this year - not to mention inconvenient, since I still have a shit-ton of stories to write and publish!
While we wait to see how it all turns out, you might want to read the Galaxii Series. Or my other offerings - Quantum, and Panic! Horror In Space. You can find them in paperback and eBook formats at Amazon and most other online retailers - at least while we still have an internet. ;)
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