Guilded Promises: Alien Lies

Guilded Promises: Alien Lies is a book by Jade Ashcroft. published in October 2060. In it she presents, for a general readership, many pieces of evidence that Guild relationships with Earth have not been entirely above board. She argues that the general effect of alien contact has been to slow Earth's technological progress and to discourage exploration of space, and to ensure that what little alien contact Earth has is mediated by the Guild. Her evidence of deceit is widespread, and includes the following:


 * 1) Plotting the alleged homeworlds of all Guild and non-Guild aliens of which their are records shows that the Guild does not hold sway in as large an area of space as it has claimed. It is probable that there are non-Guild worlds which would have been in reach of human FTL ships, had the Guild not concealed this (and discouraged the building of such ships).
 * 2) The Guild famously laid down the Thirty-Seven Conditions for Earth to be accepted "into the galactic community" and to be eligible for joining the Guild, of which so far only four have been met. Jade demonstrates that some Guild worlds were admitted without meeting these conditions and, moreover, some are still in violation of them. She suggests that the purpose of many of the conditions is to divert resources and effort into unproductive endeavours. This, combined with the promise of the Guild sharing certain technologies once Guild membership has been achieved, she argues, has meant a drastic reduction of resources been committed to the native development of these technologies, notably practical FTL travel.
 * 3) She goes into some detail to demonstrate that the armour of a supervillain (Bloodbath) and two of General Ludd's "lieutenants" is not built for a humans at all but rather for one of the Guild founder races trying to pass as human - this is the most technical part of the book, and probably beyond most readers. If her claim is accurate, this implies that the Neo-Luddite leadership was at least heavily infiltrated by the Guild - striking given that the Neo-Luddites were anti-alien as well as anti-technology. Jade's contention is that they were there actively to retard Earth's technology.
 * 4) She demonstrates (with thanks to His Imperial Majesty for access to the Chinese imperial archives) that the Great Quake of 2032 was triggered by the Chinese meta sometimes called Tremor when his wife was gruesomely killed in front of his eyes (this fact was covered up by the Chinese regime of the time). Tremor had been lured to the location, atop a major fault line, by the abduction of his wife. Photographic evidence shows Bloodbath as present. At the time China was the largest and most dynamic economy on the planet; the quake not only ruined that but set several other Asian economies back by years, too.
 * 5) From a number of old manuscripts and illustrations she presents plausible evidence that First Contact was nothing of the kind, and that one of the founding Guild races, the Kulgrans, visited Earth in the Dark Ages, giving rise to a certain representation of demons.
 * 6) She cites the erasure of Wasp's memory when she learned that the Lacertans (one of the Guild founding races) were genetically manipulating the general population to make them less intelligent.
 * 7) She presents evidence that an attempt to blow up the Transmat interdimensional gate, and thus cut Earth off from other possible trading partners, was Guild-related.
 * 8) She shows that the level of sabotage of certain key technologies is improbably high - enough to make it practically certain someone, at least, is trying to retard development.
 * 9) She demonstrates that many permanent branches of EarthGov - which was after all set up on Guild insistence - have a distinct pro-Guild bias, even if the elected bodies are as divided as one might expect.
 * 10) She shows that the massive budget cut to Starguard in favour of the Earth Marshals has made Earth more dependent on the Guild for defence against any alien invasion - even though the Guild has never promised such defence. Indeed, the Guild did next to nothing against a number of alien menaces, such as the Horde. Moreover she presents evidence that the Marshals have to some extent been compromised - and that she herself was attacked by Earth Marshals under some form of mind control, and using a weapon of demonstrably alien technology.

All told, none of these things proves a Guild conspiracy, but the cumulative weight of the evidence is suggestive.