Intro to EDC

The messy side of development. 

When the alien ship crash landed on Earth, the world was shocked into a state of cooperation. The United Nations quickly formed the EDF – Earth Defence Force, with an effective bottomless budget. Most nations were quick to announce they would help in any way they could.

As the military got down to business, researching the crashed ship, examining the wreckage of other alien craft left floating in orbit, and planning what we might do to defend ourselves, the UN created another new body, the EDC – Earth Development Council. This organization was tasked with the holistic approach to improving our overall productivity. So we could meet the expected demands of a quick expansion into space, including the development of a new global military industrial complex.

When faced with the very real possibility of aliens coming to destroy us, the most reasonable thing to say is “We will do whatever we can to help humanity rise to defend itself.” However this public sentiment does not easily translate into useful activity.

Almost as soon as the outline of the EDC was announced there were a dozen complaints from minor nations that; demands were being made but no compensation was being offered. To be blunt, the draft documents talked about what would be needed to make the EDF a functional military entity; natural resources, technology, skilled labour, shifting of existing industrial capacity. It did not concern itself with the conditions or improvement of any nation.

It was about 3 months after the EDC outline was published that Jenifer Orotto began the NGO “Improvement For All” which would soon come to dominate the media as a popular promoter of the Third World Nations. She voiced the concern that too much of the spin off benefits of this huge new boom of activity were going to the good old guys. She did not accuse the EDC of being new imperialism. “However good the reason there is no excuse for the Elite Nations to again exploit the rest, taking what they need and giving nothing useful back.” She did not say it, but others did.

In that first decade tensions ran very high. The EDF was pushing hard to get industrial capacity ready for the demands it would make, once the prototype ships were built and tested. From their point of view; “Earth needs to be on a production footing 20 times that of WW2. Just to start we need multiple ship yards rolling off earth-to-orbit craft at a rate of 2 / day.” said General Anderson. Like most of the military he did not care what the government and the business community had to do to make it happen, he demanded results.

The EDC did make efforts in the second decade, to offer improvement for all. But the arrangements were complicated and the benefits did not seem so great to many in the minor nations. Employment opportunities boomed, but wages were still horribly low and little civil infrastructure was being built. The comparisons to colonialism were sometimes rather accurate.

Funds for a new mine and processing plant, with a railway to the new port terminal would appear easily. The building of housing, schools, hospitals, and regular utilities was not the prerogative of the EDC. “But it should be.” Jenifer Orotto replied, repeatedly.