It Came From the Drive-In

It is the year 2012, and a world of Atomic Marvels. A glittering belt of space stations encircles the world, while giant space-mirrors extend the day and the growing season. Glittering super-skyscrapers pierce the heavens, and the androids sing sweetly as they toil in the protoplasm fields. Atom-powered cars zoom along gleaming super-highways carved through mountains by atomic disintegrators crisscross the globe, and descend under the sea to the Ocean floor cities. Giant gleaming rockets shoot into space by the dozens and hundreds. Earth is currently united as the Global Federation of Nations, with the minor exceptions of a few theocratic Islamic nations, a few crapsack dictatorships, a few backward underground Lost Kingdoms, and the possibly-not-so-minor exception of the Chinese Science Dictatorship.

Not that this current era of prosperity, cancer cured by the violet ray and synthetic steak every night came about without difficulties, far from it. Earth between 1950 and 2000 suffered from no less than three major and seventeen minor (some of them truly half-assed) alien invasions, and only narrowly avoided conquest with the aid of the friendly starfish-like Pairians, Mole Men (our fellow Earthlings from down below), refugee Metalunan scientists, and Godzilla, plus such miracles of science as atomic death-beams, atomic mutants, atomic tanks, atomic bombs, atomic napalm, and Robbie the Robot. Fortunately, through Pairian mediation the Earth has gained a measure of safety by becoming a probationary member of the Galactic Cooperative for Peace and Understanding, well known through the galaxy for their deadly, unstoppable killer robots and their tendency towards dickish demonstrations of their superior power. [1]

Given the unexplained tendency of alien invaders to blow up well-know monuments, many national landmarks have been reconstructed, some more than once. The latest versions are usually bigger and better than the old ones, made of shiny new super-materials. The current version of the Statue of Liberty is twice the size of the old, and glows at night with beneficial atomic rays. Most people like it, but there are some quibblers who are doubtful about the replacement of the old torch with a giant death-ray pointed skywards.

Science, Industry and Modernization has reached all sections of the Federation of Nations: the global economy is rather on the planned side, normal capitalist relationships having been rather disrupted by flying saucer attacks and giant monsters, although by giant electronic brains rather than commissars. The whole planet has been raised to a modern level of development (whether it wanted to or not, some grumblers nitpick). Many a former Botswanan peasant now lives in a giant tower cooled by atomic energy, wears a stylish jumpsuit, carries out factory work for some giant industrial-government combine located a continent away, and can buy at any vending machine a flavored chewing gum that gets rid of those feelings of depression.

(Africans, at that time relatively undeveloped, played a valuable role during the invasion period by being the first to expose and then turn back the Body Snatcher menace, given that 1. It’s hard to hide a six-foot Pod in a hut, and 2. Many soon discovered that a Pod baked in ashes is delicious.)

The Federation of Nations has been considerably Americanized, America having had the greatest success in battling alien menaces, the battered old Soviet Union having largely become a US satellite by the 1990s. American fashions, music, and corporations are dominant from Peru to Pakistan. Principal resisters to this trend are Japan, and of course the French.

Radiation is a problem, given its tendency to cause cancer, hideous mutations, and giantism. The Astron Deltans during their turn to try and conquer Earth used radiation to plague the world with giant spiders, lizards, scorpions, Gila monsters, praying mantises, grasshoppers, octopi, wasps, ants, snails, leeches, shrews and wabbits. Several other giant monster outbreaks were the result of Terrestrial agencies messing with Things Man Should Keep His Nose Out Of (it took several unfortunate lessons before world governments fully accepted that creating bigger atomic mutants to fight the previous ones is never a good idea. Now, giant robots…) Even today, several radioactive zones are patrolled by government robots keeping an eye out for giant mutant whatsits, while the site of Old New York was so thoroughly irradiated that the government finally gave up and just built the new city on stilts over the ruins of the old (currently a reservation for mutants just too horrid for polite company).

The dark star Bellus threatened at one point to collide with Earth, but with the aid of alien science a deflector ray powerful enough to change its course was built in time. A shame about it then colliding with Planet X, but as the Pairians noted at the time, they shouldn’t have been driving their planet around a crowded part of the galaxy without submitting a flight plan to the proper authorities in the first place.

In spite of all precautions, there still are occasional outbreaks of giant monsters: they are generally fairly quickly stamped out, and for most people they are like Indonesian barge accidents: something unpleasant with a bunch of people far away dying, but over before the news appears on the Interocitor. Keeping track of giant octopus or eel breakouts was more of a problem, until contact with the Gill-Men made it possible to create an underwater network of skilled observers (there is a fair amount of human sea-floor settlement, but it’s thinly scattered over an area nearly three times as large as the lands above sea level).

Of course, ever now and then some Incautious Scientist messing with radiation or alien artifacts will create a woman-spider hybrid or a radioactive goo-monster: there is a special Federation taskforce of grim-jawed, pipe-smoking science experts to deal with situations where a more subtle approach (when vaporizing the city from orbit to save the city is a no-no) is required.

Some humans also came down with Ludicrous Growth Syndrome, with various levels of distress: the Colossal Beast settled down quite a bit after he married the 50-foot Woman, but the 30-foot Bride of Candy Rock’s celebrity marriage fell apart messily. Eventually, the whole problem was rendered moot by the invention of the Shrink-ray (which wasn’t much help for the sufferers from the rarer condition of Absurd Shrinkage; the science of Earth and friendly aliens has yet to meet the challenge of creating an embiggening ray - Shrink Rays are _neutralized_, not _reversed_, a subtle distinction leading to much angry confusion on the part of people who have nearly been eaten by their cat).

Said Shrink-ray, combined with suspended animation techniques, has greatly eased the logistic of space colonization: a whole town of colonists can now be kept in a standard refrigerator during the trip through space.

Radiation-bloated normal creatures must be distinguished from Kaiju, giant warrior-monsters only awakened from their ancient slumbers by the crash of atomic arms – Godzilla, Rodan, etc. Thanks to communications established by chubby, telepathic Japanese young boys, the world government has made peace with the Kaiju, which have fought at humanity’s side against space-monsters and alien invaders. Still, their lust for violence is hard to assuage, and Japan deals with unemployment by annually building a duplicate of Old Tokyo for the monsters to rampage through once a year. Like the running of the bulls at Pamplona, it has become an attraction for “extreme” thrill-seekers: loud ties and screaming and pointing are de rigueur for male participants.

The modern lifestyle is one filled with push-button convenience, cancer-free cigarettes, home robots, jetpacks, and handy home defense systems that detect and vaporize alien imposters in the foyer, so as not mess up the rugs. (Not that there are many nowadays: the various parasitic species that usually speed to new radio-capable planets like cockroaches to garbage have mostly moved on to softer targets by now).

The interior of the world is full of vast cave systems, some lifeless or poisoned by sterilizing radiation, others inhabited by prehistoric monsters or cavemen. Deeper down dwell the Mole Men, short, furry and balding, whose sweat is phosphorescent and feet are clawed. They currently have cordial diplomatic relations with the surface world, but dislike the sun and rarely visit. They are a peaceable race in spite of their disintegrator rays and giant robot worms, and only get really annoyed when people get them confused with those other mole-men, the one with armored hides, hands like rakes, and bug-like mouths. They do occasionally clash with the brain-slugs, who ever now and then drill up from deeper layers. Still further down, in the hot radioactive magma, swim formless beings, radiation-eaters, which occasionally migrate upwards in response to changes in the neutrino flux from the sun.

Besides the dinosaurs in the Earth’s interior, there are various isolated islands, lost plateaus, or hollow calderas inhabited by small populations of prehistoric monsters: their survival puzzled most scientists, although records on the fourth planet of the Alphane System indicate that these refuges were deliberately created long ago by an alien race for uncertain purposes, although most recent analyses of the ancient runes carved in eternal metal have come across a term that can be translated as “cool.” Dinosaurs have substantially perked up global zoo visits, and remain popular in spite of competition from space-beasts (especially with those running the zoos: they don’t have finicky environmental requirements or display a previously unobserved ability to spray parasitic spores in all directions).

Alien visitors are common enough on Earth: one may often note a Pairian whiz by overhead like those star shaped thingummies Ninjas are always throwing, or observe the pickle-like inhabitants of the Omicron Nebula shuffle by on their tentacles. Blue Centaurian Plant-Men stomp along, in search of a blood bar. [2] Occasionally a translucent brain from Arous floats down the street. These are usually lower-class Arouans, slumming: they rent human bodies for experiences lacking on their planet, like kinky sex or eating an entire tub of butter pecan ice cream. The little guys with the huge heads? Don’t disarrange their protective clothing: they melt in daylight, so they will take it badly. Resist the temptation to pat their giant domes.

Some aliens are less noticeable: humanoid teenagers from Spica Ten often come to Earth to blow off steam, far away from their dull and repressive society. They are identifiable by their fresh lemony scent, their retro hairdos, and their fondness for lobster. (Well, and their flesh-disintegrating rayguns).

Crashed alien spacecraft, destroyed in previous wars, are common enough that the government gave up on carrying them all off to secret bases: many of them have been turned into theme restaurants.

Science has advanced by leaps and bounds, through assistance from friendly aliens and reverse-engineering of the technology of unfriendly ones. The military now have rayguns and giant robots and their own flying saucers and energy screens, along with invisibility (not so useful nowadays that any kid can get their own infrared specs out of the comic book back pages: the ability to turn into an intangible 4-D man, on the other hand, remains a government secret only for the use of the special-est of special forces). Atomic power is cheap and pretty almost more or less safe. Teleportation is now well-established, once some bugs (so to speak  ) were removed from early models. (Unfortunately, people _will_ disable the safeties. “Hey, Joe-Bob! Lookit what I can do with this duck, this ‘coon, and the ol’ teleporter!”) Mechanical telepathy means you never have to be out of communication with your robot.

Advances in the biological sciences have been more troubled. Various forms of rejuvenation and regeneration technology have had unfortunate monsterism side effects, and making a radioactive zombie nowadays is easy enough that crime syndicates often field small armies of them. Too many hobbyists without the proper training try their hand at assembling homunculi out of cloned limbs and organs and end up unleashing angry three-headed freaks upon the neighborhood. Too many Teenage Frankensteins are now Middle-Aged Frankensteins on disability. And then there are all the men who want to create the Perfect Woman. (Not to mention the whole Enhanced Ape and Human-Ape Crossbreeds Rights kerfluffle).

Using Z-rays to evolutionarily retrogress people to cavemen or worse is a World Government felony. Keeping a brain alive outside of a skull is also illegal, given the tendency of a well-fed, unconfined brain to grow, develop psychic abilities, and go batshit insane.

On the other hand, keeping a brain inside a nice, solid metal skull is not considered a problem. Cyborgs are now fairly common, now that the usual “go mad and on rampage” issues have been worked out. The rare cases of full-body cyborg prostheses tend to be big hulks, due to the need for elaborate mechanisms to keep the brain alive and healthy, but Japanese scientists continue to manfully struggle to build a support system indistinguishable from a hot teenage girl with outsized breasts.

Humankind is now expanding outwards into the universe, although some people feel the best approach is just to roof over the planet with armor and blast anything that comes near. After all, who knows what the heck a spaceship might bring back next time? Besides the occasional monstrously mutated astronaut and the Blood Beast, there was the space-rust, and the Callistan Fungus, which might have eaten all of Colorado (fortunately, the Blob ate the Fungus, and then they refroze the Blob). Still, government opinion remains firmly committed to the “best defense is a strong offense” and “eggs in many baskets” approach.

The Moon is now dotted with human colonies, the first having been established some forty years ago. The surface has no natives aside from the mobile rocks, which generally aren’t a threat for anyone not wheelchair-bound or suffering crippling arthritis: it has a few sentient inhabitants within the scattered cave systems still containing a breathable atmosphere, including a small colony of cat-girls (telepaths who reproduce asexually by coughing up hairball babies when males are absent) left stranded by a long-ago theatrical troupe from Andromeda, gloomy giant spiders, and a small kingdom (queendom, rather) almost entirely made up of women.

(The solar system is sprinkled with pockets of humanoid people, descended from the civilization of ancient Atlantis, which ruled the primitive world and colonized the planets until they were wiped out by tampering with Forces Man Should Not Know and a plague brought about by eating oysters in a month without an “r” in it. The plague caused long term damage to the male reproductive germ plasm thingy, leading in surviving groups to slow reproduction rates and a gender ratio heavily skewed in favor of hot women.)

Mars, an ancient world, has had many civilizations come and go, and several different races inhabit the globe in an uneasy balance of we’ll-blow-up-the-planet-if-threatened: the three-eyed bipeds launched one of the three worst invasions of the Earth, the tentacled heads and their clone soldiers one of the lamest. The local Atlanteans, perhaps the most advanced in the solar system, came to Earth looking for men, and found plenty of them, especially those who liked being punished. Mars also features tons of ruins, lots of sand, canals (not as nice looking as in the pictures), strange monsters both natural and created, degenerate cave-men and cave-monsters, and annoyingly superior voices speaking from thin air. So far, the world military has “liberated” about 2% of the Martian surface, and after the Horror of ’97, the Terror of ’02, and the Abomination of ’06, there is little popular support back on Earth to further expand the Empire of Freedom on the fourth planet.

Venus features savage heat, toxic air and parasitic fungi and monsters in the equatorial regions, while the Poles are merely tropical: the south Pole has an Atlantean colony, while the north used to have a colony of the cucumber-people from Polaris (much less pleasant than the pickle-people), one of whom actually tried to carry out a one-cucumber conquest of Earth: by the time a revenge fleet from Earth arrived (Venus was fairly low on Earth’s To Retaliate list) they had been wiped out by their own supercomputer, a jolly sociopathic machine which later tried to conquer the Earth with the aid of a mutant boy genius and Robbie the Robot. Colonization has gotten under way in the polar regions, but as yet the harsh conditions of the equatorial regions defies settlement (the Ymir are one of the less unpleasant things to run into).

North polar Venus also has talking unicorns, but they could care less for the power of friendship.

The outer planets are still only thinly surveyed, although a dying Atlantean settlement was discovered on the 13th moon of Jupiter. As yet, no human settlements exist beyond the asteroid belt.

Bruce

[1] Facing a menace even the GCPU couldn’t intimidate, Gort challenged Ro-Man to an arm-wrestling match for the fate of the Earth. Gort won, saved the world, and got the girl, but Ro-Man got the breakfast cereal endorsement, being much more articulate.

[2] Alien connoisseurs have driven up the price of human bodily fluids to the point where hospital patients must accept cloned blood and lymphatic fluid, leading some politicians to call for export restrictions.