The war was over and the entire globe celebrated. For days, entire nations held celebrations that rivaled any holiday parade. Imagine if you will that on every street in every city there was a party and you were the guest of honor. When the surrender announcement got to the homeworld, what little power the Hawks had was snuffed out. The entire population rose against them emboldened with the fact they had control over their lives now and not the Empress. By November, the Ingress population was ready to come to Earth. This caused complications however. Now that the war was over, the big question was where to house these giant beings. It was hard already with the 12,000 plus already there and now another 40,000 or so was mind boggling.
On December 18, a formal Ingress council was formed. Its leader turned out to be Ned. Leila was offered the role but turned it down. She told everyone that all she wanted was a quieter life with her family. The first order of business was to find accommodations for the Ingress already there. As you can imagine, it's not realistic to have a couple hundred 200 ft. tall people say "I'm moving in". The vast majority of cities weren’t ready to have people of this size. Just one Ingress house alone would be the size of an airport. Something needed to be done and quick. Winter was on the doorstep of half the world and it would seem bad for giants and giantesses to die of exposure. Good old smart Ned came to the rescue.
He proposed a brilliant idea. See there were some cities that were devastated by April Shower and were in the process of being rebuilt. He proposed that if they convert the ruined areas to Ingress specifications that would kill two birds with one stone. This idea worked out great...for 20% of the population. So what to do about the other 80%? Even in the 22nd century there were areas on Earth uninhabited. A good portion of the population ended up in Africa, Australia, and South America.
Now like any war, the advances in technology were the most prominent during this time. Not just weapons however. The Ingress were at least 100 years more advanced in technology and just one of these advancements was in weather control. This was essential when they lived in their domed cities and they put it in use when they moved to the inhospitable areas. The first changes began on January 5, 2132.
2132...it's was an interesting year that was. It was the most troubling and the most wonderful one that came after the war. The Sahara Desert was seeing the first green in the region in over 10,000 years. The Ingress cut down entire rain forests to found a city but replaced the priceless trees with Ingress ones. South America never looked so lush. It wasn't all successes though. There were setbacks. You would think there would be a war tribunal right? You thought right but the odd thing about it was it wasn't for the Ingress on Earth. It was for the Ingress on the homeworld. It was nearly pointless to have them for the ones on Earth. The vast majority of those who could be tried for war crimes had perished in the final days of the war. The Hawks had gotten "creative" in trying to find Dove operatives. Executing people on the street was just one practice. Since it was considered an Ingress affair, the Council was given authority over sentencing.
Ned was tough but fair. He knew how brutal a commander could truly be and considered that old excuse of "just following orders". He took character statements from others and then had the council vote. The Council called it the "Rule of 3". If, for example, a solder shot a civilian in the street, one must prove he did the same thing 2 more times without someone ordering him too. This of course meant that the vast majority of those found guilty were top level officers and commanders.
People were very hesitant in living alongside the Ingress. When the euphoria of victory wore off, suspicion and paranoia crept into the hearts of many humans and some Ingress as well. What if an Ingress snapped one day because an asshole human got them on the wrong day? Or maybe one day you were heading off to work and the Ingress standing beside you thought you might be dating material and you gave them the brush off? At best you get called a name or threatened or at worst you end up their sex toy or lunch. People began protesting within months when the first incident occurred.
Camden Leslie was refuge from the homeworld. His mother served in the 49th platoon and met her end at the battle of Baikonur. When the war ended he chose to try a life in Miami. He was a nice 15 year old Ingress kid. 170 ft. tall boy with dusty blond hair. If he was back on the homeworld, he would easily have a chance when it came time to mate. But that was then and this was now. There wasn't any eligible Ingress in Miami when he moved there. The city was still rebuilding. He supported himself by doing construction work. You'd be surprised how many steel girders a giant could lift. Anyway, one day Camden is sitting down near the beach on a break and sees this really pretty girl close to his age enjoying the sun. Being a teen, this caught his attention pretty good. Camden goes over to her and introduces himself.
"Hi my name is Camden. What's yours?" he asked. The girl was surprised to see a boy that big. "H-hi. I'm Elena" she stammered. She was frightened by the boy but after a minute or two talking to him she noticed he acted like any teen. Camden blushed and smiled awkwardly when he talked to her. The two agreed to meet the next day. Camden arrived in regular clothes since he was off that day. Elena showed up wearing a dress one size too small but Camden didn't complain. It made it easier to see her tits. They had a great time that day and agreed to see each other more.
Two weeks later, the two decided to take their relationship to the next level. Elena was a beautiful girl but a not very bright one. After a very passionate day of sex, Elena came home sick. She tried to hide it but when her father saw her puking in the bathroom he rushed her to the hospital. Elena had ingested so much of Camden's cum; her body acted like she had food poisoning. The doctors told the mortified father what they pumped out of her stomach. He went ballistic and demanded brutally who she was seeing. Poor Elena was forced to tell him about Camden. Elena's father was no ordinary man. He was a very rich one and had certain people on his payroll. He sent them to pay Camden a visit.
Camden was lying in bed thinking about his girlfriend. Their wild day of sex still in his mind. He felt himself get hard again as he thought about how she giggled when he licked her caramel colored feet or when her cheeks bulged when she caught his cum spewing out of his pisshole. He truly loved her. His day just felt better when he saw her. Then came a knock on the door. Camden opened up to see 4 human men looking up at him. "Can I help you?" he asked wondering who they were. They said nothing as they drew their pistols and fired. Their plasma pistols (military issue) burned his skin. He instinctively shielded himself as he was shot. Each one was like someone snuffing out a cigarette on his skin. Camden fell to the floor as the men closed the distance. When they got near enough they took out shotguns. The giant screamed from the pain. He was bleeding now.
"Who are you? What did I ever do to you?" the giant teen whimpered. "Courtesy of Mr. Moreno" one man said firing off his shotgun pressed to the kid's temple. Camden's head hit the floor. Camden was found by his boss the next day when he didn't show up for work. The teen was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Camden suffered from cranial hemorrhaging and teetered on the brink of death. Thankfully, he recovered within a month due to the advantages of having human surgeons. Later on, human surgeons would play a pivotal part in treating Ingress trauma victims. They were useful in injecting and sewing hard to reach areas as was the case for Atreya who through a revolutionary vocal graft got her voice back.
Anyway, Camden gave his statement concerning this Mr. Moreno. He knew it had to have been Elena's father seeing how her last name was the same. Charges were filed against him but were thrown out due to lack of evidence. It didn't help that Moreno had friends on the payroll. Word got out about how easily the police dropped the case. The Ingress were in an uproar. They demanded justice. Ingress in North America piled into Miami to protest. Things were getting ugly. A request was made to the Union government to dispatch anyone that could calm the crowds screaming for justice. In came Aaron and Leila.
After the war and the creation of the Ingress council, Aaron and Leila volunteered for a new service that had been jointly formed. They were called the peacekeepers. Their job was to put out the fires that popped up between humans and Ingress .It was a good job for the two. They rarely got called and only then when it was the most serious of cases. All eyes were turning to Miami. Aaron and Leila had their hands full trying to calm the crowd which became more agitated. One day, when the crowd was threatening to take matters into their own hands, it began to rain. The rain increased as well as the wind. By the next day, it was clear this was no ordinary storm.
It was a hurricane and it would soon arrive in Miami. Aaron and Leila immediately called the Council to try sending a weather control system to dissipate the storm. They were rejected when it was clear that no transport could fly through the gale force winds. Aaron and Leila tried to think of another way to get the system there. If only he had a booster engine Aaron could fly it there by flying over the storm in low orbit. Ironically, the once hub of space flight Florida, had nothing close to what he needed. The third day of the storm had Ingress and humans in the same shelters. One didn't like the other and nerves frayed. It took one person to start something.
"Goddamn Ingress. Go back to where you came from" one man muttered loud enough for someone to hear. "We have the right to be here just like you do! Have you forgot that we originally came from Earth?!" an Ingress woman shouted. "And you should have stayed gone! We don't want or need any of you here!" the man shouted back. Before the giantess could say something in return, someone started yelling. "It's flooding! The shelter is flooding!" a man shouted. The man was right. On the far corner of the wall, water was seeping from the bottom of the wall. Apparently the shelter was damaged when the tidal wave hit from April Shower.
"Sarah, status report" Aaron asked. "Getting a signal is hard Aaron. It looks like a storm surge is building at sea. The water coming in is water being pushed by the sea. This is bad Aaron. This area is going to be flooded in less than 6 hours at this rate. If this shelter is compromised then the others could be too. We could be looking at over 25,000 dead by tomorrow" she said. "We got to do something Aaron" Leila said. "Agreed but what?" Aaron asked. "There is a way to limit the damage but everyone needs to cooperate" Sarah said. Sarah pulled up a map of the area and superimposed dots along the beach line. Aaron nodded seeing what she had planned.
At first nobody agreed to the plan especially the Ingress. The plan was to build levees of sand along the beach. This would have taken days for humans but not if Ingress were helping. "Why should we? We can easily just walk away and leave the humans to drown" a woman asked. "Yeah you could but then you'd be proving the humans right" a male voice said behind them. It was Camden. "You shouldn't be walking around!" Leila yelled. "I can't stand by and let these people die. They don't deserve that just because what a few did or how they feel. I get you're afraid of us and I don't blame you. I really don't. Please understand that many of my people just want a better life. You can understand that right? I lost everything to the war but I found someone who showed me how I can love life again and she happened to be human. My job is building things. Let me help build a better future for myself and for you" Camden said. Camden walked out of the shelter into the blinding rain followed by Ingress who were moved by his words.
The humans watched as the Ingress who came to protest the treatment of one of their own trying to save their lives. They were humbled and shamed. One by one, the humans began helping build the levee. The storm got worse by the hour. At one time a human was blown from where he stood but was caught in the palm of an Ingress before he got hurt. By the end of the day they had built a levee two stories tall. To hedge their bets, Leila and Aaron used a low power plasma sweep to turn the sand into glass. Now only time would tell if their efforts would be in vain. The storm surge hit at 0713 the next morning. It held just barely. It was eerie to hear the glass crack and groan under the assault of seawater. The worst of the storm was over and the damage was minimal.
When everyone left the shelters two days later, they were changed. The humans felt such shame in how they treated Ingress they had a hard time looking them in the eye. They next day were more protests but this time humans as well as Ingress were calling for indictments against Moreno. Two days later, an informant, turned state’s evidence against Moreno. The informant, seeing how the wind was blowing, told the authorities how Moreno set up the attempted murder and how he paid off the higher ups to drop it. Needless to say the man and his cronies were convicted. "Funny how life gives us a chance to change" Aaron told Leila. "Yeah it is. Aaron, I've been thinking of a change of our own. What if we have another child?" Leila asked. Aaron looked up at his wife. "Might be a little lonely for Eve to be a single kid. Sure honey, I'd love to have another kid call me da da" he said. 9 1/2 months later, Adam was born. Elena ended up being with Camden even though she blamed herself for what happened to him. Camden just told her that it wasn't her fault but her father's and what she decided to do was her own choice. The two spent the rest of their lives together.
The incident in Miami kicked off two things. One was the recognized adherence to Union law over local law when it came to the Ingress. And second, after some lobbying by Ned, all civil rights were recognized for the Ingress (this meant killing or maiming an Ingress without just cause would be considered a hate crime). This was self-serving to Ned because it gave him the right to officially adopt Amanda. In other cases, it also meant that humans and Ingress could marry which had been banned if you weren't in the military. The Dimensional War, like any war, left many orphans and dead spouses. This led to a marriage and adoption boom. The issue of marriage was more of a traditional values fight but the issue of adoption was one of child safety.
People voiced their concerns about child safety when Ingress let it be known they wanted to adopt human children. Hypocritically, the same people thought it was on the human if they wanted to adopt an Ingress child. "What if the Ingress chose to care for the child like a pet than a daughter or son? What if they lose their temper and accidentally crush the child or worse yet eat one?" was the most often questions asked. Since they had the right to adopt, human agencies had to find other ways to discriminate. The most popular form was the "Prior Service" law. This law stated that any Ingress who served in the Empress' army at any time was barred from adoption. This alienated thousands of Ingress, including Ned. The law was challenged stating that under the Osaka Treaty, which through the war tribunal found the truly guilty parties liable, the ones not found guilty or indicted for past service would be granted amnesty. This amnesty transferred over to matters of civil law.
The high court found the law unconstitutional on August 9, 2133. Ned celebrated by officially adopting Amanda. The two had never been happier.*
The world was much more stable in 2133. With this stability, the world focused on rebuilding or retooling normal life. Schools were rebuilt to accommodate Ingress kids as well as areas of commerce. Food production was at an all-time high as well as the tech and real estate industries. Shopping malls the size of small towns was becoming commonplace as the years ticked by. They hybrid kids were the big talk though. As they grew, it was noticed that some were growing at Ingress levels and some weren't. It all depended of how much dominance the human DNA had in the host. A two year old like Eve was over 38 ft. tall and at the same time another two year old hybrid might be only 22 ft. Parents worried their kids would be picked on later in life due to their height difference. They were right of course. In the first decade it was pretty bad but nowadays it's more commonly accepted. A height difference (now called the hybrid factor) is thought to be just a trait like skin color. It was just something that made us different.
Speaking of hybrids, Eve had it the worst. Being called the messiah child didn't help with having a normal childhood. Even as young as three, she could see her being treated differently. This of course I'll tell you another day.*
Now as the years ticked by a problem that had been long avoided was popping up. In the beginning, many Ingress had been living in the least populated areas of Earth but this was a temporary solution. The problem was if the Ingress was going to keep having children, where would you keep them? Two or three generations from now and the problem of finding enough living space would be astronomical.
In March of 2040, a plan was introduced to find another world like Earth to colonize. The first thought was to find another world by dimensional travel but both sides said hell no to this idea. There was no telling what they might find or possibly bring back to Earth. Keep in mind dimensional travel led to the war. Some said that they should focus on colonizing Mars but the problem with that was creating a biosphere there would take a century even with Ingress tech. So why not a domed city like on the homeworld? Well the advantage they had on the homeworld was easy to find raw materials. This wouldn't be the case on another planet like Mars. Even if they could get the materials they needed it would take 15 years to create a dome and that would only barely work for one generation. No, they needed a lasting solution.
On September 23, 2141 a historic speech was made at the 10th anniversary armistice ceremony. Longstreet, who had been appointed President of the Union, gave it. “We gather here today to remember those who had fallen in combat and to acknowledge that even though they are gone they will not be forgotten. When they war was finally over, both races sought a future together, one that would be built through cooperation and not by conquest. In those 10 years since, we have seen us rise from the hardships of reconstruction and understanding and even when faced with our bigotry we have persevered. The fruits of our labor have been areas of Earth prospering not since prehistoric times and most of all the children of the unity of our two peoples. It is an age of celebration but also one of concern."
"Even though the Ingress have found homes on our world, the future generations will have a harder time in doing so. One week ago, the Union science division proposed a plan that will guarantee a future for humans, Ingress, as well as the Hybrid. The plan is called the "Stardust Plan". We will send a colony ship out into space to colonize other worlds thus ensuring the threat of overpopulation and starvation will not come to pass. Earth will always be the home of all of us but to protect it we must consider what's best for our descendants. The exact details of the Stardust Plan will be made available later on. For now, please join me in honoring those that have fallen" he said.
Longstreet saluted the crowd as fireworks and jets flew overhead while an orchestra played.
Now there is a big problem to overcome if you want to travel interstellar distances; two problems if you have giant passengers. The first one is the need of a REALLY big ship. This one was solved pretty easily. The situation was full of irony. After the war, the Ark was converted into a memorial/museum and was never restored. The destiny of the ship would come full circle. It was at first a colony ship, then a warship, and now it would become a colony ship again. All races including Lunar citizens, who had been given the ability to come to Earth due to Ingress gravity control tech, worked on restoring the ship to flight status and to refit it to house humans.
It took 3 years to complete the job. The ship could not only fly but now could support a city sized population. It was aspiring to see skyscrapers and neighborhoods inside a ship. The hangar bay alone had a population of over 2000 humans. Now came the other more difficult problem. Space is VERY big. The Ark was the fastest ship we had but even at full speed it would take thousands of years just to reach the next star system.
(Author's note: To give an idea how big space is consider this. If our solar system was the size of an orange sitting in Hartford Connecticut. The closest star would be in downtown Dallas! Pretty big distance considering it took over 12 years for Voyager 2 to cross just a portion of our solar system)
So in order to get to the nearest star in one's lifetime, you'd need a faster than light propulsion system, or a way to cut the actual distance traveled. The answer came in 2147. It was sheer genius. The basic technology already existed and no one knew it; dimensional transport. The way dimensional transport worked was sending exotic energy to break the wall between dimensions. Both sides already knew that for a brief microsecond of time, the subject existed between dimensions in an area called the slipstream. The trick was keeping the subject in the slipstream and pulling them back to the original dimension they left at a different point in space.
The first tests were strange. Probes were sent into the slipstream and they would vanish. One probe had landed in a place long forgotten*
The tests did get more successful in time. One probe appeared over Berlin while another accidentally appeared inside someone's home. In 2148, the first recorded use of slipstream transport on a living person happened.* The test was successful, sort of, and now they tested its range. The first probe came out of slipstream just above Earth. The next one was the Moon. The final test was Neptune. The science division was overjoyed to hear its transmission ping 4 hours later. Satisfied that the drive could carry them the distance, they began to build a slipstream drive to mount on the Ark. As they built the slipstream drive, scientists began searching the stars with probes for candidate planets.
10 years later, the Ark was ready for its flight into the stars. The crew was 6000 Ingress, 1200 Hybrids, and over 20,000 humans. On April 13, 2158 the whole world watched as the ship was blasted into orbit from Baikonur. The same place a great battle was fought to keep it from being launched was used to launch it into space to preserve the future. It took over 6 months for the ship to reach its slipstream point just past Jupiter's gravity well and any other possible cosmic interference. That of course brings us to today...
"And that's the story of how the Ingress got here and how we are on this ship" an older giantess in her early 50's said. "That was a great story grandma but what about Rex, Chen, and Jack?" a giantess girl around 6 or 7 said. "Jack ended up running an orphanage a few years after the war and as for Rex and Chen...well you know they have kids. You played with them just last week. So you liked my story huh?" the older woman asked. "Yeah it was so cool when you told us how you fought grandpa!" a giant boy the same age as the girl yelled. "Come on grandma. Tell it to us again!" the girl yelled. "No way Cassie! That story is way too long to tell again just like that. How about I tell you the time you mother saved me and your grandpa?" the older woman asked. "I see you three aren't bored" a woman said coming into the room.
"Mommy! We were just listening to grandma's story of the Ingress war!" the giantess child said hugging the woman. "Really, and how much did you tell them mom?" the woman asked. "Oh Eve honey, just some stuff that most kids learn in school" grandma Leila said. "Nothing too mature for them right?" Eve asked. "Not too much. I didn't tell them about that time we caught you..." Leila said before Eve yelled at her to stop.* "Thanks for babysitting them mom. We have to head to our quarters. The slipstream jump is 10 minutes away" Eve said, "Okay sweetie. See you all later" Leila said waving goodbye. Eve held her daughter's hand while at the same time held her son in her other one. Her son liked being held this way. His mother's warmth felt nice to him. He took this time to be bratty and stick out his tongue at his sister. "Mom, Daren is sticking his tongue out at me!" the girl cried. "Stop that Daren" Eve said to him. "Why does he always get the attention?" the girl whined. "Because he's so tiny I have to look after him more. You know that he took after his grandfather more and that's why he's so small" Eve said. "Yeah Daren's soooo small" the girl said mockingly. "Enough Cassie. Both of you will behave or you will get spanked. Don't think I can't spank you Daren. My finger is more than enough for your tiny butt" Eve said.
The three entered an elevator where the computer asked where they wanted to go. "Frontier 3 residential" Eve said. The elevator took them to their location where they stepped out. The entire deck was laid out with human sized buildings along with Ingress sized ones. They would walk a little way and stop at a traffic light the size of 20 story building. The humans would cross and then a green light lit up signaling it was safe for an Ingress to proceed. Eve made it to her quarters which was a house of gigantic proportions. "Home with the kids Eve?" a human man asked. "Yeah, just picked them up from my mom's. How are you doing today Mr. Thompson?" she asked. "Same old same old. Are we still on for this weekend cookout?" he asked. "Definitely, Chris is still trying to find the best steaks he can buy in Agricultural Block" Eve said smiling.
"Where is your husband?" Thompson asked. "Chris had to run the final diagnostics on the slipstream drive today. He won't be back home till late" she said. They both heard an alarm. "Five minute countdown. Guess we should head in" Thompson said. "Yeah, see you later Mr. Thompson" she said entering the house. Eve sat her son down on the floor and sat down on her couch. She wondered how her aunts Lisa and Kelly were doing back on Earth. Last she heard Lisa had become a principal after being a teacher for 10 years and Kelly followed her mother’s footsteps in becoming a scientist. Her wristcomm went off. "You and the kids are back from your mother's yet?" a man asked. "Just came in the door dad. How are things where you are?" she asked. "Everyone's busy doing the final checks" Aaron said. "I thought it was sweet to have you as a guest on the bridge" Eve said. "Makes me feel old how they treat me. Hero this and savior that" Aaron said. "Well you did damn near end the war singlehandedly" Eve said. "That I did. Oh, I need to go kiddo. Show's about to start. Talk to you later" Aaron said closing the comm.
Aaron sat in a chair on the bridge. The view was spectacular. To his left he could see the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and in front nothing but starts. He thought about how he was once just a comm jockey in April Colony and now he was an old war hero about to embark on a space voyage to a new world.
"Destiny rarely choses out of convince but I'm glad it chose me" he thought to himself. "How does it feel to see all of this?" a woman asked him. Aaron turned to her. "Great and at the same time small Sarah. Just look at it. We never saw our lives coming to this all those years ago. Me fighting for my life and ending up saving the world and you. Look at you. Did you ever think you'd get a body? Bet you thought you'd be stuck in that STRIKE X forever" Aaron said. "No I didn't. When I got this holo form the first thing I did was kiss you" Sarah said giggling. "Yeah Leila didn't like that too much" Aaron said laughing. "Final checks coming in. Reactors are in the green. Gravity control check. Sensors and navigation check. Environmentals check. Slipstream drive reading nominal. We are good to go" the chief engineer said.
"Input coordinates for slipstream jump" the Captain said. "Inputting coordinates. Destination point Alpha. Distance 318 light years" the navigation officer said. "Sir it would be an honor" the Captain said turning to Aaron. Aaron stood up and pointed out in front to the window. "Time to write another chapter in this new age. Engage slipstream drive!" Aaron ordered. The slipstream drive activated and a glow danced along the hull. In the front of the ship, a massive vortex opened in which the ship slowly entered. Aaron watched with awe as the vortex got closer until the stars disappeared and was replaced with a yellow tunnel of energy. Once the ship had fully entered the vortex, the vortex closed with a pulse of light. The Ark was gone. Gone to find a future for us all...