Watch the Skies 4 - A perspective from the United Nations
I get off the plane in New York. The world is currently on the brink of a paradigm shift, the presence of Aliens in our skies has become broadly known among the people of Earth but little accepted. There is no sign of a global response to this or any common purpose between the human nations. I am Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, tasked with attempting to beat some order out of this chaos while my boss tries to broker global pacts and my companions try to soften the impact of the many crisis that are breaking out across the globe. I run the operations of the UN, including its agents and teams of specialists, all bound by the mandates of the council. I quickly make my way into the UN’s main chamber as the game begins.
I have little direction for the first few months. The Council needs time to hold session and discuss the first few world issues, so I’m free to wander. We’ve heard that there may be nuclear weapons in Zimbabwe, the first of many incidents that would need our attention to successfully resolve, so I charter a flight to the African continent. I book meeting with the various local powers and try to organise some sort of united effort to investigate what’s actually occurring in the country, particularly since we’ve heard rumours that the Chinese may be involved in financing the Zimbabwean state. I get a lot of agreements from the other nations, including the UK and the USA, to look into different parts of the situation with their agents and try to gather as much different information as possible. The UN sends in a team of weapon inspectors but finds nothing. In the end another 6 or 7 agents went into Zimbabwe, but they learned nothing. If the weapons were there, then their defences were considerable. I start gathering resources for another push but quickly hear that China has vetoed any further investigation into the situation on the Security Council. I’m forced to withdraw from African politics lest I risk upsetting a permanent member of the Security Council.
I start working on something a little less contentious. The UN has recently voted to fight global pollution. I travel the world, aiming to build up a picture of the problems the world faces. Japan grabs me – They need a considerable investment to put into anti-pollution efforts, something they claim they can do more efficiently due to their almost unique relationship with the whales. I take this as an opportunity to tour the five worldwide mega corporations, gathering donations for Japans anti-pollution efforts. The tour is successful, I shake hands with industry giants and return to Japan with $10 Million. I brief the media about the excellent work the corporations do for the environment and head back to the UN to see if there’s any new crisis that need resolving.
There is a recent crisis back in Africa. A mysterious virus, known as the Z Virus, has broken out in Burkina Faso. The UN has already gathered up the funding needed to cure it, which they aim to funnel through a certain aging rock star and his Live Aid concert into the areas that need it most. Something has happened however and contact has been lost with the celebrity and the $15 Million we donated to him. I gather the best of my agents and head off to see if anything can be recovered. He was last seen in the capital of Burkina Faso, but our agents arrive to find the place in chaos. The virus has proved highly contagious, already spreading to nearby African states. My men have been equipped with the best anti-viral gear $1 Million could buy and take their investigations to the streets. The sick clog the roads, what remain of the healthy trying to restore order. One of our agents finds the bank where our donation ended up, but can find no legal way to reclaim it. I authorise a more aggressive interpretation of the law, highlighting the health crisis the country is in and the need to quickly support efforts to resolve it. We manage to reclaim $13 Million. Another agent finds our celebrity friend, or what remains of his shambling corpse. I rush to pull my agents out of the region before the virus goes through a hideous mutation and the sick and dead rise as a monstrous horde. The virus has already spread across West Africa, with similar mutations occurring wherever it spreads. What started as a simple medical emergency has turned into an outbreak of the living dead.
The South Africans have a vaccine. They spread of the virus can be halted, but the hordes that follow it need a more direct approach. The Egyptians respond quickly, rolling out their military to cut the horde down before they consume the entire north of Africa. They manage to maintain a defensive line around Chad, but the other African states can do little to help. Nigeria and Algeria are doing what they can to maintain their own borders and the southern states aren’t willing to invest resources into the fight until it threatens their own borders. I take the news to UN to beg for outside assistance.
The UN votes unanimously to head up a coalition to fight the horde under South Africa. Countries from around the world promise to help in the fight, but no actual soldiers arrive. I spend the days flying around local governments and richer neighbours to try to force some action but diplomatic promises carry little weight and the crisis worsens. What does force a reaction is the virus appearing outside the continent, something that causes the wealthier nations of the world to immediately put Africa under quarantine. I can no longer return directly to the battlefront to attempt to organise a common response. I make a call to the South Africans to wish them good luck.
The core issue is that Africa doesn’t have the military strength to win a ground war against the horde. They don’t have the funding or the prexisting forces needed – So I’m forced to explore alternate solutions. I charter a flight to Antarctica. There’s a bizarre structure there that has recently appeared, some sort of mine running technology far in advance of anything we’ve seen on earth. I arrive with a small team of my closest staff, including the UN’s main alien translator. We manage to meet our first extra-terrestrial face to face, only to find another collection of humans already there. These humans… were ordinary. Bland, completely without anything of interest, apart from the strange place I found them and the company they kept. I broker a visit to the alien forces above, only to hear news of a vessel launched from deep within the world’s oceans towards orbit. This vessel is shot down by the Americans which causes great anguish to the ordinary humans I’ve found myself sharing a room with. They leave to solve their own mysterious crisis and the alien takes me up to space without them.
In space I try and do two things. The first is to organise a visit from the Aliens to the United Nations. This is successful and they later appear in the main council chambers to create some sort of relationship with the entirety of human kind. My second objective is to try and organise a series of orbital strikes on the parts of Africa worst afflicted by the Zombie Virus, an action I hope burns out the majority of the hordes that threaten the surviving African nations. Our negotiation is halted by a massive psionic signature that the Aliens detect coming off the coast of Japan. I watch aghast on the Aliens view screens as an unholy ritual seems to play out on earth. The Aliens reaction proves to me that they’re not the cause of it and I try and convince them to quickly glass the ritual site from Orbit, but they’re unwilling to commit to a swift response and the ritual reaches its conclusions. A great and terrifying creature emerges from the Pacific Ocean, a being of madness made flesh. I ask the Aliens to take me back down to the surface and they promise to transport me on the next trip down. I’m left alone for around five minutes while the aliens discuss things between themselves and take the opportunity to grab as much alien tech from their moon base as possible. When I return to the Earth I sell as much of it as I can to our corporations, building up the funding needed to start operating with some independence from the Security Council. I make my way back to the main chamber to discover a horrifying secret.
The secretary general of the United Nations was one of the humans afflicted by the dark dreams that birthed the pacific monstrosity. One of the most vital statesmen of Humankind has been afflicted by outside magic’s, potentially corrupting the entire Security Council. By this point the corporations have started to produce anti-psionic tech, which I quickly provide to every other key member of the United Nations. I need to find an organisation with considerable resources and a strictly prohuman agenda to help provide some sort of global leadership if the impacts of these dark dreams worsen and cripple the UN. Humanity First, a mysterious charity, appear to have a pro human agenda on the name of their organisation. I invest $10 Million and our entire spy network into checking if they’re clean. The investigation struggles against the charities considerable anti espionage resources, but we get some results. With no evidence of alien influence (though they’re not impressed when they find out about the investigation) I put them down as a potential failsafe if the corruption in the UN worsens.
As I talk to the other department heads in the UN about these revelations we’re interrupted by a delegation from Venezuela. There’s recently been a military coup in Kenya by a terrorist organisation known as D.A.F.T. Following an accident with a nuclear warhead, they found out that one of their own is a member of this group – Evidence that they have agents throughout the world’s governments. I take the accused into a backroom a broker a deal. Amnesty for names. It appears that she may have accidently nuked their own guys in the botched incident that revealed her, so she hands over what she knows in return for a place on my permanent staff. A deal is set, the identities of American, Chinese and Argentinian D.A.F.T agents are revealed and we set off to bring them in. We reach America too late, the agent there (an ambassador to Africa) has already tried to kill the president and fled. China proves far more successful, a quick word to the Chinese premier results in him giving us access to the men we need to bring the traitor in. We arrest him and take him back to the cells at the UN and I set off to find the next D.A.F.T agent. As I leave the United Nations, I’m shot in the chest. It seems that the Algerians were unhappy that I failed to resolve the zombie crisis and sent out a hit squad to bring me down. They weren’t even D.A.F.T agents, but they keep me in hospital long enough for the message to get out and by the time I’m back to pick up more D.A.F.T agents I find that most have already fled. South Africa has taken care of the terrorist in their midst and I drop a word to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom about the identity of their traitor. As the game wraps up, I see a large squad of British security forces descend down upon her.
The game ends. I spent very little time watching the skies – Aliens never were a threat to mankind. The machinations of man were the greatest challenge to overcome and I’m happy to say that the UN stood strong at games end, the shattered remains of a terrorist organisation at our feet. Hopefully without their influence we could establish a greater, common purpose across the Earth in the days ahead.