one day, when the world is rapt to attention...

August 2082 (mini-update)

One day, when the world is rapt to attention, Madison Riley delivers a public address. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you all for joining me today. Earlier this morning, world leaders made public the presence of a possible threat to our planet. We've known about this situation for some time now, and we've been monitoring it closely. I'd like to talk to you about how this will affect us on a local level."

Well, Madison has almost everyone's attention this morning. Clarice is supposed to be blogging the live news coverage, but instead she sees Blake in the back row and flashes him a flirty smile. She doesn't normally get to see her husband while they're working, so right now, she feels a little bit like a giddy teenager, passing by her high school sweetheart in the hallways.

Pay attention, Clarice, this is going to be important.

"There is nothing for us to do here but remain calm. It's kind of like playing Scrabble," she says.

Scrabble, good point. Clarice writes this down.

"You could have a really great word to play," Madison continues. "You could have a game-breaking play, but it's not your turn, and you just have to wait for the other person to put down their word first. Because it could make or break your word completely. Maybe you can't even put down your word anymore. And maybe their word was some tiny little three-letter word a child could have put down, and they put it down in the spot you wanted! Then you have to brainstorm all over from the start. That's why we need to remain calm, and just see what their word is."

Madison puts on her serious face and chooses her words very carefully - they don't want to call these beings "invaders" yet. So they're simply calling them "the presence."

"The presence does not appear to be hostile at the moment," she says. "But their quantity gives us cause for alarm. Each state will be sending troops into space for defense, and we hope, eventual communication. We are calling for volunteers and we would like to avoid a draft at all costs."

Blake decides to move up to the front row, you know, so he can pay better attention.

Clarice whispers to him, "I was thinking maybe Chinese and a movie tonight."


He whispers back, "Yeah, and maybe a bath after the kids are in bed."


They air kiss to each other. She giggles.

And they're not the only ones discussing personal affairs, like Amelia's parents discussing her ex-boyfriend. Andy says, "He was a nice guy, maybe we were too hard on him. Do you think we discouraged her? Do you think she'll never marry now?"


Claire says, "I'll be perfectly proud of her if she never marries. She's a strong, beautiful, independent woman. She doesn't need a husband to consider herself valid."


"Of course," Andy says. "But what about grandbabies?"

Madison overhears her brother say "grandbaby" and it brings a smile to her face. She has her first grandbaby due any day now!


She says, "Okay, let's take some questions."

Cabe Deppiesse, being a military man, wants to talk about the troops that will need to be allocated. He says, "We have ranks of soldiers, commanders, and a flight crew, but we'll need more. Each state will have a quota to fill."


Bryson objects, "How many new people? Surely the draft wouldn't include women, right?" He can't bear the thought of his baby girls being drafted off to war. That, or his two very eligible and out of college sons-in-law!


Blake is horrified. He's very glad his little boy is only five.


Cabe says, "Well, there hasn't been a military draft in over a hundred years. As it stands right now, women are not included in the selective service. We encourage all able-bodied people to volunteer though, men and women alike."

Cabe continues, "And I think it's important we note here the alien race we're concerned about is one of many alien races we've discovered. We're not meaning to imply they're all dangerous. We're not even sure that this one is dangerous. We're just being preemptive."


Of course, Cabe is thinking about his brother. He told Orion this morning that the information would go public, just like he promised. And he told them just to sit tight for a while. He can't really predict how people will react. Maybe they won't know for some time still.

"Thank you, everyone, for being here today," Madison says. "I have every reason to believe this will be resolved in a safe and timely manner."

*****

notes: Blake and Clarice would not stop staring at each other, lol! Remember when we were talking about "light up the room" factor? They definitely have it! :)

And sorry about the long front page scroll - my excerpt isn't working for me on this one for some reason.

notes on an extraterrestrial war:


So it was revealed in Cabe Deppiesse's update a little about the war ROS. I've decided to plan an extraterrestrial war, because as a writer, I don't think I'm brave enough to write a realistic human war, and have that touch so close to home for so many people. Although I think we'll find that war touches close to home in what it means, and how the families deal with it at home, whether they're fighting a race of aliens, or another country here on Earth.


I'm not sure how much of the actual conflict I will write - I might instead choose to tell the story through the families left behind, and maybe some news coverage or announcements from government officials. I am intrigued by the complete disillusion a family member must feel to send a loved one off to fight, to such an unconcievably foreign place, to be so detached from it all where they can only hope they come back safely. This, I'm sure, stands true for many wars we've seen in real history.


That said, I might try to write a tiny bit from the military's perspective as well. Hubby thinks I should watch Battlestar Gallactica for research, so I might just do that ;)


I don't plan on this story turning sci-fi, really, or at least no more than it already is having an alien family living here. And I don't want it to become too involved either (let me remind myself here that I have a real novel I should be working on...). I also don't want it to get too heavy - though it will just by its very nature. But anyway, the largest portion of these Lakeside Heights stories will remain the same, though I can tell you almost all of my families will be affected in one way or another.


You could speculate on how much aliens are actually sci-fi - or maybe I've been listening to too many of my hubby's conspiracy theories ;) Many people believe that we are not alone in the universe, and some people even believe that there are aliens living among us already in secret, like Orion's family. Some people also believe that the world is readying us to announce that they have made contact with alien life. It's only a matter of time, I'm sure, once we meet that alien life, that we would end up fighting with it. As humans, we tend to be that way inclined.


So we'll consider this a realistic story still, set in the not-too-distant future (the year is 2082, after all). Life will go on, as life tends to do, there will still be all the drama and shenanigans, but there will be this war going on in the background.


sci-fi, politics, history, and geography:


And maybe we should hammer out exactly what we know, as far as the technical details go, and you can ask questions if you need to. I can't promise I'll know the answers to them all yet, but I'll try. I'm making this up as I go, people ;)


The military knows we are not alone in the universe. I imagine the first contact was made in the year 2012 (everybody likes to use that year), but the military kept it mostly quiet for a long time. I do believe the people of Earth know it now as well, and have for some time. You'll notice that Sims know no discrimination of race or skin-color. I think it would take something as monumental as finding extraterrestrial life to genuinely unite us as "human beings of Earth." And while we would be united as humans, we also tend not to tolerate things that are "different" and they would turn their prejudices towards these alien races instead. They have found several races of extraterrestrial life, most of it non-aggressive, but they believe this one race to be different (lol, maybe I should give them a name? any suggestions?). But the people of Earth have never come face-to-face with any of them before (that they know of).


It has been mentioned that the world has experienced a long span of peace time. Some of the residents of Lakeside Heights will be going off to war, along with many other military and recruits from all around the planet. In this future I imagine, the countries of the world have united and instead of dividing themselves into countries, have instead partitioned themselves into states for management.


Madison is the governor of a "state" (I haven't actually ever named it before). Lake City is the capital city of this state, and Lakeside Heights and Bluewater Township are its suburubs. This state, I have mentioned, is on the shores of Lake Michigan. I imagine they would be bigger than the US states are now currently, this one in particular maybe encompassing all of the Great Lakes area.


That's what I've hammered out so far, and I'm sure there are things I didn't think about.


So, I will now take questions from the public, lol ;)