William knew the masses needed a champion to give them hope in these dark times. Someone to speak for the common man, to voice their concerns, to ascend to power and rule in their name. To do so was, after all, in his blood. His many times great grandfather Donald having walked this same path back on old earth, before the accursed UCCNZFJ tore down his legacy of a greater america.
Stepping out of his car and entering via the stage door, he resolved to stop reflecting on the past, after all, now was a time for New Beginnings. The carefully stage managed candidates put forth by the ruling elite danced around the sensitive issues, offering meaningless variations on a theme. And the people were sick of it. Of mouth-pieces puppeted from the shadows by the those who had corrupted the principles of democracy even before the fleet had landed on this new world.
After the fleet had landed a new generation were born from the genetic material carried on the salvation fleet. An army of young people who had never known the fight against the Apparitions, living safely in the embrace of the nebula. For twenty five years they had lived in safety, building a new world. Far from the machinations of the UCCNZFJ military experiment gone awry. To them the concept of building the new Reclamation Fleet to go and fight old battles was worse than a waste of resources, it was an invitation to reignite a war that had killed most of humanity.
It was time to Make Humanity Great Again.
Stepping up to the podium where he began his address, telling them how it was time to pursue a different path. Time to Make Humanity Great Again. When he felt the first drops of rain hit his face he was surprised, the weather forecast was for clear skies. It wasn't until the young women directly in front of the podium started pointing and screaming at his face that he realised anything was amiss. Reaching up he scrape some of the liquid off his face, before staring down at the blood on his fingers in shock. Logically the next step was to look up and see where it was coming from. However, rather than focusing on the dead body of the lighting technician in the rigging above, the natural human instinct to look at things moving towards him sprang to the fore. In this case he had just enough time for the adrenaline to flood his system before the blade of mysterious red energy moving rapidly downward bisected him, apparently moving under its own will before blinking out of existence.
William's death was not the first, and after the third, the world whispered. An apparation had found its way through the nebula, the age old war was upon them once again. After the fifth attack killed a much loved elder celebrity survivor of the old fleet, an emergency session of the Planetary Senate was called. Six hours later, the Reclamation fleet bill had been passed with triple the requested budget.
The apparation was eventually cornered and exterminated by the remnants of old Fleet Security, and a year later the new fleet was ready. Supplied by the next generation fuel ship Princess II, it had only one mission: seek and destroy the original source of the apparitions.
From the captain's seat on the UCSS Ottawa-D Commander Darwin Dexter reflected that the conspiracy theorists were closer than they knew when they suggested it was an illuminati false flag operation. After all, the new thermoptic camo was performing well above expectations, though he knew not who or what the Illuminati were. But that was yet another of those secrets he would take to the grave, for the good of all mankind.