Chapter 199

Earth

By all accounts, disclosure of the Stargate Program had been a resounding success. Pre-disclosure estimates of social upheaval, rioting, economic collapse, and religious resurgence had proved to be incorrect. That this was in large part due to the decision to use the Ark of Truth was not a fact that would soon be forgotten, or admitted to the public. This was not to say that the world had simply accepted the new reality without fallout of some kind. In some areas, the problems were contained to a simple few individuals acting out, while in others areas larger groups had found their footing.

In Denver, a woman in her early thirties made the tabloids with fantastic claims. Making claims of multiple alien abductions, she later went on to claim that her son was the product of being i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed by a race closely resembling the Asgard, only blue in color. Going so far as to produce her son for tabloid photo shoots, pictures of the blue colored boy were soon found gracing checkout stands in grocery stores nationwide. Retaining the services of a law firm of questionable ethics, the woman attempted to sue the Asgard race for back child support and emotional distress. Court ordered medical examination of the son soon found that he had been repeatedly soaked in blue food coloring. Currently, the boy is in foster care while the mother awaits trail for child endangerment.

Hours after disclosure, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed the first of what would soon be thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests. Any and all information about the Stargate Program, off world races and activities, and SGC related infrastructure was sought. Resulting doc.u.ment dumps from the Air Force were staggering, though highly redacted. Volumes of information were released. This led to another unexpected development.

Both the ACLU and the EFF shared the contents of these doc.u.ment dumps with a third party. After reviewing highly redacted mission reports, a list of aliens being held captive on Earth came into being. Amnesty International immediately requested open access to these captives. When that request was declined, they filed suit to review uncensored mission reports pertaining to the captives. Furthermore, Amnesty International asked the US District Court to grant these captives the right of Habeas Corpus and legal counsel. A secondary suit brought against the government sought to ensure that any and all off prisoners were treated in accordance with international treaty requirements. These two suits are still pending.

Montreal soon found itself awash in a sea of members of the Raelian Church. Half protest, half parade, the Raelian followers had several requests of the worlds governments. First, they demanded the construction of a spacecraft large enough to contain all Raelian's to be named the Tower of Babel. Second, they demanded their immediate recognition as the 'religion that got it right'. Third, they required the location of the world where the creators of humanity resided. Sacred to the Raelian's was the belief that an alien race had created all life on Earth. It was this belief that drove their repeated demands.

Finding a new cause to rally behind, the Occupy Movement again took to makeshift camps in capitals around the world. Whereas they had once demanded economic reform, the new demands took a new direction. Facebook and Twitter were filled with repeated postings of the demand to be given a planet to establish a utopian society for all Occupiers, and escape the tyranny the 99% had endured for far too long. On the steps of the Capital Building in Washington, one could hear the chants from the Occupiers daily protests.

"What do we want?"

"A planet!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

The fact that many hostile races in the Universe would happily enroll the Occupiers into slavery and indentured servitude was consistently overlooked. Journalists embedded with the movements encampments finally took note of the ridiculousness of the demands, and went on to report other things.

Joining ranks, alien abduction groups around the world the world took a different tact than the Occupiers. Flooding the once popular social networking site MySpace, more than six hundred thousand new profile pages emerged. Found on each page was a first person retelling of their abduction. Instead of demanding a planet of their own, financial remedy, or something similarly unlikely, they asked for something very different. All that was asked for was a simple acknowledgment of their abduction, an explanation why, and an apology. According to CNN, the Asgard High Council was currently weighing the benefit of having Loki make a public service announcement or appear on Larry King Live.

Refusing to be left out of around the world developments, Michael Moore was once again at work. Film crews stood ready outside of military facilities known to be involved in the goings on of the SGC. Periodically, Moore made it his practice to speak to any and all members of the US Senate about the program. Some called it harassment, but Moore called it good journalism. In the vein of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, his newest film took shape. Already, it was projected that 'Deception beneath Cheyenne Mountain' would be this summer's blockbuster. In other Hollywood news, Wormhole: Universe, the third show in the Wormhole Xtreme franchise suddenly found itself renewed for a third season, to replace wrestling in that time slot.