Prologue

The Sira were oddly beautiful, graceful, and aloof humanoids, with smooth gray skin, large dark eyes, and straight, silken hair. They were, on average, slightly shorter than the average human, with delicate features and long limbs. Their existence, and immediately subsequent invasion, took humanity of Earth by complete surprise.

One October day two years previous, a massive fleet of spaceborne warships suddenly littered the sky, launching an instant assault on all major nation capitals and strategic locations of the world, then quickly shifting to secondary targets to continue their campaign of disruption. This was humanity’s first contact with the Siran Empire.

In the United States, the President and his cabinet, Vice President, Congress, and Joint Chiefs of Staff were all wiped out in the first onslaught, with surprisingly little collateral damage, leaving the country without any significant form of leadership at the national level. Major military bases and state governments swiftly followed. Similar stories occurred simultaneously in all large nations, and then eventually the lesser powers. Those leaders that survived dared not show their heads, as those who did were also quickly located and killed.

By the end of November, the Sira had installed its own centralized government, and divided the world into regional prefectures. Regions were administered by governors, who acted with the authority previously split among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, which they delegated as they saw fit; many chose to

leave the current systems of law and governance mostly intact with minor changes. Civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution were officially suspended, but generally still protected. The media was firmly restricted, and all news had to be approved by the newly formed regime. Voting for leaders and representatives could occur, but their oaths of office were to the Siran Empire, and the leaders appointed over them by the Empire.

It would seem like this sort of event would be completely civilization-destroying, but surprisingly, for the most part, most people’s lives continued on as though not much had changed. There weren’t wide-sweeping replacements of the laws, except in some odd cases. For example, law systems based upon religious beliefs were immediately replaced with a purely secular system, and laws based upon local moral standards were also annulled. Prostitution and gambling were now legal everywhere, though of course they would likely carry a social stigma for generations to come. There were also new social systems put in place, like true universal health care, significantly reduced education costs, and police/ military oversight and accountability that made a fair number of people claim that humanity was better off with the new regime.

There were also some profoundly unpopular policies, like forced “service selection”. If the government designated you for “service”, you would be collected and forcibly employed at the government’s discretion. This occurred on a somewhat regular basis, and there was no arguing with it, nor did there seem to be any sort of pattern as to who got selected. You might be selected for military duty (like being drafted), or sanitation duty on a far-away world, or (if your genes were particularly impressive to some unknown standard) “breeding duty” where you would be brought to another “breeder” of the complementing gender and expected to produce offspring. Refusal was not permitted, and would likely result in summary execution. This practice was fiercely protested and just as fiercely suppressed. Once one was selected from service, almost none of them were ever heard from again.

After 2 years, most of humanity had adjusted to the change in their lives, and for the most part were fairly content with it. There was obvious dissatisfaction with practices like service selection, and various levels of patriotism, jihad, and passive resistance regularly popped up, but in terms of governance, the Sira seemed quite competent, with extremely low tolerance for corruption or abuse of power, (or at least what they considered abuse of power), and generous rewards for good performance.

Life gradually settled into the new “normal”, and Earth became just another colony in the Siran Empire.

That brings us to today.

Chapter 1 »