Integration integration integration...
Always the problem when two fantasies are brought together. Originally the Spacegirl/ADD and SHS worlds were separate. We only merged them a couple of years later. Then there's the Legion world with its all-female mercenaries that I'd quite like to bring in too but never quite got around to doing.
It would be easy to assume that this is all set in the future but not too far into the future. While the labs can have benefitted from alien technology, there had to be some basis for a trade-off and if we consider the present day, there would be no real reason why some well-organised aliens with advanced tech would not just come in here and take over.
Then there's the space pirates and the implication of interstellar trade which would only exist if there are other humans out there with at least a network of well-established colonies. And the ADD couldn't have gained all their equipment by asking the aliens real nice for it. Students with their basic magical/psychic abilities have an implication of some mutation which could have been introduced into parts of the race as a result of space exploration... the list goes on.
So it would be easy to assume a futuristic setting but as another option we can also create a fantasy past since we are not limited by historical fact.
What if there were crashed alien spaceships back in the 1940's? What if they had fallen into the hands of the nazis and been the basis for the work done in Germany on the V2 rockets? After the war, with the backing of big business and much more money to throw into research what if this led to much more rapid advances in space flight than the reality of what actually happened in the 1960's?
That could have led to coprorations funding space explorations to find habitable planets and mineral deposits by 1970. In the same timeline, governments, as they tend to do, would have been using the data to develop weapons rather than anything useful. So by 2000 when SHS started, we have a viable scenario for well-established colony worlds and the sort of weapons tech that could support a force like ADD.
Now if the alien contacts began about that time or a bit earlier, we have something to work with. Alien tech would still be more advanced but Earth would have made enough progress that it was no longer a planet that could just be rolled over in an afternoon. So now we also have some basis for the treaty which led to the School and the founding of the ADD. We have a fair basis for the space pirates and other rebel groups. And we can also assume that most people on Earth, while they know about space travel, have been insulated from the existence of other races. Space travel would still be expensive and restricted so they would also not be hopping on space ships just for package tour holidays on Saturn quite yet.
It's a bit rough because that's off the top of my head but I think it's a more interesting way to answer the question than to just stick everything 100 years in the future. Also it matches in with the school itself having a largely present-day feel to the way it operates, the school uniforms, student background stories and general attitudes.
If that sounds like fun, I'll work on a more comprehensive background to nail this all together properly.
Comments welcome
