While hackers and lawyers fought over Twilight, it’s season two premiered in the top ten for United States viewers. It was number one compared to the other minor networks. They made a big splash with the opening scene of the opening episode when a series of terrorist strikes hit a half dozen major cities. Some people said it was immoral for them to base entertainment off something so near real life. Others praised them for addressing a real problem of the day.
Third Fleet was our best, strongest fleet, built to take The War to our enemies. Aneerin counseled caution before moving, but the Western Alliance was desperate. We had fought the Shang and the Chinese around Earth and Alpha Centauri for two years without a decisive battle. Rumors from the Outer Colonies suggested similar stalemates. We needed to end The War once and for all. We needed to teach the Shang to fear us. We needed to send them running before we ran out of ships to do it with. So we attacked.
The end of the twenty first century was defined by the new Cold War between the Western Alliance, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China. While some nations remained neutral those were the three great powers that first built colonies on Mars, Venus, and elsewhere. They built the most powerful space navies, and they tested the limits of science in their quest to expand throughout the solar system. And it was the Chinese who changed everything when they discovered the secrets to hyperspace travel.
The Pre-War economy enshrined the idea of getting the next new hot thing as quickly as possible. If your phone was a year old you needed something better. People bought new cars every two or three years. Toys that broke just needed replacing. There was no need to fix anything. We were a throwaway society, obsessed with getting newer and better things. It was a real shock to a lot of people when The War stopped that trend. We had to keep stuff designed to wear out in three years for twenty years and more. It fundamentally changed how people looked at buying stuff. Maybe war can be good for something after all.
The Texas courts were always quick to throw out lawsuits against the Twilight series. The Hollywood courts ruled in favor of Disney though, and that set off a long series of court duels between the companies. They escalated during Twilight’s second season into a full-scale cyberwar when Hollywood hackers began bringing down networks that broadcast the series. Texas hackers responded in kind of course. It is ironic that a series based on a real world cyberwar generated another cyberwar based on it.
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