EXT. GEOSCAPE
A view of earth half covered by night and glowing cities. The other half is lit up by the sun.

(V.O.)
It is the year 2084. Earth, never the most stable of places, enjoys a time of relative peace. The violent beginnings of the 21st century are far away now; distant memories, but not so distant that they’ve been forgotten. To most of the Earth’s people the Second Cold War is a dark shadow from the past, much like the World Wars were to the children of the late 20th.

Conflicts have gotten rarer near the end of the century as new technology and universal health-care finally became available to the third world. Even the fires of terrorism have cooled in the wake of the Second Cold War. With it’s horrors and inhumanities fresh in the minds of the people, from the old United States to the ravaged Indian subcontinent. Class struggles are ascending to the political battlefield now that every nation is guaranteed fair representation in the UN, and the global standard of living is slowly on the rise down to the most impoverished corners of the planet. Countries have solidified, stabilized around a restructured United Nations that successfully polices the world governments from its new center in Jerusalem. Fragmented clumps of smaller nations, frightened at first by the vast power blocs accumulating around China and the European Union, have banded together into powerful political leagues of their own — then found themselves with no neighbors they could safely fight. For the first time in the history of mankind, there is law and order across more than three quarters of the world.

To many people on Earth, it seems things are going all right.
The first attack hits the city of Mumbai on the 3rd of March, 2084. Six small UFOs appear out of nowhere and come screaming down from orbit, undetected by the vast radar installations covering the skies over Mumbai, and set down in the single most densely-populated city on Earth. They offer no warning, no explanation. Twenty thousand innocent civilians and three battalions of elite troops are massacred over the course of twelve brutal hours before massed Commonwealth soldiers manage to bring the aiens’ advance to a standstill. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, they retreat to their craft and vanish back into orbit, leaving only the ravaged streets of Mumbai as evidence.
An emergency meeting of the UN provides no conclusive direction. The incursions continue faster, larger and more savage than before, this time in Bonn, Johannesburg and Bangkok. Some nations attempt diplomacy, sending messages in a thousand different languages to the aliens ravaging across the countryside. Their words are ignored. Within hours, all three cities are emptied of human life. The attack is over by the time the various militaries are given permission to strike back. The aliens leaven nothing behind them but concrete and blood. All the UFOs disappear without a trace — but no doubts they’ll be back.
Eighty-seven hours after the initial attack on Mumbai, Earth declares war. For two weeks, the armies of humanity each try to fend off the mysterious alien attackers to the best of their ability. The score precious few successes.

Left with only one alternative, the UN takes action. Ancient equipment is dusted off, some of it more than a century old, and the long-defunct anti-extraterrestrial agency of the former United States — PHALANX — is resurrected under a new UN banner. Its sworn duty is to combat the alien threat, and to ensure the survival of the human race at all costs.

Funded by all eight of the political powers, and drawing its soldiers from the elite of their armies, PHALANX is the best of the best. It is Earth’s first and only line of defence. It can’t afford to fail; because if it does, humanity doesn’t stand a chance.

(CONT’D)