I’m not sure where I got the ‘spirit of cooperation’ bit from part 2. Probably Independence Day, unless I miss my guess — there’s even an annoying aide, a la James Rebhorn’s character in ID4.

Also, I apparently expected the UN to be much more functional and effective than it’s proven to be in the last 20 years. Hey, what can I say. It’s science fiction and I was writing from the doe-eyed perspective of youth.

If I were to update this for today I think I’d have to bump the setting out at least 40-50 years. In part 3, in particular, there’s a lot of tech that we aren’t even sniffing yet. That’s one of the ongoing bummers about being a lifelong science fiction fan. For the most part, reality just disappoints. “Oh, you thought there’d be fusion reactors in the 21st Century? Ha! No such luck. We do have Hoverboards, though. No, not like that. Well, they don’t really hover.”

In more modern news, I’m rounding around home on the end of ‘Night’s Black Agents’, so there should be some content relating to that, soon. I’ve also got a Paxton-verse short story in a pretty impressive anthology that drops next week. More on all that later. For now, pull up a chair. You might want to get a drink or possibly use the restroom. This part’s a doozie.