The following is an excerpt from the High School textbook Earth History, published in 2100. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May 18 2001 The slavers came from space. The world as everyone had known it was changed forever. For some more than others. Several days after the raid astronomers were able to check the recordings from telescopes that happened to be viewing the proper sections of the sky. The recordings showed a red blossom in a black background, there were 12 such blossoms in all. From the center of each blossom alien ships appeared. From each blossom came a large ship surrounded by 12 small ships. Each squadron of ships entered the atmosphere separately and raided a different city located directly beneath the blossom. The cities raided seemed to have been chosen randomly, at least from the human point of view. Some of the slavers met less defensive actions and raided more than one site in the city they had attacked. Others met stiff resistance and were limited to the first site in the city before they fled Earth’s atmosphere with their stolen cargo and disappeared into a green blossom. Of the 144 fighters; 42 were either destroyed in the fighting or damaged enough that they had to land. Military officials around the world were surprised at how easily so many of these ships were damaged. One of the slave ships, as they turned out to be, was captured, more or less intact. None of the aliens were captured alive; they either were killed in the fighting or killed themselves before they could be captured. 8428 citizens of various Earth nations were stolen away into a life of slavery. This was the official number though some experts questioned its accuracy. Several thousand more people were killed in the fighting or during the raids by the slavers. All of the captives stolen away from Earth were young men. Each of the large ships had landed near a site where large numbers of young people were congregated. While the 12 fighters remained in the air where they assumed defensive positions around the larger ship and fought off whatever attacks were thrown at the raiding party. Meanwhile aliens came out of the large ship and sealed off whatever site they had landed by and started capturing the young men. Any resistance was met with lethal force though very few of the killed were young men, the killed were either women or older men. None of the enslaved was over the age of 22 or under 14. None of the enslaved had obvious disabilities or were considered unattractive by the female at each raided site who was taken over by the aliens telepathically and used as a rude translator by the slavers. Most of these young women died within minutes of the removal of the telepathic link or were brain damaged after being assaulted in this manner. After the raid the number of enslaved and killed at each of the cities involved was determined though the numbers were more accurate in some cities than others. The twelve cites raided were: Venice Italy, Amman Jordan, Seoul Korea, Perth Australia, Nagano Japan, St Petersburg Russia, Manchester England, Nairobi Kenya, Durban South Africa, Lima Peru, Lincoln Nebraska and Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in the United States. Due to the varied military strengths of the countries involved the number of the fighters defeated varied wildly. None were defeated at Nairobi or Amman and both of those cities lost close to 1000 of their young men. The Americans destroyed 8 of the fighters at Pittsburgh and all 12 at Lincoln. 337 young men were stolen away in the Pittsburgh raid while none were lost at Lincoln because the slave ship was captured there. It was determined that, through sheer luck, three missiles hit the Lincoln ship almost at the same time at the same location on the ship which damaged the propulsion area of that ship. None of the other squadrons, of the raiders, made any attempt to help the ships at Lincoln and the Americans were able to throw a huge number of airplanes at the raid. All 12 fighters were eventually knocked down and the slave ship took so many hits that it started to crumple, the Aliens aboard the ship then killed themselves and the ship stopped fighting back. Earth was stunned. Not only had the Universe proved that there were other intelligent species out there; those species were hostile. The people of Earth vowed revenge. Not only would such a raid never succeed again; the enslaved and the dead would be avenged. The peoples of Earth slowly but surely became one, since most realized that only a unified planet could manage the effort needed to build the defenses necessary to protect the world from another such raid. The building of the offensive power to avenge the raid itself would take even more effort. The scientists of the world were able to use the captured slave ship and the remains of the destroyed fighters to figure out how to replicate how the aliens moved between star systems. It took decades and hundreds of lives to develop this material vital for the defense of the planet and for the effort to avenge the insult to the planet. The first squadrons ready to be sent out into the Universe to find the slavers were ready to be launched on the fiftieth anniversary of the raid. The two young women who survived being controlled mentally by the aliens provided tremendous aid as well since they retained some knowledge from the aliens that had been pushed into their minds. Both Donna of Manchester and Daphne of Pittsburgh became darlings of the planet before they died in their 30s from complications from their ordeals. Both were convinced that the aliens had stolen the young men in order to sell them to some alien organization known as the Legion. The young men were destined to be body slaves to the members of the Legion. TBC