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GUARDTECH WORDPRO
DOCUMENT E14-31-08-2145 (CAPSULE)
MARS COPY
31/08/2145
If you’re reading this, Earth has either been evacuated, our species destroyed, or we have been reaped by our creators.
This all started a few months ago on the night of April 6th, 2145. That was the day the losgach came. We didn’t know who they were. They came in spaceships the size of skyscrapers, in droves of combat vessels and scout ships. They first appeared over Russian airspace. Only four scout vessels were spotted, all of which were taken down by fighter pilots from the Siberian Airbase. On April 7th, the Western World fell into chaos, demanding to know what the Russians had uncovered the night before. It didn’t take long for us to figure it out for ourselves. Our creators aren’t blind: they knew their scout vessels had been shot out of the sky. They sent more.
Reports are muddled. Only Guardian, the world government, knows what order the losgach came in. When I turned on the eleven o’clock news, my husband and I saw spaceships over New York, Rome, and Orlando. After every commercial break, there would be more sightings. Viewer footage, salvaged security footage... I say ‘salvaged’, because by the time reports flooded in, the cameras had been destroyed. Everything showed hulking ships over darkened cities. I’m unsure which was worse: watching people scramble for cover, or seeing empty streets and the scattered, hollow skeletons of the city that once was.
At the end of the broadcast, they checked in on the Moon and Mars colonies. They hadn’t been hit yet. We caught the front end of the local news, where it was reported that unidentified objects were spotted in Toronto airspace, before the electricity went out. The solar generators revved up and, by the time the TV came back on, Toronto had been overtaken by a swarm of black ships slashed with gold.
On April 8th, Guardian finally made an announcement. I’ve included video of Matriarch Ursula Wright giving the declaration, but in case it doesn’t show, their essential message was this: Information taken from the invaders’s downed vessels tell us that we, humans, are a genetic experiment to them. Seeds sown in the Earth, bred to be slaves. Born and evolved to serve our galactic superiors.
If society wasn’t in a total panic before, it was now. The riots had started the night New York was reduced to a pile of rubble and dust, but they went into full swing after the Guardian announcement. I can’t say I blame the looters. If life as we know it is about to end, why not have fun while ‘freedom’ is still yours? (And I use the term ‘freedom’ loosely, because Guardian Rule hardly leaves us free – more on that in the databank in the Emergency Recovery Capsule.)
The US would have collapsed if it hadn’t have been for Africa and Russia setting the example. Civilians went to the military, eager to win this war or die fighting. Anything but be taken as slaves. Sure, our technology advanced far enough to give the losgach a fight. But our creators were hellbent on harvesting us, anyway. By mid-April, millions across the world had died. But millions of survivors had taken up arms against the invaders.
The night before April 15th, hope waned. Our weapons were dealing damage against the losgach, but not enough to suggest victory. In the time it took us to down one major vessel of theirs, the invaders laid waste to an entire city. News of Vancouver and Moscow falling into the same desolation as Calgary, London, Washington, and Dublin had the day before ripped our determination to shreds. Hope came on the sunrise of April 15th, a day that’s since been dubbed Enlightenment.
Guardian released new weaponry to the military. Gunships and rifles, forcefield-backed armour and laser bullets – the kind of stuff we were already close to developing, but didn’t have the right schematics for. That is, until the losgach essentially handed the blueprints to us. Dossiers of alien races were pieced together from what data could be extracted and translated from losgach private terminals. Spaces on our maps of the Milky Way that had been left uncharted for years were now being filled in. Day and night, Guardian had worked to give us this advantage. The war against our creators was no longer one-sided. On the morning of the 16th, we fought.
There isn’t much to say after that day. People died. They died in the thousands, then the millions. The world crumbled. The skies fell. Without proper defences, the colonies failed. At least, that’s what’s being said, however no communication doesn’t mean a failed colony; maybe their servers are down, or the connection was lost. If they’re alive, in any case, they won’t be for long. Not without new weaponry and defence systems.
A few weeks ago, on June 10th, the fighting stopped and Guardian announced a new project called Sentinel. They were to gather Earth’s ‘best and brightest’, stuff them in a spaceship, and launch them out beyond our solar system to meet with the losgach. According to Guardian, a military leader named Colonel Helena Rutherford met with one of the enemy’s leaders – a warlord whose name I can’t hope to spell properly. He called an end to the invasion in favour of parley on the losgach’s home planet.
It is August 31st. The Sentinel’s crew has been chosen, and this morning my sister and I watched the launch on the news. Guardian claimed that it was to dock at Revelation, a military station on the edge of our solar system, and then set course for the planet Taal. We’re still waiting for news.
I guess that’s where it ends, for now. My sister wanted me to add something in, but I’m still unsure if it belongs in this record. But seeing as it opens with an assumption that’s more like a guess, I suppose this report isn’t all that formal, anyway. After we watched Sentinel launch, she turned to me and said, “Connor, do you know why they sent the world’s top dogs?” I replied that I didn’t. My sister then gave me two of her theories.
“First, they might be evacuating the planet. But they want to keep things quiet so there’s no panic. That’s why they took the world’s best and shot them off. The smart ones who can restart the world are always the first to go in the movies, right? Maybe the next ship will be called ‘Eden.’”
I was intrigued, and knew she had something else to say. I asked her for her second idea.
“Either that, or it’s a trick,” she said. “The losgach fooled Guardian into thinking there was a truce. They’re still out there, Connor. Their ships are in our backyards with enough ammo to destroy us or take us by force. And we just got rid of our strongest fighters, leaving ourselves defenceless.”
I don’t know which I found scarier. I told her to quit thinking like that and have a little faith in Guardian. At times like these, what else can we do but trust them?
I’m not sure how to end this kind of thing. I mean, I’ve never written something like this before. I’m not even certain if the program will last until the day you open it – and if it does, whether or not it will translate properly. I guess I’ll sign off with the words of Aseem Patel, top General of Guardian Forces:
“We have long asked the questions: ‘Are we alone in the universe? Why are we here? How did we get here?’ Over the past few months, we have found our answer. And now, the universe watches us, waiting for our answer to their unspoken question. Our reponse will define us as a species. And I do not intend to respond with silence.”
END OF DOCUMENT E14-31-08-2145 (CAPSULE)
FILES ATTACHED:
[DATABANK]
[PHOTOS - 30 TOTAL]
[VIDEOS - 1 TOTAL]
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